Evidence-Based Practices in Writing

Steve Graham

Karen R. Harris

Since the publication of the first and second editions of Best Practices in Writing Instruction (Graham, MacArthur, & Fitzgerald, 2007, 2013), little has changed in how writing is taught in the majority of classrooms in the United States. Teachers report they devote little time to teaching writing beyond grade 3, and students do little writing in or out of school for academic purposes (Applebee & Langer, 2011; Brindle, Harris, Graham, & Hebert, 2016; Gillespie, Graham, Kiuhara, & Hebert, 2014; Graham, Cappizi, Harris, Hebert, & Morphy, 2014). This stands in stark contrast to the other members of the three R's — reading and mathematics — subjects in which schools and teachers have devoted considerable effort to improving students' performance.

The general lack of attention to improving writing instruction nationwide during this and the last several decades should not distract from the phenomenal job that many schools and teachers do when teaching writing (Wilcox, Jeffrey, & Gardner-Bixler, 2016). Rather, what these educators have accomplished illustrates what is possible when we squarely focus our efforts on providing effective writing instruction. In fact, it is clear that we now have the instructional "know-how" needed to ensure that students become skillful writers. Reports from the Carnegie Corporation of New York (Graham, Harris, & Hebert, 2011; Graham & Hebert, 2010; Graham & Perin, 2007c) and the Institute of Education Sciences (Graham, Bollinger, et al., 2012; Graham et al., 2016) show we possess many tools for improving the quality of students' writing.

It is especially important at this time that we focus on bringing these best practices in writing instruction more fully into all classrooms. Many students do not develop the writing skills needed to be successful in today's world (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). This places them at a disadvantage, as writing is virtually everywhere — at school, work, and home.

While concerns about students' writing are not new (Sheils, 1975), calls to improve writing instruction were largely ignored by past educational reform efforts in the United States. This changed with the advent of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) movement (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). These standards, which were adopted by most states in the United States, made writing and writing instruction a central element of the school reform movement (Graham, Harris, & Santangelo, 2015). Learning to write and writing to learn were strongly emphasized in the CCSS, as students were expected to learn how to write for multiple purposes (e.g., to persuade, to inform, and to narrate) and use writing to recall, organize, analyze, interpret, and build knowledge about content or materials read across discipline-specific subjects. In effect, a basic goal of the CCSS was to revolutionize how writing was taught in U.S. schools and classrooms. This is a goal that we support without reservation.

This chapter and Best Practices in Writing Instruction as a whole address how we can provide effective writing instruction in today's schools. We think that if teachers know why writing is important, they will invest the energy and time needed to develop an excellent writing program. If they understand how writing develops, they will approach writing instruction in a flexible and reasonable manner. If they possess effective tools for teaching writing, they will have the know-how to maximize their students' success as writers. We address each of these assumptions in turn in this chapter and draw attention to other chapters in this volume that address each assumption more specifically.

Is Writing Important?

The answer to this question is an unqualified YES! First, writing is an extremely versatile tool used to accomplish a variety of goals (Graham, 2006b). It provides a mechanism for maintaining personal links with family, friends, and colleagues when we are unable to be with them in person. We use writing to share information, tell stories, create imagined worlds, explore who we are, combat loneliness, and chronicle our experiences. Writing can even make us feel better, as writing about our feelings and experiences can benefit us psychologically and physiologically (Smyth, 1998).

Writing also provides a powerful tool for influencing others. Books like Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe provided a catalyst for antislavery beliefs in 19th-century America, whereas The Jungle by Upton Sinclair changed the way we think about food preparation. The persuasive effects of writing are so great that many governments ban "subversive" documents and jail the offending authors.

Writing is an indispensable tool for learning and communicating. We use writing as a medium to gather, preserve, and transmit information. Just as important, writing about what we are learning helps us understand and remember it better. The permanence of writing makes ideas we are studying readily available for review and evaluation, its explicitness encourages establishing connections between these ideas, and its active nature fosters the exploration of unexamined assumptions (Applebee, 1984). The impact of writing on learning was captured in two meta-analyses (Bangert-Drowns, Hurley, & Wilkinson, 2004; Graham & Perin, 2007c), which found that writing about content material enhanced students' learning in social studies, science, mathematics, and the language arts. Two examples of a writing-to-learn activity are presented in Figure 1.1 (see also Klein, Haug, & Bildfell, Chapter 7, this volume).

Furthermore, students understand material they read better if they write about it. As with writing about concepts presented in science or other content classes, writing about material read provides students with a tool for...