Writing for Creative and Critical ThinkingUpdate your writing curriculum to support 21st century skills

Introduction

What’s Missing from ELA Assignments?

Prioritizing Critical and Creative Thinking

The Power of Authentic Texts

How to Embed Authentic Texts Throughout the Writing Process

Instruction vs. Assignments

Building a District Culture of Writing

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Table of Contents

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“Writing is essential to communication, learning, and citizenship. It is the currency of the new workplace and global economy. Writing helps us convey ideas, solve problems, and understand our changing world. Writing is a bridge to the future.”

- The National Writing Project

Writing allows students to build the skills they need to navigate the complexities of the world outside their classroom, but research shows that writing is all but missing from today’s classrooms.

In this eBook, we’ll explore how to deepen writing instruction in your district and build a culture in which writing is a tool educators use to build strong creative and critical thinking skills at scale.

Introduction

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In 2015, researchers from The Education Trust set out to understand the state of ELA instruction in US schools. Between February and March, researchers collected over 1500 assignments from six middle schools and one K-8 school.

To evaluate the quality of these literacy assignments, researchers at The Education Trust used the framework to the right.

Data from this analysis overwhelmingly indicated that in the typical ELA classroom, students are not being asked to regularly engage in extended, complex writing. While 80% of the assignments studied required some form of writing, researchers found that in the vast majority of classrooms writing was limited to “taking and organizing notes, responding in one or

two sentences to text-based questions, or providing multiple short responses such as labelling diagrams and maps.” This type of writing doesn’t allow students to adequately apply and communicate their learning. Unsurprisingly, only 4% of the assignments studied pushed student thinking to the higher levels needed for success in life and school.

Alignment with the Common Core• Assignment clearly articulates

task to be completed

• Assignment aligns to grade level Common Core standard

Centrality of Text• Assignment requires students

to respond to text in order to complete assignment

• Assignment requires students to cite evidence from text

Cognitive Challenge• Assignment pushes students to

higher levels of thinking

• Assignment asks students to complete piece of complex writing

Motivation and Engagement• Assignment allows for student

choice

• Assignment is relevant to student experiences and interests

What’s Missing from ELA Assignments?

The Education Trust's Literacy Assignment Analysis Framework

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Thinking critically and creatively solving problems are some of the most valuable skills a student can develop. These are skills that machines and algorithms can’t easily replicate, and for that reason they’re essential for success in an increasingly digital world.

Research shows that engaging in creative and critical thinking impacts students’ psychology in the following ways:

Critical and creative thinking skills are notoriously tricky for teachers to nurture throughout the school day, and even more challenging for districts to effectively measure and track progress towards. Teaching and tracking these skills is made more manageable when districts use 21st century writing to build and document evidence of creative and critical thinking.

Prioritizing Critical and Creative Thinking

Refines analysis, evaluation, and

comparison skillsIncreases autonomy

and innovationImproves sense of

well being

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The Power of Authentic TextsIn the past ten years, the way we produce and consume written content has changed dramatically, and the way districts model and nurture strong writing skills must reflect these changes. Nationwide, 27 million pieces of written content are shared online every day and over 59 million blog posts are published each month. As online writing becomes the norm, we need to prepare students for emerging forms of communication.

Effective 21st century writing instruction begins with 21st century reading. Before asking students to dive headfirst into the essay writing process, teachers can build engagement and model effective writing with relevant online texts. The timely nature of podcasts, news articles, videos, infographics, and websites allows districts to align texts with student interests, experiences, and concerns, giving students a starting point from which to think critically about issues that affect their world or community.

To cultivate this practice in your district, encourage teachers to collaborate with each other when sourcing and vetting digital texts for rigor and engagement. As your district deepens its culture of writing, your curriculum and coaching teams can build banks of high quality online texts. Alternatively, invest in technology that will curate these texts for your team to set a standard for excellence and equity across classrooms.

The research portion of any effective writing lesson should include reading questions that push students to think critically and creatively about the texts they interact with. Writing short reading responses as they interact with online texts gives students the chance to flex their writing and thinking skills before tackling an extended writing assignment.

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Vet and curate the best 21st century texts.

Level texts to support diverse student needs

and interests.

Write reading prompts that facilitate creative and critical thinking.

Ask students to synthesize and apply

texts in a piece of extended writing.

How to Embed Authentic Texts Throughout the Writing Process

Support teachers in deepening writing instruction.

Download the Handbook

Download The 21st Century Writing Workshop: A District Handbook

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It’s not enough for districts to simply assign more extended writing practice. Instead, district leaders must support teachers in providing extraordinary writing instruction that enables creative and critical thinking. To assess the state of writing instruction in your district, consider the following rubric developed by the National Writing Project in tandem with author Carl Nagin:

Instructionvs. Assignments

When Writing is Assigned When Writing is Taught

Students are asked to write only on the teacher’s topics.

Students have opportunities to create topics that matter to them.

The teacher selects writing topics for papers without consideration of audience and purpose.

Audience and purpose for papers are specifically identified in assignments.

Students are required to rewrite—in some cases. But rewriting usually is limited to correcting grammar, usage, etc.

Students are encouraged to revise, edit, and improve—and to correct drafts and then resubmit.

Most of a teacher’s time is spent correcting papers.

Most of a teacher’s time is spent in class teaching writing skills and strategies.

Students are not aware of significant improvement in their writing.

Students reflect on significant growth—or lack of it—in specific writing skills.

Students are required to write without much forethought.

Students think about what they write through brainstorming, freewriting, role-playing, discussion or other prewriting activities.

Students and teachers are bored by what students write.

Students and teachers are excited about what students write and make efforts to display and publish it.

Students are asked to analyze, compare, describe, narrate, review, and summarize, without the strategies to successfully complete these tasks.

Students are given writing models, assignments, and strategies to guide each of their different writing tasks.

The National Writing Project’s Criteria for Extraordinary Writing Instruction

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What does a culture of writing look like at a school or district level?

BETH RIMER: When you look up what the word culture means, you find things like shared languages, shared beliefs, shared practices. If you have a culture of writing, it means you have shared practices and experiences. I was thinking about this on a teaching level, student level, and administrator level.

A culture of writing looks like students being writers. They’re using writing to share their voice and record observations. They’re making choices about which introduction to use. They’re making choices about which illustrations go with which word, or choices about genre. A culture actually looks like students in the middle of the writing process, being messy, and using writing for lots of different purposes.

For teachers, a culture of writing looks like constant conversation. Teachers are talking with each other about what instructional practices work, and they’re

Tips, Advice, and Insight from the National Writing Project

Beth RimerCo-director of the Ohio Writing

Project

Tanya BakerDirector of National Programs at the

National Writing Project

Tatum TraversContent Marketing Specialist at

eSpark Learning

Building a District Culture of Writing

The following conversation has been transcribed from ‘How to Build a District Culture of Writing’, an eSpark Learning webinar featuring the National Writing Project

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modelling writing practices with students. Teachers are making space for writing, and creating spaces for students to write.

Administrators can support a culture of writing by celebrating growth rather than perfection. We’re not looking for check marks or a perfect product. Administrators might even help by modelling writing during a school or department meeting and sharing their writing and participating in the same culture and community they hope to see in the classroom.

TANYA BAKER: A research study asked a large number of middle and high school students whether reading was important in their school. Most consistently said that reading was obviously not important in their school even though across schools teachers said that reading was very important. They unpacked these responses with focus groups of the kids being studied. These students said “If reading was important we would do it at school, but they just tell us to go home and do it.”

It says a lot about reading and writing when those things are assigned but not taught, given as homework, but not made part of the active classroom. We know that that really sends a clear signal to young people that writing and reading aren’t really valued because they’re not present in the classroom. We have to make writing visible.

What role do administrators play in developing a district-wide writing strategy?

BETH RIMER: The first step is thinking through a plan. A first step has to do with administrators celebrating the good stuff that teachers are doing - the teacher knowledge and teacher leadership that’s going on around. So much good teaching and writing instruction is happening. Sometimes we just want to come in and change everything, when there’s already some great work being done.

The next step is administrators supporting the growth of teachers and students. An administrator should support teachers in risk taking in the same way we want teachers to support students in trying new things.

A next step could be nurturing the teacher leaders in the building and give them space to share their practice. Do a lesson study, and have teachers come back together and talk about it. Support teacher-leaders in going to conferences. All of those ideas and that work shows that a culture of writing matters.

You know that old saying What you spend your money on shows what your priority is? What administrators spend their discussion on, their teacher-leaders on, and their support on shows a lot about the district culture.

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How can effective writing instruction nurture creative and critical thinking skills?

TANYA BAKER: Last year a book came out by Fred Hamel called Choice and Agency in the Writing Workshop, a really close look at a number of 4th graders in a writing workshop. He describes young people as “developing and negotiating their abilities, their identities, and their social worlds when they write.” I think a lot about the importance of a space for lots of kinds of writing and opening up the opportunity for kids to nurture their creative selves and identities.

For writing instruction to really enable kids to build critical and creative thinking skills, it needs to be framed as participatory. Ultimately, in really rich classrooms, writing invites us to create knowledge together. In order to do that, we need to extend our critical thinking and our creative thinking.

TATUM TRAVERS: At eSpark Learning, we talk to a lot of school districts who say that they struggle to monitor and track growth towards creative and critical thinking in students. These are hard skills to assess and put data points around. I think writing is the solution to that problem. Samples of student writing illustrate instances of creative and critical thinking. While it’s not a data point, if you’re building a culture of writing in your district, you’re taking that step forward towards ensuring that students are developing creative and critical thinking over time.

“Frontier leads to stronger academic outcomes, particularly among struggling students.”

Learn more about Frontier

– Frontier by eSpark Learning: Product Analysis Report, Columbia University’s Teachers College

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Asked to think critically about diverse multimedia resources and points of view, students using Frontier learn how to synthesize what they learn through online research to form a compelling argument, explanation, or narrative.

Frontier’s digital writing lessons guide students through every stage of composition- from research to revision.

Ready to unlock creative and critical thinking in your district?

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Authentic Texts• Curated non-fiction texts facilitate

writing in response to reading

• Leveled texts align to state standards and accommodate multiple skill levels within one lesson

Extended Writing• Archived reading notes allow

students to connect their writing to the text

• On-screen rubrics guide students through opinion, narrative, and informational writing

Critical and Creative Thinking• Constructed response questions

prompt students to synthesize diverse texts

• Complex guiding questions support students to writing thoughtful written responses

Peer Feedback and Revision• Feedback tools streamline peer

editing and feedback

• G Suite for Education Integration enables students to thoroughly revise their work

eSpark Learning’s solutions streamline student-centered learning, allowing every teacher to address students’ unique needs while driving growth and engagement.

Learn more at www.eSparkLearning.com