Why The Write Connection?

Did you know that employers consider the most commonly lacking skill among prospective employees is writing proficiency? And public speaking is a close second. According to PayScale, a data-based nationwide company that specializes in aligning peoples’ abilities with potential compensation, up to 44% of college graduates lack writing proficiency and 39% lack adequate public speaking skills.

It is not the job of colleges to teach basic reading and writing? Those skills must be mastered in elementary school. Recent research shows that students who were not proficient readers by the end of third grade were four times more likely to drop out of high school than proficient readers. And multiple studies have made it clear that writing mastery is crucial for increased reading comprehension.

It’s not that schools are not aware of this. They are. The challenge lies in teaching students the writing skills they need. Even after implementing Common Core, schools see little improvement. For example, Lucy Calkins Writer’s Workshop even now teaches skills that are irrelevant, despite a 2020 study that showed her reading program is fundamentally flawed.

Writer’s Workshop still requires students to pick a topic of their own choosing. But how many times would an employer ask for any type of writing on a subject of your own choosing? “Not many” is a generous response. More likely, you will be required to write a detailed informative or persuasive report covering an assigned specific subject.

Furthermore, state adopted curriculum such as Treasures still teaches the foundational skills in isolation even after decades of research that proves this type of instruction does not work. Most students simply cannot connect these isolated lessons to their own writings.

The Write Connection was developed by Deborah Stephenson. While Stephenson was a teacher in an inner-city school in Los Angeles, she quickly discovered that none of the language arts skills transferred into her students’ own writings. The writing skills were taught in isolation and students could not make the connection. So, she set about to develop her own lessons. She wrote paragraphs consisting of countless errors on the board that mirrored her students’ own rough drafts. Her students were mostly English learners, so she had them work in collaborative teams to ensure success and help build self-confidence. For reinforcement, students told the class why they made each correction.

Then, to make it more engaging, she turned the lessons into a game; each team earned points for each correction and explanation. Ta-da! Her students began clamoring to make corrections. What’s more, they always tried to find the hardest corrections to make, which earned more points. This method almost immediately transformed her students into better writers as they became more focused on learning grammar, parts of speech, and more.

There was still another problem though. Her students still struggled with transitioning from graphic organizers and brainstorming to writing their rough drafts. Writing is mostly about answering questions, but her students didn’t know what questions to ask. So Stephenson developed pre-writes that consisted of sentence starters and questions that went with every writing assignment. Her students finally had a concrete method to organize their thoughts and start writing. Combined with correcting paragraphs that mirrored rough drafts, her students were now able to write their rough drafts and were adept at revising and editing.

After developing pre-writes that went with their weekly stories, it became glaringly obvious that none of the writing assignments were helpful in today’s world. They were too open ended and abstract. Students needed to write focused academic essays, not ones that were frivolous and held little to no academic value. So, she changed the morning language arts paragraphs that she wrote on the board to science and social studies topics. She found that once she provided her students with academic content, they immediately became even better writers. They could now spend their time honing their grammar, mechanics and writing styles, rather than trying to come up with suitable subjects to write about. Additionally, their vocabulary improved (as did their science and social studies scores!).

This approach worked especially well with students from disadvantaged backgrounds or who were English Language Learners. Many disadvantaged students do not have a surplus of life experiences from which to draw on for writing material. And picking a subject on which to write in a foreign language is especially daunting.

Over the years, Stephenson has added Quick Writes for daily writing, Describe the Picture for language development, and motivating Progress Charts so students can see their progress. To further reinforce and improve student achievement, she created a series of student friendly value-based rubrics so they would understand the rules by which they were being graded. She gave these rubrics before they started their rough drafts. By doing so, she empowered her students, and provided a method to meet the requirements for her school’s rubric, which consisted of just one wordy rubric, only meant for teachers.

Today, The Write Connection consists of three main components: Language Arts by Topic, Custom Pre-Writes, and Meaningful Rubric System.

Her program also had a hidden benefit. In addition to developing writing skills, students also learn to speak in front of an audience, a vital skill in today’s world. That audience might be a small group of friends, a larger group such as a classroom, or one of mega career importance such as in a courtroom as an attorney. Public speaking skills students learn using The Write Connection help them develop self-confidence and critical thinking ability, achieve personal growth, and learn to enunciate clearly, all of which are enormous advantages, especially in the workforce.

The Write Connection’s secret to success is its focus on academic, non-whimsical topics to teach grammar fundamentals, mechanics, and writing domains in context. The program also incorporates a game-like point system that creates enthusiastic learners, proficient writers, and capable public speakers in an all-inclusive, welcoming atmosphere. It also provides the necessary support that enables students, especially language learners, to master writing and public speaking step by step. The Write Connection writing and speaking programs realistically prepare students of all skill levels for higher education, life, and career.