Improving the compositions of students with learning disabilities using a strategy involving product and process goal setting.

Improving the compositions of students with learning disabilities using a strategy involving product and process goal setting. In recent years, one of the most influential conceptualizations ofthe process of composing com��pose?v. com��posed, com��pos��ing, com��pos��esv.tr.1. To make up the constituent parts of; constitute or form: is that writing is a problem-solving task(Flower & Hayes, 1977). Most writing tasks that children areassigned as��sign?tr.v. as��signed, as��sign��ing, as��signs1. To set apart for a particular purpose; designate: assigned a day for the inspection.2. in school, however, can best be described as ill-definedproblems; the rules, or methods, for completing the task are oftenunclear to students and they may have no systematic way to tell whethera particular solution is correct. Two strategies that can be helpful inworking with ill-defined problems are to break the problem into severalsubproblems or add more structure to the situation. To illustrate thefirst procedure, a writing assignment might be subdivided into severalsubproblems: (a) planning what to say in advance, (b) writing the paper,and (c) polishing it by making final changes. By treating the problemas several subproblems, students find it less overwhelming. The second procedure involves limiting or restricting the possiblesolution to the problem. For example, a writer could conduct ameans-ends analysis figuring out what the final form of the paper willlook like (product goals) and the means that will be used to reach theselected "ends" (process goals). By adding more structure tothe problem, it becomes better defined and more manageable. In the present study, students with learning disabilities, who werepoor writers, were taught to use a planning and writing strategy basedon both procedures. The strategy was structured around a means-endsanalysis; the student set product goals for what the paper wouldaccomplish and contain and further articulated process goals for howthis would be accomplished. The writing task was also broken down intoseveral related subproblems designed to facilitate accomplishment of thegoals: * Generate product and process goals. * Develop notes. * Organize notes. * Write and continue planning. * Evaluate success in obtaining goals. A strategy of this nature should be particularly effective withstudents with learning disabilities for several reasons. First,goal-setting is not only a critical component of effective writing(Hayes & Flower, 1986), but the beneficial effects of setting goalson task performance is one of the most robust and replicable findings inpsychological research (Locke, Shaw, Saari, & Latham, 1981). Goalsaffect students' performance by influencing what is attended to,mobilizing mobilizing,v 1. freeing or making loose and able to move.2. observing any ongoing movements in a client's body, whether small or large, assisted or not, that identify strengths and weaknesses, as well as the client's physical and effort, increasing persistence (1) In a CRT, the time a phosphor dot remains illuminated after being energized. Long-persistence phosphors reduce flicker, but generate ghost-like images that linger on screen for a fraction of a second. , and motivating thedevelopment and use of strategies for accomplishing the target goals.Thus, goal setting appears to be especially beneficial for students withlearning disabilities, who are often described as unable or unwilling tomake active academic responses and deficient de��fi��cientadj.1. Lacking an essential quality or element.2. Inadequate in amount or degree; insufficient.deficienta state of being in deficit. in strategy deployment(Harris, 1982). A second reason that the strategy should be successful is that isprovides students with a mechanism for executing and managing many ofthe mental operations considered important to planning and writing text(Graham & Harris, 1989a). Specifically, students set goals aimed atgenerating, framing, and planning text; and the strategy provides amechanism for regulating the writing process. Students with learningdisabilities often have difficulty with each of the processes. In termsof content generation, these students do not appear to be especiallysuccessful in employing strategies for self-directed memory search.Thomas, Englert, and Gregg (1987) found that students with learningdisabilities were unable to produce multiple written statements aboutfamiliar topics, whereas others (Graham, 1990; MacArthur & Graham,1987) have noted that students with learning disabilities possess muchmore knowledge than is reflected in their written products. Students with learning disabilities also appear to have somedifficulty in using genre-specific knowledge to retrieve and framerelevant information. they frequently fail to include critical elementssuch as how a story ends (Graham & Harris, 1989b; Nodine, Barenbaum,& Newcomer, 1985) or the premise and conclusion to their essays(Graham, 1990). Furthermore, heir planning of prose can best bedescribed as what Scardamalia and Bereiter (1986) term "knowledgetelling": simply converting the writing assignment into aquestion-answering task, telling whatever comes to mind and thenterminating their response or answering in short choppy chop��py?1?adj. chop��pi��er, chop��pi��estHaving many small waves; rough: choppy seas.[From chop1. phrases (Englert& Raphael, 1988; Thomas et al., 1987). Finally, Englert, Raphael,Fear, and Anderson Anderson, river, CanadaAnderson,river, c.465 mi (750 km) long, rising in several lakes in N central Northwest Territories, Canada. It meanders north and west before receiving the Carnwath River and flowing north to Liverpool Bay, an arm of the Arctic (1988) found that students with learning disabilitieswere less aware than their normally achieving counterparts of how tomonitor the quality of text or control and regulate the writing process. Strategy training has become a popular means for attacking theacademic problems of students with learning disabilities, especially inthe area of writing (Wong, Harris, & Graham, in press). In additionto our program of research (see Graham & Harris, 1989a), Deshler andhis colleagues have developed writing strategies for adolescents withlearning disabilities (Schumaker, Deshler, Alley alleyan area in a cow barn identified by its particular purpose such as a loafing alley, a walking alley or feeding alley. , & Warner, 1983);and Englert and her colleagues have field tested a writing-strategiescurriculum with elementary students with learning disabilities (Englertet al., in press). The strategy examined in this study differs from ourprevious work and that of the other investigators in that the strategyis primarily structured around the goal-setting process. In learning the strategy, students in this study were first taughtto use it when writing argumentative Controversial; subject to argument.Pleading in which a point relied upon is not set out, but merely implied, is often labeled argumentative. Pleading that contains arguments that should be saved for trial, in addition to allegations establishing a Cause of Action or essays; however, generalization gen��er��al��i��za��tionn.1. The act or an instance of generalizing.2. A principle, a statement, or an idea having general application. tostory production as well as maintenance over time were alsoinvestigated. Data were further collected on changes in students'written products (especially in terms of the target goals selected),approach to writing, knowledge about composing, attitudes towardwriting, and self-efficacy self-efficacy (selfˈ-eˑ·fi·k . In addition, evidence concerningstudents' use of the strategy and social validity were obtained.Finally, students did all of their composing on a word processor. METHODS Participants Participants were four fifth-grade students with learningdisabilities (Merry, Sam (1) (Security Accounts Manager) The part of Windows NT that manages the database of usernames, passwords and permissions. A SAM resides in each server as well as in each domain controller. See PDC and trust relationship. , Pippin Pippin.For Frankish rulers thus named, use Pepin.A multimedia game and Internet machine from Apple that used the PowerPC architecture and a limited version of the Mac OS. , and Frodo) receiving resource roomservices in an inner-city elementary school elementary school:see school. in the northeastern UnitedStates United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . These four participatns were the only fifth-grade students inthe resource room that met the following stepwise stepwiseincremental; additional information is added at each step.stepwise multiple regressionused when a large number of possible explanatory variables are available and there is difficulty interpreting the partial regression criteria:identification as learning disabled by the school district, IQ scoresbetween 85 and 115 on an individually administered intelligence test(WISC-R or Slosson Intelligence Test), achievement at least 2 yearsbelow age or grade level in one or more academic areas as measured bythe Woodcock woodcock:see snipe. woodcockAny of five species (family Scolopacidae) of plump, sharp-billed migratory birds of damp, dense woodlands in North America, Europe, and Asia. Johnson Psychoeducational psychoeducational (sīˈ·kō·ed·j Battery (WJ), absense of anyother disability, and interviews with teachers indicating thatsignificant composition problems were evident. The Vocabulary andThematic the��mat��ic?adj.1. Of, relating to, or being a theme: a scene of thematic importance.2. Maturity subtests from the Test of Written Language (TOWL) werealso administered to each subject; each subtest has a mean standardscore of 10 and a standard deviation of 3 (Hammill & Larsen, 1983). The first participant, Merry, was age 11 years, 10 months, at thestart of the study; she had previously been retained in the first grade.Her full-scale score on the WISC-R was 100, and her reading achievementscore on the WJ was 2 years below her age level. Merry's standardscores on the Vocabulary and Thematic Maturity subtests of the TOWL were8 and 7, respectively. Sam, the second participant, was age 11 years, 2 months; and hisscore on the Slosson Intelligence Test was 87. Furthermore, his readingachievement score on the WJ was 2 years below age level, while he scored6 and 9 on the Vocabulary and Thematic Maturity subtests of the TOWL,respectively. The third participant, Pippin, was age 12 years, 6 months; and hehad been retained in both the first and fourth grade. His full-scalescore on the WISC-R was 98, and his reading achievement score on the WJwas 2 years below his age level. His standard scores on the Vocabularlyand Thematic Maturity subtests of the TOWL were 3 and 8, respectively. The fourth participant, Frodo, was 13 years old, and he had beenretained in the third and fourth grade. His full-scale score on theWISC-R was 90, and his reading achievement score on the WJ was 3 yearsbelow his age level. On the Vocabulary and Thematic subtests from theTOWL, he scored a 3 and a 5, respectively. Experimental Design The effects of the strategy were assessed through the use of amultiple probe design across subjects. The following conditions were ineffect during the experiment: * Preteaching. Participants received instruction in using the wordprocessor and on the components of a good essay and story. * Baseline The horizontal line to which the bottoms of lowercase characters (without descenders) are aligned. See typeface. baseline - released version . During baseline, pretreatment pretreatment,n the protocols required before beginning therapy, usually of a diagnostic nature; before treatment.pretreatment estimate,n See predetermination. response rates onwriting essays were established. * Treatment. Instruction was started for the first participant,Merry, after a stable baseline in terms of total number of functionalessay elements was established. Instruction continued until the studentdemonstrated independent mastery of the strategy and was able to writeessays that contained all the basic parts. Instruction was not startedfor the next participant until Merry's posttreatment essayperformance reached a criterion level of at least one and a half timesthe mean number of elements produced during baseline. Identicalprocedures were followed when introducing and terminating treatment withthe third and fourth participants. * Posttreatment essay probes. Three to four posttreatment essayprobes were administered immediately following instruction. * Maintenance probes. For the first participant, Merry,maintenance writing probes were collected at 4, 11, and 15 weeksfollowing instruction. For the second participant, Sam, maintenanceprobes were collected at 7 and 11 weeks following instruction. For thethird participant, Pippin, a maintenance probe was collected at 5 weeksfollowing instruction. The end of the school year precluded collectionof a follow-up follow-up,n the process of monitoring the progress of a patient after a period of active treatment.follow-upsubsequent.follow-up plan probe from the fourth participant, Frodo. * Task generalization probes. Multiple story-writing probes werecollected during baseline and following the administration ofposttreatment essay probes. Because students were not demonstratingadequate transfer from essay to story writing, an additionalinstructional session was initiated following either the first or secondtask generalization probes with three of the participants. General Procedures Two graduate students majoring in special education served asinstructors. Each instructor kept a daily log, recording students'comments and their observation on the students' use of thestrategy. Students were told that they would compose their essays and storieson a computer (an Apple IIe The Apple IIe was the third model in the Apple II series of personal computers, produced by Apple Computer. The "e" in the name stood for "enhanced", referring to the fact that several popular features were now built-in that were only available as upgrades and computer with a 40-column green monitor anda printer). All essay topics and picture prompts for writing storieswere approved in advance by the school's two special educationteachers and had been used in previous studies with similar children.The essay prompts and stories were presented in random order. On allwriting problems, students were told that they could use the charts,introduced in pretraining, that detailed the parts of a good essay orstory to help them write. Furthermore, at the strt of each writingsession, students were given two pieces of paper and two pencils forpreplanning or making notes. The examiner was directed to provide onlycomputer-related assistance to students. Instructional Procedures Guidelines guidelines,n.pl a set of standards, criteria, or specifications to be used or followed in the performance of certain tasks. for designing and implementing self-instructionalstrategy development (Graham & Harris, 1987) were followed inconstructing the instructional regime. The total number of 40-mininstructional sessions (not including preteaching sessions) required forMerry, Sam, Pippin, nad Frodo were six, seven, eight, and six,respectively. The instructional steps were as follows: Preteaching. Before the study received instruction on computeroperations and typing. All participants initially had difficulty with avariety of text-editing operations and their typing speed was relativelyslow, ranging from 12 to 21 letters/minute (min). Following instruction(7 to 13 sessions), all students were able to independently load theappropriate file from the disk, make revisions (including inserting,deleting, or replacing textual tex��tu��al?adj.Of, relating to, or conforming to a text.textu��al��ly adv. material), center headings, save therevised file, and print the paper. Typing speed also improvedsubstantially; average number of letters/min ranged from 20 to 105following training. Preteaching further focused on teaching participants to identifyand define the components of both a good essay and a good story. Foreach genre, the basic elements were itnroduced through a small chartthat the student subsequently kept in a writing folder In a graphical user interface (GUI), a simulated file folder that holds data, applications and other folders. Folders were introduced on the Xerox Star, then popularized on the Macintosh and later adapted to Windows and Unix. In Unix and Linux, as well as DOS and Windows 3. . After eachelement was introduced and defined, the student practiced identifyingthe elements in a series of short essays or stories, respectively.Preteaching on genre components took two sessions per student. Review Current Performance Level. Following baseline, the studentand the assigned instructor discussed the student's performance onthe essays written during baseline. This included an examination of thebasic components (premise, reasons, and conclusion), as well as thequality of each component. They then discussed the goal of training (tolearn a strategy for planning and writing better papers) and why this isimportant. Students also wrote and signed a contract indicating theywould learn the strategy. Describe the Composition Strategy. The instructor next introducedthe target strategy using a small shcart and explicitly described whyand how each step of the strategy was used in planning and writing. Thestrategy included three steps: 1. Do PLANS (Pick goals, List ways to meet goals, And, make Notes,Sequence notes). 2. Write and say more. 3. Test goals. The first step, PLANS, was a prewriting pre��writ��ing?n.The creation and arrangement of ideas preliminary to writing. strategy that involvedsetting product and process goals, generating possible content to use inthe paper, and sequencing notes before writing by numbering them.Students' choice of product goals was limited to a small set ofalternatives; this reduced the complexity of the task and ensured thatrealistic goals were selected. The product goals were presented on aseparate chart and included three or four goals in three areas: (a)purpose (i.e., write a paper that will be fun to read; write a paperthat will teach something), (b) structure (e.g., write an essay that hasall the parts, write a story that has all the parts, etc.), and (c)fluency flu��ent?adj.1. a. Able to express oneself readily and effortlessly: a fluent speaker; fluent in three languages.b. (e.g., write a paper that is 80 words or longer, write a paperthat is 100 words or longer, etc.). The fluency goals were adjusted foreach student according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. his or her pretest pre��test?n.1. a. A preliminary test administered to determine a student's baseline knowledge or preparedness for an educational experience or course of study.b. A test taken for practice.2. performance. In completingthe first substep of PLANS, students were directed to select one goalfrom each area. For the second substep of PLANS (List ways to meet goals), studentswere directed to develop one or more process goals for accomplishingeach product goal selected. It was further stressed that the productand process foals should be attended to when generating the sequencingnotes. The second step of the strategy (write and say more) was aself-administered prompt to remind the student to continue planning oncewriting had actually started. The third step (test goals) involvedevaluating the paper to determine if the selected goals wereaccomplished. If a goal was not met, students were encouraged toreflect on how it could be accomplished next time. Model the Strategy. The instructor modeled the use of the strategyby writing an essay while "thinking out loud." While modelingthe strategy, the instructor showed the student how to set up a planningsheet that would aid in the completion of Steps 1 and 3. The instructoralso used self-statements or instructions (including problem definition,planning, self-evaluation, and self-reinforcement) designed to regulatethe use of the strategy. Once modeling was completed, the instructorand student discussed the importance of what we say to ourselves whilewe work. The students then recorded on small charts their own examplesof things they could say to themselves to help them use the strategy.These charts, as well as the strategy and goal charts, were kept in thestudents' writing folders. Mastery of Strategy Step.s Students were required to rehearse re��hearse?v. re��hearsed, re��hears��ing, re��hears��esv.tr.1. a. To practice (a part in a play, for example) in preparation for a public performance.b. thesteps of the strategy until memorized. they were permmited toparaphrase par��a��phrase?n.1. A restatement of a text or passage in another form or other words, often to clarify meaning.2. The restatement of texts in other words as a studying or teaching device.v. as long as meaning remained intact. Controlled Practice. The instructor and student jointly composedan essay using the strategy and self-instructional statements. Thestrategy chart, goal chart, and the student-generated self-instructionlist were available as prompts. Although instructions directed andmonitored the process, they did not write the essay for the student. Independent Performance. The student independetly composed two ofthree essays using the strategy and self-instructional statements.Positive and corrective cor��rec��tiveadj.Counteracting or modifying what is malfunctioning, undesirable, or injurious.n.An agent that corrects.corrective,n feedback was provided as needed as neededprn. See prn order. , and transitionto covert COVERT, BARON. A wife; so called, from her being under the cover or protection of her husband, baron or lord. self-instructions was encouraged. The strategy, goal, andself-statements charts were initially available as prompts, ifnecessary, but then faded. Generalization and Maintenance Components. In a final session, thestudent and instructor discussed how the strategy could be used withother classroom assignments (e.g., stories and reports). A variety ofother procedures for promoting generalization and maintenance were usedthroughout training: * Students were asked to share what they were learning with theirteachers. * The teacher was asked to initial all instructional materials andcompositions. * Students were told to be prepared to use what they were learningin other settings. * Students were encouraged to discuss opportunities for andinstances of generalization with their instructor. Data Collection and Scoring Procedures All essays written before and after instruction were scored interms of number of words, essay elements, coherence coherence,constant phase difference in two or more Waves over time. Two waves are said to be in phase if their crests and troughs meet at the same place at the same time, and the waves are out of phase if the crests of one meet the troughs of another. , and quality. Foressay elements, all essays were divided into the following minimalparsable units: premise, reasons, conclusions, elaborations, andnonfunctional text. The coherence score was the longest number offuncitonal elements (premise, reason, conclusion, or elaboration) thatwere consecutively and coherently ordered in an essay. Similarly, allstories written before and after instruction were scored for number ofwords, story grammar elements, and quality. A scale by Graham andHarris (1989b) that assessed the inclusion and quality of eight basicstory grammar elements (main character, locale, time, starter event,goal, action, ending, and reaction) was used (scores range from 0 to19). For both essays and stories, quality scores were based on aholistic HolisticA practice of medicine that focuses on the whole patient, and addresses the social, emotional, and spiritual needs of a patient as well as their physical treatment.Mentioned in: Aromatherapy, Stress Reduction, Traditional Chinese Medicine rating scale with scores ranging from 1 (low) to 8 (high).Each of these measures is described in greater detail in Graham andHarris (1989c). For all essays and stories, the amount of time between the end ofthe instructor's direction to write and actual start of writing(prewriting time), as well as the amount of time between the end ofinstructor's directions and students' completion of thecomposing process (total composing time), was determined. In addition,the materials (i.e., papers) that students used while writing wereexamined to determine if they developed a planning sheet and used thestrategy. Students and their resource room teacher were alsointerviewed at the end of the study to obtain information on the socialvalidity of the strategy and the teaching techniques. (See Graham &Harris, 1989c for more detail.) Finally, the following questions from a metacognitive interviewdeveloped by Graham, Schwartz, and MacArthur (1989) were administered toeach participant before preteaching and again after the completion ofinstruction. 1. When good writers write, what kinds of things do they do? 2. Teachers often ask students to write a short paper/reportoutside of class on a famous person such as Abraham Lincoln Lincoln, city and district, EnglandLincoln,city (1991 pop. 79,980) and district, Lincolnshire, E England, in the Parts of Kesteven, on the Witham River. . When youare given as assignment like this, what kinds of things do you do tohelp you plan and write the paper? 3. If you were having difficulty with the assignment (on AbrahamLincoln), what kinds of things would you do? Students also completed two additional sections of themetacognitive interview. First, using a 5-point Likert-type scale, theyresponded to six statements measuring attitudes toward writing: (a) Ilike to write; (b) I would rather read than write; (c) I do writing ofmy own outside of school; (d) I avoid writing whenever I can; (e) Iwould rather write than do math problems; and (f) Writing is a waste oftime. In a second section of the interview, a similar format was used tomeasure self-efficacy, or perceived competence, in writing: threestatements measured self-efficacy for completing common schoolassignments (reports, stories, and book reports), and seven itemsmeasured self-efficacy for executing cognitive strategies consideredcentral to effective writing (e.g., getting ideas, organizing ideas, andmaking changes). RESULTS Reliability of Measures Pearson product-moment reliability coefficients were calculatedbetween the scores assigned by the instructors and an independentexaminer. Interrater reliabilities for essays were as follows: totalnumber of elements (.85), premise (.82), reasons (.86), conclusion(1.00), elaborations (.80), nonfunctional (1.00), coherence (.87), andnumber of words (.99). For stories, interrater reliabilities for thestory grammar elements scale and number of words were .81 and .99,respectively. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficientsbetween the holistic quality-rating scores assigned by twoelementary-level teachers (following the completion of the study) were.83 for essays and .74 for stories. Essays Elements. Figure 1 presents the total number of functionalelements for the essays written during each phase of the study. Threestudents evidenced low levels of performance throughout baseline; Merry,Sam, and Frodo's mean baseline response rate in terms of totalnumber of functional elements was 3.5, 2.75, and 2.3, respectively.Pippin produced an average of 4.3 functional elements per essay duringbaseline, and his essays evidenced more variability than those producedby the other students. Following instruction, Merry's mean performance on theposttreatment essay probes was 6.3, clearly exceeding her previouslyestablished baseline level. Merry's average performance on themaintenance probes (5.0) continued to be higher than baseline scores.The second student's (Sam) mean performance on the posttreatmentessay increased to 6.3, and he had an average score of 5.5 on themaintenance probes. Pippin had the highest overall scores onposttreatment essay probes; he averaged 8.5 functional elements perposttreatment essay and received a score of 8.0 on the maintenance essayadministered 5 weeks following instruction. The final students, Frodo,evidenced the largest gains; his mean performance on the posttreatmentessays was 7.3. Interestingly, only 21% of essays written during baseline containedall of the basic components of an essay (premise, reason, andconclusion); but following instruction, 89% met this requirement.Furthermore, instruction resulted in increases in all four types offunctional elements. Most prominently, the average number of reasonsper essay doubled, the average number of elaborations increased by afactor of three, and the average number of conclusions increased byalmost a factor of four. The average number of premises per essayevidenced a slight increase; 80% of essays during baseline included apremise, whereas 95% of essays following instruction met this criteria.Finally, nonfunctional material accounted for less than 4% of essayelements during either baseline or following treatment. Number of Words. Each student also evidenced substantial increasesfollowing instruction in the length of their essays. For Merry, themean length of baseline essays was 26 words. Posttreatment essays,however, averaged 60 words; and the maintenance essays were 58 wordslong. Similarly, Sam's baseline essays averaged 26 words; butposttreatment essays were 78 words long, and maintenance essay were 62words in length. Pippin had the longest baseline essays, averaging 48words per essay. His posttreatment essays increased to an average of 81words, and he generated 88 words on the maintenance probe. Frodo alsomade large gains in number of words written; his baseline essaysincreased from 22 words to an average of 70 words for the posttreatmentessay probes. Coherence. During baseline, each student evidenced considerablesuccess in coherently ordering the functional elements they generated.In 75% of baseline essays, all functional elements produced werecoherently ordered. The average length of the longest string offunctional elements for Merry, Sam, Pippin, and Frodo during baselinewas 3.5, 2.0, 3.5, and 2.3, respectively. The high level of coherencein baseline essays is not surprising given that they were relativelyshort and contained little nonfunctional material. Following instruction, Merry continued to successfully order all ofthe elements she produced; the average length of the longest string ofMerry's posttreatment and maintenance essays was 6.3 and 4.3elements, respectively. Similar to Merry, the other students showed anincrease over baseline levels following instruction in the averagenumber of elements that were included in their longest coherent string.This increase was particularly pronounced on the maintenance probes,where all of the functional elements produced were coherently ordered;Sam's average coherence score on maintenance probes was 5.5, whilePippin received a coherence score of 8.0 on the maintenance essay hegenerated. On the posttreatment essays, the average number of elementsthat Sam, Pippin, and Frodo included in their longest coherent stringwas 3.7, 4.3, and 5.3, respectively. Though these scores are higherthan baseline levels, these three students clearly were not assuccessful in incorporating all of their functional elements into onecoherent string as they were during baseline or maintenance. Thisshould not be interpreted to mean that their posttreatment essays werenot coherent. Two of their essays had no breaks in coherence, seven hadonly one break, and one had two breaks. Quality Ratings. The mean holistic quality rating for Merry, Sam,Pippin, and Frodo's baseline essays was 2.0, 2.4, 4.2, and 1.9,respectively. Following completion of instruction, each evidencedimprovement in the quality of their essays. Most notably, the averageholistic quality ratings on Merry, Sam, and Frodo's posttreatmentessays rose to 6.0, 5.0 and 4.0 respectively. Both Merry and Sammaintained these gains on follow-up probes, averaging 5.5 and 4.8holistic scores, respectively. Pippin, in contrast, registered thesmallest amount of improvement in overall quality following instruction;his average posttreatment quality score was 5.0, and he received a scoreof 5.0 on his maintenance probe. Prewriting Time. With the exception of one essay probe, allstudents spent less than 5 seconds (s) of prewriting time on theirbaseline probes. Following teaching, students' average prewritingtime on posttreatment nad maintenance probes rose to approximately 8min. Instructors reported in their logs that students used this timeconstructively, making notes and planning their essays. Total Composing Time. Before instruction, subjects spentapproximately 12 min planning and writing their essays. Followinginstruction, total composing time increased to an average of 20 min peressay. Generalization to Stories Story Grammer Elements. Figure 2 presents scores on the storygrammar scale for the generalization stories written during baseline andafter the administration of posttreatment essays. Merry, Sam, Pippin,and Frodo's mean performance on baseline stories was 8.0, 3.5, 9.0,and 4.75, respectively. All of Sam and Frodo's baseline storieswere missing three or more of the basic story grammar elements. Incontrast, Merry's baseline story was missing only two basic storygrammar elements; and Pippin's baseline stories consistentlyincluded all but one or two of the basic elements. Following completion of instruction, two of the students'performance on the story grammar scale improved. Frodo's averagescore increased to 8.0, and his stories contained all but two of thebasic story elements (time and starter event). Also, Sam'sperformance increased to 11.0 on his first story following instruction.While this story contained all but one of the basic elements (starterevent), the story was simply a listing of component ("the storybegan at 12:00...") and not a well-integrated composition. Merryand Pippin showed little or no transfer effects to story writingfollowing instruction. Merry's average performance remainedvirtually unchanged (9.5 on two stories), and Pippin's performancedropped to 6.0 on the first story adminstered after instruction. OnlyFrodo, however, was using most of the parts of the strategy to writestories; Merry made notes, while Sam and Pippin did not appear to useany of the components of the target strategy. As a result, a single booster Booster - A data-parallel language."The Booster Language", E. Paalvast, TR PL 89-ITI-B-18, Inst voor Toegepaste Informatica TNO, Delft, 1989. session was initiated with Merry,Sam, and Pippin; each student received feedback on his or her previousperformance and was provided with practice in using the strategy towrite stories. Following the booster session, Merry's averagescore on the story grammar scale remained about the same, at 9.5.Sam's average score rose to 10.0, well above baseline levels.Pippin's average score increased to 11.3. For all three students,all of their stories following the booster session contained all, or allbut one, of the basic story elements. Number of Words. The length of students' stories increasedfollowing instruction. While Merry's baseline story was only 33words long, stories written after training were 50 words long; followingthe booster session, they averaged 41 words per story. Sam'sbaseline stories averaged 22 words, but his story following instructionwas 78 words long; stories completed after the booster session wereapproximately 85 words in length. Pippin had the longest baselinestories, averaging 79 words in length. Nonetheless, his story followinginstruction was 115 words long, and stories following the boostersession averaged 155 words. Frodo wrote baseline stories that averaged42 words. His posttreatment stories increased to an average of 79words. Quality Ratings. Merry, Sam, Pippin, and Frodo's meanholistic quality rating for baseline stories was 2.5, 2.3, 4.4, and 3.3,respectively. Modest carryover carryovern. in taxation accounting, using a tax year's deductions, business losses or credits to apply to the following year's tax return to reduce the tax liability. (See: carryback) effects following instruction were notedfor three students. Merry, Sam, and Frodo's scores rose to 4.0,3.0, and 4.5, respectively. While Pippin had the highest qualityratings on baseline stories, he evidence a decrease to 3.5 on the storycompleted following instruction. Following the booster session.Merry's average quality rating remained about the same at 4.1. Thequality of Sam and Pippin's stories increased, however: Sam'saverage quality rating was 4.8, and Pippin's was 5.8. Prewriting Time. Each student spent less than 5 s of prewritingtime on baseline stories with the exception of two probes (25 and 112 slong). Following instruction, only two students evidenced an increasein prewriting time; Merry averaged 10 min per story, while Frodoaveraged approximately 3 min of prewriting time per story. Once thebooster session was initiated, prewriting time increased to about 5 minfor Merry, 8 min for Sam, and 5 min for Pippin. Total Composing Time. With the exception of Frodo, the studentsevidenced increases in total composing time following instruction.Merry's baseline performance of 9 min rose to 13 min followinginstruction and leveled out at 11 min after the booster session. Samspent only 6 min composing baseline stories, but following instructionand again following the booster session averaged 22 and 21 min ofcomposing time, respectively. While Pippin averaged 20 min of timecomposing baseline stories, his performance rose to 31 min followinginstruction and jumped again to 44 min per story following the boostersession. In contrast, Frodo averaged 19 min of composing time beforeand after instruction. Strategy Usage Each student evidenced use of all or most of the strategy stepswhen writing posttreatment or maintenance essays. Merry consistentlyused all of the strategy steps except on the last two maintenanceessays; she did not overtly o��vert?adj.1. Open and observable; not hidden, concealed, or secret: overt hostility; overt intelligence gathering.2. test her goals on one essay, and just madeand organized notes on the last one. Sam consistently completed allsteps but one; he did not overtly test to see if goals were met. Pippinshowed the most variability in overt Public; open; manifest.The term overt is used in Criminal Law in reference to conduct that moves more directly toward the commission of an offense than do acts of planning and preparation that may ultimately lead to such conduct. OVERT. Open. strategy usage. On two essays, heclearly used the complete strategy. On two other essays, he made andorganized notes. On another essay, he set some goals, made notes,organized the notes, and tested goals. Finally, Frodo overtly used allof the steps except for setting process goals for meeting the selectedproduct goals. Following instruction, only two students showed any overt evidencein using the strategy to write stories. Similar to his performance onessay writing, Frodo used the full procedure except for the setting ofprocess goals. Merry, on the other hand, just made and organizedprewriting notes. Following the booster session, Merry, Sam, and Pippinconsistently used some, if not most, of the strategy steps. Sam andPippin, for example, used the full strategy, except that they providedno overt evidence that they tested their product goals. Merry initiallyused the whole strategy just following the booster session but reverted re��vert?intr.v. re��vert��ed, re��vert��ing, re��verts1. To return to a former condition, practice, subject, or belief.2. Law To return to the former owner or to the former owner's heirs. back to first making and organizing notes on subsequent story probes. Metacognitive Interview In response to the query concerning what good writers do, threestudents (Sam, Pippin, and Frodo) changed their baseline responses,which centered totally on production factors or the mechanics of writing(indent To align text some number of spaces to the right of the left margin. See hanging paragraph. , start on red line, write in sentences, etc.) to substantiveconcerns (look to see what they want, organize it, etc.) On thequestion pertaining per��tain?intr.v. per��tained, per��tain��ing, per��tains1. To have reference; relate: evidence that pertains to the accident.2. to the kinds of things that can be done to help planand write a paper, these same students initially mentioned generation ofcontent as their primary planning strategy. Following instruction,however, Sam and Pippin responded with all of the basic componentsincluded in the target strategy (set goals, make notes, etc.), whileFrodo's response primarily remained unchanged. In relation to thequestion asking what can you do if you are having difficulty, all fourstudents initially concentrated on seeking help from others. Afterinstruction, Merry and Frodo expanded their respective repertoire Repertoire may mean Repertory but may also refer to: Repertoire (theatre), a system of theatrical production and performance scheduling Repertoire Records, a German record label specialising in 1960s and 1970s pop and rock reissues bysuggesting things they could do (keep on writing or go to the library). On the attitudinal items, all of the students, with the exceptionof Frodo, had positive attitudes toward writing. Merry, Sam, Pippin,and Frodo's mean score on the attitudinal items was 4.2, 4.0, 3.0,and 1.7, respectively. Following instruction, all but Frodo'sattitudinal score remained the same or rose just slightly. Frodo, incontrast, evidenced a sizable siz��a��blealso size��a��ble ?adj.Of considerable size; fairly large.siza��ble��ness n. increase on the attitudinal items, from1.7 to 3.0. Students' perceived competence in responding to common schoolwriting tasks showed considerable variation. Merry, who evidencedlittle confidence in her ability to adequately respond to common schoolassignments, was slightly more confident following instruction (1.3)than during baseline (1.0). The trend for the other three students wasin the opposite direction. Sam (4.3), Pippin (3.0), and Frodo (2.0)were more confident of their abilities before instruction than after;Sam, Pippin, and Frodo's posttraining scores dropped to 3.7, 2.7,and 1.0, respectively. With the exception of Sam, all of the students were initiallyconfident of their ability to execute the cognitive strategiesconsidered central to effective writing. Merry, Sam, Pippin, andFrodo's mean item scores were 4.3, 2.3, 4.0, and 4.4, respectively.Following instruction, Merry's score remained the same, while Sambecame more confident (3.4). In contrast, Pippin and Frodo'sperceived confidence dropped to 2.3 and 3.3, respectively. Social Validity Interviews All four students indicated that the strategy helped them to writebetter. Comments suggested that the strategy help them write more andprovided a helpful device for organizing content. Similarly, all students thought the strategy should be taught totheir friends because it was fun and would improve their writing.Likewise, the resource room teacher indicated that learning the strategyhad a positive impact on the students' writing; and the teacher wasenthusiastic about its use with other students with learningdisabilities. She also reported that training had a positive carryovereffect to the students' classroom. DISCUSSION In the present study, students with learning disabilities receivedinstruction in using a general writing strategy when composingargumentative essays. Strategy instruction had a significant andmeaningful effect on the essays the students produced; their performancefollowing instruction improved in each of three areas in which theypracticed setting goals: to include all the basic components, toincrease the length of papers, and to be convincing. In comparison withbaseline papers, posttreatment essays included approximately two timesas many structural elements Structural elements are used in structural analysis to simplify the structure which is to be analysed.Structural elements can be linear, surfaces or volumes.Linear elements: Rod - axial loads Beam - axial and bending loads and were four times more likely to includeall of the basic parts of an essay. Essays written after instructionwere also two to three times longer and were judged to be qualitativelysuperior, or more convincing. The participating students were able tomaintain these gains over time; and they reported, as did their teacher,that use of the strategy improved writing performance. In additional to changes in students' writing, instruction inthe use of the strategy resulted in a number of cognitive and affective affective/af��fec��tive/ (ah-fek��tiv) pertaining to affect. af��fec��tiveadj.1. Concerned with or arousing feelings or emotions; emotional.2. changes, as well. One notable change involved the way in which studentsapproached the task of writing. Before instruction, students appearedto do all of their planning as they wrote, and the instructors reportedthat there was no overt evidence that they used common writingstrategies such as notetaking, outlining, and so forth. Followinginstruction, however, students appeared to plan both in advance of andduring writing. Evidence collected during the course of the experimentrevealed that students spent about 8 min planning their posttreatmentessays in advance of writing by using part or all of the PLANSsubstrategy. In addition, an informal analysis of the posttreatmentessays following the completion of the experiment showed that studentscontinued the process of planning as they wrote. Ninety percent of allessays generated after instruction included additional details and ideasthat were not included in students' preplanning notes. Other cognitive changes that were noted following instruction inthe strategy included students' responses to the questions on themetacognitive interview. For three of the students, their perceptionsof what good writers do shifted from a concentration on the mechanicalaspects of producing text to emphasizing substantive procedures forplanning and content generation. In addition the repertoire of planningand writing strategies identified by two of these students expanded toinclude all of the basic procedures incorporated in the target strategy.Two students also extended their answers following strategy instructionby indicating that not only can adults serve as a source of assistancewhen writing difficulties are encountered, but that students can helpthemselves. Because the process of goal setting has been shown to facilitateself-evaluation (Schunk, 1989), we expected that the students'perceptions of their writing competence (self-efficacy) would be moreaccurate following mastery of the strategy. A growing body of researchindicates that students with learning disabilities have difficultypredicting or assessing their capabilities (Alvarez & Adelman, 1986;Graham & Harris, 1989b; Graham et al., 1989). In the present study,three of the four students clearly overestimated their abilities toexecute cognitive processes Cognitive processesThought processes (i.e., reasoning, perception, judgment, memory).Mentioned in: Psychosocial Disorders considered central to effective writing,while two students were overconfident o��ver��con��fi��dent?adj.Excessively confident; presumptuous.over��con of their capabilities to respondsuccessfully to common writing tasks; their responses were equal to orhigher than those of students without disabilities, of the same age(Graham et al., 1989). For the most part, instruction in the use of thestrategies resulted in changes in the self-efficacy of these students inthe predicted direction. A slight decline was found in the confidenceof the two students who initially overestimated their abilities torespond to common writing tasks. Furthermore, two of the students whowere overconfident in their abilities to execute important writingprocesses were much more realistic following strategy instruction. It is interesting to note that instruction in the strategy had asignificant effect on only one of the participating students'attitudes toward writing; this student became more positive aboutwriting. The other students were initially positive and remainedequally so after learning how to use the target strategy. Nonetheless,strategy instruction resulted in a substantial increase in the amount ofeffort exerted by students; total amount of time spent composing essaysincreased by almost 170% following instruction. The present study also examined generalization of instructionaleffects to a second genre, story writing. While the strategy used inthis investigation was designed to be applicable to a variety of writingtasks, students received no direct practice in applying it to differentwriting genres. During the course of training, they only discussed howthe strategy might be used with other writing assignments. Evidence on the transfer effects of instruction to story writingwere mixed. One student used most of the components of the strategy tocompose stories; and the resulting compositions were longer, morecomplete, and of higher quality. Another student used only thenote-generation component of the strategy' though changes inschematic A graphical representation of a system. It often refers to electronic circuits on a printed circuit board or in an integrated circuit (chip). See logic gate and HDL. structure were not noted, this student's stories becamelonger and were judged to be of higher quality than those written duringbaseline. The other two students showed no overt evidence of using thestrategy. Although some changes were noted in their stories (e.g.,increased length), the quality of their compositions remained about thesame or became worse. Consequently, three of the students participatedin an additional session, in which they received practice in applyingthe strategy to the writing of stories. Following the booster session,students almost always used some or all of the strategy steps. Inaddition, the quality of their stories improved, and they consistentlyincluded all, or all but one, of the basic story parts in their papers.Thus, practitioners and clinicians who are interested in using thisstrategy would be well advised to provide students with specificpractice in independently applying these procedures to the differentwriting genres and the product goals of interest. Actual use and any possible modification of the strategy wereassessed by analyzing the planning notes developed by the students andexamining anecdotal anecdotal/an��ec��do��tal/ (an?ek-do��t'l) based on case histories rather than on controlled clinical trials. anecdotaladjective Unsubstantiated; occurring as single or isolated event. comments written by the instructors. The studentsconsistently used the strategy following instruction, providing furtherconfirmation that the instructional manipulation was, in fact,responsible for changes in students' writing behavior.Nonetheless, each of the students appeared to have modified the strategyby dropping out one or more of the basic steps. For example, hardevidence that students tested their goals after writing was often notobtained. It is possible that students completed the"missing" steps covertly cov��ert?adj.1. Not openly practiced, avowed, engaged in, accumulated, or shown: covert military operations; covert funding for the rebels.See Synonyms at secret.2. ; but this study, along with theresults from Graham and MacArthur (1988), suggest that more attentionneeds to be directed at what students internalize internalizeTo send a customer order from a brokerage firm to the firm's own specialist or market maker. Internalizing an order allows a broker to share in the profit (spread between the bid and ask) of executing the order. and how they use theinculcated strategy. Finally, it is possible that these results could, in part, be dueto students' becoming more comfortable and adept at using thecomputer while the study was in progress. We think this is unlikely,however, because the instructors reported that students' facilityin using the computer or speed of writing remained relatively constantfollowing the initial typing and word processing word processing,use of a computer program or a dedicated hardware and software package to write, edit, format, and print a document. Text is most commonly entered using a keyboard similar to a typewriter's, although handwritten input (see pen-based computer) and instruction deliveredduring preteaching. REFERENCES Alvarez, V., & Adelman, H. S. (1986). Over-statements ofself-evaluations by students with psychoeducational problems. Journalof Learning Disabilities, 19, 567-571. Englert, C., & Raphael, T. (1988). Constructing well-formedprose: Process, structure, and metacognition in the instruction ofexpository writing Expository writing is a mode of writing in which the purpose of the author is to inform, explain, describe, or define his or her subject to the reader. Expository text is meant to ‘expose’ information and is the most frequently used type of writing by students in . Exceptional Children, 54, 513-520. Englert, C., Raphael, T., Anderson, L., Anthony, H., Stevens, D.,& Fear, K. (in press). Making writing strategies and self-talkvisible: Cognitive strategy instruction in writing in regular andspecial education classrooms. American Educational Research Journal. Englert, C., Raphael, T., Fear, K., & Anderson, L. (1988).Students' metacognitive knowledge about how to write informationaltexts. Learning Disability Quarterly, 11, 18-46. Flower, L., & Hayes, J. (1977). Problem-solving strategiesand the writing process. College English, 39, 449-461. Graham, S. (in press). The role of production factors in learningdisabled students' compositions. Journal of EducationalPsychology, 82, 781-791. Graham, S., & Harris, K. R. (1987). Improving compositionskills of inefficient learners with self-instructional strategytraining. 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Learning disabledstudents' composing with three methods: Handwriting HANDWRITING, evidence. Almost every person's handwriting has something whereby it may be distinguished from the writing of others, and this difference is sometimes intended by the term. 2. , dictation, andwood processing Wood processing is an engineering discipline comprising the production of forest products, such as pulp and paper, construction materials, and tall oil. Paper engineering is a subfield of wood processing. Many countries, notably Sweden also produce tar from pine trees. . Journal of Special Education, 21, 22-42. Nodine, B., Barenbaum, E., & Newcomer, P. (1985). Storycomposition by learning disabled, reading disabled, and normal children.Learning Disability Quarterly, 8, 167-181. Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1986). Written composition.In M. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp.778-803). New York: Macmillan. Schumaker, J., Deshler, D., Alley, G., & Warner, M. (1983).Toward the development of an intervention A procedure used in a lawsuit by which the court allows a third person who was not originally a party to the suit to become a party, by joining with either the plaintiff or the defendant. model for learning disabledadolescents. Exceptional Education Quarterly, 4, 45-74. Schunk, D. (1989). Self-efficacy and cognitive achievement:Implications for students with learning problems. Journal of LearningDisabilities, 22, 14-22. Thomas, C., Englert, C., & Gregg, S. (1987). An analysis oferrors and strategies in the expository writing of learning disabledstudents. Remedial REMEDIAL. That which affords a remedy; as, a remedial statute, or one which is made to supply some defects or abridge some superfluities of the common law. 1 131. Com. 86. The term remedial statute is also applied to those acts which give a new remedy. Esp. Pen. Act. 1. and Special Education, 8, 21-30. Wong, B. Y. L., Harris, K. R., & Graham, S. (in press).Cognitive-behavioral Cognitive-behavioralA therapy technique that focuses on changing beliefs, images, and thoughts in order to change maladjusted behaviors.Mentioned in: Group Therapy procedures: Academic applications with studentswith learning disabilities. In P. Kendall Ken��dall, Edward Calvin 1886-1972.American biochemist. He shared a 1950 Nobel Prize for discoveries concerning the hormones of the adrenal cortex. (Ed.), Child and adolescent ad��o��les��centadj.Of, relating to, or undergoing adolescence.n.A young person who has undergone puberty but who has not reached full maturity; a teenager. therapy: Cognitive-behavioral procedures. New York: Guilford. ABOUT THE AUTHORS STEVE GRAHAM (CEC (Central Electronic Complex) The set of hardware that defines a mainframe, which includes the CPU(s), memory, channels, controllers and power supplies included in the box. Some CECs, such as IBM's Multiprise 2000 and 3000, include data storage devices as well. Chapter #263) is an Associate Professor, CHARLESMACARTHUR Charles MacArthur (b. November 5 1895, Scranton, Pennsylvania; d. April 21 1956, New York City) was an American playwright and screenwriter. The son of to a Baptist minister, he is best known for his plays with Ben Hecht, Twentieth Century and The Front Page (CEC Chapter #246) is a Faulty fault��y?adj. fault��i��er, fault��i��est1. Containing a fault or defect; imperfect or defective.2. Obsolete Deserving of blame; guilty. Research Associate, SHIRLEYSCHWARTZ is a Faculty Research Assistant, and VICTORIA PAGE-VOTH is aDoctoral Student in the Department of Special Education at theUniversity of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (also known as UM, UMD, or UMCP) is a public university located in the city of College Park, in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., in the United States. .