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Notes and annotations here apply to Writing process

Writing process for students with disabilities

Teaching the writing process to students with disabilities can be challenging, however research suggests that a number of strategies can be used to help these students succeed both in the traditional K-12 settings and in postsecondary education.

Wery and Nietfeld discuss the implementation of self-regulated learning strategies for students with learning disabilities. While much of their research focuses on students in K-12 settings, they do emphasize the importance of think-aloud protocols and point toward the use of multimodal composition strategies, including students recording themselves learning and writing about topics of high interest and using software to create pictures and diagrams as part of their writing process.

In fact, using technological interventions is a frequent suggestion from many researchers. Hetzroni and Shrieber take a close look at how basic word processing software such as Microsoft Word make a significant difference in the pace and comfort learning disabled students make in elementary and junior high settings. They quote a longitudinal study by Owston and Wideman (1997) showing a greater degree of expressiveness and implementation of writing strategies not seen with the same frequency with pencil and paper tasks. They also point to Raskind and Higgins (1998) who see similar gains among secondary students, offering linkage to college students with disabilities in writing-intensive courses.

Marchisan advocates using computers as part of the revising process to minimize the frustration of surface-level grammatical errors. Montgomery and Marks (2006) write that students learning disabilities see their writing improved by the use of word processing and graphic design software to help students grasp the writing process and ultimately produce longer and more fluid compositions. Applications of the technology include, but are not limited to having students record their work on tape and play it back to themselves to help with writing, create stories pertaining to different moods and contrast electronically with other students’ work with their own have all shown to be effective.

Furthermore, Mason, Harris and Graham reveal research indicating the effectiveness of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) for adolescents who struggle with writing processes due to learning disabilities. There are six recursive strategies explored in this program: (develop background knowledge, discuss it, model it, memorize it, support it, and independent practice. In order to effectively model the strategies, teachers must work out strategies aloud with student assistance. Teachers then help students memorize specific strategies by having students make personal statements about how they might be able to apply the strategies to their own particular writing. Part of this comes from the use of easy to remember acronyms such as POW (Pick my idea, Organize my Notes, Write and Say More) and the SCAN strategy for persuasive essays (does it make Sense, is it Connected to my belief, can you Add more, Note errors).

Troia and Graham also emphasize the importance of teaching learning disabled students specific planning strategies to compensate for the more organic acquisition of these skills by neurotypical peers. Citing examples by well-known authors – such as Kathy Reichs who created the characters on which the TV drama Bones is based on – they illustrated the importance of goal-setting and pre-planning that many writers take for granted. By explicitly teaching three key pre-planning strategies of goal-setting, brainstorming and organizing.

Scott and Vitale (2003) highlight the recursivity of the writing process by breaking the writing process down into five commonly referenced stages – prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing. The steps are laid out on a writing wheel, creating a helpful graphic organizer to show how the different steps fit together. Interestingly, the prewriting stage takes up half the wheel with sub-categories of planning, setting goals and organizing. Each of these areas has further sub-categories, thereby emphasizing the importance of prewriting and visually attempting to stave off one of the most common challenges for learning disabled students – adequately planning out their work before delving into subject matter. On the back end, publishing is described as sharing work with the class, which in a post-secondary environment could be easily present in a wiki, blog or other collaborative documentation format.

Autistic autobiographies

Yet as appealing as document sharing may be for students with autism in particular, being able to contextualize one's life story in the context of their disability may prove the most powerful expression of the the writing process overall. Rose illustrates that creating narrative identity in a conventional sense is quite difficult for autistic students because of their challenges with interpersonal communication. The narratives autistic students can sometimes be troubling to neurotyprical peers they share their work with, ad Rose notes in quoting autistic autobiographer Dawn Price-Hughes notes, "Sometimes reaching out and communicating isn’t easy–it can bring sadness and regret. Some of my family and friends, after reading the manuscript for this book, were deeply saddened to learn how I experienced my world."

Rose points to the well-known work of Temple Grandin and Donna Williams as examples of autistic autobiographies and analogizes toward the usefulness of women's autobiographies championed by Susan Stanford Friedman to show women's inter-connectivity, suggesting the same can be learned through autistic autobiographies. She writes that such works can minimize the "pathologisation of difference" which can easily occur between autistic students and neuroytpical peers can be broken down by such autobiographies. As Rose directly says, "I argue here that awareness of the relationality of autistic life writing, and the recognition of its corollary status as testimonio and attention to the material relations of the production of these texts is particularly useful in assessing their social significance."

From a rhetorical perspective the use for students with disabilities (not just autistic students) seems to be promising. It would appear to foster a sense of a community among students with disabilities and helping these voices be brought in from the margins similarly to the way Mike Rose (educator) refers to students from disadvantaged backgrounds and their needs in Lives on the Boundary.