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Best Practices in Writing for ELLs

2. Struggling Writers and ELLs

ELL students share the traits of struggling writers. Among them:

  • A lack of awareness of what constitutes "good" or quality writing;
  • Lack of understanding of genre-specific text structures, such as plot, setting, theme, etc.
  • Lack of goal setting in writing, or understanding of the relevance of goal setting.
  • Limited vocabulary;
  • Poor sentence structure (i.e., phonology, morphology, and syntax);
  • Poor organization, or no organization;
  • Lack of insight about, or sensitivity to, audience needs, perspectives, and who an audience is relative to what they are writing.
  • Lack of writing voice.
  • Inability to write with fluency, or generate their own ideas.
  • Feeling of insecurity about their own writing and ability to generate or articulate ideas.

Students with writing challenges also demonstrate a lack in skills that include:

  • Planning before or during writing;
  • Lack of drafting, editing, and peer review in order to reach a finished product;
  • Poor spelling, handwriting, grammar and punctuation;
  • Revision focuses on the superficial aspects of writing, spelling, and grammar.
  • Do not analyze or reflect on writing;
  • Poor attention and concentration; 
  • Exhibit motor integration weaknesses and/or fine motor challenges.

The above may seem fruitless or exhaustive, leaving teachers wondering, "Where do I begin?" Often, it is as simple as establishing writing routines. Routines provide a sense of control and structure, and students who struggle in writing need this before any skills reinforcement can settle in.

The Relevance of Writing Routines 

Responsive writing lessons should have a minimum of four parts:

  • Mini-lesson (15 minutes) 

    Teacher-directed lesson on writing skills, composition strategies, and crafting elements via mini-lessons and lots of modeling. Modeling can take place on a Smartboard, Elmo, or overhead projector with the teacher writing alongside students, preferably on-the-spot, but it can also be planned and prepared ahead. 

  • Check-in (5 minutes)

    Teachers check-in on students to find out where they are in the writing process, such as in planning, drafting, revising, peer review, or editing.  

  • Independent Writing and Conferring (30 minutes)

    Teachers meet with students as they write independently, or even when peer coaching, to revise, edit, or consult. 

  • Peer Coaching (10 minutes)

    Students identify and articulate goals for their writing, and trouble spots they want feedback on. Exchanging this feedback with peers is pivotal to development of that internal editor that will become their own lifeline when writing on-demand, such as for a state assessment or college entrance exam. Once they identify what they want help with and where they want to go in their writing effort, peers can aid in listening or reading the drafts and providing focused feedback (Ruckdeschel, 2010).

  • Publishing Celebration (occasionally)

    Students need multiple venues to validate their writing; to make it useful, purposeful, and to take it to the next applicable level: publication.  Whether it be reading poetry aloud in a cafe, publishing on a school blog, a newspaper or magazine - students need real venues to validate their writing effort, and the inside place that effort is rooted in: their souls.

See Atwell, 1998; Calkins, 1994; Culham, 2003; Elbow, 1998a, 1998b; Graves, 1994; Spandel, 2001; Troia & Graham, 2003