Every Student Will Succeed: Differentiating Writing Instruction

Every student can be a stronger writer with instruction that builds from the level where the students begin and advances their writing proficiency through differentiated instruction. The expectation that every student will succeed coupled with scaffolded instruction, explicit explanations, modeling, and frequent writing opportunities ensures that each student will develop his or her writing fluency.

Here are some suggestions for helping struggling writers, advanced students and English learners to excel as writers. You may find that several of these suggestions work well for students at various skill levels and with diverse learning needs.

Struggling writers

Students who struggle with writing often have difficulty producing content, have low confidence in their writing ability, dislike the process of writing, battle with mechanics, and have difficulty planning and revising.

Help struggling writers by:

	Providing a balance of instruction in the writing process and direct skills instruction .
	Allowing students to pick their own writing topics and write about what interests them as much as possible.
	Giving a timeline for each writing assignment with detailed guidelines for the assignment requirements.
	Making sure that students have ample time to write.

Resources to support struggling writers:

Writing Advantage

Inside Writing®

School to Work

Advanced Writers

Advanced writers write fluently, confidently and with a strong grasp of mechanics, usage, and grammar and value the importance of revising their writing.

Help advanced writers by:

	Encouraging them to take risks and try different forms of writing.
	Reminding them that the writing process is recursive and that writers often work on different steps in the process simultaneously or move back and forth between the steps.
	Supporting students interested in submitting their writing for publication.
	Making sure that students have ample writing time.

Resources to support advanced writers:

Write Traits® Advanced

Daybooks of Critical Reading and Writing

English Learners

Students who are developing proficiency with English enter the classroom with varying needs. Some students are skilled writers in their first language and only need to learn English while other students have gaps in their education and are new to writing in any language.

Help English learners by:

	Incorporating cooperative learning and group activities that help English learners develop their oral language skills.
	Defining writing-related vocabulary terms that may be unfamiliar.
	Encouraging students to write about culturally relevant topics.
	Using visual representation of concepts and graphic organizers.

Resources to support English learners:

ACCESS English

ACCESS Newcomers

ALL Write

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