Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively

Recommendation 3 

(continued)

When providing feedback, use the student’s 

strength in one area to build on the area of 

need. For example, if a student uses transitions 

well in informational writing but does not use 

them at all in argumentative writing, highlight 

the transitions used in the student’s informa-

tional writing piece and show where transitions 

are needed in his or her argumentative writing 

piece. By providing specific examples, teachers 

can help students leverage their strengths in 

one area to improve their skills in another.

Have students provide feedback to their 

peers, benefiting both the students provid-

ing the feedback and the students receiving 

it. Students may be able to identify problems 

in peers’ writing more easily than they can 

in their own. Additionally, when students 

provide written feedback and assessment to 

peers, their comments and observations may 

enhance their understanding of their own 

writing. Have students work together in pairs 

to brainstorm ways to improve their writing 

assignments based on feedback received from 

the teacher. (See Recommendation 1b for more 

opportunities for students to reflect upon their 

own work and their peers’.)

Finally, have students maintain portfolios with 

examples of their work throughout the year, 

and evaluate the portfolios periodically to 

identify trends and continuing needs. In addi-

tion to teacher review, students should review 

their own portfolios to see their growth. Port-

folios provide a more complete view of stu-

dents’ instructional needs, as they can express 

skills differently in different forms of writing. 

Their portfolios may include writing samples 

across disciplines, especially when teams of 

teachers are working together.

3.  Regularly monitor students’ progress while teaching writing strategies and skills.

Monitor students’ progress at regular inter-

vals to accurately track progress and adapt 

instruction as necessary. Collect multiple 

data points across different writing skills and 

forms of writing to build a complete picture 

of student progress. The frequency of moni-

toring will depend on students’ progress and 

the learning goals, and requires balancing 

the need for information with the burden on 

teachers and students. For broader, compre-

hensive goals, such as improving students’ 

use of voice or the overall persuasiveness of 

their arguments, checking student progress 

at the beginning, middle, and end of the 

semester enables mid-semester adjustment 

and provides enough time for instruction to 

impact learning. For intermediate or simpler 

goals, such as richness of detail for a specific 

piece of text or clarity of an idea in text, 

administering daily exit slips enables teach-

ers to adjust each lesson and efficiently verify 

that students adequately master a skill before 

the next skill is introduced.

If the data collected reveal that students’ 

skills vary for a particular goal, create small 

groups of students who have the same needs 

and regularly monitor their progress. Small 

groups should be organized on a particular 

topic or need and remain relatively fluid so 

students work together on common skills 

or processes with one group of students 

and move on to other groups as their needs 

change. If students in a group do not provide 

effective feedback to improve each other’s 

drafts, consider adjusting the composition 

of the groups to include at least one student 

with strong editing skills.

Use tracking tools, such as the tracking sheet 

in Example 3.6, to provide a visual representa-

tion of student growth and areas for improve-

ment. Tracking student progress digitally 

enables teachers to easily manipulate the data 

and share it with students and parents.

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