Talent Development Writing helps teachers think differently about some aspects of writing instruction. It is a model meant to assist teachers with instructional planning, not a lock-step program designed to remove teachers’ thinking from the planning process. Parts of the model will be familiar to most Language Arts teachers. The “writing process” remains, but Talent Development Writing focuses on the process of teaching writing. We contend that the meaningfulness of the writing process lies not so much in the process itself but in what a teacher does prior to presenting a writing assignment and between the steps in the writing process. The parts of the model that differ from a traditional approach to writing instruction are those that we think will help teachers to move students toward proficiency in writing. Because the approach of this program differs considerably from much current practice, the components of the model have been defined below.

Cooperative Learning– using learning teams to foster among students an understanding of the concept of audience that is so critical to effective communication, yet so challenging to convey to young writers, whose objectivity regarding their own writing is still in development.

Fine writers should split hairs together and sit side by side, like friendly apes, to pick fleas from each other’s fur.Logan Pearsall Smith

Analysis of Assignments– determining the kinds of knowledge or prerequisite skills student writers must have prior to responding to a given writing assignment. These prerequisite skills must be taught to enable students to respond to the writing assignment adequately and effectively.

Research over the last two and a half decades has indicated the benefits of involving students in what I will call the general writing processes. Even more important for substantial growth in writing is learning the more specific procedures required in a full range of particular writing tasks.

George Hillocks, 1995

Modeling– standing before students, “showing” rather than “telling” them how to approach a writing assignment. Students observe as the teacher “thinks aloud” while he/she writes.

The first time I stood before my students, thinking aloud as I wrote, was one of the scariest experiences I had as a teacher. I got used to it, though, and I never had more fun in the classroom. I never saw my students become more motivated to write, and I would never teach writing any other way.

An Anonymous Teacher of Writing

Springboard Activities– activities designed to provide experiences that students would otherwise have to imagine in order to respond to a writing assignment. They may also cause students to think in ways that will lead them to approach a particular assignment more effectively. Role-playing, sensory exercises, simulations, and opportunities to read about and discussion issues pertaining to their writing are examples of springboard activities.

Current research on cognition states that understanding involves students in actively constructing meaning based on their experiences. Knowledge acquired through memorizing information and procedures is not permanent and is generally retained only until it is tested or until its use is ended. If such knowledge is not fully understood, it is easily dislodged. Charlotte Danielson, ASCD

Mini-Lessons– twenty-minute lessons used to address students’ needs in a variety of areas (i.e., usage, mechanics, style, introduction of a new concept, etc.) and intended to be applied to a piece of writing on which students are working.

Just as the art instructor sometimes pulls students who are working at their separate places in the studio together in order to demonstrate a new technique, so too, writing teachers often gather their students for brief whole-class meetings. I call these gatherings mini-lessons.

Lucy McCormick Calkins

Writing Process– pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing.

Just get it down on paper, and then we’ll see what to do about it.

Maxwell Perkins

Conferences– frequent, meaningful exchanges between teacher and student and between student partners to provide the writer support in his/her writing attempts.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read. Samuel Johnson

Training in Talent Development Writing

TDW training begins with discussion of current practices in the teaching of writing and what those practices have yielded. Modeling (as opposed to just presenting to students completed examples of good writing), analyzing writing assignments, and designing springboard activities are the focal points of training. Of all the components of the program, these are often least familiar to teachers. During training, teachers are led through a simulation of the entire process of teaching writing, after which they work together in practicing the most challenging aspects of this approach to writing instruction. In addition to these components, training includes teaching social skills, organizing and managing cooperative writing teams, and conducting writing mini-lessons. As is true of all Talent Development instructional components, coaching by Hopkins facilitators follows training for teachers learning to implement Talent Development Writing.

For more information, contact Kathy Nelson at

Talent Development Middle Grades Program■ Center for Social Organization of Schools

Johns Hopkins University

3003 N. Charles Street, Suite 200 ■ Baltimore, Maryland 21218

410-516-6431

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