TY - JOUR

T1 - Teaching perspective taking and coherence generation to improve cross-genre writing skills in secondary grades: A detailed explanation of an intervention

AU - Grabowski, Joachim

AU - Mathiebe, Moti

AU - Hachmeister, Sabine

AU - Becker-Mrotzek, Michael

N1 - Funding Information: The reported intervention was supported by a grant from the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF; grant number 01GJ1208 A/B) to the first and last author. Information about the project may be obtained (in German) from www.bmbf.schreibkompetenz.com. The intervention and the related data collection were approved by the School Authorities of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia, respectively

PY - 2018/10/15

Y1 - 2018/10/15

N2 - This paper gives an analytic description of why and how an instructional writing program on the improvement of cross-genre writing skills in German secondary grade level has been designed and implemented. From a diagnostic research phase, and according to theoretical expectations, coherence management and perspective taking proved to be ability components that substantially contribute to text quality across different genres. To train these two abilities in a didactical setting, two 11-unit writing courses were analogously constructed and administered in 5th and 9th grades. There were 12 intervention classes and 12 control classes in each grade, forming 48 classes with 1.145 participants. The decisions that lead to the design of the intervention study and the corresponding didactical settings are explained and justified in detail, and the developed self-learning materials are described in terms of their assumed learning potentials and the underlying didactical principles. Based on the obtained empirical experiences, the intervention is critically evaluated with respect to good intervention research and its proper description.

AB - This paper gives an analytic description of why and how an instructional writing program on the improvement of cross-genre writing skills in German secondary grade level has been designed and implemented. From a diagnostic research phase, and according to theoretical expectations, coherence management and perspective taking proved to be ability components that substantially contribute to text quality across different genres. To train these two abilities in a didactical setting, two 11-unit writing courses were analogously constructed and administered in 5th and 9th grades. There were 12 intervention classes and 12 control classes in each grade, forming 48 classes with 1.145 participants. The decisions that lead to the design of the intervention study and the corresponding didactical settings are explained and justified in detail, and the developed self-learning materials are described in terms of their assumed learning potentials and the underlying didactical principles. Based on the obtained empirical experiences, the intervention is critically evaluated with respect to good intervention research and its proper description.

KW - Classroom research

KW - Coherence

KW - Perspective taking

KW - Writing competence

KW - Writing intervention

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85057532374&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.17239/jowr-2018.10.02.06

DO - 10.17239/jowr-2018.10.02.06

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85057532374

VL - 10

SP - 331

EP - 356

JO - Journal of Writing Research

JF - Journal of Writing Research

SN - 2030-1006

IS - 2

ER -