For low-achieving students, success in using strategies can change their attributions for success and failure from personal ability to effective use of strategies.

– Self-Regulated Strategy Instruction in Developmental Writing: A Design Research Project

I can evaluate whether I am making progress in learning to write.

– Item 17, Self-Efficacy for Writing Questionnaire, A Multicomponent Measure of Writing Motivation with Basic College Writers

What are some skills required in writing compositions? Students would need to write grammatically so that the writing is intelligible. They would need to know which words to use to express their ideas. Their arrangement of words will have to fit at the phrase, sentence, paragraph and story levels. Then, there is of course, the story itself.

Composition writing trains what has come to be known as the helicopter quality, an ability to focus on details at the phrase and sentence level, while always keeping an eye on the big picture or overall story. Students will need to know before they begin, where they will end but this is merely a rough destination.

There are times when a student may start out wanting to reach a certain point but find the story having a will of its own. While this is acceptable to some extent, the wandering must always be subject to content requirements.

Flower and Hayes (1980) came up with the process model of writing. They suggested that writing comprises different processes at different stages. They were the ones who suggested, “writing as consisting of three primary processes—planning, translating (i.e., the production of text), and reviewing” (La Paz & McCutchen, 2016). The stages can be neatly classified as pre-writing, writing and post-writing. At every stage, there are distinct skills required. This model (perhaps with refinements) is what is being used in writing classes all over the world today.

With three stages and multiple skills involved, writing compositions can seem like a daunting task at first but this is only if the focus is on being right more than being free.

A friend moved to Italy, enrolled in a jewellery making school and is now a full-time jewellery designer and maker. Though it is a labour-intensive process, he enjoys it immensely. During the day, when natural light floods in through his open window into his workspace in his quaint home, he loses himself in the process of working with metals and stones, going at it for hours in one sitting. Working with metals helps him to lose sense of time and he is able to see before his eyes how a sheet of metal transforms into an exquisite work of art, as he shapes it, little by little.

What makes something laborious is not so much the effort involved but the pronounced sense of time passing. There is no reason children will not enjoy writing if they see how, it is an opportunity to lose themselves in the world of the story to create something to express themselves. Perhaps framing compositions this way would increase student motivation in composition writing.

In a recently published paper, Bai and Guo (2021) investigated the relationship between motivation and self-regulated learning strategy use between high, average and low achievers in composition writing. In their study, they enrolled 523 students in two Hong Kong primary schools, aged 9-10. They analysed how the different groups (high, average and low) used strategies differently and identified the most important factors to spur better performance in all three.

Strategies can be classified as cognitive, metacognitive and resource management. Cognitive strategies refer to ways to think about and execute a task. Metacognitive strategies refer to ways to monitor progress towards a goal. Resource management strategies refer to ways to best employ available resources such as time to achieve a goal.

The researchers measured how much students engaged in planning, self-monitoring and acting on feedback. The 9-10-year-old students use of these strategies were measured through a self-report questionnaire, with questions like, “When I plan for my English composition, I write out a plan for it” (planning), “I check whether my composition meets … requirements” (self-monitoring), “I incorporate …. feedback in my compositions” (acting on feedback).

Their motivation to write was measured also through a self-report questionnaire, with questions like, “My English competence gets better with practice” and “Writing English compositions makes me satisfied”.

The 523 students were placed in high, average and low achievement groups based on a performance task. They were asked to write a narrative based on some pictures.

They found that high achievers, or those who wrote an engaging, coherent narrative were not particularly interested in writing. However, this group was the most motivated in the sense that they believed strongly that their efforts would be fruitful, which to them meant a high score. They also believed strongly that they had it in them to perform well. This group used all the 3 types of strategies most frequently when working on the narrative. On a scale of 5, for both the motivation and strategy-use questionnaires, they reported levels close to 4. Researchers suggested that this group was able to use strategies independently and that they were motivated by the need to feel competent. They recommended giving them more challenging tasks so that they would feel a sense of accomplishment.

The average achievers were moderately motivated and used strategies moderately. They were less interested in writing than the high achieving group. The more interested they were in writing, the more they believed their efforts made a difference and the more they believed they had it in them to perform well, the more they used strategies. Researchers concluded that this group needed awareness of more strategies to perform at a higher level.

The low achievers were least motivated and they also used strategies least. They had trouble believing their efforts would make a difference. Those among this group who believed they could perform well, did not use strategies more. Those in this group who were more interested in writing and believed that their efforts would make a difference, did use strategies more. The researchers concluded that this group were not aware of strategies they could use or that they had to use strategies. They suggested that for them, interest was a very important factor. Once they became interested, they might be more willing to acquaint themselves with writing strategies.

This study’s findings are consistent with other studies with regards to the following. Those who use strategies the most do the best work. To use strategies, students need to believe strategies are useful and that they can use them successfully. They need to believe that everyone needs to put in the effort and that efforts will surely make a difference.

The staircase will always work.

The Brain Dojo