Explicitly Teaching Strategies, Skills, and Knowledge: Writing Instruction in Middle School Classrooms Susan De La Paz Santa Clara University Steve Graham University of Maryland Writing is a very demanding task, requiring the orchestration of a variety of cognitive resources. For developing writers, it can be especially demanding, as they have not yet mastered important writing processes, skills, and knowledge involved in planning, drafting, and revising text. In the present study, middle school students were directly taught strategies that facilitated the execution of each of these processes. They were also taught the knowledge and skills needed to carry out these strategies. In comparison to peers in the control condition, students in the experimental treatment condition produced essays that were longer, contained more mature vocabulary, and were qualitatively better. These gains were evident immediately following instruction and on a short-term maintenance probe administered 1 month later. Writing is one of the most difficult skills that children are expected to master in school (Graham & Harris, in press). The difficulty of learning how to write competently is reflected in data collected as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (Greenwald, Persky, Campbell, & Mazzeo, 1999). At the 4th-grade level, for example, slightly more than 60% of the stu- dents tested were classified as “basic” writers, demonstrating only partial mastery of the skills and knowledge needed at that grade level. Another 16% of 4th-grade students scored below this basic achievement level. Similar results were obtained at the 8th- and 12th-grade levels. These findings indicated that the average Amer- ican student is not a proficient writer, as the percentages of students who performed at or above the proficient level remained approximately 25% at each grade level. Concerns about children’s writing have led to calls for improve- ments in the teaching of writing (e.g., Riley, 1996), with many states and school districts designing and implementing procedures to boost students’ writing performance (e.g., Bridge, Compton- Hall, & Cantrell, 1997). This is a particularly challenging task, however, as skilled writing requires the acquisition and coordina- tion of strategies for regulating the writing process (e.g., strategies for planning, monitoring, evaluating, and revising), skills for pro- ducing text (e.g., handwriting, spelling, sentence construction), and knowledge about specific genres, writing conventions, and so forth (Graham & Harris, 2000; Hayes, 1996; Hayes & Flower, 1980; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1986). Thus, efforts aimed at im- proving writing instruction need to help students develop the strategies, skills, and knowledge needed to write effectively. The present study examined the effectiveness of an instructional program designed to improve the writing performance of middle school students. Although the program primarily focused on teach- ing students strategies for planning, drafting, and revising text, the knowledge and skills needed to support these processes were also emphasized. This emphasis included knowledge about the charac- teristics of good writing, criteria for evaluating writing, and the structure of expository essays that involved explanation and per- suasion (the writing task emphasized in this study). Writing skills that were addressed included constructing a thesis statement and using mature vocabulary, transition words, and different types of sentences. These skills are not only important in constructing a good essay but were also stressed on a state-wide writing compe- tency exam taken by students. The key element of the instructional program was a strategy that organized and directed the processes for planning and writing an essay. The students developed a plan in advance of writing that involved analyzing the demands of the writing assignment, setting goals for writing, and generating and organizing material to write about. The strategy also prompted students to use their plan while writing; revise and upgrade their plan as needed; and include transition words, interesting or mature vocabulary, and varied (error-free) sentence types. We placed considerable emphasis on planning, because plan- ning is a critical element in skilled writing. High levels of planning are especially apparent in the composing behavior of skilled writ- ers. For instance, Kellogg (1987) reported that college students devote about one fourth of their writing time to planning, whereas Gould (1980) indicated that business executives spend about two thirds of their composition time planning. Skilled writers plan not only what they will write but how they will write it, establishing goals for their writing, structuring their ideas, and considering the needs of their audience (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Flower & Hayes, 1980). In contrast, school-age children often minimize the role of planning in writing, doing little deliberate planning, particularly planning in advance (McCutchen, 1995; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1986). It is not uncommon for students to start writing almost immediately after a writing task is assigned, spending less than a Susan De La Paz, Department of Education, Santa Clara University; Steve Graham, Department of Special Education, University of Maryland. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Susan De La Paz, Department of Education, 226 Bannan Hall, Santa Clara Univer- sity, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, California 95053. E-mail: sdelapaz@scu.edu Journal of Educational Psychology Copyright 2002 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 2002, Vol. 94, No. 4, 687– 698 0022-0663/02/$5.00 DOI: 10.1037//0022-0663.94.4.687 687