Efforts to Solve the Problem
Much research effort has been invested in exploring writing and the writing process
(Hayes & Flower, 1986). Groundbreaking teachers and writers in the 1970s broke from
traditionalist views of writing instruction. Peter Elbow (1973) and Donald Murray (1968),
teachers of writing and also writers themselves, explored their own writing processes and
opened up new avenues for writing instruction. In 1974, James Gray established the Bay
Area Writing Project on the campus of University of California, Berkeley. Gray was
interested in developing more effective professional development for teachers of writing.
The Bay Area Writing Project became The National Writing Project (NWP, 2012). Since the
1970s, much research has attempted to tackle the problem of mediocre and sub-par
writing and writing instruction in United States schools. In the 1980s, Hayes and Flower
explored through protocol analysis the strategies used by expert writers in their writing
process in order to better help struggling writers (Hayes & Flower, 1986, p. 1107).
Researchers such as Heidi Goodrich Andrade (2005) have done much research on the use
of rubrics to enhance writing instruction. Andrade’s research has shown that if used in
classroom instruction rather than simply as scoring guides, rubrics help students
understand and focus writing goals. Furthermore, if co-created by students and the
teacher, rubrics engage students in the evaluative process of models of both good and bad
writing and help students better understand the assignment goal (Andrade, 2005, p. 29).
Steve Graham and his colleagues (1993) have done extensive research with explicit
instruction of writing strategies combined with self-regulation of thinking behaviors.
Graham and Harris’ (1993) Self-Regulated Strategy Development model (SRSD) shows that
student writing improves when students receive explicit instruction in using successful
planning, drafting, and revising strategies that scaffold thinking processes (p. 177).
