The purpose of this strategy is to:
• promote students’ development of positive attitudes about writing and themselves as writers
• teach students powerful skills and strategies involved in the writing process, including planning, writing, revising and editing
• support students in the ongoing development of the abilities needed to monitor and manage their own writing. (Harris et al. 1998)
Researchers and practitioners have increasingly demonstrated that neither whole language nor process approaches to writing are uniformly effective for all children (Graham & Harris, 1994). Immersion in reading and writing, informal methods of instruction and ‘teachable moments’ do not provide all children with the level of explicit instruction, practice and feedback they need to master critical skills and strategies. Students who struggle with reading and writing and those with pronounced learning difficulties often require more extensive, structured and explicit instruction in the skills and strategies critical to literacy. Teachers and researchers have argued that explicitness and structure should not be equated with decontextualised learning of meaningless skills, passive learning or the teaching of gradually accruing basic skills before moving to higher-order thinking, problem-solving and conceptual learning. SRSD depends upon teachers engaging students as active collaborators in their own learning and development; modelling, dialogue, sharing and scaffolding are critical.
Implementation
Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) is an instructional approach that started with the premise that all students (especially those who face significant difficulties) would benefit from an integrated instructional approach that directly addressed their affective, behavioural and cognitive characteristics, strengths and needs.
SRSD can be conducted with individual students, small groups or entire classes. Six stages in the SRSD model are listed. They are:
1. Develop background knowledge 2. Discuss It
3. Model It 4. Memorise It 5. Support It
6. Independent performance
These stages can be recorded, combined, revisited, modified or deleted to meet the student and teacher needs.
The following case study is adapted from the article by Harris, Schmidt and Graham (1998) and is used to illustrate some aspects of the six stages in the SRSD process.
The students involved in the case study were a group of fifth and sixth grade students who were taught a strategy for writing an exposition. They were involved in SRSD instruction because they experienced difficulties with writing, displayed a low level of motivation and had beliefs about the causes of success and failure in their writing which were hindering their progress.
‘It’ refers to the writing process using both self- regulation and specific writing strategies.
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NSW State Literacy and Numeracy Plan The SRSD strategy was implemented by the teacher in the following seven stages.
1. Develop background knowledge In this stage the teacher:
• began the lesson by leading discussion to determine what students already knew about an exposition (referred to by the authors as an opinion essay)
• read with her students and discussed several good examples of a written exposition identifying the typical features, then
• jointly worked with them to identify examples of these typical features in texts written by other students.
2. Discuss It
Following the initial lesson the teacher held an individual conference with each student to:
• examine previous expositions the student had written and assess which typical features he or she had included and the quality of those features
• talk with the student about any strategies or self-statements that he or she currently used when writing.
During individual conferences the teacher introduced the strategy of self-monitoring, explaining that self-assessment and self-recording would allow the student to monitor the components in his or her written text and the benefits of learning the new writing strategy.
Together they graphed the number of typical features included in the student’s earlier compositions. One example of this graphing for writing an exposition could be as follows:
Goal setting and self-assessment Student graph for writing an exposition
States topic and the writer’s opinion Summary of reasons States argument 1 Details to support it States argument 2 Details to support it States argument 3 Details to support it Conclusion strengthens writer’s opinion Language appropriate Good use of … Date: 6/9 13/9 21/9 28/9
No. of typical features 4 6 9 10
in the student’s text.
Earlier texts before strategy taught
After strategy is taught
After each student had participated in an individual conference, the teacher and the students resumed their group discussion of the writing strategy they were to learn during the next lesson. Each student was given a chart listing the steps in the strategy:
Note: the acronym TREE was used to help them remember the steps for developing an outline of an
exposition. Another teacher, teaching the same strategy, used the acronym SPACE, Setting, Purpose,
Action, Conclusion, and Emotions to help his students remember parts of a good narrative.
Steps to effective writing
1. Think, who will read this, and why am I writing it? 2. Plan what to say using TREE
(Topic sentence, Reasons, Examine, Ending).
3. Write and say more.
The first step in the strategy involved identifying the intended audience and purpose for writing the text. During the second step, each student developed an outline for his or her exposition. This included establishing the arguments for the exposition, generating ideas to support the arguments, evaluating readers’ reaction to each idea (and eliminating unsound ideas), noting a conclusion for the
exposition, and determining how the argument would be structured or sequenced. The third step was a reminder to continue revising and improving the outline while writing.
The teacher asked the students what they thought the reason for each step might be, and the group discussed how and when to use the strategy (for example,
whenever you are asked, or want, to give your opinion or tell what you believe). To help the students remember the steps in developing an outline (TREE), they were given various verbal prompts to visualise a tree:
The trunk is like your Topic sentence or opening statement. How are the trunk of a tree and your topic sentence similar? [Everything is connected to each of them.]
The roots are like your Reasons. How are the roots of a tree like the reasons that support your topic sentence? [They support the trunk – just like reasons support the topic sentence.]
It is also important to Examine the roots – just like you examine reasons. [If they are strong, the trunk and the whole tree will be strong.]
3. Model It
During the third lesson the teacher modelled how to use the writing strategy, ‘think aloud’, as she worked. The students participated during modelling by helping the teacher as she planned, made notes and wrote the first draft. Together they jointly constructed the text, rejecting and accepting possible ideas to support her
arguments. A variety of self-instructions were used by the teacher to help her manage the strategy, the writing process, and her behaviour. These included: • self-statements involving problem definition (e.g. ‘What do I need to do?’) • planning (e.g. ‘OK, first I need…’)
• self-evaluation (e.g. ‘Did I say what I really believe?’) • self-reinforcement (e.g. ‘Great, this is a good reason!’).
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NSW State Literacy and Numeracy Plan The self-statements the teacher used included: ‘If I work hard and follow the steps of the strategy, I’ll write a good exposition’.
4. Discuss It (revisited)
After the teacher modelled how to use the writing strategy, she and her students discussed the importance of what we say to ourselves while we work. After discussing how these self-statements were helpful, each student generated and recorded, on a small chart, self-statements he or she would use.