What Really Works to Improve Student Writing Skills

It’s exciting to see that more and more, attention is being paid to something that deserves equal billing to reading:  writing.  Specifically, writing instruction.  Because writing is crucial to literacy development, this attention is much-needed.  Many teachers are seeking a program that will do it all–teach the basics of writing, from letter formation to grammar to teaching students how to write strong stories and essays.  They’re looking for something that will give them all the direction they need, along with assurance that those directions are going to truly improve student writing skills.

But if we’ve learned anything from the recent push for “high quality instructional materials” in reading, we know that no one program is going to completely fit the bill.  They’re all going to be missing something. They may even be missing many somethings. The Reading League warns of this, saying, “Unfortunately, some publishers continue to offer materials and professional development that claim to be aligned with the science of reading but are not.”

That’s why it’s important to understand what undergirds strong reading and writing instruction. That way, if you are handed a program (or you choose one yourself), you know what key foundations to bring in, even if those foundations are not in place within the provided materials.  These are critically important components that make writing instruction strong, so it behooves us all to know them and know them well.  

A quick word on writing programs.

First, know that approaches like The Writing Revolution, ThinkSRSD, and Writing Workshop are not programs.  Yes, there are companies that sell lesson plans, as Mossflower and April Smith’s Simplify Your Writing Instruction (and many, many TPT sellers) do for writing workshop.  But the reality is that there is no need to purchase a prepared set of lessons. These are all just frameworks that go hand in hand with any kind of program you might be using (or designing yourself).   

Frameworks that share, to varying degrees, a core set of tenets.

If teachers skip over these foundational tenets and jump right into the lessons, instruction is sure to fall flat, no matter how comprehensive the program may be. Teachers will not see real improvement in student writing skills without these key aspects in place.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to leave out The Writing Revolution, because that work is meant to be taught inside of content classes.  I’ve written more about how to incorporate this resource here.  For today, I want to hone in on the core tenets that make both ThinkSRSD and a workshop approach work so well.  Tenets anyone can (and should) incorporate into their own instruction, no matter what resources you may be using.

Modeling 

Both ThinkSRSD and workshop are heavily grounded in modeling with explicit think alouds.  Both frameworks involve very explicit teaching.  Yes, workshop too. This practice goes well beyond just pointing to examples and asking students to replicate them.  It definitely doesn’t involve relying on AI to create texts.  It involves truly crafting a piece of writing, including the hard parts, right in front of students.  It’s pulling back the curtain, so to speak, to show how to think it through. 

In addition to the actual writing skills you’re showing kids, modeling positive self-talk during this work, too.  Things like, “I’m not sure how to spell this word–but I know I can break it into syllables and sound out each part to help me,” or “wow, this blank page in front of me is scary, but I know how to begin–first I’m going to make a plan to jot the ideas I want to include in my essay.” (This is the self-regulation part of ThinkSRSD).   It’s a lot of actually writing–in front of kids.  

This also serves to show students that you’re all writers.  You all understand that it can be hard, but you all work to support each other.  In the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) guide, Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers, principle author Steve Graham (the guy who developed the original SRSD back in the 70s) advises that “creating an engaged community of writers” is a core part of strong instruction.  This collaborative work creating model writing goes a very long way in achieving that goal.

Examples

Before getting into the nitty-gritty writing lessons, teachers are wise to show examples.  This means a few things.  One, it means showing students exemplar pieces of writing, which will later be used as mentor texts.  Two, it means unpacking those exemplars with students so that they have a clear picture of not only what that kind of writing might look like, but also sets the bar high.  

The texts you write in front of students are also examples.  As you work on a piece of writing along the unit, you’ll look toward your exemplars and your rubric/checklist to guide what you teach, so that you build in more and more complexity as the unit unfolds.  This is a big part of the heart and soul of strong writing instruction.  It’s often a joint effort, where you and the students work together to craft the piece.  This is called shared writing (ThinkSRSD calls it a collaborative write).  

What the students themselves produce also serve as examples.  Sometimes, you’ll find a stellar example that you can highlight or use as another mentor text.  Often, you’ll use these pieces to practice revision or editing work.  

As well, non-examples (including from students) are useful.  I’ll say more about this later, with scoring and goal-setting.

Immersion

Showing examples is part of what’s called the  immersion phase in the workshop approach.  This powerful move simply means beginning this work before your unit officially begins.  It’s preteaching, but in a very low (or no)-stakes way.  It primes the pump, so that when you do officially start the unit’s lessons, kids have some background knowledge to anchor to–a key element of learning.  It’s also a way for you to gather some intel on exactly what your students know about the kind of writing you’re about to get into.

Responsive teaching

This is one of the biggest reasons a writing program won’t hit the mark.  Our job is to teach into the needs of the kids in front of us.  The immersion phase helps us understand, on a broad level, what they need.

But then, starting with a preassessment is key.  This practice is inherent in a strong writing workshop as well as the ThinkSRSD approach.  We must assess where they are so that we know where to go next.  If we want to improve student writing skills, we have to know what each student understands and can do as a writer.

We must determine what students can already do–and what they’ve held onto from previous teaching, both our own and what they came to us with. 

Otherwise, we jump in with a lot of assumption.  And it’s where teachers tend to very much overscaffold with things like sentence starters and graphic organizers.  This can lead to what Zaretta Hammond , in her book Rebuilding Students’ Learning Power (pg 146), warns is “one of the biggest barriers to getting dependent learners to take up skills and begin to build muscle to carry more of the cognitive load during instruction…” In other words, without knowing where they really are, it’s nearly impossible to be a responsive writing teacher. Melissa Morrison talks about this in greater detail on this episode of her podcast, Getting Students to Write. I highly recommend listening!

If we’ve taught well, there should be a clear improvement from unit to unit or piece to piece.  Every new piece of writing or new unit should not be starting from scratch.  There should be marked improvement from piece to piece, and we need to capitalize on that.  I cannot remember exactly where she said it, but that sentence comes directly from Lucy Calkins, champion of writing workshop. Love her or hate her, these are words for any writing teacher to live by. In other words, scaffolds, Laud and Patel (ThinkSRSD, pg 39-40) remind us, are temporary.  They remind us that “scaffolds should be faded as underlying concepts mature and become internalized.”

Feedback and goal-setting

Having a set of criteria in the form of a rubric or checklist that you want students’ writing to include matters a lot.  Not only does this guide your instruction, but it also serves as a feedback tool, where you can pinpoint exact next steps for kids.  This tool is the catalyst for helping students set goals.  It’s a perfect tool to guide you as you confer 1:1 with students or work with them in small groups.  

Just as importantly, this tool also empowers students themselves to assess their own work, either on their own or with a peer.  It gives them direction for goal-setting.  And because you’ve used this exact tool when unpacking those example texts early on, they are very clear on what each item on the checklist means.  They’ve seen how to get there through your modeling and think alouds.  

This also works to help them become more and more independent.  

Writing instruction should help students go through the entire writing process.  This is actually another of the key features of strong writing instruction Graham advises in the WWC guide mentioned above.  The more they do it, the better they get.  Empowering students to use a writing checklist (or rubric) to help guide themselves with next steps forward is a giant step toward becoming more independent.   It goes back to avoiding overscaffolding.  We don’t want to hold students to only write only one sentence or one small part a day.  This can be incredibly limiting.  It’s also where students are given some choice, something both Writing Workshop and ThinkSRSD aim for.

It’s not about the product

Both frameworks–Writing Workshop and ThinkSRSD share one overarching goal:  to help students become the strongest writers they can be. It’s more about helping each child know how to write–which will look different for different learners.  It’s about teaching them to take ownership over their process and not have to rely on someone else (us) to tell them what to do next.  It’s about helping them become better and better with idea generation, planning, sentence development, word choice, revision, and all the things that go into writing.  Most importantly, it’s about teaching how to not give up–that yes, writing is hard, but we can absolutely do it.  

It may not look perfect.  It may not even be pretty, especially at first.  But a perfect product isn’t actually our goal.  Our real goal is to develop skills in how to write. Because no two students are exactly the same, that will look different for different students. 

It’s why both Lucy Calkins, the authors of ThinkSRSD, and others remind us….“teach the writer, not the writing.”

At the end of the day, it’s never about a program. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.  There is no easy button.  Writing is an especially complex thing, as the cognitive demands are enormous.  But your lessons will go much further–and you’ll see dramatic improvement in student writing skills–when these core tenets of strong writing instruction are a part of what you do.  

If you want to dig deeper into this topic, I highly recommend reading the entire WWC guide to teaching writing, and then read Joan Sedita’s Writing Rope.  Together, these resources will help you more deeply understand why these core principles are so critical, and provide greater detail on what that means in day to day instruction than I could ever convey in a single blog post.

Could you use support with your efforts to improve student writing skills? I’m here to help! Simply email me at michelle@coachfromthecouch.com or reach out for a coaching call. 

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Who is Coach from the Couch??  I’m Michelle Ruhe, a 25+ year veteran educator, currently a K-5 literacy coach.  I continue to learn alongside teachers in classrooms each and every day, and it’s my mission to support as many teachers as I can.  Because no one can do this work alone. I’m available to you, too, through virtual coaching calls!  

And, be sure to join my Facebook community–a completely safe, supportive environment  where you can safely ask questions, gain ideas, and share your thoughts among other literacy-loving educators!