A+Comparison+of+Text+Structure+and+Self-Regulated+Writing+Strategies+for+Composing+From+Sources+by+Middle+School+Students.”

Reynolds, Gillian A. Perin, Dolores. “A Comparison of Text Structure and Self-Regulated Writing Strategies for Composing From Sources by Middle School Students.” //Reading Psychology// 30, no. 3 (May 2009): 265-300. //Professional Development Collection EBSCOhost// (accessed November 1, 2012).

As students enter Middle School, their education shifts from learning how to read and write to using both skillsets to build content knowledge. This is especially the case in Social Studies classrooms. Gillian A. Reynolds and Dolores Perin are authors of “A Comparison of Text Structure and Self-Regulated Writing Strategies for Composing From Sources by Middle School Students,” a scholarly article explaining a study that addresses two strategies Social Studies teachers can use to foster student writing from expository text sources. The first is strategy is “Text structure instruction” (TSI), which focuses on teaching text structure and summarization rules. One way to incorporate TSI is to have students read a text several times and then write a sixty-word summary identifying the central theme and supporting details. Paying attention to titles and argument structure allows students to comprehend hierarchical relationships between ideas. The second approach uses “plan and write for summarization” (PWS) activities that teach note taking, editing, and self-monitoring skills. The instructor teaches the students the mnemonics of the “Plan and Write” literary strategy in the hopes that students internalize the self-regulation strategy and therefore can read and write independently. As a result students essays tend to be longer, include more relevant information, and are of higher quality to that of their prior work.