FEATURE ARTICLE Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 56(4) Dec 2012 / Jan 2013 doi:10.1002/JAAL.00142 © 2012 International Reading Association (pp. 291–300) 291 W hen presenting challenging tasks or assignments, teachers and researchers often consider ways they will support students, often referring to this support as “scaffolding,” or temporary assistance provided to students as they complete the task. Scaffolding in the classroom is thought to work much like a scaffold for a building: It is an impermanent structure that allows the building to be constructed (or the task to be completed); when the building is complete, the scaffold is disassembled. The scaffolding metaphor in reading and writing instruction has a rich history and tradition, but it has also been criticized for being too general or vague (Stone, 1998). That is especially true now, as this term is frequently used in ways that run counter to or overly simplify seminal scholarship on the practice of scaffolding. For example, the five-paragraph essay has been called a useful scaffold for helping students learn to write (Perrin, 2000). The structure of such an essay has potential to help students’ writing, but the extent to which Scaffolding AN ONGOING PROCESS TO SUPPORT ADOLESCENT WRITING DEVELOPMENT Susanna L. Benko Scaffolding is a common term in writing instruction—but in practice, scaffolding means much more than providing a graphic organizer for students. it supports writing development depends on how it is used in instruction. Instead of viewing the five- paragraph essay as temporary assistance forming one part of an instructional process that might help students decide how to organize their writing, or as a tool to scaffold further writing development, some teachers see mastery of the five-paragraph formula as the goal upon which students are evaluated. In contrast, Applebee and Langer (1987) argued that “rather than providing information and evaluating what students have learned, effective writing instruction provides carefully structured support or scaffolding as students undertake new and more difficult tasks” (p. 139, italics in original). Drawing on seminal and recent theories of scaffolding in English/language arts, this article argues for a holistic understanding of scaffolding as a process that begins by selecting appropriate writing tasks and is supported by a teacher’s pedagogical choices. Revisiting Relevant Literature on Scaffolding The term scaffolding was first introduced in Wood, Bruner, and Ross’s (1976) study of the ways that a tutor assisted young children (ages 3–5) in building Susanna L. Benko is an assistant professor at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, USA; e-mail slbenko@bsu.edu.