Chapter 7, page 151
encountered yesterday, and Student 1 labels these “faction multiplication problems.” Then,
it appears that Student 2 compares the wrong equation, m=2/3r, with the correct equation,
r=2/3m, and then generalizes a rule from this comparison.
Ɣ Monitoring for sense (when Student 2 notes that Rachel can’t be 9 feet tall, and Student 4
notes that the answer makes sense)In this section, we have examined problem solving strategies (problem representation, identifying
subgoals, monitoring for sense, and noticing commonalities and differences) that help students learn to
solve a wide variety of problems more effectively. All of these are strategies that self-regulated problem
solvers use to tackle problems and check how well they are doing as they work on the problems. In the next
section, we will turn to strategies that can help students become better writers.
Writing Strategies
Writing can be viewed as a very difficult kind of problem in which there are many possible solutions
but no definitive criteria for defining what makes for a good solution. For example, consider a student who
is asked to write a persuasive newspaper column on what should be done about global warming. There is
no single best way to write this editorial, and people disagree on what makes for a well-written editorial on
this topic. Thus, writing is an example of an ill-structured problem, which we discussed in Chapter 1.
Writing stands in sharp contrast with well-structured problems that have a clear solution that can be readily
agreed upon (Spiro et al., 1987).
In this section, we will discuss several strategies that distinguish effective from ineffective writers.
Much of the current work on writing strategies has been strongly influenced by a model of writing
developed by psychologists John Hayes and Linda Flower (Hayes & Flower, 1986). There are three basic
writing processes: planning, sentence generation, and revising. Planning refers to generating ideas to write
about and thinking about how to organize these ideas before actually beginning to write the essay. Sentence
generation is the actual writing down of sentences. Revising refers to changes that are made once a draft
of a passage has been written. Planning, sentence generation, and revising are guided by goals, which in
skilled writers are strongly influenced by the writer’s anticipation of how the expected audience will react.
Among these processes, planning, revising, and considering the audience strongly distinguish better from
worse writers. We will focus on these strategies in this section. Throughout this section, the term writers
refers to anyone who writes. We are especially interested, of course, in student writers.
Planning. Effective and ineffective writers differ in how they approach planning. As an example,
consider a study by psychologist Ronald Kellogg (1988). Kellogg had undergraduates write a formal letter
in which they were to argue in favor of a particular system of busing, after they had read details about
several possible systems. Some undergraduates were directed to construct outlines; outlining is one way to
plan before writing. Other undergraduates were given no specific directions. The undergraduates in both
conditions could spend as much time as they chose to write the letters. The average student took less than
30 minutes from start to finish.
Before you read further, think about what you would predict about the results of this study. How
many minutes do you think the students who were not asked to write outlines spent planning their letter
before they began writing? In other words, how long did they spend thinking about what they would write
(perhaps jotting down notes of some kind) before they began writing their letter? The answer is that they
spent an average of zero minutes planning before they started writing. Students directed to write outlines
before they began writing the letter spent an average of 8 minutes planning. Judges who were blind to
experimental condition judged the quality of the letters. The students in the outline group wrote letters that
the raters judged superior to the letters written by students in the no-outline group.