Supporting Visualization and Revision to Improve Expository Writing in 6th Grade Classes
Submitted by:
Inga Harren
Abstract:
This paper reports on changes in text-referenced composition by 6th graders who received visualization support while reading and writing as well as guidance from a novel tool offering counseling during the revision process.
Within the German secondary school system, it is common to combine assigned readings from multiple sources with written reports requiring a synthesis of these readings. Such reports afford knowledge integration, as well as the opportunity to develop academic writing skills in synthesis, comparison and evaluation of multiple perspectives. However, for 6th graders, it is often a challenge to choose wording and syntactical structures that result in comprehensive, coherent and well-formulated texts while capturing the essence of the original content without plagiarizing. Even though such academic writing is crucial to success across secondary school subjects (e.g., biology, geography or history), and continues to be important in vocational schools, at university, and beyond, many students continue to struggle with writing throughout their academic career.
During the reading process, the students in the treatment group inserted content elements from their reading into pre-structured visualizations – if necessary with feedback. Based on these visualizations, they wrote their first drafts. Following this, the students got further feedback concerning (1) content and (2) comprehensibility based on functional grammar (Hoffmann, 2014). They received feedback codes, which led to more extensive linguistic support (e.g. with grammatical alternatives and examples).
This report details 10 case studies of students drawn from a larger intervention study of seven mainstream 6th grade German classes at a German comprehensive school (N = 140). The results presented in this paper are based on an examination of linguistic elements in pre- and post-test data, and a review of students’ progress over a nine-week period. Future analyses will situate the results of these students within the larger intervention sample using vocabulary, reading, working memory, and linguistic background data.
Keywords: revision, functional grammar, expository writing, writing plan, visualization
References:
Hoffmann, Ludger (2014): Deutsche Grammatik: Grundlagen für Lehrerausbildung, Schule, Deutsch als Zweitsprache und Deutsch als Fremdsprache. [German grammar: Basics for teacher education, school, German as a second language and German as a foreign language]. 2nd Edition. Berlin: ESV.