The Writing Rope - Book Summary

Written by: Brianna Guild, MHSc SLP

Date: April 30, 2024

This post summarizes what I learned while reading The Writing Rope: A Framework for Explicit Writing Instruction in All Subjects by Joan Sedita. 

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Reasoning: This book is clearly written for classroom teachers, but as a Speech-Language Pathologist who works with literacy clients one-on-one, I still found this book to be very informative and filled with practical activities and strategies that I can implement in my literacy instruction. I immediately started putting what I learned into practice, especially when it comes to writing craft and syntax. I also like the provided organizers and writing templates! I will be continuing to use this book as a reference for writing instruction and supporting other educators.

Transcription

- Spelling: educators need to provide explicit instruction in orthography, how the English writing system works, which includes teaching students that letters and letter patterns represent the sounds of spoken English. Teaching this alphabetic principle includes: 1) Developing phonemic awareness - the ability to identify and manipulate the sounds in spoken English, 2) Learning phonics concepts, 3) Developing morphological awareness - awareness of words and word parts (e.g., roots, affixes) as meaningful units, 4) Explicitly teaching spelling.

- Early handwriting instruction: students need to learn correct pencil grasp, letter formation using writing strokes, and legibility which includes letter formation, letter spacing, letter alignment, letter size, and word spacing.

- Students need fluent, automatic spelling and handwriting/keyboarding skills to transcribe the words they want to write. Once they become automatic and fluent with spelling and writing, they can focus their attention on higher-level composing skills.

Writing Craft

- Writer's craft or writer's moves are the techniques and devices related to the use of language to create an effect on the reader. Instruction in writer’s craft includes:

• Task, Audience, and Purpose (TAP): knowledge about the TAP of a writing piece should affect choices about tone, word choice, level of detail, and presentation. Students should learn to adjust their writing based on the TAP by practicing writing for a variety of different audiences and purposes.

• Writer's voice: students should be supported to develop style, emotion, personality, and narrative point of view as a writer. This includes using language to describe action, setting, and characters' dialogue.

• Narrative point of view: the perspective from which the writer tells a story; first, second, and third person.

• Word choice: the writer's purposeful use of specific vocabulary and word placement to convey meaning and create an effect on the reader. Students should be encouraged to use specific, descriptive words that create pictures in the mind of the reader. They may benefit from practice generating general and then more specific parts of speech. They should also practice using sensory words for sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell.

• Literary devices: specific techniques a writer uses to convey meaning and allow for greater understanding of the text by the reader (e.g., allusion, dialogue, figurative language, foreshadowing, imagery).

- Mentor texts: an important part of teaching writer's craft is using mentor texts to explicitly show students how other authors use writer's craft (e.g., purposeful word choice or literary devices). When analyzing a mentor text, students read with the purpose of imitating something about writer's craft and learn about writing.

- Mentor text routine: 1) Educator selects texts where a given writing technique has clearly been used, 2) Students read the sample text(s), 3) Educator points out the target technique, 4) Educator leads a discussion about the technique and how students might use it, 5) Educator models incorporating the technique into a writing piece, 6) Students have an opportunity to use the technique in a writing piece, 7) Students have an opportunity to share and discuss their writing pieces, and receive feedback.

Text Structure

- Teaching paragraph structure: students should learn about the three types of sentences in a paragraph: a topic sentence states the paragraph's main idea, supporting sentences provide details related to the main idea, and a concluding sentence provides some closure to the paragraph. To scaffold paragraph structure:

• Use visuals (e.g., paragraph hamburger or paragraph temple).

• Use colour coding (e.g., different colours to highlight paragraph parts).

• Use instructional activities for main ideas (e.g., identify the topic sentence of a text, identify the sentence that does not belong based on a provided main idea, create a topic sentence for a text).

- Teaching patterns of organization: students should learn the 6 common text structures: description, explanation, sequence, cause & effect, compare & contrast, and problem & solution. To teach patterns of organization:

• Teach transition words and phrases to connect sentences, paragraphs, and sections. Students should also learn what transition words are used to signal certain patterns of organization.

• Use mentor texts for each pattern of organization that contain appropriate transition words and phrases.

• Provide paragraph templates for patterns of organization. The template should provide a reminder to include topic and concluding sentences as well as transition words and phrases to help students add details.

- Teaching writing types: students should learn to write informational, opinion/argument, and narrative pieces. It is recommended that students in elementary school spend an equal time writing these three types, while students in middle and high school spend less time on narratives (40% informational, 40% opinion/argument, 20% narrative). To teach the three writing types:

• Teach students to write introductions that include a hook/lead to get the reader interested, write detailed body paragraph(s) using topic webs to plan and organize writing, and write conclusions that emphasize or summarize information and end with a memorable statement or call to action.

• Use mentor texts to help students learn how to structure their own writing pieces.

• Provide writing templates for the three types of writing.

• Provide effective feedback that incorporates criterion-referenced feedback tools, such as checklists or rubrics (e.g., introduction, development of ideas, content, conclusion, sources, conventions, additional notes).

Syntax

- Syntax refers to the rules of grammar (e.g., the arrangement of words, phrases, and clauses that make up a sentence). When students are familiar with the rules of grammar, they can understand the interrelations between words in sentences. This familiarity is called syntactic awareness, and it allows students to listen to a sentence that is syntactically incorrect, recognize what is wrong, and fix it.

- Teach sentence elements and structures: educators should have knowledge of and teach students the basic sentence elements and structures including subjects and predicates, independent and subordinate clauses, and simple, compound, complex and compound-complex sentence structures.

• Sentence basics - two sentence parts: teach students the two basic sentence parts that are required to write a complete simple sentence: a naming part (subject) and an action part (predicate). Three example activities: sentence parts cards, add a sentence part, and sentence or fragment?

• Sentence basics - four types of sentences: teach students the four basic types of sentences (declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory) in order to vary the sentence structure in their writing pieces. Five example activities: sort sentences into sentence types, identify the sentence type and add punctuation, change the sentence to a different type, create and write sentences, and find examples in text.

- Syntactic awareness and sentence elaboration activities should be used to provide students with opportunities to manipulate and add words to sentences. Three example activities: sentence scrambles (rearrange words into a grammatically correct sentence without deleting or adding words), sentence combining (combine two or more short sentences into a grammatically correct sentence), sentence elaboration (activities that promote writing longer, more detailed sentences such as using "W" questions or expanded kernel sentences).

- Teach sentence writing in context using models: instructional time should be focused on applying syntactic awareness to students' writing in context, rather than on memorizing and labeling parts of speech, sentence elements, or sentence types. When students read and revise their own sentences, they should identify sentences that do not sound right, and rewrite incomplete sentences or elaborate on simple sentences.

Critical Thinking

- The Process Writing Routine is a four-stage model for teaching the writing process: Think, Plan, Write, Revise. Recommendation for how much time to spend in each stage: 40% Think/Plan, 20% Write, 40% Revise (more time at the Think and Plan stages will save time and lead to less editing in the Revise stage).

• Strategy for Think stage: use two-column notes to differentiate main ideas versus details.

• Strategy for Plan stage: use topic webs to plan introduction, body, conclusion for expository writing or beginning, middle, end for narrative writing.

• Strategy for Write stage: use writing templates for the appropriate type of writing.

• Strategy for Revise stage: two rounds of revision = 1) Revise content and clarity (e.g., sentence elaboration and combining), 2) Revise conventions (e.g., capitalization, punctuation, organization, and spelling).

- Summary writing: research has consistently identified summarizing as one of the most important strategies for improving writing and supporting reading comprehension. Summary writing supports critical thinking, and requires higher-order processing skills to support selection (deciding what is important) and reduction (condensing information). Here are seven way to scaffold summary instruction:

• Initially teach students to write summaries based on easy and short texts.

• Provide a set of steps for how to write a summary (e.g., read text, identify main ideas, write main ideas in phrase form, begin writing an introductory statement, turn main ideas into sentences that include important details, combine into one or more paragraphs, and include transitions to connect sentences and paragraphs).

• Scaffold the text (e.g., educator annotates the text, which might include breaking up longer text sources, pointing out headings, and providing clues about the main ideas).

• Use two-column notes to plan (e.g., list main ideas in left column, and one or two details in right column).

• Teach transition words and phrases that are useful for connecting sentences, paragraphs, and sections of text.

• Provide a partially completed summary where students must fill in the blanks in the text.

• Provide a summary writing template.

- Writing from text sources: writing about a text should support comprehension because it provides students with an opportunity to think critically about what they read (e.g., connect and analyze ideas from the text). Students should be taught how to respond to narrative texts (e.g., write their feelings, reactions, and questions during or after reading a narrative text) and expository texts (e.g., write informational or opinion/argument pieces after reading an expository text).

If you want more information on The Writing Rope framework, and more details about activities and strategies for each component of the framework, I highly recommend you check out the full book!

Reference:
Sedita, J. (2022). The Writing Rope: A Framework for Explicit Writing Instruction in All Subjects. Brookes Publishing.