This study tested an instructional design to improve students' synthesis performance in a specific academic subject, Science Orientation, which aimed to teach students how to critically evaluate scientific debates. The design included three components: 1) students construct a task definition via a learning strategy based on comparing and contrasting texts and processes, 2) students comprehend source information via a read-stop-think-note strategy, and 3) students connect source information critically via a semantic-textual transformation strategy. After several design iterations, the instructional design was tested in a quasi-experimental experiment with a pretest-posttest. Seven 10th grade classes participated in the intervention (n=129), four in the control condition (n=86). The design seemed feasible for teachers, students completed most learning tasks as intended and evaluated the course positively. Furthermore, texts written in the experimental condition at posttest were rated significantly higher than those written in the control condition on the instructed aspects: representation of source information, intertextual integration, and critical stance. This instructional design appears to have potential for helping students improve their comprehension of scientific debates and comprehensive writing. In the discussion we propose that the instructional design might be a general format for learning to synthesize domain specific information from contrasting sources.

This study aimed to provide evidence for continuing the innovation of writing instruction in Grades 7-12 of Chilean public schools. Teachers' beliefs influence their curricular interpretations; therefore, these beliefs play a key role when aiming for educational innovation. Hence, we investigated the relations between Language teachers’ current practices of implementing the national curriculum and their beliefs regarding five paradigms of Language instruction. While beliefs on writing instruction are possibly embedded in beliefs on the broader topic of Language instruction, we took this broader category into account. We obtained 182 completed surveys from teachers of all Chilean regions (response rate: 47%). Teachers reported a rather strong adherence to four curricular paradigms both in terms of practices and beliefs, while the fifth, the communicative paradigm, demonstrated a low level of adherence. The strength of the implementation of teachers´ practices of writing instruction seemed to be related to teachers´ beliefs, about writing and more general aspects as well. The results suggest that policymakers must focus public efforts on reinforcing teachers’ beliefs regarding writing instruction, especially regarding communicative writing and on the connections between the five paradigms. In addition, we recommend that public efforts prioritize improvements in Grades 9-12 over Grades 7-8.

Writing in history places high demands on students and is a skill that requires explicit instruction. Therefore, teachers need to be able to teach this in an effective way. In this study, the writing-instruction was designed by a teacher, instead of researchers, as part of a professional development program in the Netherlands. The lessons combined writing and historical reasoning instruction, based on principles of effective writing instruction, including strategy-instruction, modeling, prewriting, and peer-interaction. The effects of these lessons were investigated in a small-scale pilot study, which consisted of a pre-test post-test quasi-experimental design, in which eighty-nine 11th grade students participated (39 in the treatment condition and 50 in the comparison condition). Dependent measures included text quality, writing process measures, students' knowledge of writing and their self-efficacy. Students in the treatment condition wrote longer and higher quality texts, spent more time writing, paused more while writing and their knowledge of writing was higher at post-test than for students in the comparison condition. No effects were found for self-efficacy. Furthermore, significant correlations were found between text quality and writing process measures, but not for knowledge of writing and self-efficacy. Overall, the effectiveness of this teacher-designed intervention seemed satisfactory, as it resulted in greater knowledge of writing and better-quality writing in his history classes.

This study aims to explore effective ways in which students can learn to write synthesis texts. First, through a systematic literature search we found 16 (quasi-)experimental studies from 6th grade to undergraduate level in the field of learning to write source-based synthesis texts, that met our inclusion criteria. Second, we formulated a general instructional design principle, that included three main processes: (a) selecting relevant/important information from sources, (b) organizing, and (c) connecting that information. Bottom-up analyses of the six most effective studies yielded a set of learning activities that contribute to the improvement of students’ performance on writing synthesis texts. Subsequently, we supplemented our general design principle with relevant learning activities obtained from these effective interventions. One effective intervention differed considerably from the others due to its divergent nature, but its content was considered valuable enough to warrant the inclusion of an additional design principle. The design principles formulated in this study can be used as guidelines for future interventions in synthesis writing or as a means of support for teachers who want to develop educational materials for teaching synthesis writing.

This study examined the effects of an innovative comprehensive writing program in upper primary education on students’ writing performance and on teachers´ classroom practices, beliefs and skills. The program focused on the communicative nature of writing, on writing as a process, and on explicit teaching of five genre-specific writing strategies. It was implemented by 43 teachers in their regular classrooms (Grades 4 to 6, N = 1052), with three conditions: (1) a writing program condition, (2) the same program complemented by professional development sessions and coaching, and (3) a control condition in which teachers taught their usual writing lessons. Students’ writing performance was measured three times with multiple writing tasks. Data on teachers’ practices, beliefs and skills were collected through lesson observations, interviews, questionnaires, teacher logs, and a text assessment task. The comprehensive writing program had a beneficial effect on students’ writing performance and the extent to which teachers taught writing strategies. The complementary professional development and coaching had a direct effect on the number of lessons implemented, and an indirect effect on students' performance. Overall, the innovation proved to be effective for improving students’ writing performance in the upper grades of primary schools.