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Written Expression: Scaffolded Strategies for Beginning Writers – 10 weeks – Summer Online 2024

3 graduate credits provided by Fitchburg State University.

This professional development course explores diagnostic assessment, process writing, and specific instructional strategies for teaching basic writing skills to struggling writers, particularly students with language-based learning disabilities (LBLD), which fall under the diagnostic umbrella of specific learning disabilities (SLD). This course is intended for educators who wish to help students develop grammar knowledge and build expertise at the word choice and sentence structure levels before stringing sentences together in various forms of written expression. Content would be primarily beneficial for teachers of younger students, but it would also benefit those who teach older writers who need remediation in beginning skills. As a result of the learning experiences in this course, participants will be more competent in their ability to:

• Identify the hidden demands of writing and understand how they impact the skills of students with specific learning disabilities, such as LBLD
• Assess student strengths and weaknesses with written expression as a means of informing instruction
• Scaffold the process of written expression through targeted instruction at the word, sentence, and paragraph levels
• Employ effective instructional strategies to help students with diagnosed learning disabilities build and develop their writing skills
• Develop a thematic unit for teaching the writing skills that are included in the course

The course is divided into six modules over 10 weeks:

• Introduction to Teaching Writing provides an overview of the hidden demands that make writing a challenging task for students with learning disabilities. This module also introduces diagnostic assessment, process writing, and an appropriate hierarchy of writing skill instruction.
• Teaching Basic Parts of Speech helps educators understand how to provide targeted instruction in nouns, verbs, prepositional phrases, and adjectives.
• Sentence Level Instruction introduces the construction of kernel sentences, as well as other advanced sentence techniques and more complex parts of speech.
• Expository Paragraph Instruction breaks down the elements of a paragraph and provides strategies for helping students craft logical, organized, detailed paragraphs.
• Multi-Paragraph & Narrative Writing applies the same process for paragraph writing to longer writing assignments, as well as introduces the new strategies necessary for stringing paragraphs together.
• Revision & Diagnostic Assessment emphasizes strategies for making the revision process more tangible, as well as reviews the process for assessing diagnostic writing samples and connects the writing process to the Landmark Teaching principles™

Specific Assignments:

• Pre and Post-Assessments: These ungraded questionnaires will be used to self-assess knowledge and application of course content.
• Quizzes: The quizzes will assess comprehension of the content from the required reading. The quizzes will be automatically graded within the course platform. Although participants must earn an 80% or higher to move on to the next section of the course, there are unlimited attempts allowed.
• Discussion Posts: The discussions will require participants to post an initial response and reply to at least one other post.
• Writing Assignments: Writing assignments will ask students to reflect on course readings, as well as include independent research to back up their points.
• Application assignments: The assignments in each module will require participants to put theory into practice as they read and follow specific directions and use rubrics provided as guidelines for format, length, and quality expectations.
• Final Project: At the end of the course, all application assignments from individual modules will be pulled together to create an instructional unit for classroom use. Additional assignments will also be created to complete this final project.

MATERIALS

Both of the following texts are required:

Jennings, T.M. & Haynes, C.W. (2018). From talking to writing: Strategies for scaffolding narrative and expository writing. Prides Crossing, MA: Landmark School Outreach Program.

Mather, N., Wendling, B.J. & Roberts, R. (2009). Writing assessment and instruction for students with learning disabilities (second edition). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

GRADUATE CREDIT

Graduate credit is offered through Fitchburg State University and is included in the course fee. Once you register for graduate credit through Fitchburg, the grad credit portion of the course fee ($295) is non-refundable. Details about the graduate credit including timelines to register and refund policies will be embedded in the “Course Welcome” module of the online course.

See our FAQ page for specific information about our online courses.