Results from the Stanford Study of Writing

Paul M. Rogers Ph.D.

Major Findings• Writing development is multidimensional and

nonlinear across a number of knowledge domains

• New digital technologies have increased student opportunities to write for authentic purposes and audiences

• Ongoing chains of communication with readers who possess certain qualities provide the greatest opportunity for writing development

What do we learn when we learn to write?

How can we as faculty best develop student writing abilities?

The Stanford Study of Writing

• Random Sample 12% of the Class of 2005 n=189 - 1/5 in the interview group n=39

• All disciplines - 14,776 pieces of writing

• 150 hours of interviews across five years

Strong academic achievers are not necessarily strong

writers• Stanford’s incoming class of 2001’s had an admittance rate of 12.7% (Brown, 2001)

• All study participants needed to adjust to the demands of college writing at Stanford.

Longitudinal Studies of Writing in Higher Education

Rogers, P.M. (2010). The contributions of North American longitudinal studies of writing in higher education to our understanding of writing development. In C. Bazerman, R. Krut, K. Lunsford, .S. McLeod, S. Null, P.M. Rogers and A. Stansell (Eds.). Traditions of Writing Research. Oxford, UK: Routledge.

Beaufort, A. (2004). Developmental gains of a history major: A case for building a theory of disciplinary writing expertise. Research in the Teaching of English, 39(2), 136-185.

Rogers, P.M. (2008). The development of writers and writing abilities: A longitudinal study across and beyond the college­span.(Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2008). DAI # 3319795.

Looking at the change across all 10 categories, we found a statistically significant improvement from the first year to the last years for Claims and Knowledge t(83) = 6.72, p-value = .000Telling and transforming t(83) = 4.09, p-value = .000Awareness of Readers t(83) = 3.29, p-value = 0.001Treatment of Sources t(83)= 3.71, p-value = .000;Theory and Concepts t(83) = 3.04, p-value = 0.003Students grew the most in the category of argumentation with the use of claims and evidence showing, by far, the most growth.

Digital Technology

"I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization," she says. For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.

Read More http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17­09/st_thompson#ixzz0nEURsebd

How Writers Develop

Non-classroom Related Factors

Classroom Discourse

Student’s lives outside of the classroom or school context

What teachers say about writing in the classroom, including direct instruction

Psychological factors such as self-esteem, confidence, or anxiety

Peer to peer talk, reading and writing groups

Time - Natural development (growth, maturity, and development)

Whole class discussion

Preexisting abilities and writing experiences; cultural backgrounds, and gender

Conversation with teachers

Student engagementInstitutional context, including assessment regimesMentoring (in socio-cultural settings)

Teacher Behaviors Classroom GenresTeacher expectations Teacher written response to writing i.e.

ongoing, performance specific feedbackResponsive teacher attitude in relation to feedback

Model texts

Immediate rhetorical context, e.g. classroom & grades

Access to other student texts

Time to draft, revise, and reflect ReadingMentoring (by teachers) General instructional supports: handouts

etc ...Repeat performance opportunities, i.e. practice

Increased domain knowledge

Nature of tasksTeacher supportiveness, accessibility outside class

Non-classroom Related Factors

Student’s lives outside of the classroom or school contextPsychological factors such as self-esteem, confidence, or anxietyTime - Natural development (growth, maturity, and development)Preexisting abilities and writing experiences; cultural backgrounds, and genderStudent engagementInstitutional context, including assessment regimesMentoring (in socio-cultural settings)

Classroom Discourse

What teachers say about writing in the classroom, including direct instructionPeer to peer talk, reading and writing groups

Whole class discussion

Conversation with teachers

Teacher BehaviorsTeacher expectationsResponsive teacher attitude in relation to feedback

Immediate rhetorical context, e.g. classroom & grades Time to draft, revise, and reflectMentoring (by teachers)Repeat performance opportunities, i.e. practiceNature of tasksTeacher supportiveness, accessibility outside class

Classroom Genres

Teacher written response to writing i.e. ongoing, performance specific feedback

Model texts

Access to other student texts

Reading

General instructional supports: handouts, graphic organizers, assignments, and rubrics

Increased domain knowledge

Dialogic Interaction

Bahktin’s description of dialogue proved extremely valuable in understanding the dimensions of the most impactful response practices.  From Bahktin’s perspective, for an interaction to be dialogic, it must include a change of speaking subjects, the “finalization” of an utterance, and addressivity (pp. 76-78). A change of speaking subjects implies clear distinction between the turns that interlocutors take (p. 71); further, each turn taken must include the possibility of a response. Secondly, an utterance is finalized when [each] speaker has said (or written) everything he wished to say in a particular situation. Addressivity, the third feature, refers to personalization, i.e., the quality of being directed to a specific audience or individual. In a classroom context, this quality of addressivity implies that the response to one student is “differentiated, personalized,and individuated from a matrix of response that addresses the class as audience” (Phelps, 2000).   By attending to these qualities rather than mere feedback, the focus shifts from the responder’s activity to the learner’s development through dialogic interaction.   

Bahktin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Riegel, K. (1979). Foundations of dialectical psychology. New York: Academic Press.

• expert knowledge of the subject matter • expert knowledge of the genre requirements• a high level of interest and engagement on the part of the responder •           accessibility, availability, and supportiveness • knowledge of the individual student’s writing strengths and weaknesses • continuity of interaction over several writing tasks • responders ability to give good comments, oral and written • a willingness to work through multiple drafts of the same paper • candor and trust (see also O’Neill & Fife, 1999 p. 196) • respect for the reader/responder's writing ability

Qualities of Effective Responders

Implications

Integrate writing instruction (WAC), especially as students progress towards professional activity.

Best accomplished at the departmental/faculty level

Implications

Consider the value of digital technologies in students’ overall developmental trajectories, i.e., look closer

Dialogic Interactions

•Open ended conversations•Teach and model for students how peer review works for professional writers•Use multiple channels for engaging in dialogic interaction•Engage early with writers•Positive and negative comments are useful when coupled with instruction

http://ssw.stanford.edu/

Thank you for your attentionprogers2@gmu.edu

http://mason.gmu.edu/~progers2/