Do your colleagues or students submit writing that is unclear or riddled with grammatical errors? It's a common experience and could stem from running short on ideas.
However, this challenge also relates to the cognitive demands of writing. Writing is not just about putting words on paper; it requires a fluency in English sentence structure which many of us lack, as it typically has not been taught in school.
For students, these challenges can be even more daunting. Research shows that effective writing necessitates a strong understanding about how sentences and paragraphs work.
Students who struggle with these concepts may find themselves unable to express their ideas clearly on paper.
This struggle is not just about creativity or expression - it’s about mastering the structure and organisation of writing, which is different to spoken communication.
In our recent research into national writing performance over time, we found a distinct gender gap for writing performance, with boys outperformed by girls particularly in grammar and punctuation, and falling behind girls at a faster rate in the transition from primary to secondary school.
This period often marks a decline in literacy outcomes, particularly in writing. It’s crucial to provide ongoing support during this transition to ensure that students get the support they need.
To refine your own writing or that of your students, consider enhancing your understanding and control of sentence structure.
The Writing Revolution® is an organisation that has promoted an almost renaissance of sentence strategies to improve writing: expand your sentences to add depth and clarity, eliminate fragments for coherence, and incorporate sophisticated grammar elements like appositives and conjunctions.
For example, instead of ‘They missed the deadline. It was unfortunate,’ try ‘Missing the deadline, the student faced unfortunate consequences'.
Similarly, writers can use appositives to provide additional information, such as ‘The novel, a classic of 20th-century literature, explores themes of alienation and identity,’ rather than writing the same information as two separate sentences.
By mastering such sentence writing techniques and fixes, writers can enrich their work and convey complex ideas more effectively.
For educators, there are several strategies that can employed to help students overcome these challenges.
Teachers should also show students how to break writing down into manageable chunks, such as brainstorming ideas, drafting, revising, and editing.
Also, fostering a deep understanding of the subject matter can greatly enhance your writing or that of your students.
This can be achieved by engaging in extensive reading and discussion of the content and gradually building intimate knowledge of the topic over time.
By connecting writing to the demands of our work, we can put into practice these understandings into real writing tasks.
What strategies have you found helpful in improving writing? How do help overcome writer's block? Share your thoughts below!
Want to learn more? Find me at nathanielswain.com or consider some of the new La Trobe SOLAR Lab Short Courses on Writing.
