Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing Adolescents in Middle and High School

Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing Adolescents in Middle and High School

This report offers a number of specific teaching techniques that research suggests will help 4th- to 12th-grade students in our nation’s schools. The report focuses on all students, not just those who display writing difficulties, although this latter group is deservedly the focus of much attention. The premise of this report is that all students need to become proficient and flexible writers. In this report, the term low-achieving writer is used to refer to students whose writing skills are not adequate to meet classroom demands. Some of these low-achieving writers have been identified as having learning disabilities; others are the “silent majority” who lack writing proficiency but do not receive additional help. As will be seen in this report, some studies investigate the effects of writing instruction on groups of students across the full range of ability, from more effective to less effective writers, while others focus specifically on individuals with low writing proficiency.