Kristin C.

Professional Writing Assignment

C&T 743 Dr. Donita Shaw
June 14, 2016

Citation:
Graham, S., & Harris, K. R. (2013). Designing an effective writing program. In S.
Graham, C. A. MacArthur, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Best practices in writing
instruction (2nd ed., pp. 48-70). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Summary:

Students must be prepared to express their ever-growing complex thoughts

through writing. These Common Core works to ensure that students achieve these skills
by the time they leave secondary school. In high school, writing is done mostly for the
development of skills. In college, however, writing is assigned for the purpose of
increasing knowledge in a given area. As the author phrased it, this is the difference
between learning to write and writing to learn. Once challenge that some students face
is the task of transferring their learned writing skills into a variety of settings or adapting
to a variety in the formatting of writing. To prevent this from happening, middle and high
school teachers should prepare students by teaching disciplinary writing. Students will
then be prepared to adapt their writing for a variety of formats and purposes. Common
Core State Standards shine light on this in a section of the standards called Writing
Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects 6-12.
Writing is a complex process which includes thought processes, feelings, and
social interaction. Social and physical environmental factors and the individual have an
influence on the written piece. The Hayes model includes cognitive processes where
the student reflects upon their work throughout the entire writing process, using this
reflection as a tool to revise as necessary. A student needs to have the ability to conjure
up ideas and then transcribe those ideas. There also is a level of self-regulation to
ensure that the student is conveying information in line with the intended purpose. It is
said that writing ability develops from five phases: associative writing, performative
writing, communicative writing, unified writing, and, finally, the epistemic phase. Student
develop at different rates and, therefore, these phases to not align with any particular
age/grade level. Deficits, such as a lack of spelling ability, sentence construction, or
basic planning strategies, may prohibit a student from progressing through the final
stage.
Just 33% of 8th graders and 24% of 12th graders demonstrate that they have
proficient writing skills. The majority of students in both 8th and 12th grades show that
they write only at a basic level. Common Core seeks to develop more competent
writers, whether gifted, developing, or initially low skilled. Writing standards can be
found in both the ELA section of standards and also the History/Social Studies/Science
section. The standards in these two separate sections are very much alike, and often
overlap. They both consist of 10 anchor standards, which come in four categories. The
categories are 1) Text Types and Purposes, 2) Production and Distribution of Writing, 3)
Research to Build and Present Knowledge, and 4) Range of Writing. Standard 2 sub-
skills remain relatively similar from 6th to 12th grade, but Standard 1 differentiates more
clearly as student progress through each grade level. There is a major emphasis on
non-fiction texts and writing in the Common Core standards.
Teachers should ensure that students are ready for the demands of college and
careers, and they should be prepared to write in these situations. Students should
understand that writing goals vary by subject. Writing about history requires very
different skills from scientific writing. Students need to have a particular knowledge base
for each discipline, and be able to utilize the specific vocabulary for that area of study.
The writing should also be organized appropriately, such as science lab reports being
organized in terms of the scientific method. Common Core familiarized teachers with the
skills that need to be taught before students enter high school. Almost half of college
level writing assignments involve argumentation and emphasizes a relationship
between their reading and writing skills. Of course, in college, students are required to
take at least one writing intensive course, but writing is still required across all
disciplines. These writing intensive courses are meant to deepen students critical
thinking skills and even improve on their current literacy skills. Workplace writing comes
in two categories: career writing and professionals who write. Professionals who write
often must be prepared write about highly technical topics related to their jobs. Often
this includes memos, reports, letters, etc. Both types of writers, though, have the same
variety of goals to persuade, inform, explain, or instruct. Employees often work together
to compose a final draft, rather than being responsible for the entire piece on their own.
Teachers are recommended to:
1) Teach writing using extended rather than short-answer writing
assignments
2) Provide explicit instruction in writing strategies
3) Include disciplinary writing in the ELA and content-area classroom
4) Teach disciplinary writing using contextualization
Common Core standards were developed to prepare students for success
beyond high school. Teachers are reminded to reorient instruction to prepare students
for the tasks that will be expected of them in college and their careers.