EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING Writingdera.ioe.ac.uk/22303/2/doc_3346.pdf · 11 Background to the study 14 The learners ... identified in phase 1 to promote learners’ development

WritingEFFECTIVE TEACHINGAND LEARNING

SUMMARY REPORT

Sue Grief, Bill Meyer and Amy Burgess

Writing Summary LIVE Wednesday 20/1/07 17:53 Page 1

Published by the National Research and

Development Centre for Adult Literacy and

Numeracy

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5 Introduction

6 The Effective Practice Studies

8 Main findings

10 Recommendations

11 Background to the study

14 The learners

18 The teachers

24 How teachers’ practices may affect performance

29 Conclusions

31 References

WritingSUMMARY REPORT

RESEARCH TEAM

Sue Grief, Bill Meyer and Amy Burgess

SERIES EDITOR

John Vorhaus

EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING


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■ The Skills for Life Strategy has led tounprecedented investment in adultliteracy, language and numeracy (LLN),major reforms of teacher education andtraining, and the introduction of corecurricula and national standards inteaching and learning. We have a uniqueopportunity to make a step change inimproving levels of adult skills. But untilrecently too little was known abouteffective teaching and learning practices,and reports from Ofsted and the AdultLearning Inspectorate repeatedly drewattention to the quality of some teaching,and the need for improved standards.

It has been a strategic priority at theNational Research and DevelopmentCentre for Adult Literacy and Numeracyto investigate teaching and learningpractices in all the subject areas andsettings in Skills for Life. We also see itas our role to report on the mostpromising and effective practices, and toprovide teachers, trainers, policy-makers and researchers with anunparalleled evidence base on which tobuild on the progress already made.

Our findings and recommendations arereported here, and in the fourcompanion reports covering reading,numeracy, English for Speakers of OtherLanguages and Using ICT. The five

studies, which have been co-ordinatedby NRDC Associate Director JohnVorhaus, provide material for improvingthe quality of teaching and learning, andfor informing developments in initialteacher education and continuingprofessional development. We are alsopreparing a range of practitioner guidesand development materials, as a majornew resource for teachers and teachereducators. They will explore and developthe examples of good and promisingpractice documented in these pages.

Writing is an increasingly important skillin the 21st century and one on whichadult literacy learners place great value.The growing importance of writing in theworkplace, and as a social asset, hasbeen underlined in the recent CBI report‘Working on the Three R’s (2006) and inthe work of the eminent Americanacademic, Deborah Brandt. However,very little primary research in the UK todate has looked specifically at writing foradult literacy learners. This study, whichinvestigates the teaching and learning ofwriting (and which focused largely, butnot exclusively, on free writing), istherefore both timely and necessary todevelop and improve writing skills andpractices.

Ursula Howard, Director, NRDC


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Introduction


■ The five Effective Practice Studiesexplore teaching and learning in reading,writing, numeracy, ESOL and ICT, andthey set out to answer two questions: • how can teaching, learning and

assessing literacy, numeracy, ESOLand ICT be improved?

• which factors contribute to successfullearning?

Even before NRDC was set up it wasapparent from reviews of the field thatthere was little reliable research-basedevidence to answer these questions.Various NRDC reviews showed thatprogress in amassing such evidence,though welcome where it was occurring,was slow. Four preliminary studies onreading, writing, ESOL and ICT wereundertaken between 2002 and 2004.However, we recognised the urgent needto build on these in order greatly toincrease the research base for thepractice of teaching these subjects.

The inspiration for the design of the fiveprojects was a study in the United Statesof the teaching of literacy and Englishlanguage to adult learners for whomEnglish is an additional language(Condelli et al., 2003). This study was thefirst of its kind, and the lead author,Larry Condelli of the American Institutesfor Research, has acted as an expertadviser on all five NRDC projects.

Our research began in July 2003 andwas completed in March 2006. We setout to recruit and gather information on500 learners in each study, assess theirattainment and attitudes at two pointsduring the year in which they wereparticipating in the study, interview bothlearners and teachers, observe thestrategies their teachers used, andcorrelate those strategies with changesin the learners’ attainment andattitudes. The ICT study differed fromthe others in that its first phase wasdevelopmental, its sample size wassmaller, and it had a shorter timescale,completing in March 2005.

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The Effective Practice Studies



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■ The principal aim of this study was toanalyse the teaching of writing and itsimpact on learners’ competence andconfidence in writing and how they useit in their daily lives.

Progress

Learners made a small but significantimprovement in their writing.

Demonstrable progress in writing -particularly free writing, which wemeasured in the study - cannot beachieved quickly. Our research lendssupport to the estimate, based on astudy undertaken in the US (Comings,2006), that learners need in the regionof 150-200 hours of tuition to progressby one level of the National Standardsfor Adult Literacy.

Younger learners and learners inemployment and full-time educationmade the most progress.

We found small increases in confidencein writing and uses of writing outsideclass.

Learners’ confidence in writing tends tobe higher at home than in theclassroom or a public place, andconfidence tends to increase most as aconsequence of attending a course.

Teachers’ practice

Our evidence suggests that thefollowing are features of effectiveteaching of writing:• learners spend time on the

composition of texts of different kinds• meaningful contexts are provided for

writing activities• time is given for discussion about

writing and the writing task• individual feedback and support are

provided as learners engage incomposition.

Teachers and learners tend to perceivelearning to write as a classroom-focused activity. Greater emphasis isplaced on learners’ diagnosed needs inrelation to ‘skills’ as set out in the AdultLiteracy Core Curriculum, and assessedby national qualifications, than onlearners’ purposes and roles in relationto writing in their everyday lives.

Making links between what happens inthe classroom and life outside theclassroom, including the use of realmaterials, can enable learners tobecome more confident about thewriting they undertake at home.However, few teachers make this linkstrongly.

Main findings



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Teaching and learning relationships

Two particularly significantrelationships between teaching andlearning suggest that: • a flexible approach to teaching and

responsiveness to learners’ concernsas they arise has a positive impact onprogress in writing

• practice that makes a strong link withthe real world beyond the class mayhelp learners to feel more confident,particularly in the everyday writingtasks they undertake at home.

We found negative correlationsbetween:• use of authentic materials and tasks

and changes in learners’ assessmentscores

• asking learners to work incollaborative groups and self-reported confidence in writing in apublic place or at work.

Both findings are of considerableinterest: the first runs counter tofindings of earlier research and appearsto contradict the finding above. Wesurmise that authentic practice has agreater impact on confidence than oncompetence in writing and we know thatimproved confidence tends to precede

improved competence, often by aconsiderable period of time. But howconfidence and competence in writingfurther affect one another remains animportant question for development andresearch. The second finding should beseen against evidence from the learnersthemselves - that they liked to workcollaboratively. This is material forfurther development and research.

The learners

Many learners drew a sharp distinctionbetween writing at home or at work,and writing learned in the literacyclassroom and tended to be dismissivetowards their everyday uses of writing.

Learners placed considerableimportance on the technical skills ofwriting, handwriting, spelling, grammarand punctuation and tended to measuretheir progress in writing in these terms.

Learners also valued writing as‘meaning making’ and, in particular,writing that had personal resonance. Inreporting their ambitions and uses ofwriting they demonstrated manyreasons to write that include, but gowell beyond, the ‘functional’ writingoften associated with adult literacy.

A flexible approach toteaching and responsivenessto learners’ concerns as they

arise has a positive impacton progress in writing


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Implications for practice

The findings suggest that teachers needto:• place the focus first and foremost on

writing as communication • encourage learners to compose their

own texts and support learners to dothis through the careful setting up ofwriting tasks and use of talk

• approach the technical aspects ofwriting; spelling, grammaticalcorrectness and punctuation, withinthe contexts of meaningful writingtasks rather than throughdecontextualised exercises

• be flexible and responsive to learners’needs, supporting learners as theydraft, revise and proof-read theirwork

• make links between the writingundertaken in the class and thelearners’ lives beyond the classroom.

These recommendations are as relevantto Entry Level learners as to learners atLevels 1 and 2.

Implications for policy

Qualifications at all levels that includefree writing at text level wouldencourage teachers to provide learnerswith opportunities to practisecomposition.

Teachers and managers need to beaware of the importance of providinglearners with opportunities to engage ina range of meaningful writing tasks thatare relevant to their lives and have anemphasis on communication, in linewith the advice in the Core Curriculumfor Adult Literacy.

There should be a realistic assessmentof the time adult learners need to makedemonstrable progress in writing.Attention should be given to the amountof time scheduled specifically for theteaching and learning of writing.

Implications for research

The potential of the features of practiceidentified in phase 1 to promotelearners’ development in writing shouldbe investigated through an interventionstudy that provides developmentopportunities for teachers in the use ofthese particular strategies.

The hypotheses derived from thedetailed analysis of the classes with thehighest average increase in assessmentscores should be tested. These could beusefully followed up through bothexperimental and ethnographic studiesthat focus more sharply on particularstrategies.

Recommendations



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■ This project was undertaken in thecontext of the Government’s Skills forLife Strategy for England, which aims toraise the quality of provision for adultswith low levels of literacy and numeracyand has set challenging targets for thenumber of adult learners to achievenational qualifications in literacy andnumeracy by 2007.

Writing is an increasingly important skillin the 21st century and one on whichadult literacy learners place great value.However, very little primary research inthe UK to date has looked specifically atwriting for adult literacy learners. Thisstudy analyses the relationship betweenclassroom practice in the teaching ofwriting and changes in learners’• competence in free writing • confidence in writing and their uses

of writing in their everyday lives.

We explored effective strategies for theteaching and learning of writing, andidentify the most promising practices forfurther development and research.

Our research follows an earlier study(phase 1) undertaken for the NRDC (Kellyet al., 2004), which identified sevenpotential indicators of effective teaching: • an emphasis on writing as a process• learners working collaboratively • a collaborative relationship between

teacher and learners• use of authentic materials and

activities • critical thinking about writing• contextualisation• varied practice.

The scope of the study

The bulk of the fieldwork wasundertaken during the academic year2004-5 and involved a team of 13practitioner-researchers, all withcurrent or recent experience of teachingand/or management of adult literacy.

The team worked with 25 organisationsacross the UK that provide adult literacy.This allowed access to 49 classes, eachtaught by a different teacher orteachers. Initial data was obtained on341 learners. The quantitative aspects ofthe study rest on the 199 learners forwhom it was possible to obtain both pre-and post-test assessment scores andthe 34 classes for which adequate ‘pre’and ‘post’ data were obtained.

Method

We observed each of the classes threetimes, providing more than 140 detailedobservation logs. Together with 97interviews with learners and records ofconversations with more than 40teachers, this provides a rich body ofdata.

Background to the study


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We used the following measures toassess the effectiveness of teaching: • each session was rated against a

range of general teaching strategiesderived from the What Works studyundertaken by Condelli (2003).

• an assessment tool for writing createdspecifically for the NRDC by theNational Foundation for EducationalResearch. This requires learners tocomplete three free writing tasks andtakes account of their ability to usewriting for a purpose, as well as touse correct sentence structure,syntax, punctuation and spelling. Itrewards strengths rather thancounting errors.

• a brief questionnaire that askedlearners to indicate how confidentthey felt about writing in differentsettings.

• a list of the uses learners had madeof writing during the preceding week.

• an overall rating on a scale of 0-3 ofeach session based on sevenindicators of effective practice in theteaching of writing drawn from theearlier study.

• a detailed log of activity in theclassroom every five minutes, toprovide data on groupings, the natureand focus of writing activities, theaudience for writing, learner andteacher activity and the uses of IT.

Data were collected on the qualificationsand experience of the teachers.Qualitative data were also collected tocomplement the statistical data. We should point out that the NFERassessment instrument differs from the

instruments used for the nationalqualifications at Levels 1 and 2, forwhich learners are not required toproduce free writing, and multiple-choice questions are used to assessgrammar, spelling and punctuation.Copies of the research instruments andguidance on the use of these areincluded in the full report which will beavailable on the NRDC websitewww.nrdc.org.uk in the spring of 2007.

How the classes were selected

The sample included further education(FE) colleges, adult and communitylearning (ACL), work-based learning,prisons and the voluntary sector.Classes were selected according to thefollowing criteria: • the main focus of the course is

literacy • writing is part of the literacy tuition• learners are offered a minimum of 50

hours' tuition • learners are 16 years of age and over• the majority of learners, as assessed

on entry, are between Entry Level 2and Level 2 against the NationalStandards for Adult Literacy.

Classes in which the main focus waslanguage learning were excluded butmany ‘literacy’ groups included a highproportion of learners for whom Englishwas an additional language.

Researchers’ pen portraits underline theuniqueness of each class and thecomplex range of factors that caninfluence learning (Ivanic and Tseng,2005).



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■ The principal aim of this study was toanalyse the teaching of writing and itsimpact on learners’ competence andconfidence in writing and how they useit in their daily lives.

Progress

Learners made a small but significantimprovement in their writing.

Demonstrable progress in writing -particularly free writing, which wemeasured in the study - cannot beachieved quickly. Our research lendssupport to the estimate, based on astudy undertaken in the US (Comings,2006), that learners need in the regionof 150-200 hours of tuition to progressby one level of the National Standardsfor Adult Literacy.

Younger learners and learners inemployment and full-time educationmade the most progress.

We found small increases in confidencein writing and uses of writing outsideclass.

Learners’ confidence in writing tends tobe higher at home than in theclassroom or a public place, andconfidence tends to increase most as aconsequence of attending a course.

Teachers’ practice

Our evidence suggests that thefollowing are features of effectiveteaching of writing:• learners spend time on the

composition of texts of different kinds

• meaningful contexts are provided forwriting activities

• time is given for discussion aboutwriting and the writing task

• individual feedback and support areprovided as learners engage incomposition.

Teachers and learners tend to perceivelearning to write as a classroom-focused activity. Greater emphasis isplaced on learners’ diagnosed needs inrelation to ‘skills’ as set out in the AdultLiteracy Core Curriculum, and assessedby national qualifications, than onlearners’ purposes and roles in relationto writing in their everyday lives.

Making links between what happens inthe classroom and life outside theclassroom, including the use of realmaterials, can enable learners tobecome more confident about thewriting they undertake at home.However, few teachers make this linkstrongly.

This was a class of Armyrecruits: young men in theirlate teens or early twenties. Anumber of the 17 learners hadbeen recruited from overseas.The course was intensive, withdaily attendance, full time, overthree weeks, and the learnerswere able to enter for theNational Tests as well asassessments prescribed by theArmy.

The class appeared to bedisciplined and purposeful. Itwas held in a number of large,well-appointed rooms, eachhaving a teaching area withflexible seating arrangementsand a computer area with a PCfor every learner. The roomswere well supplied withteaching equipment and werecool and airy.

This Entry to Employment classwas held in a rather crampedroom in part of an old Boardschool building rented by aprivate training provider. Therewere two large tables for thelearners – at which they satonce they had settled down. The room had a whiteboard,stationery and felt-tipped pensbut no PCs.

The young people were thereunder an element of coercionand this impacted on theteaching and learning. Anumber of them made it plainthat they were not interested inlearning literacy and theteacher had to expend much ofher time in getting and keepingthe learners ‘on side’.

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■ Adult literacy learners are a diversegroup with an extremely wide range ofbackgrounds, experiences, ages,abilities and status. The extent to whichthey attend classes on a voluntary basisalso varies hugely. However, thelearners in this study deviate slightlyfrom the national profile. There is amore even balance between men andwomen (54 and 46 per cent) thannationally (60 and 40 per cent); morelearners in the lower age ranges (24 percent under 21 against 13 per centnationally) and a greater proportion ofethnic minority learners (35 per centagainst 27 per cent nationally).

Who are they?

• Up to 72 per cent stated that theywere not currently in employment - ofthese, 21 per cent were in full-timeeducation; 13 per cent (all of themwomen) were looking after home andfamily full time and 7 per cent wereretired. Some learners who were inprison or on government schemes forthe unemployed preferred to identifythemselves as full-time students.

• Up to 78 per cent had left full-timeeducation at the age of 16 or earlier.

• One third (114) had attended literacycourses previously.

• Eighteen per cent said they weredisabled and 22 per cent that theywere dyslexic.

What level are they?

The learners’ levels in relation towriting, as defined by the NationalStandards for Adult Literacy, werejudged by their overall score on the firstassessment for this study. Table 1 belowprovides a breakdown of the levels.

Table 1 Level of learners*

Level Number % of sample

Entry 1 45 13.20

Entry 2 109 31.96

Entry 3 115 33.73

Level 1 and above 72 21.11

* (based on 341 learners)

Men tended to be at a lower level thanwomen and younger learners tended tobe at a higher level than older learners.Those in full-time education and thosein employment also tended to be at ahigher level than those in otheremployment categories.

Learners’ uses of writing

Many learners drew a sharp distinctionbetween writing at home or at work, andwriting learned in the literacyclassroom. They tended to be dismissivetowards everyday uses of writing,contrasting this with the ‘proper writing’they were keen to understand better andimprove in.

The learners



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What learners value

• being treated as an adult“(They) treat you like a person, not a kid,even knowing you have difficulties.”“They spur you on, treat you as anadult……It’s respect isn’t it?”

• being allowed to work at their ownpace

• not having to worry about makingmistakes

• teachers explaining things, particularlythe technical aspects of writtenEnglish that they had not understoodbefore

• knowing that the teacher understandstheir difficulties with writing

• individual feedback on their writing• encouragement to work things out for

themselves• working co-operatively with other

learners and taking part in classdiscussions“I like working as a group, all helpingeach other.”

Learners’ motivation

• Some learners wanted to write wellenough to develop careers; othershoped eventually to go on to FEcourses, not necessarily linked towork.

• Many women were motivated by adesire to help their children.

• Some valued the opportunity todevelop their writing as an intellectualchallenge - “It gets the brain working.”

• Some were ambitious to writecreatively.

• Not all learners were attendingcourses as a matter of choice. Somehad been required to attend courses by

the Job Centre; prisoners had toattend classes as an alternative towork.

Learners’ progress

Of the 199 learners who completed bothpre and post assessments:• 52 per cent increased their score in

the second assessment • 14 per cent had the same score in both

assessments• 34 per cent had a lower score for the

second assessment.

Out of a possible 30 marks the mean prescore was 16.14 and the mean post score17.65, a mean gain of 1.51, which isstatistically significant.

In interpreting the findings it is importantto note that:• the majority of classes in the sample

were literacy classes and thereforelearners were working on reading, andspeaking and listening, as well aswriting.

• 43 per cent of learners attended forless than the 50 hours originallyjudged necessary to register progresson the assessment used in the study.

• learners were given no opportunity topractise the type of tasks presented inthe assessment which, unlike theNational Tests at Levels 1 and 2,required the composition ofmeaningful text, including expressionof opinions, rather than responses tomultiple-choice questions.

• the stakes were low; there were nopersonal consequences attached tolearners’ performance.


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In the light of these observations theincreases in scores achieved by 52 percent of learners may be judged to bemore significant than they appear atfirst. Taking into account the averagetime learners attended classes betweenthe two assessments the results tend to support the estimate, based on researchundertaken in the US, that learners needon average around 150 - 200 hours’tuition to move up one level of theNational Standards (Comings, 2006).

Assessment results and attendance

Although learners who attended for 40to 49 hours between assessments madegreater gains than those who attendedfor less than 40 hours, those whoattended for more than 50 hours tendedto make lower gains. The lower gains forlearners on longer courses may beexplained by the fact that such coursestended to include numeracy and IT aswell as literacy. In addition, someclasses which had more than 60 hoursof tuition catered for a number oflearners with additional learning needs.

Assessment results and learner

characteristics

• Gender - on average, women mademore progress than men.

• Age - the biggest statisticallysignificant gains were made by theyounger age groups, 16–19 years and20–29 years.

• First language - learners for whomEnglish was an additional languageon average scored slightly lowermarks than those for whom it was thefirst language at the first assessment.

They also made less progressbetween the two assessments.

• Employment status - the largestgains were made by learners whowere in full-time education or inemployment.

• Literacy level - learners below EntryLevel 2 made the most progress,between the pre and postassessments. This result may be dueto the nature of the assessment andsome problems using it at Entry 1.

• Non-voluntary attendance – overall,learners whose attendance was notvoluntary made average progress.However, learners in the Army and inprison made less progress. This islikely to be the result of the highnumber of dyslexic learners in theseclasses.

• Regression - Learners who regressedwere more likely to be aged 16–19 andnot to have English as their firstlanguage.

The assessment tool is discussed inmore detail in the methodology sectionof the full report www.nrdc.org.uk

In interview, the learners tended to talkmainly about progress in spelling,punctuation and handwriting. This ispossibly because these are the veryvisible features of writing by whichlearners are likely to have been judgednegatively in the past and because thequalifications for which many learnerswere working place high value on theseaspects of writing.

However, learners also valued the



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importance of writing as communicationand had enjoyed writing tasks withpersonal, relevant or interestingsubjects.

Confidence in writing

A questionnaire asked learners howconfident they felt in writing in threedifferent situations: in class, at home,and at work or in a public place. Theyresponded on a four-point scale to thesame questions at the beginning and endof the course:

1 = ‘not at all confident’

2 = ‘not very confident’

3 = ‘quite confident’, and

4 = ‘very confident’.

The overall increases in mean scoresbetween the two questionnaires were:

writing in class 0.17 (2.76 to 2.93)

writing at home 0.22 (2.83 to 3.05)

writing at work or in a public place 0.09 (2.25 to 2.34)

Overall, learners reported that they weremost confident in writing at home andleast confident about writing at work orin a public place.

We found no statistical relationshipbetween changes in assessment scoresand reported changes in confidence.Confidence can increase as a result ofbeing part of a supportive group.However, coming face to face with theneed to write in class may, temporarily atleast, undermine confidence in writing.

Conclusion

Learners expressed a broad range ofreasons to write that include, but go wellbeyond, the ‘functional’ writing oftenassociated with adult literacy. Theyvalued teachers who took time to explainrules and patterns of which they had notpreviously been aware or had notunderstood. They also valued writing as‘meaning making’ and, in particular,writing that had personal resonance.

On average, the learners made modestprogress between the two assessments.The largest gains were made by youngerlearners, those at the lower end of EntryLevel, and by learners in full-timeeducation or who were employed orself-employed.

Achieving a measurable improvement inwriting takes time, therefore the findingsfor progress on the assessment need tobe seen in the light of the limitednumber of hours for which somelearners attended.


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■ The seven characteristics of teaching writing, identified in phase 1 as potentialindicators of effective practice, are used here to provide a framework for discussionof the teaching practice observed. The effectiveness of these indicators is unprovenand one of the objectives of this study was to explore whether correlations could befound between any of these and positive learner outcomes. Table 2 offers a flavour ofthe variety of practice observed.

Table 2 Figures from analysis of observation logs of three observed sessions

Time spent: Percentage of aggregate of time Range

recorded for learner activities*

highest % lowest %

writing 57 78 26

reading 22 33 1

listening and speaking 15 59 8

activities coded ‘other’ 6 N/A N/A

planning, drafting, free writing, revision, editing 23 68 0

on writing exercises 34 100 0

Percentage of total class time**

in whole group 35 70 0

in small groups and pairs 11 60 0

on independent work 54 95 9

using computers (all classes) 13 64 0

using computer (classes with computers only) 30 64 3

Percentage of time recorded

as focus of writing task*

writing activities that were contextualised 44 97 3

writing activities at word level 20 75 0

writing activities at text level 40 97 0

* These categories can overlap

** These figures reflect more than one grouping occurring in a class at one time

The figures indicate an uneven distribution of time between reading, writing andspeaking and listening.

The teachers



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The seven characteristics of teaching

writing, identified in phase 1

The researchers rated each observedsession against each characteristicusing the following scale (see Figure 1):

0 not observed

1 observed to a very limited extent

2 observed to some extent

3 observed to a high degree.

Writing as a process

Several researchers (Greenberg, 1987;Phillips, 1992; Russell, 1999) have notedthat adult beginner writers are likely tohave acquired an inaccurate orincomplete understanding about writing,believing it to be a linear process in thesense that the writer starts with the firstsentence and continues straight to theend. They suggest that thismisconception needs to be rectified ifadults are to develop their writingpractices.

The teachers in this study typicallyencouraged learners to approach writingas a process by introducing them to asequence of practical activities: • generating content• planning the overall organisation of

the content• drafting• revising• proofreading• producing a final copy.

They used reading texts to generateideas for writing and as models forspecific types of writing, such as lettersof complaint or diaries. In other casesteachers encouraged students togenerate ideas for writing throughspeaking and listening activities.Spidergrams were popular at this stageto generate, develop and record ideasand students commented on how usefulthey found them.

At the drafting stage, most tutors gave

Figure 1 The seven features of practice: Percentage of sessions where they were observed to a high degree

%

Writing as a process

Collaboration, teacher and learner

Collaboration, learners

Authenticity

Critical thinking about writing

Contextualisation

Variety of practice

0 10 20 30 40


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individual support, using questions andprompts to help learners check andrevise their writing. The value of thistype of feedback during the writingprocess, rather than after the text isfinished, has been noted by Freedman(1980) and Duffin (1995).

In all cases the teachers appeared toview errors as a source of learning(Shaughnessy, 1977) and many ‘minilessons’ were given in response tolearners’ errors.

Learners working in collaborative

groups

Collaboration between learners hasbeen cited by a number of researchersas beneficial in the development ofwriting skills (Bruffee, 1987; Bryan,1996; Clark and Ivanic, 1997; Lunsford,1987). It has been suggested thatcollaborative writing can:• empower learners by enabling them

to work in more democratic ways andbecome less dependent on theteacher’s direction (Robinson, 2001;Hodges, 2002)

• encourage learners to share theirstrengths rather than focus onindividual weaknesses (Bishop, 1995).

Where learners were asked tocollaborate this was nearly always at thestages of generating ideas and planning.There were only one or two examples ofactivities that required learners to draftwriting together.

Collaboration between teacher and

learners

A number of researchers have seenbenefits in the teacher taking a lessdominant role in the classroom andestablishing a more democraticrelationship with students by acting asfacilitator (Smith, 1983; Healy, 1995;Connors, 1987; Mace, 1992; Ivanic andMoss, 1991).

The teachers in this study were skilled atcreating an atmosphere in their classesin which all learners could feel valuedand contribute. They were also willing tobe flexible and responsive to learners’needs. However, in the majority ofclasses teachers maintained firmcontrol over the content of the sessionsand the nature of the activities.

Authenticity

Research carried out by Purcell-Gates etal. (2002) indicates that ‘authenticity inthe classroom’ is positively related tochange in students’ everyday literacypractices. Clark and Ivanic (1997) draw adistinction between writing as meaning-making, which necessitates having areal context, audience and purpose, andwriting as exercise, which involves thepractice of discrete skills and theproduction of pieces of writing purely forpractice.

In this study there were few examples ofauthentic writing activities althoughauthentic materials were being used in anumber of classes. Most of the writingwas done purely for practice with theteacher as the only audience. However,



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the teachers appeared happy to helplearners with real-life literacy taskswhen they brought them into class.

We saw learners using the internet forresearch prior to writing in someclasses but did not observe the internetbeing used to reach a wider audience,for example by sending emails. It shouldbe noted that less than half the classeshad access to the internet.

Critical thinking about writing

The notion of critical literacy, or criticallanguage awareness, has developedfrom socially situated approaches toliteracy (Street, 1985; Barton, 1994;Barton and Hamilton, 1998; Barton,Hamilton and Ivanic, 2000) and isconcerned with the relationship betweenlinguistic and social structures. Anumber of researchers have drawnattention to its importance and called forits inclusion in literacy education (see,for example, Brandt, 2001; Luke, 2000;Lankshear et al., 1997). Critical literacyeducation looks beyond the classroom,enabling learners to reflect on therelationship between literacy and theirown material and social circumstances.

There was little evidence of this aspectof writing being addressed. The majorityof the teaching was classroom–focused,with little opportunity for learners toexplore and question the relationshipbetween writing and its social context.

Contextualisation

This dimension was included to explorethe distinction, identified in phase 1

(Kelly et al., 2004), between a‘fragmented’ approach to writing whereexercises focus on discrete skills (oftenpresented as worksheets), and writingtasks that are located in a longer text orrelate to a larger context or purpose.

Contexts for writing activities weresometimes built up through readingmaterial. For example, learners in ayoung offenders institution were askedto write from the point of view of acharacter in a novel abouthomelessness. Activities were frequentlydevised or materials selected with atheme that the teachers anticipatedwould be of interest to learners. Suchthemes provided a context for tasks thatfocused on spelling, grammar orpunctuation as well as a topic for moreextended writing.

Where emphasis on contextualisationwas low, the teachers’ starting point wasoften a particular writing skill such aspunctuation or a part of speech such asadjectives. This type of activity wassometimes undertaken in isolation fromany extended writing.

Varied practice

The studies included in the systematicreview of primary research undertakenduring phase 1 (Kelly et al., 2004)identified teaching and learningactivities taking account of differinglearning styles that contributed tolearners’ success in writing. Some teachers adopted a consistentpattern of activity for each session, oftenusing part of the session for joint activity


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and part for individual work or workingwith computers.

Teachers used visual, auditory andkinesthetic activities to teach writing.Several made good use of pictures anddiagrams both to stimulate and tosupport writing. Learners were asked tolisten to pieces of writing being readaloud and read their own work aloud,sometimes with the teacher, but on anumber of occasions to the whole class.Teachers also read learners’ work aloud,sometimes to help the learner ‘hear’where there were problems with syntax.Learners were also required at times toengage in a physical way with a task,such as sequencing and sorting of cards.

A lack of variety and pace was observedon occasion when learners were workingindividually or on a one-to-one basis withlearning assistants.

The Skills for Life Strategy

Teachers were asked to comment brieflyon any ways in which the Adult LiteracyCore Curriculum, national qualificationsin literacy, diagnostic assessment oflearners and the use of individuallearning plans (ILPs) influenced theirteaching of writing.

The core curriculum A majority of the teachers found the corecurriculum useful. It helped to identifythe individual elements of writing and toplan for individual needs. However, somefound mismatches between the contentof the different levels and their learners’needs.

Teachers’ approaches to the curriculumdiffered. Some saw it as a point ofreference but stressed that theirlearners’ needs and interests were theirstarting point when planning coursesand sessions. Some appeared to feelvery constrained by it. A small minorityof teachers felt that using the corecurriculum could tend to focus skills in amore fragmented way.

Diagnostic assessment and ILPsSome of the teachers who usedpublished assessment tools said theyfound these helped them to focus onindividual needs and were a useful aid toplanning. A few voiced concern that,although it made it easy to identifyspecific weaknesses, there could be atendency to focus on these in isolationfrom writing as a “freer, morecommunicative, process”.

National literacy qualificationsMost teachers felt it was important forlearners to have an opportunity to obtainqualifications. However, a significantnumber said the need to obtain thesewithin a limited timescale, and therequirements of the qualificationsthemselves, impacted detrimentally onthe way they taught writing, particularlytowards the end of a course. Wholesessions were taken up with practicetests in many classes.

Conclusion

Less than half of teaching sessionsobserved in this study were rated ‘high’or ‘to some extent’ for the sevencharacteristics of teaching discussed



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23

above. Only a quarter were rated so for‘authenticity’ and ‘critical thinking aboutwriting’. For several of thecharacteristics, the observed practicedid not fully match that described in theliterature from which the dimensionswere drawn – even where researchersrated a session to be high on aparticular dimension. For example,although classes used authenticmaterials far fewer were engaged inauthentic writing activities. Similarly,teachers encouraged learners to worktogether collaboratively on planningwriting but this hardly ever led to thejoint creation of a text.

It was noticeable that the great majorityof the writing undertaken in theobserved sessions was classroom-focused and this resonates withlearners’ perceptions that what theylearnt in class did not relate directly towriting they might undertake in theireveryday lives. While many teachers saidthat they planned their lessons andcourses to address their learners’needs, this did not always take adequateaccount of the purposes for whichlearners may need to write or the socialcontexts for their writing outside theclass.

Although classesused authentic

materials far fewerwere engaged in

authentic writingactivities


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■ This chapter addresses the questioncentral to the study: what is therelationship between the observedclassroom practice in the teaching ofwriting and three outcomes:• the progress made by learners in

writing • change in learners’ confidence in

themselves as writers • learners’ uses of writing in their

everyday lives.

We undertook this analysis on a classbasis and included 34 classes for whichcomplete pre and post data wereavailable for more than one learner. Wethen quantified the degree of relatednessof two sets of numbers.

The statistical data on practice in theclassroom took four forms:• an overall rating of each observed

session against a list of generalteaching strategies, based on the WhatWorks study undertaken in the US(Condelli et al., 2003).

• an overall rating of each observedsession based on the sevendimensions derived from the phase 1study (Kelly et al., 2004)

• data on the time given to teacher andlearner activity derived from thecoding of the detailed written logsincluding:

- classroom groupings- the focus of the writing activity

(word, sentence and text level)- whether or not the activity was

contextualised - learner activity (different types of

writing activity, reading or speakingand listening)

- the use of IT• data on the teachers’ experience and

qualifications.

Correlation analysis was used tocalculate the degree to which each set ofdata was related to change in:• learners’ scores between the pre and

post assessment tasks• the number of words used in the pre

and post assessment tasks• confidence in writing as reported by

learners:- in the classroom- at home- at work or in public

• the number of uses of writing as givenby learners.

We coded the observation logs for eachfive-minute interval under seven headings:1. groupings2. type of writing task3. the focus of the writing task (word,sentence and text level and whether or notcontextualised)

How teachers’ practicesmay affect performance



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3

4. the audience for the writing5. learner activity6. teacher activity7. uses of IT.

The resulting codes were complexbecause, in many classes, learners wereengaged on different tasks for differinglengths of time. In particular, the codes forteacher activity proved difficult to use withsufficient consistency. However, selectedparts of the coded data were analysed andrelationships between the time spent onparticular aspects of classroom activityand learner outcomes were explored.

Teachers’ practice in relation to learners’

progress

We found a significant correlation betweenthe general strategy “Is flexible andresponds to learners’ concerns as they arise.Goes with the teachable moment” and animprovement in learners’ assessmentscores.

This strategy describes characteristicsthat have long been associated with goodadult literacy teachers. It also tallies withlearners’ appreciation of teachers’understanding of their problems andwillingness to explain things they did notunderstand In relation to writing. It maysuggest that support and feedback fromthe teacher while learners are drafting,and the ‘mini lessons’ in response tolearners’ errors and queries are effectivein enabling them to develop as writers.

Classes in which one of the seven featuresof practice, “Use of authentic materials andactivities” was a strong feature made less

progress than those in which it was not.This finding is of particular interest as itappears to run counter to the finding ofthe What Works study (Condelli et al., 2003)that using authentic materials in theclassroom made a significant difference tothe reading development of ESOL literacylearners. It is also contrary to the study byPurcell-Gates et al. (2002), which found apositive correlation between the use ofauthentic materials and practices in theclassroom and learners’ uses of literacyoutside the classroom. Neither study,however, assessed learners’ competencein writing.

Several explanations could be offered forthis finding and it is possible all had a partto play:• only 4 per cent of observed sessions

were rated highly for authenticity • authentic materials and activities may

be too complex or challenging for manylearners

• while authentic materials were readand discussed as models of differenttypes of text, teachers did not alwaysask learners to write their own textsbased on these models.

It is possible that authentic materials andactivities may be more important fordeveloping learners’ confidence to usewriting outside the classroom than theircompetence as writers. Further researchwhich involves classes using a broaderrange of authentic activities would beuseful.


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Teachers’ practice and learners’

confidence in writing

Overall, learners reported that they weremore confident in the post questionnaire,and this was statistically significant.

When each of the confidence measureswas analysed separately, we found twosignificant correlations. The generalteaching strategy, “Brings ‘outside’ intothe classroom: for example, field trips,guest speakers, realia (authenticmaterials)” was associated with anincrease in confidence in writing at home.

One of the seven features, ‘working incollaborative groups’, appeared to beassociated with a decrease in learners’confidence about writing. It is possiblethat working on writing with others takeslearners out of their ‘comfort zone’ andmoves them from a state of ‘unconsciousincompetence’ to one of ‘consciousincompetence’.

Combining the teaching strategies

When the general teaching strategieswere combined into one scale andcorrelated with the assessment,confidence and uses of writing measures,we found no relationships. This remainedthe case even after controlling for anumber of other class-levelcharacteristics such as teachers’qualifications, teachers’ years ofexperience, the level at which the classwas working and the number of learnersin the class.

This lack of correlation may be lesssignificant than it first appears.

Researchers rated some classes highlyon these general strategies on the listgenerated for the What Works study(Condelli et al., 2003) although thepractice in relation to writing was, in theirprofessional judgment, quite weak. Thissuggests that practices that impact onlearners’ progress in writing may bespecific to the teaching of writing ratherthan generic.

In the same way we combined the sevenfeatures of practice in the teaching ofwriting, derived from phase 1, into onescale and correlated this with theoutcome measures. Again we found norelationships. This is noteworthy as itmeans that the analysis did not supportthe hypothesis of the earlier study. It ispossible that these features were also toogeneral.

Detailed analysis of the observation logs

We decided to look in detail at the nineclasses which had the highest averageincrease in assessment scores and thenine classes with the lowest increase inscores, bringing together evidence fromthe quantitative and qualitative data. Inparticular, we looked at the detailedcoding of the observed sessions and thewritten logs on which the coding wasbased.

When we compared the characteristics ofthe two groups of classes we found thatboth included learners at a range oflevels. Each included a prison class and aclass run for Jobcentre Plus. However,the top group included a preponderanceof ACL classes.



WRITING

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3

There were differences in the training andexperience of the teachers. All theteachers of classes in the top group werequalified and over half had five or moreyears’ experience. Two of the teachers inthe bottom group had no qualifications ortraining and all had less than five years’experience.

Based on the coding of the learner activityin three observed sessions for each class,the classes in the top group spent onaverage:• less time writing than classes in the

bottom quartile • slightly more time on listening and

speaking than classes in the bottomquartile

• slightly less time on reading thanclasses in the bottom quartile

The fact that classes in the top groupspent on average less time on writingthan the bottom group fits with theobservation that, in many of theseclasses, teachers and learners spent aconsiderable time in discussion prior towriting and that exercises were oftendiscussed in the whole group. It may alsosuggest that certain types of writingactivity are more closely linked toimprovement than others and that timespent on writing activities of any kind isnot necessarily well spent.

Based on the coding of the three observedsessions for each class the classes in thetop group spent on average:

• more time on contextualised writingtasks than classes in the bottom group

• more time on writing tasks at text levelthan classes in the bottom group

• less time on word level activities thanclasses in the bottom quartile

Analysis of the observation logs suggeststhat the majority of the classes with thehighest average increase in scores hadthe following features:• learners spent time composing

meaningful texts • teachers set up tasks carefully before

learners were asked to embark onwriting

• time was given to discussion of writingtasks in the full group

• exercises designed to introduce andpractise spelling, grammar andpunctuation were discussed in the fullgroup and were often explicitly linkedto a task involving extended writing

• individual feedback and support, whichtook account of learners’ individualneeds, was provided while learnerswere engaged in the process of writing.

By contrast, we found the followingfeatures in a number of the classes thathad an average decrease in assessmentscores: • a significant amount of de-

contextualised writing activity• a significant amount of time spent on

activities at word and sentence level• individual needs met through individual

tasks and worksheets• limited time given to the setting up of

writing tasks.


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Time spent on writing and the impact on

outcome

One positive correlation was foundindicating a link between the time spenton writing in class and an increase in thelearners’ reported uses of writing.

In addition, we found that classes thatspent over 50 per cent of the writingactivity focused on text level weresignificantly more likely to have made alarger gain than those that spent 50 percent or less.

Conclusion

Three significant positive correlations haveemerged from the analysis. Thesesuggest:

1. a flexible approach to teaching andresponsiveness to learners’ concerns asthey arise may have a positive impact onprogress in writing, as may a willingnessto ‘go with the teachable moment’

2. practice that makes a strong link withthe real world beyond the class mayhelp learners to feel more confident,particularly in the everyday writing tasksthey undertake at home

3. the more time learners spend on writingin class, the greater the impact on therange of writing tasks they undertakeoutside class.

Two negative correlations pose morequestions. These suggest:

1. the use of authentic materials andauthentic tasks may not support

learners’ progress in writing and couldpossibly hinder their progress

2. asking learners to work in collaborativegroups may undermine confidence inwriting in a public place or at work.

The first of these findings deserves a briefexplanation, as it appears to contradictsome of our other findings. We surmise thatauthentic practice has a greater impact onconfidence than on competence in writing,and we know that impact on confidencetends to precede improved competence,often by a considerable period of time. Howconfidence and competence in writingfurther affect one another remains animportant question for development andresearch.

Based on detailed analysis of theobservation logs we suggest that effectiveteaching of writing:• allows learners to spend time on the

composition of texts of different kinds• provides meaningful contexts for

writing activities• includes time for discussion about

writing and the writing task• provides individual feedback and

support as learners engage in writing.

The findings tend to endorse therecommendation in the Literacy CoreCurriculum that: “The writing tasks thatlearners are asked to undertake need tobe varied and meaningful, however basic,with an emphasis on communication.Learners need to practise writing at textlevel even when their grip on individualwords is shaky.”


■ Learners in this study made a smallbut significant improvement in theirwriting. However, demonstrableprogress in writing, and particularly infree writing, cannot be achieved quicklyby the majority of learners. Our findingstend to support the estimate thatlearners need 150-200 hours toprogress by one level of the NationalStandards.

Findings based solely on the correlationanalysis need to be interpreted withsome caution due to the relatively smallsize of the sample achieved for thisstudy and the fact that in the majority ofclasses observed learners wereenrolled for literacy and not specificallyfor writing.

However, evidence drawn from both thecorrelation analysis and the qualitativedata suggest: • learners’ writing improves when the

teacher is flexible and responsive tothe learners’ concerns and addressesthese concerns as they arise.Teachers’ support during the processof writing is of particular importance.

• learners’ confidence in writing tendsto be higher at home than in theclassroom or a public place andconfidence tends to increase most inthis domain as a consequence ofattending a course.

• making links between what happensin the classroom and life outside theclassroom, including the use of realmaterials, can enable learners tobecome more confident about thewriting they undertake at home.

• asking learners to work with eachother in a collaborative way may makethem feel less confident about writingin a public place or at work.

• there is a tendency for teachers andlearners to perceive learning to writeas a classroom-focused activity thatlinks only indirectly to the learners’uses of writing outside the class.Teachers and managers need to beaware of the importance of providinglearners with opportunities to engagein meaningful writing tasks that arerelevant to their lives and have anemphasis on communication in linewith the advice in the Core Curriculumfor Adult Literacy.

• the following are likely to becharacteristics of teaching thatenables learners to develop aswriters:- learners have opportunities to

spend time composing their owntexts

- the production of meaningful text isthe focus for planning sessions andcourses

- learners have opportunities todiscuss writing and the writing task

Conclusions


- specific aspects of writing aretaught in the context ofmeaningful text.

We found no evidence from thecorrelation analysis to support thehypothesis that the seven features ofpractice, identified in the phase 1 study(Kelly et al., 2004), were linked tolearners’ progress in writing. However,one of the features, contextualisation,did emerge as important in a moredetailed analysis of the classes with thehighest increase in assessment scores.

The finding that use of authenticmaterials and activities was linked to adecrease in assessment scores wasunexpected and is of particular interestin the light of previous studies that havefound links between authenticity andpositive learner outcomes. We suggestthat the use of authentic materials andactivities may impact more on learners’confidence than on their competence aswriters. The relationship betweenconfidence and competence in writingis a priority for further developmentand research.

Our findings tend tosupport the estimate that

learners need 150-200hours to progress by one

level of the NationalStandards



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3

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EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING Writingdera.ioe.ac.uk/22303/2/doc_3346.pdf · 11 Background to the study 14 The learners ... identified in phase 1 to promote learners’ development