Principal Investigators
Funders
The Oak Foundation, Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and an anonymous foundation
Timeframe
2005 through 2007
Description
CAST’s Composition Initiative is a comprehensive effort to develop new instructional approaches that help students of all ages and at all levels of ability effectively express what they have learned.Writing—or, more broadly, composition, the ability to demonstrate knowledge—is fundamental to learning. In order to succeed in school and in the workforce, students must be able to communicate what they know.
However, many middle and high school students struggle with writing, especially those with learning disabilities, cognitive disabilities, and English as a second language. Overall, difficulties in writing are usually even more persistent than difficulties in reading. Can Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and new technologies make a significant difference in educational outcomes for struggling learners?
Applying research-based stategies in a digital UDL environment, the Composition Initiative team has created in Thinking Writer an apprentice model of learning featuring mentors and models, supported practice where supports can be gradually reduced, and relevant feedback and reflection. Thinking Writer breaks the composition process into its component parts, each with specific directions and supports, making the whole task less overwhelming to the student. Each segment includes a progress monitoring feature, allowing teachers and students to see how the student is doing, identify areas of difficulty, provide feedback, and adjust instruction accordingly.
In a digital world, students are increasingly likely to express their knowledge with new media--an animated video, perhaps--as they are with printed text. The process and strategies of effective composition apply to these media as well as print. Through the Composition Initiative, CAST is examining ways in which digital technologies can help students communicate what they have learned while developing the pedagogies and techniques to make those technologies most effective in the classroom.
