The students had obviously spent several class periods working on the assignment. The topics were very similar, yet the results very different. In both classes, students had written drafts, talked with other students and/or the teacher about their writing, then rewritten their pieces to a "final" product. Yet one set of papers was lively and well written; the kind of papers where readers wondered what would come next and were disappointed when the last paper in the set had been read. The other class' papers were predictable, each one sounding similar to the next. What made the written products differ so greatly?

This last year, a team of teachers from the National Writing Project and researchers from Educational Testing Service have been looking again at student classroom writings, what students said about the assignments they were responding to, and teacher interviews that were collected as part of the 1998 National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) Special Study on Classroom Writing . Why was it that the students from some the 100 fourth grade and some of the 100 eighth grade classrooms produced clear, precise and lively writing in response to some assignments and not to other assignments? While this research team focused on the characteristics of the writing assignments, the team also reviewed, discussed and debated how it was that some "final" products looked so much like earlier drafts (errors and all), while other "final" products were clearly better written and "cleaner" than earlier attempts. After looking carefully at about 60 classes from around the country, a few patterns seemed to emerge.

FOCUSING ON CONTENT
More effective writing assignments were rooted in a particular topic and required that students interact with that content from the first prewriting activity to the final draft. The content of these stronger assignments provided enough substance for students to interact with. They required that students transform knowledge from different sources. Often stronger assignments asked students to reflect, observe, question, investigate, analyze, synthesize or hypothesize about reading materials or other outside sources (such as interviews, viewing films, or observing nature).

For example, an assignment that resulted in weaker writing asked students to read a story and describe one of the characters. Students were, in effect, simply locating and restating information. Whereas, an assignment that elicited stronger writing asked students to read a story and compare the motivation of two characters. Such an assignment required that students examine the characters and select information about each character for comparison. Students had to analyze and transform the information from the story.

Another assignment that resulted in stronger writing had students interview an older relative and tell about three stages in that person's life. This assignment required interaction with the content; students had to make sense of what they’d heard. A similar assignment asked students to report on an interview they had conducted. Most of the responses to this assignment simply listed what was said. This assignment did not require students to explain, question or reflect on what they’d heard. However, assignments that asked students to move beyond simple reporting often resulted in products with a more genuine, individual voice and perspective.

Moreover, intentional work on revising the content of a piece tended to result in stronger writing. Such focused work sometimes included working on parts of an assignment separately (e.g. working on just the lead sentence, or revising only a particular paragraph). Focusing attention on refining the content was essential because once attention was drawn to issues of format (number of sentences, paragraphs, references, etc.) or technical correctness (punctuation, spelling, grammar, etc.), the content of writing seldom changed from one draft to the next. Getting students to first clarify what they were trying to say before turning attention to how to say it seemed to make for stronger writing.

COMMUNICATING WITH AN AUDIENCE
Besides focusing on the content of what was said, stronger pieces resulted when writing was a genuine act of communication; when the writer was conveying information that the audience might not know or understand in the same way the writer did. Stronger writing resulted when students explained unique information or an individual perspective to an audience (such as how to do something at which the student was expert). Weaker assignments often asked students to describe something that was common knowledge (such as opening a locker) or to suggest a solution to a real problem in a form that was artificial (such as letter to the president or principal that was never intended to be sent).

In order to focus on the act of communicating, students had to have an authentic audience for the writing with opportunities to share, read, or send writing to the intended audience. Stronger writing assignments went beyond the usual practice of specifying a potential audience (such as "write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper" or "write a children's story") into communicating with a "real" audience. At times, classmates and the teacher acted as the audience.

One way teachers helped students hone in on communication was by providing opportunities for students to discuss on-going work. Usually these discussions happened between students or between the writer and the teacher. At times, students read drafts out loud to the class or broader school community. In the cases of written products based on interviews, writers often checked out a draft with the person they had interviewed. Presenting a draft provided the student writers with an opportunity to interact with an audience in order to identify places in the writing that were not clear or ideas that were not understood as written. Following up with occasions to rewrite the piece to make the message clearer (more than to correct errors), and to get feedback from readers again before the final draft, resulted in stronger writing.

Another way teachers helped direct students' attention toward communicating ideas was to engage students in various activities that would highlight what and how sections of the paper were to communicate with an audience. For example, in one assignment, students were to describe something at which they were expert and explain it in such a way that the reader (a classmate or the teacher) would understand how to perform the task. Students chose to describe many activities including how to bake cookies, or teach a dog to do tricks, or play a musical instrument, or make a jump shot in basketball. After students had selected their area of expertise, the teacher conducted a lesson, including modeling, about how to write effective leads. Then students practiced writing leads and opening paragraphs. The teacher conducted lessons on, and students practiced, writing transition sentences, clear directions and sequencing steps, and a closing paragraph. At each stage, the emphasis was on making the writing clear for a reader.

Teachers sometimes stressed communication through their scoring criteria. In the example in Figure 1, among the criteria that an eighth grade teacher used for evaluating a research paper (I Search) were criteria intended to focus the student capturing a reader's attention and writing from a personal perspective. Note the attention to the audience in the criteria for the introduction and the conclusion: "an effective hook is used to capture the reader’s attention"  and "the ending leaves the reading with something to think about." The "organization" criteria provides guidelines for the presentation while still focusing on the message the writer has to convey to the reader ("What I Knew, What I Wanted to Know, What I Found Out, and What I Learned"). Strong attention is given to presenting ideas in an individual writer’s voice. In the "research" section, the criteria require, " research is an effective supplement to, but not a substitute for, your own ideas." The "personality" criteria state, "the author’s voice is clear in tone and point of view—it doesn’t sound as if it had been copied word for word from your sources".  For this assignment, the scoring criteria focused the writer on clearly presenting the content as well as the communicating with the audience.
 

CONCLUSION
Getting students to revise and edit their work for quality cannot be separated from focusing on the content (what is being said about what) and purpose (using writing to communicate ideas to an audience) for the writing. Strong writers understand that effective writing presents ideas clearly and coherently; yet too often students mistake correctness for quality writing. It isn't that correctness is unimportant, for surely using conventions and language that readers understand is essential in strong writing. But correctly written prose that does not express ideas clearly and convincingly is not strong writing. Therefore, balancing how to engage students in expressing ideas and expressing them clearly (and correctly) so that the audience will understand is the challenge.

In this study of classroom writing assignments, the research team found that the qualities of writing assignments strongly influenced the writing outcomes. Stronger assignments engaged students in interpreting what they read and/or experienced, and transforming knowledge in some way. Strong assignments also reminded students that the overarching purpose of their writing was to communicate to an audience.
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For more information about this study on classroom writing assignments, contact Barbara Storms (bstorms@csuhayward.edu) or Claudia Gentile (cgentile@ets.org) or review the materials that will be posted on the NCES web page (www.nces.gov) in 2002.
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Author notes Barbara Storms (Hayward, CA) was a researcher at ETS at the time of this study. She is an NWP fellow, and a former secondary English teacher in San Diego. She now teaches at CSU Hayward. Anastasia Riazantseva (Albany, NJ) was a post-doctoral fellow at ETS specializing in language processes and acquisition at the time of this study. She is currently a professor at SUNY Albany. Claudia Gentile (Princeton, NJ) is a researcher at ETS who headed the 1990 and 1992 NAEP special studies of classroom writing

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