Teaching Writing In the Margins: Special Ed, LD, ESL, & other Struggling Students In the Public Schools

1. Dr. Emily Isaacs Associate Professor of English and Director of First-Year Writing Montclair State University Teaching Writing In the Margins: Special Ed, LD, ESL, & other Struggling StudentsIn the Public Schools

2. What Do We Know about Writing? • We become stronger writers by • Reading • Writing • Talking about our reading and writing • Re-reading • Receiving useful, specific, honest feedback • Re-writing • Believing that our writing matters – deeply, and personally.

3. Therefore…. 1. Teach Writing as an Engaged, Human, Personally Valuable Activity – Teach Writing as Meaning-Making 2. Inspire Writing 3. Demonstrate the Value of Writing 4. Provide Opportunities for Reading and Writing 5. Provide Frequent Opportunities for Feedback that is Meaningful and Specific 6. Assess Honestly and Accurately

4. Writing Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities • Overview: Ideally LD students need writing instruction that is: • Intensive (more not less) • Partially individualized • Explicit on transcription and composing strategies

5. Problems for LDs: Planning • Planning Problems • Generate content associatively, rather than logically or as needed. • Have trouble stepping back and considering the task strategically. The LD students just does it, wasting time & energy. • Does not have a good picture of the required task. • Planning Solutions • Explicitly teach and require planning work • Talk through task • Organize essay with prompts

6. Problems for LDs: Text Transcription • LD Writers have real difficulty with composing words, typing or writing out actual words – and so these activities occupy a lot of brain space. • Solution: • With short assignments, lower expectations for transcription. • For papers, accommodate for optimum medium for writing.

7. LD: Content Issues • LD students often have insufficient content. • May not be sufficiently familiar with genre and reader expectations; haven’t picked these up. Solutions: • Ask for more • Self-monitor productivity (pages, specifics)

8. LD Revising Issues • Tend toward small editing changes • Do not have a good sense of what the text “should be,” and therefore have trouble seeing what isn’t there. • Solutions: • Read aloud • Peer Feedback • Checklists that direct revision

9. Teaching Writing to ESL/ELL Students: Population Differences • Assessment: What are the language abilities? • Low: Functioning Primarily in Home Language • Writing is very short, meaning is often unclear, student seems confused and out of it. • Middling: Straddling Between English and Home Language • Writing can be clear if expressive; clarity of meaning varies; student is fine verbally and in class • High: Thinking in English, Writing with an Accent • Readily marked by language, but meaning is clear; many errors, but understandable and writing at appropriate lengths and depths.

10. ESL/ELL Support Priorities • Low: • Language Immersion with goal of fluency • Honest assessment • Middle: • Increase immersion • Provide scaffolding • Translation of “Americanisms” • 1 on 1 on targeted surface areas • Honest assessment • High: • 1 on 1 on targeted surface areas • Honest assessment

11. Review • LD Students: • Make Transcription Easier • Provide additional scaffolding and direction; state the obvious • Ask seemingly obvious content questions that lead additional writing ESL/ELL Students • Increase Immersion • Translate Americanism • Targeted 1-1 work for motivated students • Appropriately Assess – Accents are okay; confusion is not