Writing is often seen as a task for students to show what they know, but it can also be viewed as an advanced skill that must be preceded by reading mastery. While writing is a useful assessment tool and does involve many of the same skills as reading, it carries a value beyond these qualities—because writing is inextricably linked to the process of learning itself.
The importance of writing skills for students
Teaching writing and providing writing practice instill skills in students that they can use throughout their academic career and beyond. Let’s examine the importance of writing for students in a few key contexts: the reading-writing connection, writing to learn, the writing process, and modes of writing.
The reading-writing connection
Several studies have shown that writing makes students better readers. In “3 Takeaways About the Connection Between Reading and Writing Instruction,” education writer Sarah Schwartz notes, “When children are taught how to write complex sentences and compose different kinds of texts, their ability to read and understand a wider variety of writing improves too” (2023).
Furthermore, when writing assignments align to the purpose of learning, students’ comprehension is enhanced in targeted ways. For example, when students write a summary of a text, they are better able to recall a range of ideas about it. When students engage in analytic writing, such as comparing and contrasting, they focus on a narrower set of ideas more deeply. It is therefore useful to consider specific learning objectives when assigning writing tasks, as they improve comprehension in different ways (Schwartz, 2023).
Reading and writing skills are interdependent long before students are engaged in tasks like summary and analysis. Even the earliest stages of literacy, like spelling and handwriting, have been linked to children’s oral language development and ability to connect speech to print. Activities such as interactive writing, where teachers and children work together to compose a written piece after a read-aloud, deepen comprehension of the text and provide a scaffold for students to learn about letters, words, and sound-spelling connections.
Writing to learn
In the writing process, which we’ll dive into next, students first engage in various tasks under the umbrella of prewriting. This includes research, making connections, outlining, and organizing ideas. All these tasks require students to engage with content beyond just reading it. The process of organizing information and selecting relevant details deepens students’ understanding, and it can also expose gaps in knowledge, (ideally) prompting further research. To write about a topic, students must first answer their own questions about it, perhaps some questions they didn’t know they had before brainstorming and planning. In this way, writing is active learning.
Writing across the curriculum has also been shown to enhance students’ learning by building content knowledge across various topics. A meta-analysis by Graham and Hebert examined the impact of writing on learning in different content areas and found the following (2011):
- Writing about text improves students’ comprehension of what they read.
- Teaching students how to write improves their reading comprehension and fluency.
- Increasing how much students write enhances their reading comprehension.
The writing process
While the steps of the writing process and the language used to describe them might differ from one classroom to another, teaching students to write using a sequence of actions to generate, compose, refine, and share their ideas has long been a cornerstone in education. In the words of author and educator Ralph Fletcher, “We need to show students the invisible stairs that writers climb from inspiration to the finished product” (2017).
The writing process breaks large tasks into manageable chunks (a useful strategy in itself), increasing student motivation, stamina, and independence. It also includes opportunities to provide valuable writing feedback for students. Additionally, each step of the process strengthens specific skills. Let’s take a look at those.
Prewriting, sometimes called rehearsing, includes tasks that come before the writing has begun, such as brainstorming, planning, researching, exploring mentor texts, or outlining. Prewriting helps students to:
- Gather relevant information
- Evaluate information from multiple sources
- Assess the credibility and accuracy of a source
- Make connections between ideas
- Use tools such as graphic organizers
Drafting is where writers compose the first version of a text. When students put words on the page, assimilating ideas to build sentences and paragraphs, they increase their writing fluency and stamina. Drafting helps students to:
- Encode meaning
- Select appropriate words
- Synthesize information
- Organize and develop ideas
- Sequence events
- Identify and include supporting details
- Create images with words
- Develop story elements, such as characters and setting
Revising transforms what was generated during drafting into a coherent work of writing. It’s where ideas are reshaped and reworked before they are polished in the editing stage. Revising helps students to:
- Evaluate their own work
- Assess purpose and effectiveness
- Restructure ideas
- Integrate feedback
- Refine voice
- Persevere through challenges
Editing is the stage where writers focus on the mechanics of language, such as spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and subject-verb agreement. Editing helps students to:
- Apply conventions of language
- Attend to details
- Analyze the impact of grammar on meaning
- Find and correct errors
Publishing is where writing as a means of communication takes a front row seat. Whether on a bulletin board, on a website, in a class book, or in a letter mailed to a relative, publishing a piece means making it available to be read. Publishing helps students to:
- Consider their audience
- Focus on task and purpose
- Hold the reader’s attention
- Employ varied methods of communication
Modes of writing
The Common Core Standards, as well as many individual state standards, outline three primary modes of writing, each with unique characteristics and conventions: argument writing, informative writing, and narrative writing. The general skills developed through the writing process apply across all types of writing, but each mode fosters the development of specific skills, so it’s worth looking at the importance of writing skills for students in these categories as well:
Argument writing, also known as writing to persuade, aims to support a viewpoint using logical reasoning and factual evidence. Argument writing helps students to:
- Analyze texts to identify valid reasoning
- Gather relevant and sufficient evidence
- Support claims with details and examples
- Organize ideas and synthesize information
Informative writing, also known as writing to explain, aims to educate and provide information on a specific topic. Informative writing helps students to:
- Examine and integrate complex ideas
- Convey information clearly and accurately
- Select relevant details and examples
- Organize ideas and synthesize information
Narrative writing aims to convey experiences through vivid descriptions and emotional engagement, whether true or fictional. This includes narratives, short stories, and poetry. Narrative writing helps students to:
- Use effective storytelling techniques
- Choose vivid details
- Structure event sequences
- Employ literary devices
Enhanced reading comprehension, improved learning across content areas, and the development of a wide range of skills are just some of the reasons why writing is important for students. Perhaps the most important reason is that after speech, writing is our primary means of communication, and students will encounter text everywhere throughout their lives.
References
Fletcher, R. (2017). The writing teacher’s companion: Embracing Choice, Voice, Purpose & Play. Scholastic Professional.
Graham, S., & Hebert, M. (2011). Writing to Read: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Writing and Writing instruction on reading. Harvard Educational Review, 81(4), 710–744. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.4.t2k0m13756113566
Schwartz, S. (2023, February 23). 3 Takeaways About the Connection Between Reading and Writing Instruction. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/3-takeaways-about-the-connection-between-reading-and-writing-instruction/2023/02
Writing | Common Core State Standards Initiative. (n.d.). https://www.thecorestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/W/
