Developing Effective Personal Writing Skills

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A mentally disabled but diligent female high school student attends a tutoring session at the learning center to work on a classroom writing assignment. Despite encouragement and prompts from the tutor, the student is unable to write. She states that she hates writing and declares that she will take a zero for the grade rather than complete the assignment.

Literature Review

Such frustrating scenarios are not uncommon in the learning center. Developing and practicing effective personal writing skills is crucial for recording individual expression and communication, logging personal experiences and preserving a culture’s civilization (Powell, Harms and Barry, 2006). Successful Americans in all walks of life depend on producing clear oral and written communication. A survey of one hundred and twenty major American corporations (Powell, Harms and Barry, 2006) finds that approximately eight million employees must demonstrate strong writing skills for employee retention and promotion. Two-thirds of salaried employees in large American companies have some writing responsibility; effective communications via e-mail and PowerPoint are often job requirements (Needles & Knapp, 2004).

Although adequate writing skills are indispensable for life, leisure, and employment, quite a few students do not learn how to write effectively. Since writing is an exercise in thinking, it is important to balance the process of writing with the mechanics of writing. The areas of the brain involved in the writing task are varied yet interrelated; therefore, a student’s individual needs will determine the method of instruction they receive. Many students who have low expectations for their own academic success will not make even minimal efforts to complete a...

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...survey, field notes of observations, documents and interviews. Using open coding, axial coding, and selective coding will allow for the interpretation of the results. Threats to the quality of the study were monitored by the using three strategies: (1) triangulation, (2) member checking and (3) peer debriefing.

References

Bartleby, S. (2003). Dysgraphia students face challenges.

Hudson, K., Jones, P., and Salvatore, R. (2005). Mechanics and the dysgraphic child. Writing Strategies, 15(4), 364–396.

Needles C., & Knapp, K. (2004). Communication Strategies in a Technical Age. Boston. Little, Brown.

Powell, Cheryl, Harms, Susan, & Barry, Thomas. (2006). The process of writing. New York: St. Andrews.

Quinlan, Q., Harrison, B., Darin, V., & Charles, T. (2004). Time on task: A challenge of writing. Journal of Reading and Writing, vol. 18, no. 2, 135–150.

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