Insights from Instructional Research on Revision with Struggling Writers

Abstract

In this chapter, we review research on the revision processes of struggling writers, primarily students with learning disabilities (LD). Throughout the chapter, we focus on how instructional research that is based on cognitive and social-cognitive models of writing can contribute to understanding these processes as well as to improving instruction. Descriptive studies, based on interviews and writing tasks, and experimental studies designed to isolate components of the revising process have shown that struggling writers have a limited conception of revising, have less knowledge about evaluation criteria, are less likely to detect and diagnose problems, and have difficulty making effective revisions even after finding problems. Instructional studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of approaches that provide explicit instruction in cognitive and metacognitive strategies in combination with word processing and interaction with peers and teachers.