Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively

THE

WRITING

PROCESS

Purpose and Audience  

DRAFTING

EVALUATING

 REVISING

EDITING

PLANNING

 GOAL 

SETTING

their writing. During the drafting stage, strat-

egies help students create strong sentences 

and well-structured paragraphs. Strategies 

provide students with tools to evaluate, 

revise, and edit their plans and their writing.

This part of the recommendation focuses on 

teaching cognitive strategies, both to improve 

students’ writing and encourage strategic 

thinking. Teaching students to use cognitive 

strategies is one way to develop their strate-

gic thinking skills, ultimately helping them to 

write more effectively. Example 1.1 illustrates 

how using one cognitive strategy (Know-Want 

to Know-Learn or K-W-L) can lead to strategic 

thinking. Teachers need to explicitly instruct 

students on writing strategies and how to 

select the most appropriate strategy. Eventu-

ally, as students become experienced writers, 

they will use these strategies automatically to 

write effectively.

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