What Really Influences Student Writing?

Writing Next, a metastudy of writing in middle schools and high schools released last week, found "eleven elements of effective adolescent writing instruction." They are (1) writing strategies, (2) summarization, (3) collaborative writing, (4) study of models, (5) specific product goals, (6) word processing, (7) sentence combining, (8) writing for content, (9) prewriting,
(10) inquiry activities, and (11) process writing approach learning. Although these elements are familiar to most NCTE teachers, they were presented as revelatory practices which the report writers advocate now be taken up by those making education policy and by teachers to improve writing of middle and high school students.

One researcher of this report funded by the Carnegie Corporation explained that only comparative studies of this kind can yield evidence for policy making and can also influence practice in classrooms across the nation. Former NCTE officers interviewed for the October 19 issue of Education Week disagreed, explaining that inquiry-based teacher research in the classroom generates knowledge that can be applied in teaching and learning and add to the knowledge base in the field. And, if that is the case, this research needs to be available to policy makers in a form that they understand and find useful.

As Writing Next gets taken up by interested policy makers who now primarily value this kind of comparative study, I wonder how we can put classroom-based research on the table as well. We know that single examples of classroom practice can be influential. For example, this morning in The Washington Post, a front-page article claims, "Clauses and Commas Make a Comeback."
Featuring one teacher in a local high school, the article feeds the notions of panelists who responded to the Writing Next release that didn't list grammar as one of the elements that contributes to effective writing instruction. Two panelists, a community college president and a politically well connected attorney, extolled the importance of grammar instruction in the very forum in which the featured publication refuted their ideas based on personal stories. They were convinced by their own life stories of the importance of grammar being taught as a separate subject.

Single examples and stories, however, lack the strength to undergird practice or policy over time. The Washington Post example of a teacher who believes in teaching grammar, augmented by a look at neighboring high schools and reference to NCTE publications about grammar, contains no evidence of the influence of grammar teaching on student learning. Although one student is quoted as having received 11 out of 12 on the SAT writing test, no link is made between instruction in grammar and that testing outcomes.

A position between studies with experimental and comparative groups and stories with no evidence of impact of instructional practices is inquiry-based research. Teachers who design studies of their own practice and communicate findings to others in the field engage in what is now often called the scholarship of teaching and learning. Designed teacher inquiry that yields evidence about student learning needs to be communicated for multiple audiences, including the policy makers for whom Writing Next authors claim only comparative studies analysis will make a difference of for whom newspaper accounts of interesting practice seem instructive.

Do comparative studies influence your own practice? Do you rely on anecdotes, however interesting? Do you do inquire into your own practice, either yourself or with colleagues? Have you thought about putting the findings from your designed inquiry into a form that policy makers could understand and value? What does influence writing instruction for middle and high school students?