Writing to Learn

Armbruster, McCarthey and Cummins (2005) in a chapter from Learning to Write, Writing to Learn: Theory and Research in Practice review literature on how writing across the curriculum is perceived by teachers and used in local classrooms. In their work they found few studies to support the claim that writing across the curriculum makes an impact on student learning, but did find smaller studies that show support for continuing the practice since teachers perceive it as having a positive impact. Teachers cited reasons of thinking time, creating positions and helping students master content. All these are certainly important attributes of what we hope students will do through learning.

As a teacher I agree that writing across the curriculum has real benefits. But as a researcher i am wondering how teachers can prove this to transform ideas into beneficial practice for students.

So, I am trying to then wrap my brain around how to compare this article with the research brief that Silvernail and Gritter (2007) prepared about Maine's MLTI laptop program in Maine. This brief looked at MEA test data (our state assessment) to see if there was any difference in scores once laptops had been implemented state wide in the 1:1 model. Silvernail and Gritter found that "overall performance on the 8th grade MEA has not changed appreciably since the inception of the laptop program." (p.4). However they did find that scores on the writing portion of the MEA's have increased significantly since the laptops have been in place. This finding held true despite how the students took the MEA (with computer or without) and was further supported by data that students who used the laptops in more aspects of the writing process in school performed better than those students who were not using them for the writing process.

So, on the one hand I am excited to see that there is some data to support the investment in these laptops, but on the other hand I am wondering why the anecdotal and perceived impact of writing and using technology is not more well documented. Is it because of what we are using as metrics? Is it because people have not studied this topic? Is it because it is tool early to tell?

Writing and technology are becoming an intertwined process for those of us that live digitally. I am curious why there was little research to be found about writing across the curriculum, and why the laptop research shows gains in just the writing test, not across the curriculum? Certainly in the Armbruster et al chapter teachers acknowledged that one of the benefits of writing across the curriculum was that writing improved with content knowledge, so perhaps this is why we are first seeing the rise in writing scores with the MEA's. Will evidence be found later that shows growth in all areas of the MEA's? Or, is it that the MEA's may not measure what we are interested in?