Melissa & Lori Love Literacy ™

[Listen Again] The Writing Revolution with Judith Hochman and Natalie Wexler

• Episode 117

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From July 22, 2022

The Writing Revolution authors, Judith Hochman and Natalie Wexler, share a 'revolutionary' approach to writing. The best part: It begins at the sentence level AND content knowledge drives the rigor.  Moreover, there is an overlap in reading, writing, and critical thinking.

What are the principles of The Writing Revolution?  There are six: 

  1. Students need explicit instruction in writing, beginning in the early elementary grades.
  2. Sentences are the building blocks of all writing.
  3. When embedded in the content of the curriculum, writing instruction is a powerful teaching tool.
  4. The content of the curriculum drives the rigor of the writing activities.
  5. Grammar is best taught in the context of student writing.
  6. The two most important phases of the writing process are planning and revising.  


Resources


We answer your questions about teaching reading in The Literacy 50-A Q&A Handbook for Teachers: Real-World Answers to Questions About Reading That Keep You Up at Night.

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Melissa :

Today we're bringing back one of our most popular episodes, Episode 117, with Judith Hockman and Natalie Wexler, authors of the Writing Revolution. If you're looking for a way to help your students write clear, organized sentences and paragraphs in any subject area, this episode is for you.

Lori:

The Writing Revolution is a game changer because it makes teaching writing simple and effective, starting at the sentence level. Whether you're brand new to this approach or just need a refresher, you'll walk away with practical strategies you can start using in your classroom tomorrow. Hi teacher friends. I'm Lori and I'm Melissa. We are two educators who want the best for all kids, and we know you do too.

Melissa :

We worked together in Baltimore when the district adopted a new literacy curriculum.

Lori:

We realized there was so much more to learn about how to teach reading and writing.

Melissa :

Lori, and I can't wait to keep learning with you today.

Lori:

Hi everyone. Welcome to Melissa and Lori Love Literacy Literacy Podcast. We cannot wait for our guests today. I will tell you they have. Oh, this duo has come, highly requested. Melissa, I know you can't wait. I'm about to rewrite a new forward for their book after this podcast, because I'm so excited to do this this summer.

Melissa :

You've got plans for the summer. I have plans for the summer.

Lori:

I can't wait, so I know you're excited specifically for our two guests today.

Melissa :

Yeah, so we have our good friend Natalie Wexler back, which is always exciting, but I know third time but she brought along a partner this time. So Judith Hockman is here today and I'm so excited because, if you look back at all of our episodes, lori, we really have not talked about writing enough. And I'm so excited because, if you look back at all of our episodes, lori, we really have not talked about writing enough. So I'm so excited to talk to them about the writing revolution and why it's just such a powerful process for teaching writing and how it can be used by all teachers and all grade levels. And so, yeah, I'm really excited to dig into this conversation today. So, welcome back, natalie and welcome Judy, thank you.

Melissa :

So I said to you all in our pre-call that you know I see all the time people asking on Facebook groups and things like that for recommendations for writing programs, especially connected to the science of reading, which to me just means connected to something research based. But they always say the writing revolution. And I always think it's interesting because I'm like, well, it's not a program, but I'm glad you all are recommending the writing revolution so much. That's a good thing, but I wonder how you all would explain. You know, no, it's not a program, right? It's not a pick it up out of a box. It tells you what to teach on day one, day two. That's not it. How would you explain the writing revolution then?

Judith Hochman:

Natalie, why don't you respond to that?

Natalie Wexler:

Well, I mean, there's a good reason that it's not a program out of a box. Because so the two? I would say that the two characteristics that distinguish the writing revolution from other approaches to writing instruction and it's an approach, it's a method rather than a curriculum are, first of all, that it begins at the sentence level, if that's what students need, so that they're not overwhelmed as inexperienced writers by writing independently at length. But secondly, it's designed to be adapted and grounded in whatever curriculum content you're already you're teaching. That's assuming you are teaching a curriculum that has content, that is content rich, which is not always the case, especially at the elementary level, as you know. But and so it it really, you know it requires a little bit of work, in that it has to be adapted.

Natalie Wexler:

It is not something that comes with its own set of topics and reading passages, et cetera, and there are reasons for that. And the other thing is that you know it's not that just when kids get to high school they magically become better writers, right? So it has to be adapted to the abilities and the needs of whatever particular students are in front of you. So that's another reason why it can't just be out of a box and oh, this is eighth grade, so this is what we're going to focus on. You may have some eighth graders who still need to learn how to construct a good sentence, while others are ready to write five paragraph multiple paragraph essays. So that's. You know, it's a little trickier than just a curriculum in a box, but those curricula in a box are not going to work as well, so there's a reason that this requires a little some extra steps.

Judith Hochman:

Well, curriculum in a box is generally curricula in writing that's taught in isolation from the rest of what's being taught in school, and that's one of the reasons that it doesn't work effectively, because unless you help kids to write in the content in which they're learning and respect writing as a powerful learning tool, it's really not very effective. And we find that you know what. It does not transfer easily. What they learn from the box or in a separate room down the hall where writing is taught does not transfer to the writing assignments that they're going to get as they move along in school, Whereas if it's embedded in the subjects that they're learning, it's far more effective. And I don't think it's a very heavy lift for teachers who have used it for a while, because it becomes so naturally part of their repertoire and they get the benefits of it pretty quickly, because we start at the foundation with the sentences and they can see very quickly where this is heading. Would you?

Natalie Wexler:

agree, yes, yes, I mean I think that you know, and it is designed to be used not just in the ELA or English class but across the curriculum, to be used not just in the ELA or English class but across the curriculum. And there may be, you know, resistance from science teachers or math teachers who say, well, I, you know, I didn't sign up to be a writing teacher. But when they see that actually, these activities, they don't interfere with the teaching of the content, they actually facilitate and improve the teaching of the content and deepen students' understanding and ability to retain information, it, you know, I think it becomes interwoven into their instruction and you know they're, they're very pleased with the results, as Judy said.

Melissa :

Yeah, I love that and I I mean, when I was reading through it again, I noticed like you can be, you can do this with kids that aren't even actually writing yet. Right, you can do some of this orally with the youngest students, just like at the sentence level, asking them to add on to their sentence or, you know, creating a full sentence out of a fragment. You know that can be.

Judith Hochman:

Yeah, well, we're in the middle of. Actually, I just finished watching the arcade through two course, of which 75% is oral. Yeah, absolutely on target.

Melissa :

Yeah, like, and you can do the same kinds of things that you might do with an eighth grade student, but they do it. Just do it at, like, a more sophisticated level because they might be making a bit longer of a sentence, right.

Natalie Wexler:

Right, I mean it's also you know. By the same token, some people feel well, sentence level work is inappropriate for high school because they should be doing, you know, longer writing but a sentence. As Judy says, the rigor of these activities varies with the content. So writing a sentence about you know the causes of the Civil War is going to be more cognitively challenging than writing a sentence about you know the causes of the civil war is going to be more cognitively challenging than writing a sentence about you know what happened in I don't know Brown Bear or Brown Bear, what did you say, or something.

Natalie Wexler:

So there's that and there's also, you know, doing things orally and collaboratively is also important at any grade level when you're introducing a new strategy, something that's unfamiliar, and it's also important to do that in content that's familiar because that opens up cognitive capacity for students to understand the strategy.

Natalie Wexler:

You're lessening those other burdens on working memory. They don't have to do it independently and they don't necessarily need to do it in writing. So it's not just K through two where the oral aspects are important. And the other thing I would say is I think there's some misconception among some people that the method requires that kids could do sort of master all of the sentence level strategies before they can move on to the other parts of the method, like outlining a paragraph. And that's not true. You know kindergartners can outline a paragraph orally and collaboratively. You don't have to wait. These things can proceed simultaneously. The thing that has to wait a bit is asking students to write independently at length If they are not yet able to construct good sentences. That's just going to be too overwhelming and they're probably not going to write anything particularly coherent and they're also probably not going to have the cognitive capacity available to get the knowledge building benefits from writing.

Judith Hochman:

The writing revolution. The strategies in the writing revolution are focused heavily on expository writing, writing that explains or informs. It's not about journal writing or poetry or what is commonly called creative writing. Not that we're against this, but first of all we feel you write much better creatively if you know something about writing. And the second thing is that, as we said earlier, writing as a tool for building knowledge is so powerful that to neglect that, even in the earliest grades, is a big mistake, we feel.

Lori:

I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit about the specific strategies, the process of teaching, writing.

Judith Hochman:

The famous one, the one that everybody seems to know about, is because buttons, so a real crowd favorite.

Lori:

It is, it's so easy, you really, you took that, and you made it so easy for us, but it's so powerful, so powerful

Judith Hochman:

well you know, rather than say, um, why do we still remember lincoln? Rather than, oh, ask an open question like that. If you ask students to repeat sentences like we remember Lincoln, because we remember Lincoln, but we remember Lincoln, so you're asking kids to analyze the information on a far deeper level than they ordinarily would. By the same token, when you ask kids to explain or expand sentences using question words who, what, when, where, why and how you're asking them to give more information to that invisible reader who they often forget about when they're writing. And these two, along with other strategies, help students in their revision, and revision isn't something that takes place either on the teacher feedback or how children actually revise their work very effectively most of the time. So we rely heavily on the sentence strategies to help kids revise. We also rely on the outlines to help them organize their thoughts, sequence their thoughts, place their important points in specific places. These are things that the outlines can help them do. So together, I think you're really benefiting. Teacher instruction, of which there is very little love in teacher training institutions regarding writing, and empowering students to express themselves far more effectively.

Judith Hochman:

I could go on about the strategies, but I think that you know those are two examples, and we also rely pretty heavily on strategies that reflect written language. So a written language for might be. Natalie Wexler, a gifted author, is being interviewed in a podcast today. That's not something, that's an oral language expression. That really that a positive. A gifted author is most often found in written language. So instantly you increase the sophistication of the writing quite a bit.

Natalie Wexler:

Yeah, and I just would elaborate on the point Judy was making about how these sentence level strategies then feed into writing at length when students are ready to do that. So teachers might say, you know, can you vary your sentence structure? But students may not know how to do that If they've been taught to use something like what Judy was saying very flatteringly to me, that you know a gifted author that's called an appositive. So that creates a kind of shorthand. Once students know what an appositive is and how to construct a sentence with one, instead of just saying vary your sentence structure and getting perhaps a blank look, a teacher could say how about putting and making this first sentence into an, a positive, inserting an a positive into that sentence? And that you know, in in enriches the sentence but also at the same time. So these sentence level strategies, and also there are things like transition words. How do you use words like consequently, or as a result, or, and those are again things that kids are words and phrases? Kids are unlikely to just pick up from conversation. They need to be explicitly taught, but even while they're working on these sentence level strategies so that they can then use them when they revise their drafts, those sentence level strategies themselves are building knowledge.

Natalie Wexler:

Almost all of them because, even something as simple as because, but, and, so each of those conjunctions requires a student to retrieve a different kind of information from what they've got in long-term memory. Maybe they've slightly forgotten it, but they have to retrieve it and then they put it in their own words. Both of those things are very powerful boosts to comprehension and retention of information. And that structure, even just because but, and so you know, put some guardrails on kids' attention so that they're not just like well, so what is it about Lincoln that we remember? It's like you know well. What is it about Lincoln that we remember? It's like you know well. What is the contrasting information about Lincoln that you, you know? So it's really very powerful. Now I will say even something as simple as because, but, and, so needs to be carefully constructed by the teacher so that it is getting at the information that we want students to focus on and retain and analyze. So there's that.

Lori:

Can you share a little bit more about that, natalie or Judy, like what that might look like, like if we're, if the teacher is carefully focusing on that, because I think that's really important and those are strategies that I know, that I, you know, see teachers using all the time. So I know they're using them because they're sharing them in all those cool Facebook groups that we're in and how much they love the writing revolution. So I'm seeing, like, lots of examples of teachers using them. But how could teachers use them, like, I guess, even more effectively?

Judith Hochman:

So I think that a very important thing that we stress is the anticipated response, that when you develop an activity for a student, as all teachers do in all subjects, for all kinds of reasons, it's important to anticipate what kind of response you're going to get from the child. For example, there are times when you're constructing what we call a stem, the beginning of a sentence with because, but and so or say is subordinating conjunction. They've got to finish that out because sometimes they might assume and I know this has happened to me on many occasions that the response may be obvious and it's not. There are times that because and so conflate and end up with the same answer. So you know, these things have to be tried and even if the teacher does that in her own mind very important. And I just want to add that we're throwing around words like transitions and positives and so forth we don't teach. We don't think teaching grammar in isolation is very beneficial. I know that Natalie used to love diagramming sentences when I was a kid.

Lori:

Me too. Natalie, I have good memories of doing that, but I think it could be really scarring for other people.

Judith Hochman:

Well, I would venture to say that it played no role whatsoever in Natalie being the writer. She is her glory.

Lori:

No, you know what I liked about it, judy, I'll be honest. You used different color chalk at the chalkboard and I remember being like oh, I love the purple chalk because I love the way it slayed across the chalkboard when you diagrammed the sentences, and that's what I remember about it.

Judith Hochman:

You know, teaching grammar in isolation probably doesn't benefit composing much and in fact there are some studies that indicate that it might have some negative effect. But if you go into a third or fourth grade writing revolution classroom, kids know what positives are subordinating conjunctions are, because they're using these terms in the service of what they're composing and right, they have very real meaning for them. So um that, that that has a benefit, and um yeah.

Melissa :

I was going to say this, judy, because I I did my student teaching in a seventh grade classroom and I taught a writing class which was separate from their English class, which, looking back, I'm like, why did we do this?

Melissa :

But I, you know, I was just doing what I was told because I was a student teacher and we had different units on. I had we had a preposition unit, we had a conjunction unit and it was, you know, they identified the prepositions, they identified the conjunctions and then they moved on to the next unit. And you know, I'm thinking back to that now and the difference here which, like you just said it right, it's so much more meaningful. They're using it. They're using it to make their writing better. They're seeing why we use prepositions, why we use conjunctions, not just well, this is the unit for this month, so I want to get an A on the test and we can keep moving, but they're really seeing the power in those types of words. So then it sticks with them and even if they might forget what they're called at first, that's okay if they know how to use them.

Judith Hochman:

It also makes the teacher feedback better, because if you say to a child, you know, make your topic sentence better as opposed to why not add a positive in your topic sentence? You know there's a world of difference there in the kind of feedback that you're giving the child, and I think that's important.

Melissa :

I'm wondering. I don't know if we want to go here yet, but I really want to make sure we hit it, so I'm going to go there and then we can come back if we need to. But one of the things I really, really love about the writing revolution and thinking about Scarborough's reading rope is, I always think of the language comprehension side, and there's the one part of that rope that's called syntax. It's like how do you help students break down longer sentences, complicated sentences and I always come back to when I think of teaching them writing so explicitly like this and teaching them how to create their own longer sentences and more complex sentences. Like that has to help the reading part of it right is like that has to help the reading part of it Right, absolutely.

Natalie Wexler:

You know, I think, well one. So written language, as I think we've said is or alluded to, is almost always more complex than spoken language different vocabulary and, and this more complex syntax with you know, lots of different clauses and phrases and subordinating conjunctions and things like that. And if kids are going to be able to read and understand complex text independently, they have to become familiar with that different kind of language and, as Judy said, it's almost like a second language. And one way to do that is through reading aloud complex text to kids so that they can hear it. And that helps. But even more powerful is teaching them how to use those words and that kind of syntax themselves, how to construct sentences that are complex. Once you know how to do that, you're in a much better position to understand that kind of syntax when you encounter it in your reading. And we've definitely you know certainly anecdotally seen that, heard that from teachers and students.

Judith Hochman:

I remember, you know, the light bulb that went off for me some time ago when I read I believe it was Cheryl Scott's work saying that when you teach kids to write complex sentences, they're far better able to comprehend them when they encounter them in text. And that made so much sense to me and we certainly tried it and saw it. And having them use, you know, subordinating conjunctions and constructing independent clauses on their own bore that out in every classroom that I've been in.

Natalie Wexler:

And one other thing I would mention is and Judy can probably elaborate more on this it also carries over into students' oral language the way they speak in class and outside of class. Probably as well, but you know, it's sort of a two-way street. I think talking about a topic, brainstorming before you start writing, is very helpful, but then once you've written about it, once you've learned to use this kind of more complex syntax that can carry over into your speech.

Lori:

Yeah, I love this idea of like reciprocity.

Lori:

That's it's so important and thank you for naming that.

Lori:

One of the things that you just mentioned, Natalie, made me think about like the topics that students are writing about, and you know, I know that we have talked a bit today about background knowledge and the importance of students having knowledge on what they're writing.

Lori:

But in our pre-call I think, Natalie, you had mentioned this and I wrote it down and I just wanted to bring it up as like a real clear, concrete example that writing skills are not necessarily transferable. So learning how to write an argument of an essay about chocolate milk in the cafeteria doesn't necessarily transfer to like a collegiate style essay about a specific topic-based argument. So is there any way that you might be able to elaborate on that? Because I know there are a lot of people listening who are in that scenario where their current curricula have kids writing about chocolate milk or something of the sort, and they might not be getting the results that they want to get from their kids or from their students, even though they might be trying to use some of these practices. So would you be able to speak to that a?

Natalie Wexler:

little bit, yeah, trying to use some of these practices. So would you be able to speak to that a little bit? Yeah, I mean, I think what we're up against is, you know it's hard to read about a topic you know nothing about, but it is really impossible to write about a topic you know nothing about. And so one way around that has been, given the lack of content in the elementary curriculum, has been to this is sort of the writer's workshop approach have kids write about their personal experience and their personal opinions, that they know about those. So that solves that problem. But that wastes a golden opportunity to get to use writing as a tool to build and deepen kids knowledge about what they're supposed to be learning. Build and deepen kids' knowledge about what they're supposed to be learning. Then I think you know, with the advent of the common core writing standards and a greater emphasis on expository and persuasive or argumentative writing, even at the elementary levels, you started seeing these curricula that were like, okay, we're going to teach kids how to do persuasive writing by having them write an opinion piece about whether we should have chocolate milk in the cafeteria or whatever, and then they'll be able. It's a parallel to the idea of reading comprehension skills. We'll teach them how to find the main idea, and then they'll be able to find the main idea of anything, and it doesn't really matter what context. They've learned how to find the main idea in Context matters for both reading, comprehension and writing, and it is in some ways easier to certainly to write about personal experience or personal opinion, but it doesn't mean you're going to be able to then write an argumentative essay about you know the causes of the Civil War, and with these separate topics like chocolate, milk, I mean, there are others as well. I have school uniforms. Yes, there's several of them out there. You know that may or may not draw on a separate body of knowledge. It also won't transfer, but sometimes what you see is OK. Here are three paragraphs about you know insects. Now you write an opinion essay about your favorite insect, and it can be very hard for kids to do that if all they know about insects is those three paragraphs.

Natalie Wexler:

So you do need, first of all, some knowledge to begin writing. You need something more than three paragraphs, and I think that then. What happens, though, is in the process of writing, you may realize you need more information. You may realize that you did not understand what you thought you understood. And you also make new connections you build. You're forced to analyze things and make connections between bits of information and deepen the knowledge of whatever it is you're writing about. So you both have to start with some fairly rich knowledge, but then in the process of writing it becomes richer and deeper.

Natalie Wexler:

And why would we waste that on chocolate milk in the cafeteria? I mean, if you decide as part of your core curriculum that you want kids to study the issue of chocolate milk in the cafeteria, then maybe it does make sense to have them write about it. I mean, that's what you want. But I think it shouldn't be. We should not put the cart before the horse by saying, well, what topic could we choose to help kids learn to write a persuasive essay? We should be looking at the topics that are in the curriculum, because we've decided those are the important topics we want kids to learn about, and then thinking well, which of these topics might lend itself to a persuasive kind of writing?

Melissa :

Yeah, that makes so much sense and I would imagine, as a teacher too, I would you know. You get so much more information right, rather than I'm looking at this piece of writing just to look to see if they can do the pieces of writing that I want them to do. You know, now you can look at it to see, okay, you know where are they with the writing, but then also where are they with the content, like I can see whether they have misconceptions about the content that I taught.

Natalie Wexler:

It's a two for one and that's another good use of sentence level activities. It's a great comprehension check if they're well constructed and it reaches every student in the class, not just, you know, the ones you call on or the ones who raise their hand and ones who choose to participate in discussion Right.

Lori:

Yeah, judy, do you want to add anything to that?

Judith Hochman:

No, my brain was going very fast as Natalie was speaking, because, you know, obviously I agree with every word and in the back of my mind I was thinking of how important those outlines are and in terms of organizing before you write, and we came up with ways of starting to write little opinion essays, even at the sentence level, with zoos, are very popular.

Judith Hochman:

But that's the beginning of contrasting and arguing in favor of one thing over another, and we take it step by step. I think one of the reasons for the popularity of the writing revolution is that we don't take very much for granted. We're pretty granular in our approach right up through writing argument, because we're not assuming that students know what we know. They probably don't know and teachers, unfortunately, try so hard and work so hard to get well to meet the standards of a particular state or district, but they're really not shown how in their teacher training institutions for the most part, writing is so complex, it's the hardest skill to teach. It's the hardest skill to learn, but when you embed it in what they are learning and what they are learning is challenging is part of the program that we hope would be in play. You really, it's very important and we would love to see that emphasized.

Melissa :

Yeah, it reminds me of here in Baltimore, before we adopted a curriculum. We made our own curriculum and I think we did a pretty decent job of having pretty good writing tasks that probably could have used improvement.

Judith Hochman:

But you know, they were.

Melissa :

They were pretty good and they were. They were embedded with the content that they were using. But what we didn't do was what you just said, judy, which was we just assigned the tasks, you know, and we just said good luck. Not really, but you know, that's. That's what we gave. The teachers was just here, you know. Here's some. What we gave the teachers was just here, you know.

Judith Hochman:

Here's some here's the reading, here's the task. Right, I think we were deciding things, but that's how to get there, and one of the things that I should add is that the outlines that we promote are linear. They're very simple, linear outlines. Kids don't need a pre-printed template for them although we will supply them, you know but they're simple and they can really cut across so many of the errors that you commonly see in longer pieces of writing when they're taught and used effectively, which is not that hard to do when they're taught and used effectively, which is not that hard to do.

Natalie Wexler:

Yeah, I mean I, you know there are bubble maps and things like that are really popular. But and I write all the time and I need often to write at least a quick linear outline before I write, even you know a thousand word post, because even though I'm a very experienced writer, it's still hard for me to keep track of things like what was I going to say next? Or did I already say that? You know and just imagine if you're still learning the mechanics of writing how difficult it is to keep all those things in your head, in your working memory. And so what you can do with a linear outline is you offload some of that cognitive load onto a piece of paper or a screen or whatever it is, and then you don't have to. You have more capacity to think about how you want to say something and you know to craft your words because you're not thinking wait a minute, what was I going to say here?

Judith Hochman:

Natalie's post contained extremely useful information about working memory, cognitive load and the method that's used in the writing. Revolution has taken that information, took that information decades ago, very seriously in building the strategies for this method because, um, we were careful not to overload the kid with too much, as they're learning this difficult skill together with what they're learning in content, and I think that we've done that fairly successfully, according to what we've seen and according to the studies that we've done and are doing.

Melissa :

That's exciting. I wanted to ask you guys just talked about the planning as being really important and the other part of the process, the writing process that you all call out, is the revising as the, I guess, other really important part Can you talk a little bit about that why that's such an important part of the process, Natalie?

Natalie Wexler:

Well, I think that's where. So you've got your outline. Let's say you have a nice clear, linear outline, you've got your thoughts organized, and then it's a fairly mechanical exercise just to translate that into a draft. But at that point the draft may be pretty wooden, right, it may not flow, it doesn't. The sentence structure may be, you know, just very simple, repetitive. There may not be words that connect the thoughts or signal a change of direction.

Natalie Wexler:

That's where revision comes in and that's where those sentence level skills, those strategies that you've learned, hopefully, about how to vary your sentence structure, connect your thoughts. That's where you make the writing flow. Now, eventually, like if you know, if you have written for many years, you may not have those two stages the draft, and then it's going to become more sort of recursive and mixed up. But when you're still learning this stuff, it's very helpful to. Okay, now I have this draft, how do I make it sing? How do I make it something people might wanna actually read?

Natalie Wexler:

And that's where revision comes in. And then, and Judy, one of the things that she taught me was the distinction between revising and editing, which I think a lot of people may not understand or they might use those terms interchangeably. But the editing is more of the mechanical stuff, the punctuation and things like. I mean not in the world of journalism but in the world of the classroom. It's. Revising is where you're really playing with the ideas a bit but making them flow, and you probably want to do that before you bother with the editing.

Judith Hochman:

And when you're doing the revising, we give the kids a very simple paragraph with no spelling or any grammatical errors. Everything is capitalized, that it should be, and so we take the editing piece off the table.

Melissa :

Yeah, because that's where they always want to go first well, because that's where we all want to go.

Judith Hochman:

when you lead the kids along step by step and say start your topic sentence with a subordinating conjunction, use a transition to begin your third sentence, you know. End your paragraph with a command. And this is a very simple you know try not to use good in every sentence or fun in every sentence, whatever they can spell and love to use. It's a wonderful opportunity for them to see how these versus, a wonderful opportunity to give the teachers a way to provide feedback that's much more meaningful and for the students to see that it doesn't take a whole lot to make their writing look a lot better than it did. And so, as Natalie said, we rely a lot on the sentence activities for, you know, beginning to teach, revising, and later we rely a lot on the organization of the outline to improve what we're doing substantively. So the two work together quite closely.

Melissa :

I love that. You know you guys you build up from sentence level up, but then also you know this can build every year in school and get you know more and more rich as the content becomes more complex and they can write more complex sentences. It can just keep building on itself throughout their whole time in school.

Natalie Wexler:

Yes, ideally they start this at the elementary grades, but I will say that it is one of the few things that can work at the high school level. To you know, turn things around and there aren't. There aren't many things that work at that point If you've got kids who, through no fault of their own, have a lot of gaps in their knowledge of the world, the kind of knowledge that's assumed in their textbooks. But I mean, that's what this Atlantic article back in 2012 was about was a high school on Staten Island that was so low performing it was in danger of being closed and really turned itself around, largely by adopting a method that was then called the hockman method um, because it didn't didn't have the writing revolution name yet, but it's essentially the same method yeah, I totally have that pulled up and we'll link it in our uh, in our notes here.

Lori:

I was like oh 2012, yeah, it's been a decade of the writing revolution, without formally titling in that Right.

Natalie Wexler:

It's. It is amazing and that is how I came across Judy Hockman was. I read that article in the writing revolution at the time. I mean, I was just a neophyte, just a baby in the woods within the education world, and I had decided I wanted to know, like, what's the problem with high school? And I volunteered to tutor some students in writing at a high poverty high school and I discovered two things. One is they weren't learning how to write. Nobody was even asking them to do any writing assignments, and when I gave them things to read so that they could write about them, I realized that they didn't understand the things I was giving them to read, even though I thought they were fairly straightforward, because there were so many gaps in their vocabulary, their knowledge of the world.

Natalie Wexler:

So when I read this article in the Atlantic, I thought, oh my God, this is what the kids I'm working with need, because it both teaches them how to write and it builds their knowledge at the same time. Wouldn't it be great if someday this method could come to DC public schools? But of course, that will never happen. This is, you know, some high school on Staten Island, and then I happened to be at a meeting that the DC public schools was having about different literacy initiatives. They were going to try maybe, and somebody said we read this article in the Atlantic about this, that rest of the writing instruction and we, you know, we really like to bring that here. I couldn't believe it. So I said, excuse me, is there anything I could do to help with that? You know, and that's how I met Judy and in fact the DC public schools did bring. I mean, they were the first district to say, hey, we want to try this. So, um, yeah.

Melissa :

I love how to like serendipity of how you two met and came together.

Natalie Wexler:

Yeah, it could easily not have happened, that's right.

Judith Hochman:

That's right. Very much serendipity.

Melissa :

Well, before we all ask, we ask you some closing questions. Is there anything else about the writing revolution that you want to make sure our listeners hear that we haven't already mentioned?

Judith Hochman:

We give courses and workshops, and not just in the writing revolution itself but how to implement it in a whole school. We give courses in leadership and so forth and of course the book has a free resource link to it that people can pull that activities, templates for the outlines and so forth.

Natalie Wexler:

Yeah, I mean the book, which is, you know. The success of the book has exceeded our wildest expectations and I think for some teachers, the book, you know, that's all they need to really run with it. I think for many teachers this is so different that it may be really helpful to take one of the courses that they're now online so you can be anywhere in Australia. Lots of people are taking these courses and and they do now have some. There's there's sort of a general introduction, but there's also one, as Judy mentioned, for kindergarten to second grade teachers. There's one specifically focused on STEM. So, you know, I would encourage people to to take a look at those if they're interested in really trying to implement the method in their classroom. And, of course, it helps to do it if possible, not just as an individual teacher, but school wide if possible, district wide if possible.

Melissa :

So, and I can vouch for those courses. I actually took one and it is really helpful to. I wasn't in the classroom at the time but it's still helpful for me to practice, you know, taking what's in the book and then making it for, like what, what would I do in my classroom? You know what, what, what would these sentence stems look like you know and really thinking through them? So, because it does, it does take some work to think through what, what would make a good, a good one, right, like you know, you can, you can throw anything up there, but to make it really good and make it like powerful for the students and really get what you want from them, it does take a little, a little bit of thought, and so it was really helpful to get. You know, I got feedback from people about, about what I wrote, and so that was it was. I can just say they're good courses, that's inspiring Melissa, yeah.

Natalie Wexler:

And I can say, even after having, you know, worked with written the book with Judy, I was working with an adult who was from Latin America and she wanted to improve her English writing skills and I thought, oh, I'll just give her some of the activities from the writing revolution and it was really more difficult than I had anticipated to come up with.

Natalie Wexler:

You know what we need, something embedded in some kind of content. And then what do I want to? How to construct an activity from this content. So it can be a little tricky, but once you get the hang of it, you know, then I think it becomes second nature. Yeah, for sure.

Lori:

As you're all talking. I was thinking about Judy's advice earlier. I think it was Judy that anticipated response. Yes, right, judy, that anticipated response. Yes, make sure you're anticipating the response that you want or that you're, so that you're getting them as you're in the process of developing. You're thinking about the end goal in mind. So I love that. We're so grateful. We I feel like this is just such an honor to talk with both of you and we're grateful that you give us your time and, natalie, that you continue to give us your time. And you know what? It's a little chilly here today, but I didn't put on my Wild About Wexler tank top. If it was warmer, I would have shown up wearing it for you.

Natalie Wexler:

I think I would have found it disconcerting to be looking at it the whole time. But I really do appreciate your enthusiasm and I feel just as enthusiastic about you guys, and if you want me to come back for a fourth time, I will jump at the chance.

Lori:

Perfect. We will come up with a good reason. We'll do it.

Judith Hochman:

I certainly understand now why Natalie is such a great fan of the two of you. Thank you so much for having us.

Melissa :

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Lori:

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Melissa :

Just a quick reminder that the views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests of the Melissa and Lori Love Literacy Podcast are not necessarily the opinions of Great Minds PBC or its employees.

Lori:

We appreciate you so much and we're so glad you're here to learn with us. Thank you.