By Joni Byus, Accountability and School Improvement Representative
What do 1775 America, 1789 France, and 2017 Hochman and Wexler have in common? They all saw the need for a revolution! The colonists were discontent with colonial rule due to taxation without representation violating their rights. France was dealing with a combination of social, political, and economic factors that had become unmanageable. Judith Hochman and Natalie Wexler’ s mission through “The Writing Revolution (TWR) aims to enable all students, especially those from historically marginalized communities to become proficient writers, readers, and critical thinkers.” For our purposes in 2024, we are going to look closer at how this modern-day revolution can make a difference in our student’s success through three of the six TWR principles.
Without explicit instruction, students will not learn to write as they learn to read. Learning to write requires many decisions. These decisions include what to say, how to say it, and the writing conventions to use. This is what you need just to form a sentence! The writing process is incorporated much more easily when we begin to teach it in elementary school. The students can practice spelling and vocabulary as they acquire knowledge. Writing original sentences can check comprehension within the context of what is being taught. Explicit instruction is the way to equip student writing skills!
Connecting student writing activities with subject matter can be used at any grade level! Writing boosts retention and knowledge of the content. This content will determine the level of rigor and challenge to use with writing activities. Research has been consistent in the findings that grammar is best taught within the content. Students often have a difficult time applying grammar rules within context if they’ve only experienced those rules in isolation. If writing isn’t taught within context, the grammar rules may be difficult for students to transfer to other subjects. Connecting is an important key to becoming a successful writer.
What purpose do outlines provide for students? Outline templates assist students in organizing their thoughts and ideas. The outline provides an opportunity for determining what information is important to include. Outlining a topic allows students to develop a flow for their information when practiced out loud prior to writing sentences and paragraphs.
The Writing Revolution (TWR) provides a strategy and framework for ensuring that students can express their information, thoughts, and ideas on paper. It allows students to understand the connection between verbal and written communication. These skills will boost the ability for students to find writing success through explicit instruction, to connect grammar and conventions with writing, and provide outline templates to organize what students are writing. When students have tools like TWR, why would they not take advantage of the information?
This article was written about The Writing Revolution (TWR) using the information from The Writing Revolution and written in the form suggested by TWR.
Hochman, J.C. and Wexler, Natalie. The Writing Revolution, Jossey-Bass, 2017.
If you’d like more information about The Writing Revolution, please contact Joni Byus (jbyus@buckeyehope.org) or Mindy Farry (mfarry@buckeyehope.org).