RSTAQ: Reviews

Using the new basals to teach the writing process: modifications for students with learning problems.
Gleason, M.M. & Isaacson, S. 2001, in Reading and Writing Quarterly, vol.17, no.1, pp.75 —92.

Australian teachers have always held a healthy suspicion of using textbooks as the basis for curriculum implementation. Nevertheless, here as elsewhere, a fashion, a de facto curriculum can arise dictating which which texts will be accepted and which ones will be rejected.

It is timely then that the authors who have researched extensively the most productive ways of teaching written expression over many years have produced a checklist to delineate the characteristics teachers need to check in determining whether commercial programs are worthy of acceptance or not.

The authors armed with their refined understanding of teaching writing examine two commercial programs. While both programs are found to have definite strengths, the authors also discover clear deficiencies that could only be overcome by supplementing them with knowledgeable teaching.

Just as useful as the checklist provided is the overview and description of the factors that contribute to writing success for students. Gleason and Isaacson suggest teachers need to provide the following:

Opportunities to write (30 minutes a day, 4 days a week);
Induction of students into the processes of writing (Englert & Raphael, 1985)
Explicit strategies (e.g., story structure awareness);
Scaffolds (e.g., teacher — student dialogues);
Instruction in text structures (e.g., structure of expository texts);
Development of student awareness of specific criteria for successful writing (e.g., provision of model essays);
Attention to the mechanical aspects of writing (i.e., the secretarial role);
Provision of real-life purposes for writing (e.g., link to the requirements of the curriculum)
Attention to specific difficulties
Attention relating to issues aligned with motivation.

Each of these factors is described briefly. A fuller description and related issues can be found in Isaacson’s excellent article ‘Integrating process, product, and purpose: The role of instruction’, Reading and Writing Quarterly, vol.10, pp. 39 — 62. This article was printed in the RSTAQ Newsletter, March 1996.

For teachers considering the use of commercial texts to implement a writing curriculum, it would be worthwhile using the checklist as a means of examining of potential programs. For teachers wishing to consider the component variables, it would more than make sense to examine the components cited by Isaacson and Gleason as being indispensable to effective teaching in this most difficult area for students.