Writing Strategies

Teaching adolescent authors strategies for planning, revising, and editing their compositions has shown a dramatic effect on the quality of students' writing. Strategy instruction involves explicit and systematically teaching steps necessary for planning, revising, and or editing text, the ultimate goal is to teach students to use these strategies independently.

Strategy instruction may involve learning more generic processes, such as brainstorming or collaboration for peer revising. In other instances, it involves teaching strategies for accomplishing particular types of writing tasks, such as writing a story or a persuasive essay. Whether generic or highly focused, explicitly teaching teenagers strategies for planning, revising, and editing has a substantial impact on the quality of their writing. Writing strategy instruction has been found especially useful for teen authors who have difficulty writing, but it is a powerful technique for teen writers in general.

Self-Regulated Strategy Development is a six-stage gradual release model of writing process instruction.
Stage 1: Activate and Develop Prior Knowledge
Stage 2: Discuss It
Stage 3: Model It
Stage 4: Memorize It
Stage 5: Collaborative Practice
Stage 6: Independent Use

Visit this site for more detailed information on SRSD.

Strategy Instruction for Writing
Writing researchers have identified what good writers do:

• Plan
• Monitor
• Evaluate
• Revise

What are some common challenges that students have?

• Lack of a knowledge of writing
• Approaching the writing task
• Planning in advance
• Generating content
• Revising
• Transcription skills
• Persistence