Writing Research and Practice

This chapter aims to construct guidelines for teaching writing that are based on research-evidence. To provide a theoretical framework for this endeavor, it examines the basic elements of a writer-in-context model (Graham, 2016), where the context or community in which writing takes place as well as the cognitive resources that students bring to the writing task influence writing and its development in reciprocal ways. As part of this model, the author further considers the macro-forces outside the classroom as well as the learning processes within it that shape writing development. The chapter focuses on writing development within a specific type of writing community namely schools. It draws on all of the different types of evidence (true-experiments, quasi-experiments, participants as own controls, single-participants designs, and qualitative studies of exceptional literacy teachers) to identify evidence-based practices (EBPs).