Additional information
| Cover | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Dimensions (W) | 8 1/2" |
| Dimensions (H) | 11" |
| Page Count | 378 |
| Publisher | CRL |
| Year Printed | 1993 |
| Other Materials Needed | The Paragraph Writing Strategy: Student Materials |
| Requirements |
Paragraph Writing Strategy: Instructor’s Manual
Jean B. SchumakerKaren D. Lyerla
Words are power, at least if you use them correctly, but that means more than just stringing them into a complete sentence. It means stating a main idea that is crystal clear. It means organizing information related to that main idea into a logical sequence. It means grabbing your reader’s attention. Easier said than done, no?
Fortunately, writing skills can be taught and learned. This is especially true if you have the Paragraph Writing Strategy program. The first volume, the instructor’s manual, provides step-by-step instructions for teaching students how to write good topic sentences, detail sentences, clincher sentences, and finally, to use a strategy for writing whole paragraphs. Finally, instructions are included for teaching students to write different types of paragraphs including narrative, persuasive, and expository paragraphs. The manual contains more than 70 black-line masters that can be turned into overhead transparencies or visual devices for use in teaching the strategy. The accompanying student materials volume features practice activities that correspond to the lessons in the instructor’s manual. Please remember to order the student materials!
Description
Research on Paragraph Writing Strategy Instruction
Studies 1 and 2
Two studies were conducted where seventh through tenth graders learned to use the Paragraph Writing Strategy in conjunction with three paragraph styles: enumerative, sequential, and compare and contrast paragraphs. In the first study, a multiple-probe across-paragraph-styles design was employed with three junior-high students. In the second study, a multiple-probe across-paragraph-styles within a multiple-probe across-students design was used. Five students participated. Instruction was provided by a researcher.
Results
Each time the students wrote a paragraph, the paragraph was awarded points for each type of sentence including topic, detail, and concluding sentences. In Study 1, all three students learned to write organized enumerative paragraphs in the resource room. Their paragraph scores exceeded the 85% level. Also subsequent to strategy instruction, their scores on paragraphs assigned in a general education class improved above the 80% level. However, because the students also immediately generalized their use of the strategy to the other two paragraph styles (and therefore destroyed the experimental control inherent in the multiple-probe across-paragraph-styles design), the second study was conducted with five more students.
Study 2 demonstrated that the students learned to use the paragraph organization strategy for enumerative paragraphs after instruction. All of the students earned more than 85% of the available points on their paragraphs in the resource room. In addition, all of the students generalized their use of the strategy to at least one other paragraph style; three of the students generalized to both additional paragraph styles. After instruction, all of the students met the mastery criterion of earning at least 85% of the points available for paragraph organization on all three paragraph styles. Their mean scores on enumerative paragraphs were 52% in baseline and 92% after instruction; on sequential paragraphs the mean scores were 49% in baseline and 95% after instruction, and on compare-and-contrast paragraphs the mean scores were 38% in baseline and 91% after instruction.
Conclusions
These studies showed that students with LD could learn how to write organized paragraphs given instruction provided in a small-group setting by a researcher. They also showed that students could generalize the structure of paragraphs to different types of paragraphs and to general education settings.
References
Moran, M. R., Schumaker, J. B., & Vetter, A. F. (1981). Teaching a paragraph organization strategy to learning disabled adolescents. (Research Report No. 54). Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Institute for Research in Learning Disabilities.
Studies 3
Overview
This study focused on the instruction of four writing strategies within a resource room program by the regularly assigned special education teacher. The writing strategies were taught across the course of a full school year. General education English and social studies teachers were recruited to give writing assignments in their classes to provide measures of generalization. Seven participating high school students with LD who had not been enrolled in general education courses in the past were enrolled in these English and social studies classes at the beginning of the school year. The students were first taught the Sentence Writing Strategy (Schumaker & Sheldon, 1985) by their special education teacher in the resource room. Next, the students learned the Paragraph Writing Strategy (Schumaker & Lyerla, 1991). Subsequently, they learned how to detect and correct errors in their writing by learning the Error Monitoring Strategy (Schumaker, Nolan, & Deshler, 1985). Finally, they learned the Theme Writing Strategy (Schumaker, 2003). Throughout the instruction, the students’ writing performance in both the resource room and in targeted general education classes was monitored. That is, every time they wrote a paragraph or an essay in any of the targeted settings, the product was scored for the types of sentences used, the organization of the paragraph, the number of errors, and the organization of the essay. A multiple-probe across-strategies design was employed.
Results
The seven students earned an average of 36% of the points available for a well-planned and organized paragraph during baseline and an average of 80% of the points after instruction on products written in the resource room and in their general education classes. The multiple-baseline across-strategies design demonstrated that each student made gains on pertinent measures only after instruction began for each strategy.
Five of the students made the same kinds of gains on their writing assignments in general education classes as they did in the resource room, even though they had not been taught to use the writing strategies in those settings. The two students who did not generalize their use of the strategies to other classes did so quickly after they had been taught to do so.
Before the study, the students’ GPA was 2.1 in special English and social studies courses designed for low-achieving students and students with disabilities; after the study, their GPA was 2.7 in regular-track general education English and social studies courses.
On a standardized test of writing instruction, the Woodcock Johnson Psychoeducational Battery, the students’ mean grade equivalent score increased by two grade levels from 6.2 to 8.2. On the district’s minimal competency writing exam, the students earned a mean overall score of 3.5 (out of 5.0), which compared favorably to the mean overall district average of 2.5. With regard to maintenance of strategy usage, the four students who returned to the school the following school year and who had learned all the strategies demonstrated that they could write organized paragraphs in their general education classes at mastery levels.
Conclusions
Thus, this study demonstrated that high school students with LD could learn the Paragraph Writing Strategy in a resource room program when instructed by their regularly assigned special education teacher. It also showed that they could generalize their use of the Paragraph Writing Strategy to assignments given in their required general education courses and that they could maintain their use of the strategy across several months. It also showed that strategy instruction was associated with growth in standardized writing test scores and produced favorable writing competency test scores.
References
Schmidt, J. L. (1983). The effects of four generalization conditions on learning disabled adolescents’ written language performance in the regular classroom. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Kansas, Lawrence.
Schmidt, J. L., Deshler, D. D., Schumaker, J. B., & Alley, G. R. (1989). Effects of generalization instruction on the written language performance of adolescents with learning disabilities in the mainstream classroom. Reading, Writing, and Learning Disabilities, 4(4), 291-309.
About the Author
Jean B. Schumaker, Ph.D.
Affliations
- President
- Edge Enterprises, Inc.
- Lawrence, KS
- Retired Associate Director and Senior Research Scientist
- Certified SIM Professional Development Specialist
- University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning
- Lawrence, KS
- Professor Emeritus
- Department of Special Education
- University of Kansas
- Lawrence, KS
My Background and Interests
I grew up with a concern for children who need special help. One of my earliest experiences was organizing birthday parties for children with disabilities at the Matheny Medical and Educational Center in New Jersey. After the birthday parties were over and all the decorations had been cleaned up, I spent additional time with those children, putting them to bed, reading to and talking with them, and singing to them. Through those experiences and others as a camp counselor, I found that I loved being with children and teaching them. Eventually, I decided that I wanted to be a clinical psychologist, and I went to college and graduate school with that goal in mind. However, along the way, I got hooked on doing research! In particular, I got hooked on research related to ensuring that children learn. I’ve worked with children in schools, group homes, camps, hospitals, and clinical settings. Across all those experiences, I’ve learned that all children can learn. I’ve learned that, if we hold high expectations for them and use special teaching methods, they usually meet those expectations. I continue to do research with the goal of helping teachers teach and students learn.
The Story Behind the Paragraph Writing Strategy Program
I started developing instructional programs for writing skills in the 1970s when I was a graduate student at the University of Kansas. My graduate program required me to take part in an internship at the probation department of the Douglas County Juvenile Court in Kansas. I was assigned several cases of truant secondary students. In working with these students, I learned that they could not write. They told me that one of the reasons they avoided school was that they were embarrassed because they could not complete the work assigned to them. I also learned that there were no instructional programs available to teach them writing in an intensive way. I embarked on a journey of developing writing programs that continues to this day, and several colleagues have joined me along the way.
Development of the Paragraph Writing Strategy Program started in the early 1980s. We originally thought that we could teach students to write topic sentences, detail sentences, and concluding sentences, and that, as a result, the students would be writing paragraphs that would be appropriate for secondary courses. We quickly learned that we could teach students how to write those types of sentences but that their paragraphs horrifyingly simple. We also learned that there is a lot more to writing a “meaty” and well-organized paragraph than meets the eye. We realized, for example, that we needed to teach students basic concepts and associated skills such as how to use the same tense, the same point of view, and coordinated transitions throughout paragraphs and how to plan paragraphs. We also realized that students needed to learn how to write a variety of topic sentences, detail sentences, and concluding sentences. Karen Lyerla, a high school teacher, became my partner in creating the current program that contains a variety of learning sheets for each of the needed skills. Several years of trial and error were required before we had a program that worked. The program was finally published 10 years after the original idea for a paragraph writing strategy was hatched, but we are pleased that the program can be used to teach students to write excellent paragraphs.
My Thoughts about Strategic Instruction
Strategic instruction is one of the few instructional methods that have been shown to be effective through empirical research to produce improvement in learning and in the academic performance of at-risk students. The studies conducted on the instructional program for the Paragraph Writing Strategy have shown students can learn to write well-organized paragraphs and can generalize their use of paragraph writing skills to their coursework when this program is used with fidelity. Instruction in the Paragraph Writing Strategy has been included in scope and sequence plans at the middle-school and high-school levels in numerous districts across the nation. The strategy has been taught in general education and special education settings to a wide variety of students.
Teacher and Student Feedback on the Paragraph Writing Strategy
Teachers often report that students ask them, “Why didn’t someone explain this to me in this way before?” They report that students are happy to learn how to plan and write well-organized paragraphs and pleased with the results that they can achieve in their required courses on writing assignments.
My Contact Information
Please contact me through Edge Enterprises, Inc.
(jschumaker@edgeenterprisesinc.com or 877-767-1487).
