Makes Sense Writing Strategies

Edwin Ellis & Theresa Farmer

OVERVIEW OF MAKES SENSE WRITING STRATEGY

Process writing involves three basic stages: pre-writing activities, writing production, and editing and revising. Language Arts standards in most states require students to apply process writing skills to produce narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive essays. The effectiveness of explicit instruction in process writing strategies has been well documented through research.

Makes Sense Writing Strategies (MSWS) is a systematic, developmental, mastery -oriented approach to teach students to use effective process writing strategies beginning at emerging literacy levels and continuing until students can write well organized and articulated persuasive essays. In general, Language Arts teachers in primary, intermediate, and middle schools use MSWS to supplement their writing programs. MSWS is also used by remedial writing teachers in middle and high schools primarily to address the needs of students whose writing skills have not developed sufficiently to enable them to pass state-wide writing assessments and/or graduation exams.

MSWS features three task-specific strategies and a series of graphic organizer “Frames,” developmentally sequenced in sophistication so that teachers can scaffold instruction in their use. At the emerging literacy level, students master use of very basic Frames. Initially, the focus is on classification organizational skills (e.g., words related to a topic). Then students learn to use these words and compose sentences that are related to the same topic. Once students have mastered these skills, they learn to apply very simple versions of the Frames to write simple paragraphs (see Figures 1 & 2).

During the next phase of instruction, the Frames are enhanced via embedding semantic prompts specific to the type of writing (narrative, descriptive) being produced (see Figure 3). As these skills are mastered, the semantic prompts are faded, and students to apply the Frames to more complex topics (expository, persuasive) and to more sophisticated Frames (see Figures 3 & 4). Throughout the process, teachers and stud`ents use a series of rubrics that are also scaffolded in complexity to match students’ developing process writing skills.

STUDY 1:

The Effects of Makes Sense Writing Strategies on High-stakes Writing Assessments in Elementary Schools with Varying Histories of Prior Performance

This study examined the impact of MSWS instruction on schools with various histories of prior performance on a state-wide writing assessment designed to measure students’ process writing skills.

Teachers in 26 elementary schools with varying histories of prior performance on the state high-stakes writing assessment were provided MSWS instructional resources and professional development in how to differentiate process writing instruction to make it developmentally appropriate in diverse-ability classrooms.

The data depicted in Table 1 reflect the mean percentage of students in each category that met or exceeded standards on a state writing assessment before and after implementing MSWS. The data show that mean scores in each category of schools dramatically increased. The data also suggest that schools with histories of poor performance on the state writing assessment made the most marked gains, whereas schools with prior histories of good performance made the most modest gains.

Although this study did not employ a control group (school), state-wide mean performance during the same period reflected .05 percentage point gain

STUDY 2:

The Effects of a Makes Sense Writing Strategies on 5th Grade High-stakes Writing Assessment Performance in Two Rural Elementary Schools

This study examined the impact of MSWS instruction on 5th grade student performance in rural elementary schools relative to state-wide performance on a high-stakes writing assessment. These assessments are administered annually to all students in 5th grade with the exception of those with severe cognitive disabilities. The assessment is designed to evaluate students’ ability to write coherent, organized narrative, descriptive, and expository essays and apply conventions of print correctly.

A multiple-baseline research design was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of MSWS. The research procedures require that baseline performance of a school be established and either is stable (not changing) or declining. In other words, it must be demonstrated that the school is not improving its performance prior to introducing the experimental intervention (MSWS). Once a stable baseline is established, the intervention is implemented, and then performance is assessed to determine its impact. A second school serves as a form of control group. Thus, the experimental intervention is not introduced until after the first school demonstrates increased performance.

Before implementation of MSWS instruction, performance of Elementary School A was tracked for Year 1 and 2 to establish baseline scores. Data in Table 2 reflect the percentage of 5th grade students that met or exceeded the state writing standards. School A’s performance decreased following Year 2 of the baseline period. During Year 3, School A was provided MSWS instructional materials and professional development in their application. Table 2 shows that performance in the state-wide writing assessment increased from 28.08% of the students to 51.43%.following Year 3, and then increased again to 81% following Year 4.

Baseline performance during Year 2 and 3 of School B shows that this school’s performance decreased from 22% to 10%. In Year 3 while School A, which was now implementing MSWS increased significantly. MSWS instructional resources and professional development was then provided to School B during Year 4. Subsequent performance on the high-stakes writing assessment of School B increased from 10% to 62.24% following Year 4, and increased again to 71% following Year 5.

Results of this study support validation of MSWS as a writing intervention that may dramatically improve 5th grade student performance on high-stakes writing assessments.

STUDY 3:

The Effects of Makes Sense Writing Strategies on 10th Grade High-stakes Writing Assessment Performance in Two Semi-rural High Schools

This study examined the impact of MSWS instruction on 10th grade student performance in semi-rural high schools relative to state-wide performance on a high-stakes writing assessment. These assessments are administered annually to all students in 10th grade with the exception of those with severe cognitive disabilities. The assessment is designed to evaluate students’ ability to write coherent, organized narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive essays and apply conventions of print correctly.

This study employed a pre-test / post-test with control group design. Two high schools with similar prior histories of performance were used in the study. Table 3 shows that in both schools, 51% the 10th grade students met or exceeded state standards. Students in the “control group” high school received traditional 10th grade English class writing instruction. Post-test scores indicated that 53% of its 10th grade students met or exceeded state standards.

Students in the “experiment al group” high school received MSWS. Post-test scores indicated that 77% of its 10th grade students met or exceeded state standards during the same time period. Results of this study support validation of MSWS as a writing intervention that may dramatically improve 10th grade student performance on high-stakes writing assessments.

Results of this study support validation of MSWS as a writing intervention that may dramatically improve 10th grade student performance on high-stakes writing assessments.

STUDY 4:

Effects of Makes Sense Writing Strategies on Rural and Suburban 7th grade performance in Highstates Writing Assessment

This study compared the impact of MSWS instruction on 7th grade rural and suburban student performance on a state-wide writing assessment. A rural middle school and a suburban middle school were matched based on the percentage of 7th students in each school that met or exceeded state writing standards for 7th grade on the most recent state assessment. Thus, the performance of both schools was similar prior to implementing MSWS.

MSWS instructional resources and professional development was provided to Language Arts faculty in both schools. Data in Table 4 show that both schools made dramatic and very similar gains in the percentage of students who met or exceeded state writing standards after the schools implemented MSWS.

Results of this study support validation of MSWS as a writing intervention that may dramatically improve rural and suburban 7th grade student performance on high-stakes writing assessments.

STUDY 5:

Effects of Makes Sense Writing Strategies on 7th Grade African-American and Students with Disabilities’ Performance on High-stakes Writing Assessment

This study used a pre-test / post-test with control group design. Pre-test performance of 7th grade students in three middle schools was matched so that all were performing similarly prior to implementation of MSWS in one of the schools. Thus, two schools served as comparison, “control” groups and one school was used as the “experimental” group.

Table 5 shows that School A, B, & C were performing on the state-wide writing assessment at similar levels. The aggregated data depict the percentage of 7th grade students in each of the respective schools who met or exceeded state writing standards for 7th grade.

Language Arts teachers in School C received MSWS instructional resources and professional development. Post-test performance shows that while the performance in Schools A and B declined, School C made significant improvements during the same time period as evidenced by a 22.86 percentage point gain from the previous year.

Table 6 provides the pre-test / post-test performance of students who are African American in the three schools. These de-aggregated data show that the gains (20.75 percentage point gain) made by students who are African American and received MSWS instruction were similar to that of the general population of 7th grade students receiving MSWS.

Table 7 provides the pre-test / post-test performance of students with disabilities (with the exception of those with severe cognitive disabilities) in the three schools. These de-aggregated data show that the percentage of students with disabilities who received MSWS instruction who met or exceeded the state writing standards for 7th grade increased where those with disabilities in the schools that did not implement MSWS decreased during the same time period. These data also show that while students with disabilities who received MSWS instruction made gains, they were not proportional to the gains made by the general population of 7th grade students. In this study, data was not further de-aggregated so that performance of different disability groups could be analyzed.

Results of this study support validation of MSWS as a writing intervention that may dramatically improve 7th grade student performance, including students who are African American on high-stakes writing assessments. The data indicate that performance of students with disabilities, as an over-all group, can also be improved using MSWS.