post test reading and writing about essays

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

1.1 Reading and Writing in College

Learning objectives.

• Understand the expectations for reading and writing assignments in college courses.
• Understand and apply general strategies to complete college-level reading assignments efficiently and effectively.
• Recognize specific types of writing assignments frequently included in college courses.
• Understand and apply general strategies for managing college-level writing assignments.
• Determine specific reading and writing strategies that work best for you individually.

As you begin this chapter, you may be wondering why you need an introduction. After all, you have been writing and reading since elementary school. You completed numerous assessments of your reading and writing skills in high school and as part of your application process for college. You may write on the job, too. Why is a college writing course even necessary?

When you are eager to get started on the coursework in your major that will prepare you for your career, getting excited about an introductory college writing course can be difficult. However, regardless of your field of study, honing your writing skills—and your reading and critical-thinking skills—gives you a more solid academic foundation.

In college, academic expectations change from what you may have experienced in high school. The quantity of work you are expected to do is increased. When instructors expect you to read pages upon pages or study hours and hours for one particular course, managing your work load can be challenging. This chapter includes strategies for studying efficiently and managing your time.

The quality of the work you do also changes. It is not enough to understand course material and summarize it on an exam. You will also be expected to seriously engage with new ideas by reflecting on them, analyzing them, critiquing them, making connections, drawing conclusions, or finding new ways of thinking about a given subject. Educationally, you are moving into deeper waters. A good introductory writing course will help you swim.

Table 1.1 “High School versus College Assignments” summarizes some of the other major differences between high school and college assignments.

Table 1.1 High School versus College Assignments

This chapter covers the types of reading and writing assignments you will encounter as a college student. You will also learn a variety of strategies for mastering these new challenges—and becoming a more confident student and writer.

Throughout this chapter, you will follow a first-year student named Crystal. After several years of working as a saleswoman in a department store, Crystal has decided to pursue a degree in elementary education and become a teacher. She is continuing to work part-time, and occasionally she finds it challenging to balance the demands of work, school, and caring for her four-year-old son. As you read about Crystal, think about how you can use her experience to get the most out of your own college experience.

Review Table 1.1 “High School versus College Assignments” and think about how you have found your college experience to be different from high school so far. Respond to the following questions:

• In what ways do you think college will be more rewarding for you as a learner?
• What aspects of college do you expect to find most challenging?
• What changes do you think you might have to make in your life to ensure your success in college?

Reading Strategies

Your college courses will sharpen both your reading and your writing skills. Most of your writing assignments—from brief response papers to in-depth research projects—will depend on your understanding of course reading assignments or related readings you do on your own. And it is difficult, if not impossible, to write effectively about a text that you have not understood. Even when you do understand the reading, it can be hard to write about it if you do not feel personally engaged with the ideas discussed.

This section discusses strategies you can use to get the most out of your college reading assignments. These strategies fall into three broad categories:

• Planning strategies. To help you manage your reading assignments.
• Comprehension strategies. To help you understand the material.
• Active reading strategies. To take your understanding to a higher and deeper level.

Planning Your Reading

Have you ever stayed up all night cramming just before an exam? Or found yourself skimming a detailed memo from your boss five minutes before a crucial meeting? The first step in handling college reading successfully is planning. This involves both managing your time and setting a clear purpose for your reading.

Managing Your Reading Time

You will learn more detailed strategies for time management in Section 1.2 “Developing Study Skills” , but for now, focus on setting aside enough time for reading and breaking your assignments into manageable chunks. If you are assigned a seventy-page chapter to read for next week’s class, try not to wait until the night before to get started. Give yourself at least a few days and tackle one section at a time.

Your method for breaking up the assignment will depend on the type of reading. If the text is very dense and packed with unfamiliar terms and concepts, you may need to read no more than five or ten pages in one sitting so that you can truly understand and process the information. With more user-friendly texts, you will be able to handle longer sections—twenty to forty pages, for instance. And if you have a highly engaging reading assignment, such as a novel you cannot put down, you may be able to read lengthy passages in one sitting.

As the semester progresses, you will develop a better sense of how much time you need to allow for the reading assignments in different subjects. It also makes sense to preview each assignment well in advance to assess its difficulty level and to determine how much reading time to set aside.

College instructors often set aside reserve readings for a particular course. These consist of articles, book chapters, or other texts that are not part of the primary course textbook. Copies of reserve readings are available through the university library; in print; or, more often, online. When you are assigned a reserve reading, download it ahead of time (and let your instructor know if you have trouble accessing it). Skim through it to get a rough idea of how much time you will need to read the assignment in full.

Setting a Purpose

The other key component of planning is setting a purpose. Knowing what you want to get out of a reading assignment helps you determine how to approach it and how much time to spend on it. It also helps you stay focused during those occasional moments when it is late, you are tired, and relaxing in front of the television sounds far more appealing than curling up with a stack of journal articles.

Sometimes your purpose is simple. You might just need to understand the reading material well enough to discuss it intelligently in class the next day. However, your purpose will often go beyond that. For instance, you might also read to compare two texts, to formulate a personal response to a text, or to gather ideas for future research. Here are some questions to ask to help determine your purpose:

How did my instructor frame the assignment? Often your instructors will tell you what they expect you to get out of the reading:

• Read Chapter 2 and come to class prepared to discuss current teaching practices in elementary math.
• Read these two articles and compare Smith’s and Jones’s perspectives on the 2010 health care reform bill.
• Read Chapter 5 and think about how you could apply these guidelines to running your own business.
• How deeply do I need to understand the reading? If you are majoring in computer science and you are assigned to read Chapter 1, “Introduction to Computer Science,” it is safe to assume the chapter presents fundamental concepts that you will be expected to master. However, for some reading assignments, you may be expected to form a general understanding but not necessarily master the content. Again, pay attention to how your instructor presents the assignment.
• How does this assignment relate to other course readings or to concepts discussed in class? Your instructor may make some of these connections explicitly, but if not, try to draw connections on your own. (Needless to say, it helps to take detailed notes both when in class and when you read.)
• How might I use this text again in the future? If you are assigned to read about a topic that has always interested you, your reading assignment might help you develop ideas for a future research paper. Some reading assignments provide valuable tips or summaries worth bookmarking for future reference. Think about what you can take from the reading that will stay with you.

Improving Your Comprehension

You have blocked out time for your reading assignments and set a purpose for reading. Now comes the challenge: making sure you actually understand all the information you are expected to process. Some of your reading assignments will be fairly straightforward. Others, however, will be longer or more complex, so you will need a plan for how to handle them.

For any expository writing —that is, nonfiction, informational writing—your first comprehension goal is to identify the main points and relate any details to those main points. Because college-level texts can be challenging, you will also need to monitor your reading comprehension. That is, you will need to stop periodically and assess how well you understand what you are reading. Finally, you can improve comprehension by taking time to determine which strategies work best for you and putting those strategies into practice.

Identifying the Main Points

In college, you will read a wide variety of materials, including the following:

• Textbooks. These usually include summaries, glossaries, comprehension questions, and other study aids.
• Nonfiction trade books. These are less likely to include the study features found in textbooks.
• Popular magazine, newspaper, or web articles. These are usually written for a general audience.
• Scholarly books and journal articles. These are written for an audience of specialists in a given field.

Regardless of what type of expository text you are assigned to read, your primary comprehension goal is to identify the main point : the most important idea that the writer wants to communicate and often states early on. Finding the main point gives you a framework to organize the details presented in the reading and relate the reading to concepts you learned in class or through other reading assignments. After identifying the main point, you will find the supporting points , the details, facts, and explanations that develop and clarify the main point.

Some texts make that task relatively easy. Textbooks, for instance, include the aforementioned features as well as headings and subheadings intended to make it easier for students to identify core concepts. Graphic features, such as sidebars, diagrams, and charts, help students understand complex information and distinguish between essential and inessential points. When you are assigned to read from a textbook, be sure to use available comprehension aids to help you identify the main points.

Trade books and popular articles may not be written specifically for an educational purpose; nevertheless, they also include features that can help you identify the main ideas. These features include the following:

• Trade books. Many trade books include an introduction that presents the writer’s main ideas and purpose for writing. Reading chapter titles (and any subtitles within the chapter) will help you get a broad sense of what is covered. It also helps to read the beginning and ending paragraphs of a chapter closely. These paragraphs often sum up the main ideas presented.
• Popular articles. Reading the headings and introductory paragraphs carefully is crucial. In magazine articles, these features (along with the closing paragraphs) present the main concepts. Hard news articles in newspapers present the gist of the news story in the lead paragraph, while subsequent paragraphs present increasingly general details.

At the far end of the reading difficulty scale are scholarly books and journal articles. Because these texts are written for a specialized, highly educated audience, the authors presume their readers are already familiar with the topic. The language and writing style is sophisticated and sometimes dense.

When you read scholarly books and journal articles, try to apply the same strategies discussed earlier. The introduction usually presents the writer’s thesis , the idea or hypothesis the writer is trying to prove. Headings and subheadings can help you understand how the writer has organized support for his or her thesis. Additionally, academic journal articles often include a summary at the beginning, called an abstract, and electronic databases include summaries of articles, too.

For more information about reading different types of texts, see Chapter 12 “Writing a Research Paper” .

Monitoring Your Comprehension

Finding the main idea and paying attention to text features as you read helps you figure out what you should know. Just as important, however, is being able to figure out what you do not know and developing a strategy to deal with it.

Textbooks often include comprehension questions in the margins or at the end of a section or chapter. As you read, stop occasionally to answer these questions on paper or in your head. Use them to identify sections you may need to reread, read more carefully, or ask your instructor about later.

Even when a text does not have built-in comprehension features, you can actively monitor your own comprehension. Try these strategies, adapting them as needed to suit different kinds of texts:

• Summarize. At the end of each section, pause to summarize the main points in a few sentences. If you have trouble doing so, revisit that section.
• Ask and answer questions. When you begin reading a section, try to identify two to three questions you should be able to answer after you finish it. Write down your questions and use them to test yourself on the reading. If you cannot answer a question, try to determine why. Is the answer buried in that section of reading but just not coming across to you? Or do you expect to find the answer in another part of the reading?
• Do not read in a vacuum. Look for opportunities to discuss the reading with your classmates. Many instructors set up online discussion forums or blogs specifically for that purpose. Participating in these discussions can help you determine whether your understanding of the main points is the same as your peers’.

These discussions can also serve as a reality check. If everyone in the class struggled with the reading, it may be exceptionally challenging. If it was a breeze for everyone but you, you may need to see your instructor for help.

As a working mother, Crystal found that the best time to get her reading done was in the evening, after she had put her four-year-old to bed. However, she occasionally had trouble concentrating at the end of a long day. She found that by actively working to summarize the reading and asking and answering questions, she focused better and retained more of what she read. She also found that evenings were a good time to check the class discussion forums that a few of her instructors had created.

Choose any text that that you have been assigned to read for one of your college courses. In your notes, complete the following tasks:

• Summarize the main points of the text in two to three sentences.
• Write down two to three questions about the text that you can bring up during class discussion.

Students are often reluctant to seek help. They feel like doing so marks them as slow, weak, or demanding. The truth is, every learner occasionally struggles. If you are sincerely trying to keep up with the course reading but feel like you are in over your head, seek out help. Speak up in class, schedule a meeting with your instructor, or visit your university learning center for assistance.

Deal with the problem as early in the semester as you can. Instructors respect students who are proactive about their own learning. Most instructors will work hard to help students who make the effort to help themselves.

Taking It to the Next Level: Active Reading

Now that you have acquainted (or reacquainted) yourself with useful planning and comprehension strategies, college reading assignments may feel more manageable. You know what you need to do to get your reading done and make sure you grasp the main points. However, the most successful students in college are not only competent readers but active, engaged readers.

Using the SQ3R Strategy

One strategy you can use to become a more active, engaged reader is the SQ3R strategy , a step-by-step process to follow before, during, and after reading. You may already use some variation of it. In essence, the process works like this:

• Survey the text in advance.
• Form questions before you start reading.
• Read the text.
• Recite and/or record important points during and after reading.
• Review and reflect on the text after you read.

Before you read, you survey, or preview, the text. As noted earlier, reading introductory paragraphs and headings can help you begin to figure out the author’s main point and identify what important topics will be covered. However, surveying does not stop there. Look over sidebars, photographs, and any other text or graphic features that catch your eye. Skim a few paragraphs. Preview any boldfaced or italicized vocabulary terms. This will help you form a first impression of the material.

Next, start brainstorming questions about the text. What do you expect to learn from the reading? You may find that some questions come to mind immediately based on your initial survey or based on previous readings and class discussions. If not, try using headings and subheadings in the text to formulate questions. For instance, if one heading in your textbook reads “Medicare and Medicaid,” you might ask yourself these questions:

• When was Medicare and Medicaid legislation enacted? Why?
• What are the major differences between these two programs?

Although some of your questions may be simple factual questions, try to come up with a few that are more open-ended. Asking in-depth questions will help you stay more engaged as you read.

The next step is simple: read. As you read, notice whether your first impressions of the text were correct. Are the author’s main points and overall approach about the same as what you predicted—or does the text contain a few surprises? Also, look for answers to your earlier questions and begin forming new questions. Continue to revise your impressions and questions as you read.

While you are reading, pause occasionally to recite or record important points. It is best to do this at the end of each section or when there is an obvious shift in the writer’s train of thought. Put the book aside for a moment and recite aloud the main points of the section or any important answers you found there. You might also record ideas by jotting down a few brief notes in addition to, or instead of, reciting aloud. Either way, the physical act of articulating information makes you more likely to remember it.

After you have completed the reading, take some time to review the material more thoroughly. If the textbook includes review questions or your instructor has provided a study guide, use these tools to guide your review. You will want to record information in a more detailed format than you used during reading, such as in an outline or a list.

As you review the material, reflect on what you learned. Did anything surprise you, upset you, or make you think? Did you find yourself strongly agreeing or disagreeing with any points in the text? What topics would you like to explore further? Jot down your reflections in your notes. (Instructors sometimes require students to write brief response papers or maintain a reading journal. Use these assignments to help you reflect on what you read.)

Choose another text that that you have been assigned to read for a class. Use the SQ3R process to complete the reading. (Keep in mind that you may need to spread the reading over more than one session, especially if the text is long.)

Be sure to complete all the steps involved. Then, reflect on how helpful you found this process. On a scale of one to ten, how useful did you find it? How does it compare with other study techniques you have used?

Using Other Active Reading Strategies

The SQ3R process encompasses a number of valuable active reading strategies: previewing a text, making predictions, asking and answering questions, and summarizing. You can use the following additional strategies to further deepen your understanding of what you read.

• Connect what you read to what you already know. Look for ways the reading supports, extends, or challenges concepts you have learned elsewhere.
• Relate the reading to your own life. What statements, people, or situations relate to your personal experiences?
• Visualize. For both fiction and nonfiction texts, try to picture what is described. Visualizing is especially helpful when you are reading a narrative text, such as a novel or a historical account, or when you read expository text that describes a process, such as how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
• Pay attention to graphics as well as text. Photographs, diagrams, flow charts, tables, and other graphics can help make abstract ideas more concrete and understandable.
• Understand the text in context. Understanding context means thinking about who wrote the text, when and where it was written, the author’s purpose for writing it, and what assumptions or agendas influenced the author’s ideas. For instance, two writers might both address the subject of health care reform, but if one article is an opinion piece and one is a news story, the context is different.
• Plan to talk or write about what you read. Jot down a few questions or comments in your notebook so you can bring them up in class. (This also gives you a source of topic ideas for papers and presentations later in the semester.) Discuss the reading on a class discussion board or blog about it.

As Crystal began her first semester of elementary education courses, she occasionally felt lost in a sea of new terms and theories about teaching and child development. She found that it helped to relate the reading to her personal observations of her son and other kids she knew.

Writing at Work

Many college courses require students to participate in interactive online components, such as a discussion forum, a page on a social networking site, or a class blog. These tools are a great way to reinforce learning. Do not be afraid to be the student who starts the discussion.

Remember that when you interact with other students and teachers online, you need to project a mature, professional image. You may be able to use an informal, conversational tone, but complaining about the work load, using off-color language, or “flaming” other participants is inappropriate.

Active reading can benefit you in ways that go beyond just earning good grades. By practicing these strategies, you will find yourself more interested in your courses and better able to relate your academic work to the rest of your life. Being an interested, engaged student also helps you form lasting connections with your instructors and with other students that can be personally and professionally valuable. In short, it helps you get the most out of your education.

Common Writing Assignments

College writing assignments serve a different purpose than the typical writing assignments you completed in high school. In high school, teachers generally focus on teaching you to write in a variety of modes and formats, including personal writing, expository writing, research papers, creative writing, and writing short answers and essays for exams. Over time, these assignments help you build a foundation of writing skills.

In college, many instructors will expect you to already have that foundation.

Your college composition courses will focus on writing for its own sake, helping you make the transition to college-level writing assignments. However, in most other college courses, writing assignments serve a different purpose. In those courses, you may use writing as one tool among many for learning how to think about a particular academic discipline.

Additionally, certain assignments teach you how to meet the expectations for professional writing in a given field. Depending on the class, you might be asked to write a lab report, a case study, a literary analysis, a business plan, or an account of a personal interview. You will need to learn and follow the standard conventions for those types of written products.

Finally, personal and creative writing assignments are less common in college than in high school. College courses emphasize expository writing, writing that explains or informs. Often expository writing assignments will incorporate outside research, too. Some classes will also require persuasive writing assignments in which you state and support your position on an issue. College instructors will hold you to a higher standard when it comes to supporting your ideas with reasons and evidence.

Table 1.2 “Common Types of College Writing Assignments” lists some of the most common types of college writing assignments. It includes minor, less formal assignments as well as major ones. Which specific assignments you encounter will depend on the courses you take and the learning objectives developed by your instructors.

Table 1.2 Common Types of College Writing Assignments

Part of managing your education is communicating well with others at your university. For instance, you might need to e-mail your instructor to request an office appointment or explain why you will need to miss a class. You might need to contact administrators with questions about your tuition or financial aid. Later, you might ask instructors to write recommendations on your behalf.

Treat these documents as professional communications. Address the recipient politely; state your question, problem, or request clearly; and use a formal, respectful tone. Doing so helps you make a positive impression and get a quicker response.

Key Takeaways

• College-level reading and writing assignments differ from high school assignments not only in quantity but also in quality.
• Managing college reading assignments successfully requires you to plan and manage your time, set a purpose for reading, practice effective comprehension strategies, and use active reading strategies to deepen your understanding of the text.
• College writing assignments place greater emphasis on learning to think critically about a particular discipline and less emphasis on personal and creative writing.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Academic writing
• A step-by-step guide to the writing process

The Writing Process | 5 Steps with Examples & Tips

Published on April 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on December 8, 2023.

Good academic writing requires effective planning, drafting, and revision.

The writing process looks different for everyone, but there are five basic steps that will help you structure your time when writing any kind of text.

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

• Academic style
• Vague sentences
• Style consistency

See an example

Table of contents

Step 1: prewriting, step 2: planning and outlining, step 3: writing a first draft, step 4: redrafting and revising, step 5: editing and proofreading, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about the writing process.

Before you start writing, you need to decide exactly what you’ll write about and do the necessary research.

Coming up with a topic

If you have to come up with your own topic for an assignment, think of what you’ve covered in class— is there a particular area that intrigued, interested, or even confused you? Topics that left you with additional questions are perfect, as these are questions you can explore in your writing.

The scope depends on what type of text you’re writing—for example, an essay or a research paper will be less in-depth than a dissertation topic . Don’t pick anything too ambitious to cover within the word count, or too limited for you to find much to say.

Narrow down your idea to a specific argument or question. For example, an appropriate topic for an essay might be narrowed down like this:

Doing the research

Once you know your topic, it’s time to search for relevant sources and gather the information you need. This process varies according to your field of study and the scope of the assignment. It might involve:

• Searching for primary and secondary sources .
• Reading the relevant texts closely (e.g. for literary analysis ).
• Collecting data using relevant research methods (e.g. experiments , interviews or surveys )

From a writing perspective, the important thing is to take plenty of notes while you do the research. Keep track of the titles, authors, publication dates, and relevant quotations from your sources; the data you gathered; and your initial analysis or interpretation of the questions you’re addressing.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Especially in academic writing , it’s important to use a logical structure to convey information effectively. It’s far better to plan this out in advance than to try to work out your structure once you’ve already begun writing.

Creating an essay outline is a useful way to plan out your structure before you start writing. This should help you work out the main ideas you want to focus on and how you’ll organize them. The outline doesn’t have to be final—it’s okay if your structure changes throughout the writing process.

Use bullet points or numbering to make your structure clear at a glance. Even for a short text that won’t use headings, it’s useful to summarize what you’ll discuss in each paragraph.

An outline for a literary analysis essay might look something like this:

• Describe the theatricality of Austen’s works
• Outline the role theater plays in Mansfield Park
• Introduce the research question: How does Austen use theater to express the characters’ morality in Mansfield Park ?
• Discuss Austen’s depiction of the performance at the end of the first volume
• Discuss how Sir Bertram reacts to the acting scheme
• Introduce Austen’s use of stage direction–like details during dialogue
• Explore how these are deployed to show the characters’ self-absorption
• Discuss Austen’s description of Maria and Julia’s relationship as polite but affectionless
• Compare Mrs. Norris’s self-conceit as charitable despite her idleness
• Summarize the three themes: The acting scheme, stage directions, and the performance of morals
• Answer the research question
• Indicate areas for further study

Once you have a clear idea of your structure, it’s time to produce a full first draft.

This process can be quite non-linear. For example, it’s reasonable to begin writing with the main body of the text, saving the introduction for later once you have a clearer idea of the text you’re introducing.

To give structure to your writing, use your outline as a framework. Make sure that each paragraph has a clear central focus that relates to your overall argument.

Hover over the parts of the example, from a literary analysis essay on Mansfield Park , to see how a paragraph is constructed.

The character of Mrs. Norris provides another example of the performance of morals in Mansfield Park . Early in the novel, she is described in scathing terms as one who knows “how to dictate liberality to others: but her love of money was equal to her love of directing” (p. 7). This hypocrisy does not interfere with her self-conceit as “the most liberal-minded sister and aunt in the world” (p. 7). Mrs. Norris is strongly concerned with appearing charitable, but unwilling to make any personal sacrifices to accomplish this. Instead, she stage-manages the charitable actions of others, never acknowledging that her schemes do not put her own time or money on the line. In this way, Austen again shows us a character whose morally upright behavior is fundamentally a performance—for whom the goal of doing good is less important than the goal of seeming good.

When you move onto a different topic, start a new paragraph. Use appropriate transition words and phrases to show the connections between your ideas.

The goal at this stage is to get a draft completed, not to make everything perfect as you go along. Once you have a full draft in front of you, you’ll have a clearer idea of where improvement is needed.

Give yourself a first draft deadline that leaves you a reasonable length of time to revise, edit, and proofread before the final deadline. For a longer text like a dissertation, you and your supervisor might agree on deadlines for individual chapters.

Now it’s time to look critically at your first draft and find potential areas for improvement. Redrafting means substantially adding or removing content, while revising involves making changes to structure and reformulating arguments.

Evaluating the first draft

It can be difficult to look objectively at your own writing. Your perspective might be positively or negatively biased—especially if you try to assess your work shortly after finishing it.

It’s best to leave your work alone for at least a day or two after completing the first draft. Come back after a break to evaluate it with fresh eyes; you’ll spot things you wouldn’t have otherwise.

When evaluating your writing at this stage, you’re mainly looking for larger issues such as changes to your arguments or structure. Starting with bigger concerns saves you time—there’s no point perfecting the grammar of something you end up cutting out anyway.

Right now, you’re looking for:

• Arguments that are unclear or illogical.
• Areas where information would be better presented in a different order.
• Passages where additional information or explanation is needed.
• Passages that are irrelevant to your overall argument.

For example, in our paper on Mansfield Park , we might realize the argument would be stronger with more direct consideration of the protagonist Fanny Price, and decide to try to find space for this in paragraph IV.

For some assignments, you’ll receive feedback on your first draft from a supervisor or peer. Be sure to pay close attention to what they tell you, as their advice will usually give you a clearer sense of which aspects of your text need improvement.

Redrafting and revising

Once you’ve decided where changes are needed, make the big changes first, as these are likely to have knock-on effects on the rest. Depending on what your text needs, this step might involve:

• Making changes to your overall argument.
• Reordering the text.
• Cutting parts of the text.
• Adding new text.

You can go back and forth between writing, redrafting and revising several times until you have a final draft that you’re happy with.

Think about what changes you can realistically accomplish in the time you have. If you are running low on time, you don’t want to leave your text in a messy state halfway through redrafting, so make sure to prioritize the most important changes.

Check for common mistakes

Use the best grammar checker available to check for common mistakes in your text.

Fix mistakes for free

Editing focuses on local concerns like clarity and sentence structure. Proofreading involves reading the text closely to remove typos and ensure stylistic consistency. You can check all your drafts and texts in minutes with an AI proofreader .

Editing for grammar and clarity

When editing, you want to ensure your text is clear, concise, and grammatically correct. You’re looking out for:

• Grammatical errors.
• Ambiguous phrasings.
• Redundancy and repetition .

In your initial draft, it’s common to end up with a lot of sentences that are poorly formulated. Look critically at where your meaning could be conveyed in a more effective way or in fewer words, and watch out for common sentence structure mistakes like run-on sentences and sentence fragments:

• Austen’s style is frequently humorous, her characters are often described as “witty.” Although this is less true of Mansfield Park .
• Austen’s style is frequently humorous. Her characters are often described as “witty,” although this is less true of Mansfield Park .

To make your sentences run smoothly, you can always use a paraphrasing tool to rewrite them in a clearer way.

Proofreading for small mistakes and typos

When proofreading, first look out for typos in your text:

• Spelling errors.
• Missing words.
• Confused word choices .
• Punctuation errors .
• Missing or excess spaces.

Use a grammar checker , but be sure to do another manual check after. Read through your text line by line, watching out for problem areas highlighted by the software but also for any other issues it might have missed.

For example, in the following phrase we notice several errors:

• Mary Crawfords character is a complicate one and her relationships with Fanny and Edmund undergoes several transformations through out the novel.
• Mary Crawford’s character is a complicated one, and her relationships with both Fanny and Edmund undergo several transformations throughout the novel.

Proofreading for stylistic consistency

There are several issues in academic writing where you can choose between multiple different standards. For example:

• Whether you use the serial comma .
• Whether you use American or British spellings and punctuation (you can use a punctuation checker for this).
• Where you use numerals vs. words for numbers.
• How you capitalize your titles and headings.

Unless you’re given specific guidance on these issues, it’s your choice which standards you follow. The important thing is to consistently follow one standard for each issue. For example, don’t use a mixture of American and British spellings in your paper.

Additionally, you will probably be provided with specific guidelines for issues related to format (how your text is presented on the page) and citations (how you acknowledge your sources). Always follow these instructions carefully.

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy
• Deep learning
• Generative AI
• Machine learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

 (AI) Tools

• Grammar Checker
• Paraphrasing Tool
• Text Summarizer
• AI Detector
• Plagiarism Checker
• Citation Generator

Revising, proofreading, and editing are different stages of the writing process .

• Revising is making structural and logical changes to your text—reformulating arguments and reordering information.
• Editing refers to making more local changes to things like sentence structure and phrasing to make sure your meaning is conveyed clearly and concisely.
• Proofreading involves looking at the text closely, line by line, to spot any typos and issues with consistency and correct them.

Whether you’re publishing a blog, submitting a research paper , or even just writing an important email, there are a few techniques you can use to make sure it’s error-free:

• Take a break : Set your work aside for at least a few hours so that you can look at it with fresh eyes.
• Proofread a printout : Staring at a screen for too long can cause fatigue – sit down with a pen and paper to check the final version.
• Use digital shortcuts : Take note of any recurring mistakes (for example, misspelling a particular word, switching between US and UK English , or inconsistently capitalizing a term), and use Find and Replace to fix it throughout the document.

If you want to be confident that an important text is error-free, it might be worth choosing a professional proofreading service instead.

If you’ve gone over the word limit set for your assignment, shorten your sentences and cut repetition and redundancy during the editing process. If you use a lot of long quotes , consider shortening them to just the essentials.

If you need to remove a lot of words, you may have to cut certain passages. Remember that everything in the text should be there to support your argument; look for any information that’s not essential to your point and remove it.

To make this process easier and faster, you can use a paraphrasing tool . With this tool, you can rewrite your text to make it simpler and shorter. If that’s not enough, you can copy-paste your paraphrased text into the summarizer . This tool will distill your text to its core message.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2023, December 08). The Writing Process | 5 Steps with Examples & Tips. Scribbr. Retrieved June 18, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-writing/writing-process/

Is this article helpful?

Jack Caulfield

Other students also liked, how to create a structured research paper outline | example, quick guide to proofreading | what, why and how to proofread, academic paragraph structure | step-by-step guide & examples, get unlimited documents corrected.

✔ Free APA citation check included ✔ Unlimited document corrections ✔ Specialized in correcting academic texts

The impact of self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection before and after revision on student self-efficacy and writing performance

• Open access
• Published: 04 July 2021
• Volume 34 , pages 1885–1913, ( 2021 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Huy Q. Chung   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3048-3678 1 ,
• Vicky Chen 1 &
• Carol Booth Olson 1  

16k Accesses

23 Citations

9 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

Writing on-demand, text-based analytical essays is a challenging skill to master. Novice writers, such as the sixth grade US students in this study, may lack background knowledge of how to compose an effective essay, the self-efficacy skills, and the goal setting skills that will help with completing this task in accomplished ways. This sequential mixed-method study explored the impact of guiding a predominantly Redesignated English Learner group of students in a large, urban, low-SES school district in a timed, on-demand essay into a multiple draft process paper through a self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection process as they revised this process paper over a three week period. Both treatment and comparison students completed a pre-test on demand writing assessment, a pre and post self-efficacy in writing survey, and a post-test on demand writing assessment. Students in both conditions were participating in a year-long writing intervention called The Pathway to Academic Success, developed and implemented by the UC Irvine site of the National Writing Project (UCI Writing Project), during the 2017–2018 school year and received identical training from their teachers on how to revise a pre-test essay. However, only the treatment group engaged in self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection during this revision process. Students in the treatment condition demonstrated improved self-efficacy in the writing sub-domain of revision ( p  < .05) and had statistically significant greater gains on the post-test writing assessment (r = .57; p  < .001). These results suggest that engaging students in a planned revision process that includes student reflection, planning, and goal setting before revision, and reflection and self-assessment after revision, positively impacts self-efficacy and writing outcomes.

Similar content being viewed by others

Does the Feedback Feed Forward? Student Response to and Views of Teacher Feedback in an EFL Academic Writing Class

The Effects of Writing Revisions on Writing Improvement Among Undergraduate Students: The Moderating Role of Self-rating Accuracy

Exploring the short-term and maintained effects of strategic instruction on the writing of 4th grade students: should strategies be focused on the process?

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

A person’s self-efficacy, or beliefs about his or her ability to succeed in a specific domain (Bandura, 1997 , 2006 ), plays an important role in both how well a person performs and how long he or she persists at a particular task, especially when the task is complex. Few academic tasks may be as difficult as those required of students in secondary school to demonstrate mastery of the text based analytical writing called for by the Common Core State Standards (Barzilai et al., 2018 ; Biancarosa & Snow, 2004 ; Graham & Perin, 2007 ; National Governors Association, 2010 ; Olson et al., 2012 ). Greater mastery of this skill has been highly correlated with postsecondary success and career readiness (Perin et al., 2017 ). From grade 6 through 12, students are expected to demonstrate increasing complexity as they “write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence” (NGA, 2010 , p. 42). Sub-skills to master this standard include conducting extensive research, discerning fact from opinion, writing a defensible and nuanced claim, organizing essays logically, and revising their papers for clarity.

Recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress for Writing (NCES, 2012) highlight the need to help students become proficient writers, especially in the area of analytical writing and revision which students often find especially challenging (Olson et al., 2012 ). Only about 27% of the nation’s students—and only 1% of English Learners (ELs)—scored proficient or advanced in writing (NCES, 2012 ). This is cause for concern, because being able to write well is an important skill for success in both higher education and the workplace across a variety of disciplines and industries (National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges, 2004 ). Additionally, the achievement gap between our English learners and their English only peers is an issue of equity and access.

ELs represent the fastest growing segment of the K-12 population with the largest increases occurring in grade 7–12 (U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Educational Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, 2017 ). In 2013–14, over 9% of K-12 public school students were ELs. California leads the nation with almost 23% ELs (U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Educational Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, 2016 ). Although ELs in the United States speak more than 350 languages, 73% speak Spanish as their first language (Batalova & McHugh, 2010 ), 40% have origins in Mexico (Hernandez, Denton, & Macartney, 2008 ), and 60% of ELs in grades 6 through 12 come from low-income families (Batalova et al., 2005 ; Capps et al., 2005 ). The largest numbers of ELs in our schools today are referred to as long-term ELs (LTELs) (Menken & Kleyn, 2009 ). According to Olsen ( 2010 ), these are students who have been educated in the United States since age six, are doing poorly in school, and have major gaps in knowledge because their schooling was disrupted. In Olsen’s study of 175,734 ELs, the majority (59%) were LTELs who were failing to acquire academic language and struggling to do well in high school. They may come from homes where the primary language is not English, but they themselves may speak English only or they may switch between multiple languages and still have features in their writing attesting to their multilingual status (Valdés, 2001 ). Limited in their knowledge of academic registers in any language, these students are often mainstreamed into regular English language arts classrooms, though they may be disadvantaged in not only writing skills, but also in soft skills.

One possible contributor to flat-lined scores between administrations of the NAEP-Writing, is the lack of self-efficacy or motivation to perform well on standardized tests for all secondary writers, but particularly for English learners. Kiuhara et al. ( 2009 ) found that students are constrained by more complex essay writing tasks and timed on-demand tasks due to textual, affective, and genre constraints. Students often are either given very brief instructions/prompts, may be unfamiliar with or under-practiced in the genre being assessed, or are overwhelmed by the information given to them in these settings (Blake et al., 2016 ). The fact that students may not know how to approach the writing task or even understand what is expected of them in these situations is a problem that must be addressed. Because text-based analytical writing is a gatekeeper for college access and persistence and a “threshold skill” for hiring and promotion for salaried workers (National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges, 2004 ), failure to close these achievement gaps in academic writing will have serious social and economic consequences. Again, in these circumstances, a student’s self-efficacy plays a large role in completing these tasks.

Self-efficacy is particularly important in completing complex writing tasks. In a study exploring self-efficacy in writing, Pajares and colleagues ( 2007 ) found that how students interpret the results of their own past writing performance, such as how successful they believe they were at completing a writing task, can make a key contribution to their sense of self-efficacy. In fact, Graham and colleagues ( 2018 ) found that students’ beliefs (i.e., sense of self-efficacy) contributed to 10% of the variance in predicting students’ writing outcomes and the percentage is even higher (16.3%) for students with disabilities. On-demand writing, ubiquitous in educational settings, compounds the impact of self-efficacy in writing as students have the added pressure to perform cognitively demanding tasks in a short amount of time that may not mirror the more thoughtful stage process that they are given during regular instruction to take a paper through the writing process, which includes pre-writing, drafting, revising, and editing phases. When students are often asked to revise papers before they submit them for evaluation they are asked to improve their drafts through careful reading and writing that globally impacts their message or purpose for writing the paper. However, few students give themselves enough time to revise their writing during the more intense situations of timed writing assessments. Moreover, even when they do have time to revise their efforts may actually have the opposite effect. Changes they make are constrained by the time they have to reflect on the impact the revision has on the rest of the paper and make more local changes that may or may not help with the overall assessment of the quality of the paper (Worden, 2009 ).

The current study, a sequential mixed methods design study, on testing the impact of self-efficacy in essay writing is an extension of a large-scale intervention called The Pathway to Academic Success, developed and implemented by the UCI Writing Project, that aims to close the achievement gap for English learners in mainstreamed ELA classrooms and their native English speaking peers, particularly in the area of text-based analytical writing by demystifying the process that expert readers and writers use to approach domain-specific tasks, targeting teacher professional development, and fostering students’ habits of mind. By focusing on students’ self-efficacy in writing (SEW) in classroom settings, this work can positively impact teachers’ practices and influence students’ motivation and ability to write analytically. To this end, we focus on answering the following three research questions:

Do students with higher self-efficacy have better writing outcomes?

What is the impact of students’ self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection on their self-efficacy in writing as they revise a text-based analytical essay?

What do students cite as most helpful in revising their writing and how does this contribute to their self-efficacy?

Literature review

The following section reviews the research literature that informs our study. First, we review the concept of self-efficacy in writing to address the first research question. Then, we review the literature on students’ self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection in relation to revision of writing in order to study the second research question. Finally, we discuss factors that are known to impact students’ successful revision of writing such as teacher instruction, motivation, prior knowledge, and conditions of the writing task to explore the third question.

Self-efficacy in writing

As mentioned previously, a person’s self-efficacy, or beliefs about his or her ability to succeed in a specific domain (Bandura, 1997 , 2006 ), influences how anxious people feel, the goals that they set for themselves, and the strategies that they adopt when working towards those goals. A greater sense of self-efficacy tends to correlate with lower levels of anxiety, the use of more effective learning strategies, greater enjoyment of the task, a greater willingness to seek help when needed, and better overall performance (Bong, 2006 ; Sanders-Reio et al., 2014 ; Williams & Takaku, 2011 ).

Pajares and colleagues ( 2007 ) explored Bandura’s ( 1997 ) four hypothesized sources of self-efficacy beliefs—mastery experiences, social persuasion, vicarious experiences, and anxiety—Pajares and colleagues found that, while all four factors were significantly correlated with students’ self-efficacy in writing, perceived mastery experiences were the greatest predictor of writing self-efficacy regardless of gender or grade level. In other words, how students interpret the results of their own past performance, such as how successful they believe they were at completing a similar task, makes a key contribution to their sense of self-efficacy. Although this has led to some interventions that focus on giving praise and encouraging students to evaluate themselves in positive ways as a method of improving self-efficacy, theorists and researchers have increasingly emphasized the importance of concrete skill development and the opportunities that it provides for genuine success experiences (Pajares et al., 2007 ). Such experiences provide powerful support for increasing students’ self-efficacy and equip students with the tools they can use to succeed in future writing tasks.

Self-assessment

Studies which focus on the relationship of students’ self-efficacy on past performance and its impact on future performance have explored a variety of activities and their potential for increasing student self-efficacy in writing. One of the most notable of these is self-assessment, which occurs when people evaluate their own work, identify disparities between their current and desired performance, and reflect upon ways in which they can improve (McMillan & Hearn, 2008 ). Guiding students through this self-reflective process and supporting their development of self-assessment skills gives students a sense of agency and control over their own learning, which, in turn, can heighten student motivation and self-efficacy (Panadero et al., 2016 ). Self-assessment can be conducted and expressed in both spoken (e.g., self-explanation) and/or written form (e.g., reflection); it is conjectured that students who are able to articulate their declarative knowledge around task concepts are better able to convert this knowledge to more tacit, procedural knowledge and skills. Not only does this process influence what students are able to do given a task, but it also influences their experiences and identity work around such tasks, in this case writing (Chi et al., 1989 ). The process of self-assessment also contributes to students’ sense of self-efficacy and conditional knowledge as they engage in reflecting on their own learning, and improvement of their own work. However, it is important to note that student self-assessment is more effective when combined with teacher feedback, especially in domains where students lack expertise (Logan, 2015 ; Panadero et al., 2016 ).

Self-assessment, self-efficacy, and revision

The original Flower-Hayes ( 1981 ) model of the composing process focused on three cognitive processes in writing—planning, translating, and revision–-and discussed them within the context of how an individual writer responds to the task environment, all those factors influencing the writing task, and the writer’s long term memory, including the knowledge of the topic, audience, and stored writing plans. Over fifteen years later, in “A New Framework for Understanding Cognition and Affect in Writing” (Hayes, 1996 ), Hayes reorganized his model to include a social component in the task environment to acknowledge that writing is “a communicative act that requires a social context and a medium” (p. 5). Further, within the individual component of his model, he added motivation/affect under which he lists goals, predispositions, beliefs and attitudes, and cost–benefit analyses because “motivation and affect play central roles in writing processes” (p. 5). He specifically links positive and negative dispositions toward writing to self-assessment and self-efficacy, citing Dweck ( 1986 ) and Palmquist and Young ( 1992 ).

Hayes’ ( 2012 ) new framework also posits an evaluation function responsible for the detection and diagnosis of text problems during revision. He further postulates that to understand revision, it is necessary for writers to draw upon a control structure or task schema that enables them to access a “package of knowledge” that includes: “(i) A goal: to improve the text; (ii) An expected set of activities to perform; (iii) Attentional subgoals; (iv) Templates and criteria for quality; and (v) Strategies for fixing specific text problems” (p. 17). The addition of the control level to Hayes’ composing model indicates that motivation, self-assessment, detection and diagnosis, planning and goal setting, reflection, and writing task schemas all play an important role in students’ self-efficacy as writers. Hayes points out that students who believe writing is a gift rather than a craft one can work at and improve have higher levels of writing anxiety and lower self-assessments of their ability as writers.

In light of Hayes’ new framework, we hypothesize that engaging students in activities that prompt them to detect and diagnose areas for revision, plan and set goals for making both local and, more importantly, global changes (Hayes, 1996 ), and to reflect upon and assess their growth after revising will enhance their self-efficacy as writers and potentially impact their writing outcomes.

Teacher impacts on self-efficacy in writing

Studies have indicated that teachers can play an important role in developing student self-efficacy in writing. Corkett et al. ( 2011 ) found that teachers’ perceptions of students’ self-efficacy in writing are highly correlated with their students’ actual writing performance– indicating that teachers enact different instructional practices based on their perceptions of how prepared their students are for tackling different writing assignments. Their study also found that students’ perceptions of their own abilities are not predictive of their actual abilities, indicating that students still need specific instructional supports to develop their own perceptions of how they can improve their writing.

The nature of how teachers structure a writing task can also impact how certain students develop their self-efficacy in writing. In a study of gifted elementary school children, the treatment group that received formative feedback as they learned and practiced specific writing skills (e.g., topic sentences) and created assigned written products (e.g., a paragraph), better learned these skills and were more proficient at producing certain written products than the comparison group (Schunk & Swartz, 1993 ). However, goal setting and teacher feedback did not improve student self-efficacy with students with learning disabilities (LD) (Sawyer et al., 1992 ). It is conjectured that students with LD tend to overestimate their abilities, as is true for students with general low writing abilities, further necessitating classroom interventions or processes that will help students recognize areas of improvement in their writing and how to improve such skills.

Teachers’ own self-efficacy can also be impacted by teacher professional development (Locke et al., 2013 ) which provides them with more effective and “transformative” ways of teaching writing that can lead to improved student learning and student self-efficacy in writing. However, Locke and colleagues also indicate that teachers’ self-efficacy is moderated by the type of writing their students produce in their classrooms. This feedback loop of student data, teacher interpretation, and reflection on next steps demonstrates the importance of developing both teacher and student self-efficacy in writing.

In sum, studies on teacher self-efficacy and how it interacts with student self-efficacy demonstrate the influence the former has on the latter. Though self-efficacy is often an individual activity, when it comes to writing, input from a teacher influences how well students will approach their own writing tasks. Moreover, teacher self-efficacy beliefs also influence how positive and/or confident teachers themselves feel about teaching writing to students, which again impacts how positive students approach these tasks (Troia & Graham, 2016 ).

Contributing factors to self-efficacy in writing

Beyond teachers, other factors that may impact students’ self-efficacy in writing are their motivation, their prior knowledge around the topic they are writing about, and the conditions under which they are being asked to write. Students who are highly motivated to receive feedback (e.g., help-seeking) on their performance are more likely to do well on writing tasks, indicating that students who are more motivated to improve will produce better writing (Williams & Takaku, 2011 ). Similarly, students are also motivated if they have past success with writing, have been exposed to positive writing habits, have been praised by their peers for their writing, and have associated positive feelings with their writing (Bruning & Kauffman, 2016 ). Students who study for mastery and depth have higher self-efficacy than students who only have surface-level knowledge and have lower self-efficacy because of their motivations and success with past learning experiences (Prat-Sala & Redford, 2010 ). Students also benefit from seeing how other people write and approach writing and self-calibrating to these examples (Schunk & Zimmerman, 2007 ). Moreover, the feedback that they receive around their writing, from both teachers and peers, can impact their self-efficacy. Students tend to internalize the feedback they receive and associate this feedback with whether they are good or bad at writing, along with the emotions that come with these self-assessments (e.g., guilt, confusion, anxiety, or fear) (Smith, 2010 ). Hidi and Boscolo ( 2006 ), for instance, noted that emotions (negative or positive) can serve as a mediating variable between self-efficacy and writing quality. In other words, feeling good while writing is its own reward, and encourages one to see oneself as a good writer and to engage in more writing.

Finally, the context or situation in which students are asked to write can also impact their perceptions of their own self-efficacy. Elementary school students tend to have higher self-efficacy in writing than middle and high school students, and these effects are also stronger for female students across grade levels that report having lower anxiety when it comes to writing tasks (Pajares et al., 2007 ). As expectations increase, the more potential there is for students to feel challenged by these expectations.

Contributions of this study

This study explores the relationship between self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection on self-efficacy in student writing by having students use a revision planner as part of their writing process during a strategy-based reading and writing intervention. The revision planner encourages students to analyze what they did well on a selected piece of writing, with feedback from an experienced reader, quite similar to the mastery experiences Pajares and colleagues ( 2007 ) identified as promoting student self-efficacy in writing. Additionally, beyond identifying the strengths and needs of their writing assignment, students also plan and create achievable goals before revising their essay as well as reflect upon how well they met those goals after revising (McMillan & Hearn, 2008 ). Like a rubric (Andrade et al., 2010 ), a planner can serve as a tool to support students in revising and improving their work. Unlike a rubric, a planner focuses students’ attention on actionable steps that they can take to reach specific goals that they can set for themselves—based upon what they have learned throughout the intervention—to help them manage their revision process and revise their writing successfully. We are particularly interested in the impact that goal setting, supported by the use of a planner, might have on student writing performance, self-assessment, and self-efficacy in writing.

Study context

This sequential mixed methods study took place during the last year of a five-year grant awarded to our institution to validate the effectiveness of a cognitive-strategies approach to writing instruction in partnership with Norwalk La Mirada Unified School District (NLMUSD) and three other school districts in California. The previous four years were spent on designing and conducting a randomized control trial involving the districts’ grade 7 to 12 grade students. During the year we conducted this study (2017–2018), NLMUSD exclusively requested that grade 6 teachers be provided with the same professional development in an effort to institutionalize and scale-up the intervention (Olson et al., 2019). NLMUSD is a large, urban school district that serves 80% Hispanic students, 8% White students, 7% Asian students, 3% African American students, and 2% are Other Ethnicities. Additionally, 61% of their students are English Only students, 17% of their students are English Learners, 16% are Reclassified Fluent English Proficient students, and 6% of their students are Initially English Proficient. About 75% of the district’s students participate in the Federal Reduced Price Lunch program. Participating teachers and students were recruited from NLMUSD specifically as the other three school districts institutionalized the intervention in other ways. Teachers in this grade 6 cohort all received the same intervention as previous cohorts of teachers. However, in addition to testing the efficacy of the teacher intervention with all teachers and students, we were also interested in testing a student intervention, that we hypothesized would have implications on their self-efficacy as writers. The focus of our student intervention, thus, was at a different level and with a different grade level than that of the larger RCT study. We collected quantitative data on students first, then followed by a qualitative component to understand what may have contributed to students’ self-efficacy while revising.

Teacher and student participants

This cohort of participating grade 6 teachers consisted of 13 teachers. Each teacher had one focal class. Approximately 401 students were part of this cohort. All teachers participated in our professional development intervention. The student intervention component differed between randomly assigned groups. Of these students, 131 students were in the treatment group and 83 were in the comparison group, as one teacher declined to participate in the random assignment, representing an 8% attrition rate of teachers (leaving 12 teachers to be randomized). Across both groups, 52% of the students were female, 76% were Hispanic, and 62% of the students are Redesignated English Learners, a percentage that is much higher than the overall district demographics, since focal classes with higher percentages of ELs and RFEPs for all teachers’ classes (treatment and comparison) were selected for the study. The Self-Efficacy in Writing (SEW) means at baseline for both groups were not statistically different (m tx  = 3.61; m c  = 3.56).

Professional development intervention for teachers

In order to distinguish between the grade 7 to 12 study and this sub study of grade 6 teachers, we are providing a description of the professional development program since all teachers in this study were in the same PD and were trained together. We will subsequently explain what the “treatment” teachers in our self-efficacy intervention did that was above and beyond the PD all teachers attended to account for differences in student outcomes. Participating teachers attended 46 h of professional development throughout the school year, consisting of six full-day meetings and five after-school meetings.

The professional development intervention is informed by cognitive, sociocognitive, and sociocultural theory. In their cognitive process theory of writing, Flower and Hayes ( 1981 ) posit that writing is best understood “as a set of distinct thinking processes which writers orchestrate and organize during the act of composing” (p. 375), including planning, organizing, goal setting, translating, monitoring, reviewing, evaluating, and revising. They liken these processes to a “writer’s tool kit” (p. 385), which is not constrained by any fixed order or series of stages.

In describing the difficulty of composing written texts, Flower and Hayes ( 1980 ) aptly conceptualized writers as simultaneously juggling “a number of demands being made on conscious attention” (p. 32). While all learners face similar cognitive, linguistic, communicative, contextual, and textual constraints when learning to write (Frederiksen & Dominic, 1981), the difficulties younger, inexperienced, and underprepared students face are magnified. For these students, juggling constraints can cause cognitive overload. For example, ELs are often cognitively overloaded, especially in mainstreamed classrooms where they are held to the same performance standards as native English speakers (Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007 ).

Graham ( 2018 ) has pointed out that “available cognitive models mostly ignore cultural, social, political, and historical influences on writing development” (p. 272). He asserts that writing is “inherently a social activity, situated within a specific context” (p. 273). This view echoes Langer ( 1991 ) who, drawing on Vygotsky ( 1986 ), suggests that literacy is the ability to think and reason like a literate person within a particular society. In other words, literacy is culture specific and meaning is socially constructed. From a sociocognitive perspective, teachers should pay more attention to the social purposes to which literacy skills are applied, and should go beyond delivering lessons on content to impart strategies for thinking necessary to complete literacy tasks, first with guidance and, ultimately, independently.

Finally, sociocultural theory views meaning as being “negotiated at the intersection of individuals, culture, and activity” (Englert et al., 2006 , p. 208). Three tenets of sociocultural theory are applicable to the intervention (Adapted from Englert et al., 2006 ): (1) Cognitive apprenticeships: in which novices learn literate behaviors through the repeated modeling of more mature, experienced adults or peers to provide access to strategies and tools demonstrated by successful readers and writers (Vygotsky, 1986 ). (2) Procedural facilitators and tools: where teachers are most effective when they lead cognitive development in advance of what students can accomplish alone by presenting challenging material along with procedural and facilitative tools to help readers and writers address those cognitive challenges. (3) Community of practice: the establishment of communities of practice in which teachers actively encourage students to collaborate and provide ongoing opportunities and thoughtful activities that invite students to engage in shared inquiry.

The central core of the PD is the use of cognitive strategies to support all students in reading and writing about complex text. Cognitive strategies are conceptual tools and processes that can help students become more meta-cognitive about their work. The following are the cognitive strategies introduced in the PD:

Planning and Goal Setting, Tapping Prior Knowledge, Asking Questions and Making Predictions, Constructing the Gist, Monitoring, Revising Meaning, Reflecting and Relating, and Evaluating. Some sub-components are: Visualizing, Making Connections, Summarizing, Adopting an Alignment, Forming Interpretations, Analyzing Author’s Craft, and Clarifying Understanding (Olson, 2011 , p. 23)

The primary intent of the professional development is to provide teachers with lessons and materials to introduce the cognitive strategies to students toward the intended goal of improving students’ analytical essays about either fiction or non-fiction texts.

Teachers also learned specific writing strategies to help students revise their writing. To avoid “teaching to the test,” teachers use a different text, but similar in topic as the text used for the writing assessment as a training tool in order to model how to revise the pre-test into a multiple draft essay. Throughout a series of mini-lessons, students are taught a variety of skills through examining a mentor text/essay based on the training text. Students first read the training text using the aforementioned 15 cognitive strategies. Then, they are given a writing prompt similar to the one they used on the writing assessment. This writing prompt is dissected by having students fill out a Do/What Chart which instructs students to circle all of the verbs (Do) and underline all of the task words (What) in the prompt and transfer the verbs and tasks words onto a T-chart to help them understand what they are being asked to do (for example, “Select one important theme and create a theme statement.”) Then, students are given a mentor text/essay addressing the prompt they just dissected. This mentor text/essay is analyzed for the moves the writer makes, particularly in how he or she constructed the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

When working with the introduction, students are taught the HoT S-C Team (Hook/TAG/Story-Conflict/Thesis) acronym. The students are to identify that a writer often starts with an engaging hook that could be a quote, question or statement to make people think, fact, or even anecdote; then identifies the title-author-genre (TAG) of the text being written about to set the context for writing; adds purposeful summary of the story or conflict, and includes a thesis (claim).

Each component of the mentor text is color-coded using yellow (for summary sentences), green (for textual evidence), and blue (for student commentary) to help the students understand that a balance of purposeful summary, textual evidence, and commentary is important when constructing an analytical essay. Additionally, students are also taught about grammar brushstrokes (Noden, 2011 ) such as adding adjectives out of order, appositives, or using active verbs and are encouraged to revise some of their sentences with these brushstrokes to enhance sentence variety.

One of the essential activities in this intervention is to have teachers help students revise their on-demand writing samples into a more polished analytical essay, after these writing samples have been read and commented on by trained readers. It is during this part of the main study that our team decided to conduct the sub study on student self-efficacy. Given that all teachers experienced and received the same professional development and, in turn, taught the same revision strategies to their students, the only difference that we tested rested solely on asking the treatment students to use the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner and Revised Pre-Test Reflection form. This self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection strategy is aligned to Hayes’ ( 2012 ) control level of writing, which involves student self-efficacy. A more detailed explanation of this new intervention strategy follows.

Student intervention: pre-test revision planner and revised pre-test reflection form

In prior studies of our intervention, we have routinely asked teachers to analyze their students’ pre-tests as a formative assessment and to fill out their own reflection planner regarding their students’ strengths and areas needing growth as a tool to help with instruction. After reading about how much student self-efficacy influences writing outcomes (Bruning et al., 2013 ), we wondered if having students participate in assessing their own strengths and areas for improvement as writers and fill out a reflection similar to the one their teachers created would lead to better writing outcomes. With the consent of teachers participating in the intervention, we randomized the teachers’ classes into two groups. The comparison group received instruction from their teacher on how to revise their pre-test essays and were provided with comments from a trained reader. The treatment group not only received instruction from the teacher and comments from a trained reader, but also conducted a self-assessment of their work and filled out the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner and Revised Pre-Test Reflection form to describe their process and assess the quality of their product after revising. Since all the students, treatment and comparison groups, participated in the same intervention and were taught the same strategies, this study tests the impact of the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner and Revised Pre-Test Reflection form on students’ self-efficacy and writing quality. To promote treatment fidelity, all teachers, treatment and comparison, were required to submit their students’ revised pre-tests to the intervention developers in order to receive their stipend for participating in the year-long study. Treatment teachers were also required to submit the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner planner.

To elaborate, the process we took treatment students involved two steps. The first part of the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner (see Appendix 1) asked students to self-assess what they did effectively as writers on their essay and what they might have struggled with on the writing task. They were then asked to decide on goals for revisions in bulleted form, weighing suggestions by trained readers who commented on their papers. These were action steps the student proposed to take when revising his or her essay. After they have completed their revision, students reflected on what changes they made, what they were most proud of, and what their teacher did to help them reach their revision goals using the Revised Pre-Test Reflection form. In the comparison condition, students revised their pretests, but without the use of a planner, keeping everything else equal.

Sample student pre-test, revision planner, and revised pre-test

This section illustrates the multi-faceted components of the intervention. We start by examining a student’s pre-test with commentary from an experienced reader, then her revision planner, next her revised pre-test, and finally her self-assessment and reflection and consider how these components affect a student’s self-efficacy in writing.

The prompt the student responded to was an analysis of Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve’s short story “The Medicine Bag” for its theme as exhibited through the evolving relationship between the narrator and his great-grandfather as he visits him unexpectedly and the symbolism behind the gift he leaves the narrator prior to his passing (Fig. 1 ):

Student’s Pre-test with some commentary

The student’s attempt at the on-demand essay consists almost exclusively of summary, indicating that her command of analytical writing is still developing. The student starts the analysis with “In the beginning of the story…” followed by a long summary of the plot and puts forth the claim “this proves that Martin is embaress [sic] of his grandpa…” While this is not a theme statement it does indicate the writer’s understanding of the text. The trained reader also notes the writer’s recognition that the character changes over time and encourages her to focus on the author’s message or lesson when she revises (Fig. 2 ).

Trained reader’s letter to the student

The comments the student received from the trained reader focused revision on connecting commentary to textual evidence, developing a theme statement, and the role symbols play in the story. These types of comments are quite typical of the responses many students in this study received from our trained readers. After teachers received these comments and reviewed them, they passed these papers back to their students and treatment teachers had students fill out the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner (see Fig.  3 ). We conjecture that this opportunity to self-assess may contribute to her persistence through the revision process better than her comparison peers who may only rely on given feedback, but no reflection nor goal setting (Bruning & Kauffman, 2016 ).

Student’s Pre-test essay revision planner

In her Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner, the student first focused on the strengths of her essay—what she did well. Then she addressed what she struggled with or didn’t do as well in her essay. Next, she set a goal to revise the introduction, by including a hook and TAG which indicates Title, Author, and Genre, and especially to “talk more about the message.” Much of what the student plans to do is quite specific to revising the introduction; revising an introduction and knowing what is expected can help students produce more focused papers that are organized with a clear direction in terms of analysis. Below is her revision of the writing assessment (Fig. 4 ):

Student’s revised Pre-test

The student’s revision is a noticeable improvement over her original pre-test. The revision has included a hook (e.g., an anecdote around traditions), attempts a theme statement (e.g., the importance of traditions), addresses the changing the relationship between the narrator and his grand-father, and also focuses on the medicine bag as a symbol. Notice how the student meets her revision goals, but also takes up the suggestion to focus on symbolism. The moves the student makes from pre-test to revision are akin to a student that makes a transition from knowledge-telling (e.g., summary) to knowledge-transformation (e.g., commentary) in their writing (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987 ). For example, in the students’ pre-test, she summarized how Martin exaggerates about his grandfather but did not explain how this exaggeration relates to his embarrassment. In the revision of this paper, the student explains, in detail, why Martin was embarrassed by his grandfather and why he felt compelled to make him seem more “glamorous” and larger than life. Moreover, the reflection on the revisions she made (below) demonstrates ownership over her revision process, with her teacher’s help (Fig. 5 ):

Student’s Revised Pre-Test Reflection

The student recognizes the changes she made from her pre-test to the revised version, particularly the inclusion of a message or theme statement and the improvements she made. She also emphasized how helpful her teacher was in helping her revise her body paragraphs, which was a goal that was not particularly emphasized on her revision planner, but proved to be a writing move that was successfully executed. The student exhibited a strong sense of self-efficacy. Note, her expression of pride in working on and completing the assignment).

Data collection and measures

Self-efficacy for writing scale.

To examine student growth in self-efficacy, particularly in writing, we adapted a pre-existing self-efficacy in writing measure called the Self-Efficacy for Writing Scale (SEWS), reliably measured by another research team (Bruning et al., 2013 ), by adding additional questions regarding revision practices. After cleaning the data for complete entries at pre and post-survey, our sample size consisted of 214 students who had completely filled out a pre and post-survey. The SEW survey had 22 Likert-scale questions on a scale from 1 to 5 in terms of how much they agree with each statement. To further analyze the SEW survey, but to also simplify the analytical process, we also conducted a factor analysis to reduce the number of components and created four composites, for specific areas of self-efficacy, as a result. The four composites used in our analysis, the questions that pertained to each one, and the factor loadings after applying orthogonal varimax rotations (Abdi, 2003 ) are in Table 1 below:

Ideation groups questions regarding students’ ideas and content in their essays together; Syntax pertains to students’ focus on grammar, spelling, and paragraph formation; Volition pertains to students’ abilities to follow-through with their assignment and complete it; and Revision questions pertain to students’ abilities to revise their paper for specific skills.

Academic writing assessment

In order to test the impact of an increase in self-efficacy in writing on students’ analytical writing, we used students’ scores on the Academic Writing Assessment, a writing assessment created for our intervention, that is administered to students prior to the intervention and after revision of the pre-test. Two prompts (one on “The Medicine Bag” and one on “Ribbons”) were created regarding two texts where the main character’s relationship with a grandparent changes throughout the story. The students stated a claim or theme statement about relationships and use textual evidence to support this theme. To control for prompt effects half of the students wrote to one of these prompts at pre-test and wrote to the other prompt at post-test, and vice versa.

Approximately twenty papers were randomly selected for scoring per teacher. Assessments were scored in a double blind process over four hours where the scorer neither knew if the paper they were scoring was written by a treatment or comparison student nor whether they were scoring a pre-test or post-test. Each paper was read twice and given a score from a range of 1 to 6, with possible score points from 2 to 12. If the two readers differed by more than two points (e.g., a 2 and 4) then a third, more experienced reader also gave the paper a score. If the third reader’s score matches either the first or the second reader, the third reader’s score was added to the score it matched. If the third reader’s score fell in between the first and second reader’s score, the third reader’s score was kept and the average of the first and second reader’s score was added to the kept score. All papers were scored in such a manner during a scoring event held over four hours. Raters agreed within a score point or better for 95% of the papers; 5% required a third reading, and 49% of the papers had exact agreements between the two scorers.

Pre-test essay revision planner and revised pre-test reflection form

To reiterate, the form asked students to self-assess, plan and goal set during revision, and reflect on the process after finishing their revisions. The reflection side of the planner was inspired by Daniel et al. ( 2015 ) who found that students who wrote a cover letter to their instructors detailing the changes they made to a revised paper, based on instructor feedback, submitted higher-quality revised papers than their control peers. The theory of change behind this planner is that it encourages students to identify problem areas, set goals, and remind them of these goals as they revise their pretest, encouraging them to accomplish these goals (see Daniel et al., 2015 ).

Student interviews

A sub-set of students from both the comparison and treatment classrooms were selected for interview purposes. Without knowing students’ AWA scores, teachers were asked to nominate one developing writer and one more proficient writer for the interviews. Selected students were provided with their pre-test, their revised pre-test, and their post-test; treatment students also were provided with their Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner and Revised Pre-Test Reflection form. Students were interviewed in the same room, but sat far away enough from each other so that ambient noise from the other interview being conducted would not be captured. Students were asked a series of open-ended questions (see Appendix 2) about their identities as writers (e.g., From a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate yourself as a writer?); about their revision process; and what helped them to revise their papers/to meet their goals.

Research procedures

Randomly selected teachers chose one focal class with which to conduct these research activities:

Students in the selected classes were asked to take two timed on-demand writing assessments–one at the beginning of the school year and one at the end of the school year. These essays were scored during a double-blind session based on the Academic Writing Assessment (AWA) rubric that we created and validated in other studies (see Olson et al., 2017 ).

The students also took two self-efficacy in writing (SEW) surveys, one at the beginning of the school year and one at the end of the school year.

In between the two SEW surveys students’ teachers either were randomly assigned to have students reflect on their writing or not to reflect on their writing using the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner and Revised Pre-Test Reflection form while revising their pretests.

Afterwards, two students from each class were randomly interviewed on their writing process with questions that focused on their identity as a writer and what helped them as writers.

Data analysis

To analyze growth on our SEW measure, we ran t-tests to measure change from pre to post on each of our aforementioned components from our factor analysis (ideation, syntax, volition, and revision). We then also ran t-tests to measure change from pre to post on the AWA differentiating between the treatment and comparison groups in order to test the impact of self-efficacy in writing on timed on-demand writing tasks.

Students’ revision-planners and post-revision reflections were analyzed for the types of goals students created for themselves by looking at idea units. Student interviews were transcribed by the first and second author, divided into idea units, and coded for students’ revision processes and what strategies/resources might have assisted them in doing so. Codes were independently generated and then verified between the two coders until they were agreed upon (Miles & Huberman, 2008).

Students with higher self-efficacy have better writing outcomes

When analyzing AWA scores, treatment students grew 1.90 points and the control students grew 1.33 points from pre to posttest. Both gains were statistically significant ( p  < 0.001), indicating that the intervention had a positive impact on all participating students. However, differences in differences confirm that the treatment students had statistically significant greater gains than their control peers (△ = 0.57; p  < 0.001).

Students’ reflections have positive impact on students’ self-efficacy in writing

At post-survey, the treatment SEW mean increased to 3.63 ( p  < 0.76) and the control mean decreased to 3.47 ( p  < 0.37). Differences in differences analysis revealed a slight statistical difference ( p  < 0.10; △ = 0.11). The alpha level reported for the SEW items was 0.90.

Table 2 displays the pre to post means for the four composites from our factor analysis of the SEW questions: Ideation (idea formation); Syntax (grammar); Volition (persistence), and Revision (revision for clarity and content).

Based on these results, treatment students grew more than their comparison peers in the area of Revision strategies by 0.21 points; whereas, they both decreased in their Volition scores. However, the treatment students had less of a decline (e.g., -0.05 rather than -0.28 points). It is possible that both treatment and comparison students, who are in sixth grade, do not yet feel confident in producing high quality-writing samples during on-demand timed conditions; yet both groups managed to do so.

Students cite teacher instruction as most helpful in revising their writing

Qualitative analysis of the student interviews revealed that treatment students perceived the planner as being helpful as it provided them with a road map and check list as to what to focus on in the revision of their pre-test essay. For example, one student explained that her revision planner helped her “to know what I was supposed to do to my new revision.” She was able to reference her planner as she wrote and notice things that she forgot to include, which she then went back to add into the appropriate part of her essay. Additionally, for this student, filling out the planner was a process scaffolded by the written feedback she had received from the aforementioned trained reader as well as from her classroom teacher. It was the feedback and concrete suggestions she received, such as the reader comment that told her “I should add an author name, TAG line, and a title” and her teacher who suggested she “put it [my writing] in paragraphs and organize them,” that she used to set goals for herself in terms of what changes to make in order to improve her pretest. These comments were reflected in the list that the student wrote for herself on her revision planner, which included notes like “add a title,” “add a hook,” “organize paragraphs,” and “add the author’s name.” In her interview, when comparing her drafts, she pointed out these details like the hook and title she added as proof that she had made successful revisions. Other students who found the planner helpful reported similar experiences, such as working on the planner as a class with the guidance of the teacher, focusing on the different elements of essay writing they had learned about through the school year such as the parts of a strong introduction. One student even wrote down “reread the writing prompt” in her planner as part of her list of things to do, highlighting the use of her planner as a list of actionable steps for revising.

Moreover, it was particularly important that teachers taught or modeled specific strategies to address the revisions students needed to make, like showing them examples of how essay writers organize information into multiple paragraphs. One student said, for instance, that one thing that really helped her in her revisions was all the review and practice that her teacher had them do over the course of the year. These included reviewing specific aspects of “what to do in an essay, like how to start it and how to end it and when we should put the body paragraphs.” The fact that her teacher returned to these concepts more than once helped her remember what to consider when it came time to revise her pretest.

Many students felt their teachers modeled helpful strategies to develop a claim and to write a strong introduction. Writing hooks and including important information about the texts they were analyzing like the title, author, and genre, for example, came up frequently. However, students did not provide the same evidence for the development of their body paragraphs, particularly when it came down to providing their own commentary around the evidence they used to back up their claims. Although one student noted that she added details about the story’s characters to her draft to make it better and another stated that she learned that she had to add her own thoughts or opinions into her summary in order to make it a proper essay, there was little mention of specific things to consider or of tying these details or opinions to specific arguments or evidence presented in their papers.

Both treatment and comparison students credited their teachers’ instruction as being most helpful in revising their essay. Some students went so far as to state that before participating in the intervention this year, they had only a vague idea of what an essay was, let alone what parts it was supposed to have. For instance, one student explained that what helped him most in revising was “my teacher” who “was telling us… teaching us basically about theme, the hook, the introduction and the conclusion.” However, treatment students used more self-efficacious words such as the use of the first-person pronoun, “I,” “plans,” “knew what to do,” and were quick to point out exactly which parts of their papers were improved. In contrast, comparison students more often used the more global second-person pronoun, “we” or third-person pronoun “she/he [the teacher,” “told us what to do,” and “lesson” when describing their revision process. Additionally, they were less specific about where and how they improved their papers, explaining that they had improved their papers because they “got an order” or added “more details.” The distinction between the use of pronouns is also a hallmark of self-efficacious individuals who centralize the locus of control around writing to what they can do, rather than external sources such as an authority figure or more knowledgeable other. Though feedback in any form is useful. Individuals who take an active role in their own writing also exhibit better reflective skills (Shantz & Latham, 2011 ), particularly on the items we found on our SEW survey (Parisi, 1994 ).

Our study confirms that the higher a student’s self-efficacy in writing, the higher quality of writing will be produced, even on timed on-demand writing tasks. We also confirmed that teachers’ instructional practices have an impact on students’ self-efficacy in writing (Corkett et al., 2011 ; Schunk & Swartz, 1993 ). Most importantly, our findings suggest that a planned revision process that includes student self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection (McMillan & Hearn, 2008 ) positively impacts self-efficacy. Prompting students to take ownership of their own learning, enabling them to assess their strengths and areas for improvement, providing direction in terms of accomplishing complicated writing tasks, and encouraging them to reflect upon their writing performance are what Hayes’ ( 2012 ) advocated for in his new framework. Students have a goal to improve their pre-test and outline the revision activities that need to be completed, while their teachers provide them with the success criteria and strategies to complete these goals.

Moreover, the process of revising their pre-tests provides students with the opportunities to develop positive affect towards the revision process as they are given opportunities to: (i) reflect on what they did well on their pre-tests and capitalize on their existing knowledge; (ii) observe, learn, and analyze successful writing moves during the revision tutorial by comparing non-examples with examples; (iii) receive constructive written feedback from trained readers on how to revise their pre-test; and (iv) experience and learn explicit writing skills that reduce anxiety as they deconstruct what a prompt is asking for and/or how to provide effective commentary on textual evidence (Bruning & Kauffman, 2016 ; Pajares et al., 2007 ).

The field is looking for interventions that can metaphorically move the needle for students from almost empty to full, particularly in literacy development. In the case of our study, the planner moved the needle for our treatment students because it gave students concrete direction on how to improve their pre-tests and this, in turn, impacted their performance on the post-tests. Our intervention contributes to the knowledge base on the impact reflection and goal setting can have on student writing. All students can benefit from explicit self-regulation and strategy development instruction (Graham & Harris, 1989 ; Harris et al., 2006 ), particularly if they support student reflection, goal setting, and self-monitoring strategies. Similar to Blake et al.’s recommendations ( 2016 ), embedding micro-goals that students can feel are accessible, feasible, and accomplishable can help students feel more in control of the revision process. Having a revision planner makes this process more scaffolded, explicit, and visible to students.

This work also demonstrates the importance of teacher instruction on student writing. As both treatment and comparison students cited their teachers’ instructions as most influential, these findings provide further support that writing instruction requires a teacher who is confident and well-equipped to provide students with guidance on how they can improve their writing. Engaging students in assessing their own strengths and areas for growth and then reflecting on their progress can enhance students’ motivation and commitment. However, a student may not be able to fully meet the goals they have set without explicit (or scaffolded) instruction by the teacher and classroom practice. Such instruction can contribute not only to a student’s self-confidence but also to their sense of competence. Hence, these findings provide further support that students’ self-efficacy is connected to teacher expertise.

Limitations

Though this study has promising results, it is not without limitations. We acknowledge that the sample was small and any findings need to be validated with a larger sample size; however, the fact that statistical significance was achieved demonstrates the potential of the revision planner in helping students develop stronger self-efficacy in writing skills. Additionally, more qualitative studies to triangulate the usefulness of the revision planner are needed to understand how the planner directly translated to results on the post-test.

Implications

Implications from this study demonstrate how important it is to provide students with the skills, strategies, and opportunity to engage in self-assessment and revision processes. This development of their declarative (what), procedural (how), and conditional (why) knowledge of how to compose text-based analytical essays and the pivotal role self-assessment can play in successful revision that can cultivate independent, self-efficacious learners who have the confidence and competence to succeed as analytical writers in secondary school and beyond.

Abdi, H. (2003). Multivariate Analysis. In M. Lewis-Beck, A. Bryman, & T. Futing (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Social Sciences Research Methods . SAGE: Thousand Oaks, CA.

Google Scholar  

Andrade, H. L., Du, Y., & Mycek, K. (2010). Rubric-referenced self-assessment and middle school students’ writing. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 17 (2), 199–214.

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control . Macmillan.

Bandura, A. (2006). Guide for constructing self-efficacy scales. In F. Pajares & T. Urdan (Eds.), Self-efficacy beliefs of adolescents (pp. 307–377). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.

Barzilai, S., Zohar, A. R., & Mor-Hagani, S. (2018). Promoting integration of multiple texts: A review of instructional approaches and practices. Educational Psychology Review, 30 , 973–999.

Article   Google Scholar  

Batalova, J., Fix, M., & Murray, J. (2005). English language learner adolescents: Demographics and literacy achievements. Report to the Center for Applied Linguistics . Migration Policy Institute.

Batalova, J., & McHugh, M. (2010). Top languages spoken by English anguage learners nationally and by state . Migration Policy Institute.

Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1987). The psychology of written composition . Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Biancarosa, G., & Snow, C. (2004). Reading next—A vision for action and research in middle and high school literacy: A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York (2nd ed.). Alliance for Excellent Education.

Blake, M. F., MacArthur, S. M., Philippakos, Z. A., & Sancak-Marusa, I. (2016). Self-regulated strategy instruction in developmental writing courses: How to help basic writers become independent writers. Teaching English in the Two Year College, 44 (2), 158–175.

Bong, M. (2006). Asking the right question: How confident are you that you could successfully perform these tasks? In F. Pajares & T. Urdan (Eds.), Self-efficacy beliefs of adolescents (pp. 287–303). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.

Bruning, R., Dempsey, M., Kauffman, D., McKim, C., & Zumbrunn, S. (2013). Examining dimensions of Self-efficacy for writing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105 (1), 25–38.

Bruning, R., & Kauffman, D. (2016). Self-efficacy beliefs and motivation in writing development. In C. A. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (p. 160–173). The Guilford Press.

Capps, R., Fix, M., Murray, J., Ost, J., Passel, J., & Herwantoro, S. (2005). The new demography of America’s schools: Immigration and the No Child Left Behind Act . Urban Institute.

Chi, M. T., Bassok, M., Lewis, M. W., Reimann, P., & Glaser, R. (1989). Self-explanations: How students study and use examples in learning to solve problems. Cognitive Science, 13 , 145–182. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1302_1

Corkett, J., Hatt, B., & Benevides, T. (2011). Student and teacher self-efficacy and the connection to reading and writing. Canadian Journal of Education, 34 (1), 65–98.

Daniel, F., Gaze, C., & Braasch, J. L. G. (2015). Writing covers letters that address instructor feedback improves final papers in a research methods course. Teaching of Psychology, 42 , 64–68.

Dweck, C. S. (1986). Motivational processes affecting learning. American Psychologist, 41 (10), 1040–1048. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.41.10

Englert, C. S., Mariage, T. V., & Dunsmore, L. (2006). Tenets of sociocultural theory in writing instruction research. In C. A. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (pp. 208–221). Guilford Press.

Flower, L., & Hayes, J. R. (1980). The dynamics of composing: Making plans and juggling constraints. In L. Gregg & E. Steinberg (Eds.), Cognitive processes in writing (pp. 31–50). Erlbaum.

Flower, L., & Hayes, J. R. (1981). A cognitive process theory of writing. College Composition and Communication, 32 , 365–387. https://doi.org/10.2307/356600

Fredericksen, C. H., & Dominic, J. F. (1981). Introduction: Perspectives on the activity of writing. In C. H. Fredericksen & J. F. Dominic (Eds.), Writing: The nature, development and teaching of written communication (Vol. 2, pp. 1–20). Erlbaum.

Graham, S. (2018). A writer(s)-within-community model of writing. In C. Bazerman, A. Applebee, V. W. Berninger, D. Brandt, S. Graham, J. V.Jeffery, et al. (Eds.), The lifespan development of writing (pp. 258–325). Urbana, IL: NCTE. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2018.1481406

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Graham, S., Daley, S., Aitken, A., Harris, K., & Robinson, K. (2018). Do writing motivational beliefs predict middle school students’ writing performance? Journal of Research in Reading, 41 (4), 642–656.

Graham, S., & Harris, K. R. (1989). Improving learning disabled students’ skills at composing essays: Self-instructional strategy training. Exceptional Children, 56 , 201–214.

Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellence in Education (Commissioned by the Carnegie Corp. of New York).

Harris, K. R., Graham, S., & Mason, L. (2006). Improving the writing, knowledge, and motivation of struggling young writers: Effects of self-regulated strategy development with and without peer support. American Educational Research Journal, 43 (2), 295–340.

Hernandez, D. J., Denton, N. A., & McCartney, S. E. (2008). Children in immigrant families: Looking to America’s future. Social Policy Report, 22 , 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2379-3988.2008.tb00056.x

Hayes, J. R. (1996). A new framework for understanding cognition and affect in writing. In C. M. Levy & S. Ransdell (Eds.), The science of writing: Theories, methods, individual differences, and applications (pp. 1–27). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.

Hayes, J. R. (2012). Modeling and remodeling writing. Written Communication, 29 (3), 369–388.

Hidi, S., & Boscolo, P. (2006). Motivation and writing. In C. A. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of Writing Research (pp. 144–157). The Guilford Press.

Kiuhara, S. A., Graham, S., & Hawken, L. S. (2009). Teaching writing to high school students: A national survey. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101 (1), 136–160. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013097

Langer, J. A. (1991). Literacy and schooling: A sociocognitive perspective. In E. H. Hiebert (Ed.), Literacy for a diverse society: Perspectives, practices, and policies (pp. 10–27). Teachers College Press.

Locke, T., Whitehead, D., & Dix, S. (2013). The impact of “Writing Project” professional development on teachers’ self-efficacy as writers and teachers of writing. English in Australia, 48 (2), 55–69.

Logan, B. (2015). Reviewing the value of self-assessments: Do they matter in the classroom? Research in Higher Education Journal, 29 , 1–11.

McMillan, J. H., & Hearn, J. (2008). Student self-assessment: The key to stronger student motivation and higher achievement. Educational Horizons, 87 (1), 40–49.

Menken, K., & Kleyn, T. (2009). The difficult road for long-term English learners. Educational Leadership, 66, 7. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/apr09/vol166/num07/TheThe_Difficult_Road_for_Long_Term_English_Learners.aspx

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook (2nd ed.). Sage Publications.

National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). (2012). Writing 2011: National Assessment of Education Progress at grades 8 and 12 . Author.

National Commission on Writing. (2004). Writing: A ticket to work... or a ticket out: A survey of business leaders. Retrieved February 20, 2016, from http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/writingcom/writing-ticket-to-work.pdf

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State SchoolOfficers. (2010). Common Core State Standards for English language arts and literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects . Washington, DC: Authors.

Noden, H. (2011). Image grammar: Teaching grammar as part of the writing process (2nd ed.). Heinemann.

Olsen, L. (2010). Reparable Harm: Fulfilling the unkept promise of educational opportunity for California’s long-term English learners . Retrieved from http://www.californianstogether.org/long-term-english-learners/ .

Olson, C. B. (2011). The reading/writing connection: Strategies for teaching and learning in the secondary classroom (3rd ed.). Pearson Inc.

Olson, C. B., Kim, J. S., Scarcella, R., Kramer, J., Pearson, M., van Dyk, D. A., Collins, P., & Land, R. E. (2012). Enhancing the interpretive reading and analytical writing of mainstreamed english learners in secondary school: Results from a randomized field trial using a cognitive strategies approach. American Educational Research Journal, 49 (2), 323–355.

Olson, C. B., Matuchniak, T., Chung, H. Q., Stumpf, R. A., & Farkas, G. (2017). Reducing achievement gaps in academic writing for Latino secondary students and English learners. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109 (1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000095

Olson, C. B., Woodworth, K., Arshan, N., Black, R., Chung, H. Q., Aoust, D., & Stowell, C. L. (2020). The pathway to academic success: Scaling up a text-based analytical writing intervention for Latinos and English Learners in secondary school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112 (4), 701–717. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000387

Pajares, F., Johnson, M. J., & Usher, E. L. (2007). Sources of writing self-efficacy beliefs of elementary, middle, and high school students. Research in the Teaching of English, 42 , 104–120.

Palmquist, M., & Young, R. (1992). The notion of giftedness and student expectations about writing. Written Communication, 9 (1), 137–168.

Panadero, E., Brown, G. T., & Strijbos, J. W. (2016). The future of student self-assessment: A review of known unknowns and potential directions. Educational Psychology Review, 28 (4), 803–830.

Parisi, H. A. (1994). Involvement and self-awareness for the basic writer: Graphically conceptualizing the writing project. Journal of Basic Writing, 13 (2), 33–45.

Perin, D., Lauterbach, J., Raufman, J., & Kalamkarian, H. S. (2017). Text-based writing of low-skilled postsecondary students: Relation to comprehension, self-efficacy, and teacher judgments. Reading and Writing, 30 , 887–915.

Prat-Sala, M., & Redford, P. (2010). The interplay between motivation, self-efficacy, andapproaches to studying. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 80 , 283–305. http://dx.doi.org.ezp.sub.su.se/ https://doi.org/10.1348/000709909X480563

Sanders-Reio, J., Alexander, P. A., Reio, T. G., Jr., & Newman, I. (2014). Do students’ beliefs about writing relate to their writing self-efficacy, apprehension, and performance? Learning and Instruction, 33 , 1–11.

Sawyer, R. J., Graham, S., & Harris, K. R. (1992). Direct teaching, strategy instruction, and strategy instruction with explicit self-regulation: Effects on the composition skills and self-efficacy of students with learning disabilities. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84 (3), 340–352. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.84.3.340

Schunk, D., & Swartz, C. (1993). Writing strategy instruction with gifted students: Effects of goals and feedback on self-efficacy and skills. Roeper Review, 15 , 225–230.

Schunk, D., & Zimmerman, B. (2007). Influencing children’s self-efficacy and self-regulation of reading and writing through modeling. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 23 (1), 7–25.

Shantz, A., & Latham, G. (2011). The effect of primed goals on employee performance: Implications for human resource management. Human Resources Management, 50 , 289–299. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.20418

Short, D., & Fitzsimmons, S. (2007). Double the work: Challenges and solutions to acquiring language and academic literacy for adolescent English language learners-A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York . Alliance for Excellent Education.

Smith, C. (2010). Diving in deeper: Bringing basic writers’ thinking to the surface. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53 (8), 668–676.

Tierney, R. J., & Pearson, P. D. (1983). Toward a composing model of reading. Language Arts, 60 , 568–580.

Troia, G., & Graham, S. (2016). Common Core writing and language standards and aligned state assessments: A national survey of teacher beliefs and attitudes. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 29 (9), 1719–1743.

U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Educational Sciences, National Center for Education tatistics. (2017). The condition of education: English language learners 2014–15 . Author.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2016). The condition of education 2016 (NCES 2016–144), English language learners in public schools . Author.

Valdés, G. (2001). Learning and not learning English: Latino students in American schools . Teachers College Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language . MIT Press.

Williams, J. D., & Takaku, S. (2011). Help seeking, self-efficacy, and writing performance among college students. Journal of Writing Research, 3 (1), 1–18.

Worden, D. L. (2009). Finding process in product: Prewriting and revision in timed essay responses. Assessing Writing, 14 , 157–177.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

School of Education 3200 Education, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA

Huy Q. Chung, Vicky Chen & Carol Booth Olson

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Huy Q. Chung .

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Pretest Essay Revision Planner and Revised Pretest Reflection.

Pre-Test essay revision planner

Please review the pre-test essay you received with comments from a UCI graduate student and then fill out this form.

When I revise my pre-test, I will do the following:

Revised pre-test reflection

Before you hand your revised pre-test in to your teacher, please respond to these questions:

What changes or additions did you make to your pre-test essay in order to improve it (i.e. strengthened your claim, added brushstrokes, embedded more quotes, etc.)? Give specific examples of what you did. You can even quote from your own essay to demonstrate the improvements you made.

What are you most proud of in this draft?

Do you feel you met the goals you set for yourself when you filled out the Pre-Test Revision Planner?

What did your teacher do that helped you the most to revise your essay?

Post-Test Semi-Structured Interview Protocol (Students).

In what ways has your view of your ability as a writer changed since the beginning of the year? (Feel free to rank yourself on a scale of 1 to 10)

What do you feel most confident about in writing? What are you most proud of accomplishing this year as a writer?

How did you feel when you read the comments you received on your pre-test essay from the UCI Graduate Student?

Can you explain the revisions you made to your pre-test? What goals did you have in re-writing your paper? What did you do to change your essay and why did you change it the way that you did?

What helped you the most to revise your paper? (Tx only: To what degree id you use this planner when you revised? How helpful was it?)

What do you feel are the strengths of your revised essay? Do you feel like you met your goals? (Tx only: Show list on Revision Planner) Why or Why not?

What do you feel you struggled with in revising your essay?

(Have students physically look at pre-test and post-test)

As you compare your pre-test and post-test, do you notice any improvement? If so, in which areas do you think you improved the most from the pre-test to the post-test?

What strategies did you learn and use in writing your essay (and where/when did you first learn these strategies)?

What did the teacher do over the course of the year that you feel was most helpful to you developing as a writer?

In what areas do you think your writing still has the most room for improvement?

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Chung, H.Q., Chen, V. & Olson, C.B. The impact of self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection before and after revision on student self-efficacy and writing performance. Read Writ 34 , 1885–1913 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10186-x

Download citation

Accepted : 24 June 2021

Published : 04 July 2021

Issue Date : September 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10186-x

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Self-efficacy
• Secondary writing
• Writing outcomes
• Teacher professional development
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

• school Campus Bookshelves
• menu_book Bookshelves
• perm_media Learning Objects
• login Login
• how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
• hub Instructor Commons

Margin Size

• Download Page (PDF)
• Download Full Book (PDF)
• Periodic Table
• Physics Constants
• Scientific Calculator
• Reference & Cite
• Tools expand_more
• Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

12.3: Prewriting for Literature Essays

• Last updated
• Save as PDF
• Page ID 40503

• Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap
• City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative

\( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \)

\( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)

\( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)

( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\)

\( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\)

\( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\)

\( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)

\( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\)

\( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\)

\( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\)

\( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\)

\( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\)

\( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorA}[1]{\vec{#1}}      % arrow\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorAt}[1]{\vec{\text{#1}}}      % arrow\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorB}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorC}[1]{\textbf{#1}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorD}[1]{\overrightarrow{#1}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorDt}[1]{\overrightarrow{\text{#1}}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectE}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash{\mathbf {#1}}}} \)

The first step in writing a literary analysis essay is actually completing the reading. Sometimes the professor will give you a prompt before you read. If this is the case, look for material which relates to the prompt as you read. If the professor did not give you a prompt, look for any material in the assigned reading that piques your interest or relates to class discussions. Highlight or underline any moments in the reading which stick out to you: something you don't understand, something that relates to a topic you care about, or something weird or surprising. Keeping track of patterns, themes, or literary devices is a great way to engage with a work of literature and prepare for a future discussion or essay.

Completing the Reading

One time, I was talking with my sister-in-law about her experience in nursing school. Whereas her brother had barely achieved Cs in college, she somehow maintained a 4.0, even though she was simultaneously working and caring for her two young daughters.

"What is your secret to success?" I asked.

"Actually doing the assigned readings," she laughed, "most of my peers didn't. And it showed."

As a college professor who teaches reading-heavy classes, this is not a shock to me. After all, most students taking the required writing and literature courses do not wish to become English majors. They sometimes see their literature class as a means to an end: at best, a stepping stone towards their future career; at worst, a time-suck of hoops to jump through. Also, because of today's gig economy, many students are juggling multiple jobs in addition to multiple college classes. This makes it tempting for students to want to skip the readings and just read SparkNotes. Truth be told, students who pursue this method, depending on their BSing skills, might be able to pass a literature class. But for the vast majority of students, this popular high school tactic will not work at the college level. More importantly, it means students miss out on many of the exciting benefits of diving deep into analysis, discussion, and engaging with the text.

Of course, I want my students to fall in love with the written word. I want my passion for literature to be contagious, to light students' hearts and minds on fire with a hunger for the beauty of syntax and diction and literary devices. But I also completely understand that students have limited time. Therefore, I recommend prioritizing the writing process so students can make the most efficient use of their time. In the long run, while it might seem like skipping the readings saves time, completing the readings is actually the best way for students to optimize their time. This is because a strong essay depends on a deep understanding of the literature. If the class features examinations, these almost always test students on whether they completed and understand the readings. Finally, class will be more fun for students if they understand what their peers are talking about in class discussion, and what their professor is talking about during lectures.

Students who complete the readings and annotate as they go will find it much easier to flip back through their notes to find relevant quotations and information. They usually break the readings into small, manageable chunks of twenty to thirty minutes at a time. This helps their brains absorb the information better and retain information for writing and tests.

Students skipping reading often end up performing more work when it comes to writing an essay because they will spend so much time looking up text summaries on the internet (which may or may not be accurate or pertain to the intricacies of the assignment). They will also have to go back and re-read the text to find quotations that fit their prompt. Their essays usually fail because they do not fulfill the in-depth analysis required by the assignments.

So, long story short: even the most practically-minded, time-crunched students would do well to perform the readings. And, while in pursuit of success, a previously literature-averse student might find themselves liking literature more than they thought they would. Just like watching a favorite movie or show, reading a good book can be fun and relaxing!

Active versus Passive Reading

Many students, when first reading academic material, read it like they would a timeline of Facebook or Instagram posts: not fully attentive, skimming over the material in search of something interesting. Or they might read them with full attention, but simply read without questioning or engaging with the material. The difference between a student who is successful in a literature class and a student who is not successful is often that the successful student participates in active reading.

In a literature class, students encounter a lot of literature, written by many different authors. Annotating, or taking notes on the assigned literature as you read, is a way to have a conversation with the reading. This helps you better absorb the material and engage with the text on a deeper level. There are several annotation methods. These are like tools in a student's learning utility belt. Try them all out to discover which tools or combinations of tools help you learn best!

Margin Notes & Highlighting

One of the best ways to interact with a text is to write notes as you read. Underlining and/or highlighting relevant passages, yes, but also responding to the text in the margins. For instance, if a character I love makes a bad choice (like Sydney Carton in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities ), I will write, "Nooooo, Sydney Carton, don't sacrifice yourself for Lucie's sake!" This helps me remember the events of the plot. Many students also find it helpful to summarize each chapter or section of the literature as they read it. For example, a student said it was helpful for them to draw a picture representing every stanza of "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth to help them understand what was being said. Other ideas include:

• Circling unfamiliar words
• Writing questions in the margins
• Color-coded highlighting to track various literary devices (i.e., blue for metaphors, pink for symbolism, and so forth)

Sticky Notes

For students who would like to sell their textbooks back to the bookstore, writing notes in the margins might not be a practical choice, as it may devalue the textbook or the bookstore may refuse to take it back. For these students, I recommend using sticky notes instead. If sticky notes are cost-prohibitive, most colleges have plenty of scrap paper students can use as bookmarks to stick between pages. This is also an eco-friendly way to re-use paper!

Reading Journal

Another option many students find helpful is keeping a reading journal. Students can write notes in their journals as they read. This helps students keep track of readings and materials in a chronological fashion. Just like when annotating the text directly or upon sticky notes, the most effective use of a reading journal, for learning purposes, is going to be active engagement with the text rather than passive absorption. That is, try to summarize the plot of what you read every time you read. Also, ask questions about the text. If you can record quotes and paraphrase along with in-text parenthetical citations (i.e., the page number where you found the material), this will optimize your time because you already have quotes ready to go when you write an essay!

Example of an Annotated Passage

Using the guidelines above, let's consider this excerpt from a scholarly article by Jacob Michael Leland, "'Yes, That is a Roll of Bills in My Pocket': The Economy of Masculinity in The Sun Also Rises."

A great deal of critical attention has been paid to masculine agency and its displacement in Ernest Hemingway's fiction. The story is familiar by now: the Hemingway hero loses some version of his maleness to the first World War and he replaces it with a tool—in Upper Michigan, a fishing rod or a pocket knife; in Africa, a hunting rifle—a new object that emblematizes his mastery over his surroundings and whose status as a fetishized commodity and Freudian symbolic significance is something less than subtle. In The Sun Also Rises , this pattern repeats itself, but with important differences that arise from the novel's cosmopolitan European setting. Mastery over the elements, here, has more to do with economic agency and control over social relationships than with nature and survival. The stakes are different, too; in the modern European city, the Hemingway hero recovers not only masculinity but also American identity in social and sexual interaction. (37)

In researching The Sun Also Rises for a project, Ling Ti found Leland's article. What follows is her annotated copy of the above excerpt:

Reflecting on Assigned Literature

Studies show reflecting on reading is one of the best ways to learn. This is called metacognition, or thinking about thinking. It is a way to keep track of the knowledge you have learned as you go. Students who reflect on their reading and learning tend to, as a whole, perform better on essays and examinations. So how can you take advantage of this skill?

If you have a prompt, choose a prompt and read through the assigned literature again, noting any quotes which may relate to the assigned topic. It is recommended at this point that you keep track of your observations in a document: either on a computer (Word, Google Docs) or on a physical piece of paper. Write down any quotations along with page numbers (fiction, nonfiction), line numbers (poem), or act, scene, line numbers (drama). This way, you have all potential evidence in one place, and it makes for easy in-text citations when it comes to knitting the evidence together to form an essay. In fact, it is highly recommended that students start an informal Works Cited page to keep track of every source consulted. This makes it much easier to avoid plagiarism by practicing ethical citation habits. For more information about citations, please see the Citations and Formatting Chapter.

Start with a hypothesis or focus but be willing to refine, adjust, or completely discard it if new evidence refutes it. An essay is not a stagnant piece, but a living, breathing thought experiment. Many students feel reluctant to change their thesis or major parts of their essays because they are afraid it means the previous writing was wasted. As a professional writer, editor, and scholar, I want to clue students in on a secret:

There is no such thing as wasted writing.

Even writing that does not end up in the final draft is worthwhile because it is a chance to experiment with ideas. It helps students find a path toward stronger ideas. Just like a gardener might allow branches of a tree to grow to see which ones bear flowers and fruit and then prune the weak, unproductive branches to make the plant stronger and more beautiful, so too must a writer be willing to cut out branches of reasoning which no longer serve the essay. But before you know which ideas or thoughts are worth pursuing, you first have to give them space to grow. You never know what idea branches might prove fruitful!

Contributors and Attributions

• Adapted from "Reading Like a Professional" in Writing and Literature: Composition as Inquiry, Learning, Thinking, and Communication by Dr. Tanya Long Bennett of the University of North Georgia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Main navigation

Write & improve.

Improve your English writing online

Want to improve your writing skills? Our free online tool helps you to practise your writing and get valuable feedback instantly. Write & Improve is simple to use: just choose a task, write or upload a written response and use the feedback to quickly improve.

It shows you how to improve your spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Join over 2 million learners of English who have used Write & Improve to improve their writing.

Start practising now

Improve your writing now – it's free!

• There is no limit on how many times you can use the tool – keep practising as much as you need to and build your confidence.
• Encourages you to think about what to improve.
• Keep improving and see your progress.

When I was preparing for my B2 First exam I practised really hard and I succeeded, so I'm in love with this tool that I still use almost every day. Aaron from Ecuador

With Write & Improve my grades get better and I am inspired to do more. It is really graphical and easy to use, highlighting your mistakes in a very visual way. Victoria from Uruguay

Write & Improve helps when practising writing particular types of documents. I've been able to see my progress and how my learning has changed. Jorge from Switzerland

The Reading and Writing Section

Download bluebook to start practicing for the digital sat..

The Reading and Writing section presents short reading passages (or passage pairs) followed by a single multiple-choice question. Questions on the Reading and Writing section represent one of four content domains—Craft and Structure, Information and Ideas, Standard English Conventions, and Expression of Ideas. To help you budget your time, questions that test similar skills and knowledge are grouped together and arranged from easiest to hardest.

The test is divided into 2 modules, each of which includes questions from all four different domains.

What the Reading and Writing Passages Are Like

The passages in the Reading and Writing section range from 25 to 150 words. Passages represent the subject areas of literature, history/social studies, the humanities, and science.

What the Reading and Writing Questions Are Like

The questions on the Reading and Writing section fall into four content domains:

• Information and Ideas Measures comprehension, analysis, and reasoning skills and knowledge and the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, and integrate information and ideas from texts and informational graphics (tables, bar graphs, and line graphs).
• Craft and Structure Measures the comprehension, vocabulary, analysis, synthesis, and reasoning skills and knowledge needed to understand and use high-utility words and phrases in context, evaluate texts rhetorically, and make connections between topically related texts.
• Expression of Ideas Measures the ability to revise texts to improve the effectiveness of written expression and to meet specific rhetorical goals.
• Standard English Conventions Measures the ability to edit text to conform to core conventions of Standard English sentence structure, usage, and punctuation.

Start Practicing

Start studying for the digital SAT today by downloading Bluebook™ and taking a full-length SAT test in the same application you will use on test day. Full-length digital SAT practice in Bluebook familiarizes students with the test application interface and supporting tools and features like formula sheets, digital accommodations, and calculators.

From the My Practice dashboard on the College Board website, you'll immediately see your adaptively scored practice test results and a practice test review of the test items, the correct answers, and a thorough explanation of the answer.

Armed with a baseline understanding of your performance on the digital SAT, you can use your score results and individual item responses to delve further into digital SAT preparation content on Khan Academy ® .

In partnership with College Board, Khan Academy has built a digital SAT course that includes videos, articles and worked examples designed to help you understand and experience what’s new and improved about the digital SAT.

If you're testing with paper-based accommodations on test day, prepare for the digital SAT with our linear (nonadaptive) practice tests 1–4 available for download.

Full-length Practice Tests in Bluebook

Practice with one of the full-length adaptive digital Practice Tests in Bluebook, then select "View your score" to access scores, correct answers, and rationales.

• Go to Bluebook

We're looking forward to seeing you at the 2024 ACCUPLACER  Conference and Training , scheduled for June 20–21, 2024, in St. Paul, Minn. Visit the event page for more information.

Download and practice with free sample questions

Download and practice with free sample test questions and essay prompts.

Instructions

Download and practice with free sample questions..

There are sample questions available for all ACCUPLACER tests, including the ESL tests.

Reading Sample Questions

Sample questions from the ACCUPLACER Reading placement test.

Writing Sample Questions

Sample questions from the ACCUPLACER Writing placement test.

Arithmetic Sample Questions

Sample questions from the ACCUPLACER Arithmetic placement test.

Quantitative Reasoning, Algebra, and Statistics Sample Questions

Sample questions from the ACCUPLACER Quantitative Reasoning, Algebra, and Statistics placement test.

Advanced Algebra and Functions Sample Questions

Sample questions from the ACCUPLACER Advanced Algebra and Functions placement test.

ESL Sample Questions

See sample questions to help you practice for ACCUPLACER ESL tests.

Download sample essay prompts and view scored essays.

WritePlacer and WritePlacer ESL guides show you the types of prompts you might see on the WritePlacer tests, as well as examples of responses to those prompts, the scores they received, and why they received those scores.

WritePlacer Guide with Sample Essays

A guide to the WritePlacer placement exam. Includes scored sample essays.

WritePlacer ESL Guide with Sample Essays

A guide to the WritePlacer® ESL placement exam. Includes scored sample essays.

Browse Course Material

Course info.

• Dr. Rebecca Blevins Faery

Departments

• Comparative Media Studies/Writing

As Taught In

• Academic Writing
• Creative Writing
• Nonfiction Prose

Learning Resource Types

Writing and reading the essay, course description.

You are leaving MIT OpenCourseWare

TWO WRITING TEACHERS

A meeting place for a world of reflective writers.

Writing about Reading: A Quick Guide to Quick Literary Essays

For years, I taught the unit Literary Essays: Writing about Reading in Lucy Calkins’s previous Writing Units of Study, co-written with Medea Mcevoy (2006). The work that my students produced was typically solid and thoughtful. I was impressed with the way in which the unit supported them in developing skills at the intersection of reading and writing, the way it pushed them toward deeper interpretation and analysis of texts while also supporting them in writing well. The unit moves students thoughtfully through reading short texts, developing interpretations through writing, then selecting a thesis and evidence and crafting an essay over the course of about 4-6 weeks.

When I was working full time as staff developer for the Reading and Writing Project, I was introduced to a whole new way of thinking about essay writing. Kathleen Tolan, Senior Deputy Director for the Project, spearheaded some very exciting work on teaching students to compose “fast essays”, work that involves students generating ideas, rehearsing, and drafting all in one quick go. After coaching students through a reading of a short text, usually in a Read Aloud, Kathleen teaches students to first “talk an essay”, channeling them to rehearse aloud how each part of the essay might go in small groups while she coaches and prompts. Then, Kathleen sends the students off to write the very same essay they just practiced, this time on their own. When I’ve modeled this work in classrooms, I sometimes get asked by teachers whether the coaching is too heavy-handed. Sometimes it seems as if I’ve prompted students so much it’s as if I’ve written the essay for them. My response is always that students need rehearsal and need concrete, specific models in order to write well. Also, there tends to be huge variation in the work that students produce. If the coaching was too heavy-handed, wouldn’t all students produce essentially the same piece?

The two ideas that resonate most with me about the fast essay work are that students don’t always need 4-6 weeks to compose a nice literary essay once they are familiar with essay structure and that talking in essay form is not only a sophisticated, important skill in its own stead, but it also serves as very powerful rehearsal for writing.

This is not to say that we should throw a writing process approach out the window and channel students to write quick, one-off, prompted pieces every day. Far from it. Students must also learn to gather ideas, to draft and go through a lengthy revision process, to stay with a piece of writing over an extended period of time. It is the process approach that supports students in writing with volume, stamina and craft and through which they learn to write well. I believe that it is precisely because students have been taught to write using a process approach that they are successful when faced with producing a piece of writing quickly.

There are three essential steps to helping students to generate solid literary essays in just a class period or two.

Reading Interpretively

• Fast Drafting

The prerequisite to writing a strong literary essay is to read the text one will write about carefully and thoughtfully. The best literary essays are the ones built upon strong interpretations. When reading a text in order to write about it, there are some ways that students can interact with the text at various points in order to move effectively and efficiently toward growing big ideas. As is recommended in Lucy Calkins’s literary essay work, I strongly recommend that students write about short texts, particularly when they are first learning how to write literary essays. The short texts could be short stories, picture books, or even excerpts from larger books.

Organize students into clusters of 3-4, and, during a Read Aloud, stop at various points to coach them through asking and answering some of the below questions in these small groups to lead them toward growing big ideas about the text.

In the beginning of a text, students can ask themselves questions such as:

• Whose story is being told?
• What kind of person is the character
• What does the character want?
• What are some of the feelings in this part of the text?

Toward the middle of a text, students can ask:

• What gets in the character’s way?
• What are the people  & things that add to how the character is feeling?
• Are the feelings changing? How?
• What are the issues that are emerging?

At this point, it’s helpful to include a bit of whole-class discussion to support students’ analysis. There is a huge leap in thinking to move from naming a character’s feelings to analyzing some of the issues that are emerging in a text. But it is in this leap that true interpretation begins to take place, and the groundwork for lovely big ideas or thesis statements is laid. For example, if a character is feeling picked on or ostracized because he is different from his peers, an issue that students may recognize as starting to emerge could be “people often don’t accept differences in others, but they should.” Or, “people are often afraid to be true to themselves because they don’t want to be made fun of.” Feel free to interject some of your own suggestions as models, particularly if students are struggling.

At the end of a text, students can ask:

• What does the text seem to be saying about an issue?
• What life lesson is the text teaching?
• As students talk in their clusters, listen in and try to capture some of what they are saying on a chart or SmartBoard. These statements can easily be turned in to lovely thesis statements.

Kathleen Tolan posits that talking an essay it is one of the most effective ways to rehearse for this kind of writing. First, choose one of the statements you recorded earlier, one that you feel would make for a viable essay. Still in their clusters, set students up to talk through each part of the essay, perhaps referring to prompts or essay structures you have previously taught. You might post a list of transition words and phrases to help students with structure, such as: “One reason this idea is important is that..”, and “Another reason…”

Fast Drafting 

Imagine yourself as a sports coach, spurring your writers on with helpful tips on structure, timing, and craft. As students are writing, remind them of all they know about good essay writing. You might whisper to one student that transition phrases help with organization, and to another that text examples should match the thesis.

Needless to say, this work is an excellent way to practice for any standardized (or other) test in which students are required to read texts and write about them within a prescribed time limit. If you are interested in reading more about fast essay writing, see Boxes and Bullets: Personal and Persuasive Essays by Lucy Calkins, Cory Gillette, and Kelly Boland Hohne. For more on Literary Essays and to read more of Kathleen’s work, see The Literary Essay: Writing about Fiction by Lucy Calkins, Kathleen Tolan, and Alexandra Marron. Both books are in the series Units of Study in Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing (2013).

We would love to hear more of your thoughts on writing about reading in a Two Writing Teachers community get-together of sorts. Please join us on February 3 at 8:30EST for a Twitter Chat on Writing about Reading. Please use the hashtag #TWTBlog. We hope to see you there!

Share this:

Published by Anna Gratz Cockerille

Anna is a staff developer, literacy coach, and writer, based in New York City. She taught internationally in places such as Sydney, Australia; San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and Auckland, New Zealand in addition to New York before becoming a staff developer for the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University (TCRWP). She has been an adjunct instructor in the Literacy Specialist Program at Teachers College, and teaches at TCRWP where she helps participants bring strong literacy instruction into their classrooms. Anna recently co-wrote Bringing History to Life with Lucy Calkins, part of the 2013 series Units of Study in Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing (Heinemann). She has been a researcher for Lucy Calkins, contributing especially to Pathways to the Common Core (Heinemann, 2012) and Navigating Nonfiction (Heinemann, 2010). View all posts by Anna Gratz Cockerille

17 thoughts on “ Writing about Reading: A Quick Guide to Quick Literary Essays ”

I like the idea of rehearsing writing by talking. I’m still not convinced that doing this in a condensed amount of time is beneficial for effective writing, of any kind, in the long run. Thanks for the references. I will look them up.

Asking questions are really pleasant thing if you are not understanding anything entirely, but this piece of writing gives good understanding yet.

This is great! I’ve seen so many students who have great verbal skills, but don’t do as well in writing. This is great rehearsal for these (and all) students to talk it through in the steps you outlined and then take it to pen and paper right away. I will try this one for sure!

Oh wonderful, let us know how it goes. You are so right about students with a huge discrepancy between their verbal skill and skill in writing. This kind of rehearsal shows them that composition begins way before we put pen to paper. Their ideas are high level and valid, even if they struggle to get them on the page.

Love, LOVE, L-O-V-E the idea of fast essays. I wish that idea had been around when I was in the classroom. But now that I’ve learned about it, I will add it to my consulting repertoire. Thanks Anna!

Thanks Stacey – I agree, so great for classroom use across the board. Fast essays are wonderful in content areas. As a consultant/coach, I love bringing them into classrooms, both because it’s such a great snapshot of the level of students’ work/thinking, and also because it doesn’t take a whole lot of prep, so there’s not a big burden placed on the teacher to get ready.

Lifting this text: ” I sometimes get asked by teachers whether the coaching is too heavy-handed. Sometimes it seems as if I’ve prompted students so much it’s as if I’ve written the essay for them. My response is always that students need rehearsal and need concrete, specific models in order to write well. Also, there tends to be huge variation in the work that students produce. If the coaching was too heavy-handed, wouldn’t all students produce essentially the same piece?”

Agreed! If the coaching was too heavy – handed, the pieces would be remarkably similar. And this would not necessarily be “bad” if the students needed additional guided practice.

Too often, teachers go from “I Do It” modeling to now “You Do It” which is literally handing the work off without rehearsal, auditory practice and any scaffolding needed to promote student success at an independent level. Opportunities for practice with some support are critical for many students who are now trying to understand writing instead of “guess what the teacher wants me to write today.”

Thanks so much for sharing! This is critical work and such a great part of the week long blog series!

You’re right Fran that it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if students’ work seemed similar after heavy-handed coaching, especially at the start of a unit while setting a vision for the work, and especially if the new work is markedly higher level than what students were producing without the scaffold. That rehearsal sometimes feels like “cheating” but it’s actually where the real magic happens! Thanks for stopping by.

Writing should be collaborative. Rehearsing gives students a chance to channel their conversations. Writing is noisy!

I love that! Writing is noisy! I agree, in a truly productive writing workshop, there is always a gentle (or not so gentle) hum.

That’s a great point of view! Back in school writing assignments were a true torture, because we had to write with our heads humbly lowered to notebooks, strictly following sheme of “example from a book – example from history – example from life”. There was no “magic” despite all talent and efforts of my teahers. And we didn’t even have a clue what to do – Internet wasn’t as filled as now. Now you can talk to Google like to a person and get exatly what you need. The first search result was not the best example of an essay outline, but the idea is that you can get from Google anything you want, if you can explain what you want properly lol – http://www.writemypapers.org/essay-writing/essay-outline-example.html I wish my teahers thought about changing the routine.

Lots of good details here, Anna. I would say that many kinds of quick-write practices are good for students. Practice with that prior guidance is a help, then they are more able to practice on their own. Sometimes it’s a motivation too to know that they’re going to write after reading, helps them read more closely too. Thanks!

Great point Linda that students often read more closely if they know they are going to write. I suspect, too that using a term like “essay” can feel lofty and can inspire students to really dig in to texts to produce their best thinking and find viable evidence.

Reblogged this on Gently Read Literature .

Thanks for sharing this, Anna – we are just about to begin lit essays, and this is awesome work to with kids. The “heavy handed coaching” sets the stage for real independednce, I feel.

Oh great! Can’t wait to read about your Lit Essay work, Tara!

Reblogged this on Stephen Page .

Comments are closed.

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser.

Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points

By Alina Chan

Dr. Chan is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.”

This article has been updated to reflect news developments.

On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci returned to the halls of Congress and testified before the House subcommittee investigating the Covid-19 pandemic. He was questioned about several topics related to the government’s handling of Covid-19, including how the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he directed until retiring in 2022, supported risky virus work at a Chinese institute whose research may have caused the pandemic.

For more than four years, reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for the truth about a catastrophe that has touched us all. It has been estimated that at least 25 million people around the world have died because of Covid-19, with over a million of those deaths in the United States.

Although how the pandemic started has been hotly debated, a growing volume of evidence — gleaned from public records released under the Freedom of Information Act, digital sleuthing through online databases, scientific papers analyzing the virus and its spread, and leaks from within the U.S. government — suggests that the pandemic most likely occurred because a virus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan, China. If so, it would be the most costly accident in the history of science.

Here’s what we now know:

1 The SARS-like virus that caused the pandemic emerged in Wuhan, the city where the world’s foremost research lab for SARS-like viruses is located.

• At the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a team of scientists had been hunting for SARS-like viruses for over a decade, led by Shi Zhengli.
• Their research showed that the viruses most similar to SARS‑CoV‑2, the virus that caused the pandemic, circulate in bats that live r oughly 1,000 miles away from Wuhan. Scientists from Dr. Shi’s team traveled repeatedly to Yunnan province to collect these viruses and had expanded their search to Southeast Asia. Bats in other parts of China have not been found to carry viruses that are as closely related to SARS-CoV-2.

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2 were found in southwestern China and in Laos.

Large cities

Mine in Yunnan province

Cave in Laos

South China Sea

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2

were found in southwestern China and in Laos.

philippines

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2 were found

in southwestern China and Laos.

Sources: Sarah Temmam et al., Nature; SimpleMaps

Note: Cities shown have a population of at least 200,000.

There are hundreds of large cities in China and Southeast Asia.

There are hundreds of large cities in China

and Southeast Asia.

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away, in Wuhan, home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away,

in Wuhan, home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away, in Wuhan,

home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

• Even at hot spots where these viruses exist naturally near the cave bats of southwestern China and Southeast Asia, the scientists argued, as recently as 2019 , that bat coronavirus spillover into humans is rare .
• When the Covid-19 outbreak was detected, Dr. Shi initially wondered if the novel coronavirus had come from her laboratory , saying she had never expected such an outbreak to occur in Wuhan.
• The SARS‑CoV‑2 virus is exceptionally contagious and can jump from species to species like wildfire . Yet it left no known trace of infection at its source or anywhere along what would have been a thousand-mile journey before emerging in Wuhan.

2 The year before the outbreak, the Wuhan institute, working with U.S. partners, had proposed creating viruses with SARS‑CoV‑2’s defining feature.

• Dr. Shi’s group was fascinated by how coronaviruses jump from species to species. To find viruses, they took samples from bats and other animals , as well as from sick people living near animals carrying these viruses or associated with the wildlife trade. Much of this work was conducted in partnership with the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based scientific organization that, since 2002, has been awarded over $80 million in federal funding to research the risks of emerging infectious diseases.
• The laboratory pursued risky research that resulted in viruses becoming more infectious : Coronaviruses were grown from samples from infected animals and genetically reconstructed and recombined to create new viruses unknown in nature. These new viruses were passed through cells from bats, pigs, primates and humans and were used to infect civets and humanized mice (mice modified with human genes). In essence, this process forced these viruses to adapt to new host species, and the viruses with mutations that allowed them to thrive emerged as victors.
• By 2019, Dr. Shi’s group had published a database describing more than 22,000 collected wildlife samples. But external access was shut off in the fall of 2019, and the database was not shared with American collaborators even after the pandemic started , when such a rich virus collection would have been most useful in tracking the origin of SARS‑CoV‑2. It remains unclear whether the Wuhan institute possessed a precursor of the pandemic virus.
• In 2021, The Intercept published a leaked 2018 grant proposal for a research project named Defuse , which had been written as a collaboration between EcoHealth, the Wuhan institute and Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina, who had been on the cutting edge of coronavirus research for years. The proposal described plans to create viruses strikingly similar to SARS‑CoV‑2.
• Coronaviruses bear their name because their surface is studded with protein spikes, like a spiky crown, which they use to enter animal cells. T he Defuse project proposed to search for and create SARS-like viruses carrying spikes with a unique feature: a furin cleavage site — the same feature that enhances SARS‑CoV‑2’s infectiousness in humans, making it capable of causing a pandemic. Defuse was never funded by the United States . However, in his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci explained that the Wuhan institute would not need to rely on U.S. funding to pursue research independently.

The Wuhan lab ran risky experiments to learn about how SARS-like viruses might infect humans.

1. Collect SARS-like viruses from bats and other wild animals, as well as from people exposed to them.

2. Identify high-risk viruses by screening for spike proteins that facilitate infection of human cells.

2. Identify high-risk viruses by screening for spike proteins that facilitate infection of

human cells.

In Defuse, the scientists proposed to add a furin cleavage site to the spike protein.

3. Create new coronaviruses by inserting spike proteins or other features that could make the viruses more infectious in humans.

4. Infect human cells, civets and humanized mice with the new coronaviruses, to determine how dangerous they might be.

• While it’s possible that the furin cleavage site could have evolved naturally (as seen in some distantly related coronaviruses), out of the hundreds of SARS-like viruses cataloged by scientists, SARS‑CoV‑2 is the only one known to possess a furin cleavage site in its spike. And the genetic data suggest that the virus had only recently gained the furin cleavage site before it started the pandemic.
• Ultimately, a never-before-seen SARS-like virus with a newly introduced furin cleavage site, matching the description in the Wuhan institute’s Defuse proposal, caused an outbreak in Wuhan less than two years after the proposal was drafted.
• When the Wuhan scientists published their seminal paper about Covid-19 as the pandemic roared to life in 2020, they did not mention the virus’s furin cleavage site — a feature they should have been on the lookout for, according to their own grant proposal, and a feature quickly recognized by other scientists.
• Worse still, as the pandemic raged, their American collaborators failed to publicly reveal the existence of the Defuse proposal. The president of EcoHealth, Peter Daszak, recently admitted to Congress that he doesn’t know about virus samples collected by the Wuhan institute after 2015 and never asked the lab’s scientists if they had started the work described in Defuse. In May, citing failures in EcoHealth’s monitoring of risky experiments conducted at the Wuhan lab, the Biden administration suspended all federal funding for the organization and Dr. Daszak, and initiated proceedings to bar them from receiving future grants. In his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci said that he supported the decision to suspend and bar EcoHealth.
• Separately, Dr. Baric described the competitive dynamic between his research group and the institute when he told Congress that the Wuhan scientists would probably not have shared their most interesting newly discovered viruses with him . Documents and email correspondence between the institute and Dr. Baric are still being withheld from the public while their release is fiercely contested in litigation.
• In the end, American partners very likely knew of only a fraction of the research done in Wuhan. According to U.S. intelligence sources, some of the institute’s virus research was classified or conducted with or on behalf of the Chinese military . In the congressional hearing on Monday, Dr. Fauci repeatedly acknowledged the lack of visibility into experiments conducted at the Wuhan institute, saying, “None of us can know everything that’s going on in China, or in Wuhan, or what have you. And that’s the reason why — I say today, and I’ve said at the T.I.,” referring to his transcribed interview with the subcommittee, “I keep an open mind as to what the origin is.”

3 The Wuhan lab pursued this type of work under low biosafety conditions that could not have contained an airborne virus as infectious as SARS‑CoV‑2.

• Labs working with live viruses generally operate at one of four biosafety levels (known in ascending order of stringency as BSL-1, 2, 3 and 4) that describe the work practices that are considered sufficiently safe depending on the characteristics of each pathogen. The Wuhan institute’s scientists worked with SARS-like viruses under inappropriately low biosafety conditions .

In the United States, virologists generally use stricter Biosafety Level 3 protocols when working with SARS-like viruses.

Biosafety cabinets prevent

viral particles from escaping.

Viral particles

Personal respirators provide

a second layer of defense against breathing in the virus.

DIRECT CONTACT

Gloves prevent skin contact.

Disposable wraparound

gowns cover much of the rest of the body.

Personal respirators provide a second layer of defense against breathing in the virus.

Disposable wraparound gowns

cover much of the rest of the body.

Note: ​​Biosafety levels are not internationally standardized, and some countries use more permissive protocols than others.

The Wuhan lab had been regularly working with SARS-like viruses under Biosafety Level 2 conditions, which could not prevent a highly infectious virus like SARS-CoV-2 from escaping.

Some work is done in the open air, and masks are not required.

Less protective equipment provides more opportunities

for contamination.

Some work is done in the open air,

and masks are not required.

Less protective equipment provides more opportunities for contamination.

• In one experiment, Dr. Shi’s group genetically engineered an unexpectedly deadly SARS-like virus (not closely related to SARS‑CoV‑2) that exhibited a 10,000-fold increase in the quantity of virus in the lungs and brains of humanized mice . Wuhan institute scientists handled these live viruses at low biosafet y levels , including BSL-2.
• Even the much more stringent containment at BSL-3 cannot fully prevent SARS‑CoV‑2 from escaping . Two years into the pandemic, the virus infected a scientist in a BSL-3 laboratory in Taiwan, which was, at the time, a zero-Covid country. The scientist had been vaccinated and was tested only after losing the sense of smell. By then, more than 100 close contacts had been exposed. Human error is a source of exposure even at the highest biosafety levels , and the risks are much greater for scientists working with infectious pathogens at low biosafety.
• An early draft of the Defuse proposal stated that the Wuhan lab would do their virus work at BSL-2 to make it “highly cost-effective.” Dr. Baric added a note to the draft highlighting the importance of using BSL-3 to contain SARS-like viruses that could infect human cells, writing that “U.S. researchers will likely freak out.” Years later, after SARS‑CoV‑2 had killed millions, Dr. Baric wrote to Dr. Daszak : “I have no doubt that they followed state determined rules and did the work under BSL-2. Yes China has the right to set their own policy. You believe this was appropriate containment if you want but don’t expect me to believe it. Moreover, don’t insult my intelligence by trying to feed me this load of BS.”
• SARS‑CoV‑2 is a stealthy virus that transmits effectively through the air, causes a range of symptoms similar to those of other common respiratory diseases and can be spread by infected people before symptoms even appear. If the virus had escaped from a BSL-2 laboratory in 2019, the leak most likely would have gone undetected until too late.
• One alarming detail — leaked to The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by current and former U.S. government officials — is that scientists on Dr. Shi’s team fell ill with Covid-like symptoms in the fall of 2019 . One of the scientists had been named in the Defuse proposal as the person in charge of virus discovery work. The scientists denied having been sick .

4 The hypothesis that Covid-19 came from an animal at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan is not supported by strong evidence.

• In December 2019, Chinese investigators assumed the outbreak had started at a centrally located market frequented by thousands of visitors daily. This bias in their search for early cases meant that cases unlinked to or located far away from the market would very likely have been missed. To make things worse, the Chinese authorities blocked the reporting of early cases not linked to the market and, claiming biosafety precautions, ordered the destruction of patient samples on January 3, 2020, making it nearly impossible to see the complete picture of the earliest Covid-19 cases. Information about dozens of early cases from November and December 2019 remains inaccessible.
• A pair of papers published in Science in 2022 made the best case for SARS‑CoV‑2 having emerged naturally from human-animal contact at the Wuhan market by focusing on a map of the early cases and asserting that the virus had jumped from animals into humans twice at the market in 2019. More recently, the two papers have been countered by other virologists and scientists who convincingly demonstrate that the available market evidence does not distinguish between a human superspreader event and a natural spillover at the market.
• Furthermore, the existing genetic and early case data show that all known Covid-19 cases probably stem from a single introduction of SARS‑CoV‑2 into people, and the outbreak at the Wuhan market probably happened after the virus had already been circulating in humans.

An analysis of SARS-CoV-2’s evolutionary tree shows how the virus evolved as it started to spread through humans.

SARS-COV-2 Viruses closest

to bat coronaviruses

more mutations

Source: Lv et al., Virus Evolution (2024) , as reproduced by Jesse Bloom

The viruses that infected people linked to the market were most likely not the earliest form of the virus that started the pandemic.

• Not a single infected animal has ever been confirmed at the market or in its supply chain. Without good evidence that the pandemic started at the Huanan Seafood Market, the fact that the virus emerged in Wuhan points squarely at its unique SARS-like virus laboratory.

5 Key evidence that would be expected if the virus had emerged from the wildlife trade is still missing.

In previous outbreaks of coronaviruses, scientists were able to demonstrate natural origin by collecting multiple pieces of evidence linking infected humans to infected animals.

Infected animals

Earliest known

cases exposed to

live animals

Antibody evidence

of animals and

animal traders having

been infected

Ancestral variants

of the virus found in

Documented trade

of host animals

between the area

where bats carry

closely related viruses

and the outbreak site

Infected animals found

Earliest known cases exposed to live animals

Antibody evidence of animals and animal

traders having been infected

Ancestral variants of the virus found in animals

Documented trade of host animals

between the area where bats carry closely

related viruses and the outbreak site

For SARS-CoV-2, these same key pieces of evidence are still missing , more than four years after the virus emerged.

For SARS-CoV-2, these same key pieces of evidence are still missing ,

more than four years after the virus emerged.

• Despite the intense search trained on the animal trade and people linked to the market, investigators have not reported finding any animals infected with SARS‑CoV‑2 that had not been infected by humans. Yet, infected animal sources and other connective pieces of evidence were found for the earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks as quickly as within a few days, despite the less advanced viral forensic technologies of two decades ago.
• Even though Wuhan is the home base of virus hunters with world-leading expertise in tracking novel SARS-like viruses, investigators have either failed to collect or report key evidence that would be expected if Covid-19 emerged from the wildlife trade . For example, investigators have not determined that the earliest known cases had exposure to intermediate host animals before falling ill. No antibody evidence shows that animal traders in Wuhan are regularly exposed to SARS-like viruses, as would be expected in such situations.
• With today’s technology, scientists can detect how respiratory viruses — including SARS, MERS and the flu — circulate in animals while making repeated attempts to jump across species . Thankfully, these variants usually fail to transmit well after crossing over to a new species and tend to die off after a small number of infections. In contrast, virologists and other scientists agree that SARS‑CoV‑2 required little to no adaptation to spread rapidly in humans and other animals . The virus appears to have succeeded in causing a pandemic upon its only detected jump into humans.

The pandemic could have been caused by any of hundreds of virus species, at any of tens of thousands of wildlife markets, in any of thousands of cities, and in any year. But it was a SARS-like coronavirus with a unique furin cleavage site that emerged in Wuhan, less than two years after scientists, sometimes working under inadequate biosafety conditions, proposed collecting and creating viruses of that same design.

While several natural spillover scenarios remain plausible, and we still don’t know enough about the full extent of virus research conducted at the Wuhan institute by Dr. Shi’s team and other researchers, a laboratory accident is the most parsimonious explanation of how the pandemic began.

Given what we now know, investigators should follow their strongest leads and subpoena all exchanges between the Wuhan scientists and their international partners, including unpublished research proposals, manuscripts, data and commercial orders. In particular, exchanges from 2018 and 2019 — the critical two years before the emergence of Covid-19 — are very likely to be illuminating (and require no cooperation from the Chinese government to acquire), yet they remain beyond the public’s view more than four years after the pandemic began.

Whether the pandemic started on a lab bench or in a market stall, it is undeniable that U.S. federal funding helped to build an unprecedented collection of SARS-like viruses at the Wuhan institute, as well as contributing to research that enhanced them . Advocates and funders of the institute’s research, including Dr. Fauci, should cooperate with the investigation to help identify and close the loopholes that allowed such dangerous work to occur. The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics .

A successful investigation of the pandemic’s root cause would have the power to break a decades-long scientific impasse on pathogen research safety, determining how governments will spend billions of dollars to prevent future pandemics. A credible investigation would also deter future acts of negligence and deceit by demonstrating that it is indeed possible to be held accountable for causing a viral pandemic. Last but not least, people of all nations need to see their leaders — and especially, their scientists — heading the charge to find out what caused this world-shaking event. Restoring public trust in science and government leadership requires it.

A thorough investigation by the U.S. government could unearth more evidence while spurring whistleblowers to find their courage and seek their moment of opportunity. It would also show the world that U.S. leaders and scientists are not afraid of what the truth behind the pandemic may be.

More on how the pandemic may have started

Where Did the Coronavirus Come From? What We Already Know Is Troubling.

Even if the coronavirus did not emerge from a lab, the groundwork for a potential disaster had been laid for years, and learning its lessons is essential to preventing others.

By Zeynep Tufekci

Why Does Bad Science on Covid’s Origin Get Hyped?

If the raccoon dog was a smoking gun, it fired blanks.

By David Wallace-Wells

A Plea for Making Virus Research Safer

A way forward for lab safety.

By Jesse Bloom

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Alina Chan ( @ayjchan ) is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “ Viral : The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.” She was a member of the Pathogens Project , which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists organized to generate new thinking on responsible, high-risk pathogen research.

• Share full article

Advertisement

By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies and similar tracking technologies described in our privacy policy .

A platform for historians

Community & careers.

The AHA brings together historians from all specializations and all work contexts, embracing the breadth and variety of activity in history today.

Awards & Grants

The AHA offers annual prizes honoring exceptional books, distinguished teaching and mentoring in the classroom, public history, digital projects, and other historical work. We also offer grants and fellowships supporting the research of historians.

Professional and Career Resources

Standards & Guidelines for the Disciplines

The AHA has developed a series of best practices for excellence in professional behavior, research, and teaching.

AHA Career Contacts

Our Career Contacts program arranges informational interviews between current PhD and history PhDs who have built careers beyond the professoriate.

AHA Career Center

Whether you’re looking to find a job or to advertise a position, the AHA Career Center is the go-to hub for connecting with history professionals

Academic Department Resources

History department chairs are on the front lines of the discipline, defending historians’ work and supporting their professional lives at all stages of their academic careers. The AHA strives to strengthen this work and provide resources and opportunities that make chairs’ work easier and valued.

Affiliated Societies

Over 125 history-oriented organizations are affiliated with the AHA, representing a broad network of organizations promoting collaboration and communication across the history community.

Cross-disciplinary coalitions that provide greater access to networks, leadership, and resources that support the AHA’s mission.

Members Making News

Members Making News highlights the accomplishments of AHA members.

Member Spotlights

To recognize our talented and eclectic membership, the AHA features a regular Member Spotlight series.

Where Historians Work

Where Historians Work is an interactive, online database that catalogs the career outcomes of historians who earned PhDs at universities in the United States from 2004 to 2017.

AHA Communities

Members can communicate and collaborate with other historians in this online networking platform.

AHA on Social Media

Follow the AHA on social media platforms to stay up-to-date with our latest news and activities.

Discover Historians and History Programs

Directory of history departments and organizations.

The online Directory provides for detailed searching of faculty/staff and their field specializations, as well as the ability to do benchmarking comparisons between departments.

Directory of History Dissertations

The directory contains the titles of over 60,000 dissertations that have been completed or are currently in progress in the United States and Canada since 1873.

AHA Member Directory

Search the AHA Member Directory by name, organization, city, state, and specialization to get contact information for collaboration and community. AHA members only.

Calendar of Opportunities

Find upcoming grant, presentation, and publication opportunities with the AHA and other organizations.

Join the AHA

Join Our Test Series for Free!

• Competitions

Essay Writing Competition on World Music Day 2024 by Udaan Yuva Tourism Club [With Certificate, Ages 15-29]: Submit by June 20

• Jun 20, 2024

Entries are invited for the Essay Writing Competition on World Music Day 2024 by Udaan Yuva Tourism Club. Submit your essay by June 20, 2024.

About Udaan Yuva Tourism Club

Udaan Yuva Tourism Club is a youth-led organisation based in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh. It is formed under the Yuva Tourism Club (YTC) scheme of the Ministry of Tourism. Udaan YTC primarily uses art, music, literature and digital media tools to promote tourism in India. Their objective is to engage youth in educational activities and empower them with resources to inspire them to be proud of rich Indian culture.

About the Program

Udaan YTC is observing World Music Day 2024 by organising an Essay Writing Competition on the theme of “Potential of Music in promoting Tourism in India”. 

They want Indian Youth to think about the role of music in promoting tourism and express their ideas on how soulful beats make people travel from their place of origin to other places. The core objective of this program is to seek the creative and original ideas of participants about music’s role in connecting people and its potential contribution to promote tourism in India.

• Selected best essays will be featured on official website of Udaan YTC
• Published essays will be recognised with a certificate of merit
• Top performers of the competition will be offered membership of Udaan YTC
• All entries will be rewarded certificate of participation
• Institution with maximum number of participants will be recognised with certificate

Eligibility

• Young people aged 15-29 may participate
• Language of essay should be Hindi or English
• Essay should meet word limit of 500-750
• Essay should be original and not AI generated
• Essays will be selected for publication on the website based on creativity, new ideas, theme alignment, researched facts, clarity of expression, originality and audience engagement.

How to Participate

• To submit your entry, visit the registration form here
• Fill in the basic required details as requested on the form.
• Upload your essay docs/word file in the form
• Write an author bio of you in 100 words.
• Submit the form by clicking on the submit button.

Contact Information: For inquiries and further information, please reach out to the Udaan YTC via email at nyktyodhi[at]gmail[dot]com 

Click here to see the official notification of Essay Writing Competition on World Music Day 2024 by Udaan Yuva Tourism Club.

Join Our Competitions WhatsApp Channel

Get daily updates, join our competitions telegram group.

Get relevant opportunities in your inbox every day!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

© 2024 – NoticeBard | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service

Enter your email

Log in using your NoticeBard account. If you do not have an account, you will be prompted to create one.

Parents, Teachers, School Students: Subscribe for your Youngster Career

Competitions, scholarships, olympiads, and jobs for your growth & development, for 1 month, for 6 months.

Election latest: Tom Tugendhat says Nigel Farage sounds like 'Putin's poodle' on Ukraine - but Reform leader doubles down in war row

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is still under fire after reiterating he blames the West and NATO for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, has told Sky News Mr Farage is sounding like "Putin's poodle" on the issue.

Sunday 23 June 2024 00:16, UK

• General Election 2024

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

• Farage under fire for 'disgraceful' comments on Ukraine war
• Minister calls Farage 'Putin's poodle' | PM says Farage 'wrong'
• Ali Fortescue: Farage is doubling down but will be cautious about scaring voters
• Jon Craig:  Has the Reform UK leader made his first campaign mistake?
• Reform UK's tax plans disproportionately benefit high earners, analysis shows
• Labour unveil 'Tory s***show' attack ad

Election essentials

• Manifesto pledges: Alliance Party | Conservatives | Greens | Labour | Lib Dems | Plaid Cymru | Reform | SNP | Sinn Fein | Workers Party
• Trackers:  Who's leading polls? | Is PM keeping promises?
• Campaign Heritage: Memorable moments from elections gone by
• Follow Sky's politics podcasts: Electoral Dysfunction | Politics At Jack And Sam's
• Read more:  Who is standing down? | Key seats to watch | What counts as voter ID? | Check if your constituency is changing | Guide to election lingo | Sky's election night plans

Labour are warning voters against complacency at the polls on 4 July as the party says "change will only happen if you vote for it".

In an article for The Observer, Labour campaign coordinator Pat McFadden said the election debate was "in danger" of being "consumed by polls" and the idea that the outcome is "somehow pre-determined".

"No way is this election a done deal. The headlines about the clutch of MRP polls disguise a huge level of uncertainty," he said.

The public need to think about whether they want five more years of Conservative rule or "the chance to rebuild with Labour," said Mr McFadden.

He branded Tory warnings against a Labour "supermajority" a "cynical voter suppression strategy".

"The reason the Tories are talking down their prospects is to try to persuade swing voters that they either don't need to vote or, because of their argument the result is decided, to persuade voters they can afford to vote for one of the minor parties where the seat is a Labour/Tory battle," he said.

A Labour win would "put Brexit in peril" and see Sir Keir Starmer try to overturn the vote that changed the country eight years ago, Rishi Sunak has said.

The Conservative campaign suggested Labour have pledged to negotiate a new deal "without telling the public what they would accept in return".

It cited experts as warning that Sir Keir's party would have to make "considerable concessions" to meet its manifesto pledge to deepen ties with the UK's European neighbours.

In a statement on the anniversary of the Brexit vote, Mr Sunak said Sir Keir "has never believed we can succeed as a sovereign country and has tried to overturn the result time and time again". 

He said the Labour leader has committed to "years more wrangling the EU" and abandoning the country's "hard-won freedoms".

"Keir Starmer would recommit us to free movement of EU citizens, taking thousands more illegal migrants and binding our businesses again in Brussels red tape," he said.

"It would be a betrayal pure and simple of the public's wishes by a party with no faith in Britain and no plan for our future as an independent nation."

Meanwhile, business secretary Kemi Badenoch accused Labour of rubbishing facts and promoting "dodgy forecasts" about UK growth.

Sir Keir earlier denied that Labour has plans to rejoin the EU, after Ms Badenoch told The Telegraph that he would put Brexit at risk if he became prime minister.

"We are not re-joining the EU, we are not re-joining the single market or the customs union," the Labour leader said.

A top Conservative official has reportedly taken a leave of absence amid allegations that they placed bets on the timing of the general election on 4 July.

The allegations were published in The Sunday Times , which reported that the official is being investigated over claims they placed "dozens of bets".

A Conservative spokesman said: "As instructed by the Gambling Commission, we are not permitted to discuss any matters related to any investigation with the subject or any other persons."

Our flagship Sunday morning show, hosted by  Trevor Phillips , will be live on Sky News tomorrow from 8.30am, and we have a packed line-up for you after another eventful week of the campaign.

Trevor will be chatting to:

• James Cleverly , home secretary;
• Bridget Phillipson , shadow education secretary;
• Sharon Graham , Unite general secretary;
• Robert Jenrick , former immigration minister.

On Trevor's expert panel will be:

• Lionel Barber , former editor of the Financial Times
• Sonia Sodha , former Labour adviser;
• Guto Harri , former Number 10 communications director.

Watch live on Sky News and in the stream at the top of this page - and follow updates here in the Politics Hub.

Watch  Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips  from 8.30am every Sunday on Sky channel 501, Virgin channel 602, Freeview channel 233, on the  Sky News website  and  app  or on  YouTube .

Sir Keir Starmer has branded attacks by the veterans minister on his Labour electoral opponent "sad and desperate".

Mr Mercer, the Tory candidate for Plymouth Moor View, accused his political rival Fred Thomas of lying about his military record after a hustings event earlier this week.

In a series of posts to the X, the minister questioned whether Mr Thomas had served in combat missions while serving as a Royal Marine.

He suggested the Labour candidate had misrepresented his service "for political gain".

Asked about Mr Mercer's comments, Sir Keir said it was "sad desperation" from the veterans' minister. "It's desperate."

The Labour leader said his remarks underlined that the Conservative Party is "party first through and through".

Labour said Mr Thomas was a "decorated ex-Royal Marine" who was unable to discuss his military service due to its "highly sensitive" nature.

Mr Thomas said he was "proud of having served my country for seven years, including overseas on operations". 

Here are all the candidates for the Plymouth Moor View constituency:

• Shaun Hooper  - Reform UK
• Sarah Martin  - Liberal Democrats
• Johnny Mercer - Conservatives
• Georgia Nelson  - Green Party
• Fred Thomas - Labour

Union boss Sharon Graham has said she does not agree with Labour's fiscal rules and the party should borrow more to invest.

Speaking to Sky News'  Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips  in an interview that will be broadcast in full tomorrow, the Unite general secretary said other countries with growing economies have a larger debt-to-GDP ratio than the UK, "so there is wiggle room".

Rachel Reeves , the shadow chancellor, has promised to retain the Tories' commitment that debt as a proportion of GDP must be on track to fall in five years if Labour win the election on 4 July.

She has ruled out borrowing to fund day-to-day spending, saying her focus will be on reforms to grow the economy.

But Ms Graham said: "I don't agree with Rachel Reeves in terms of what has been said about the plans on growth.

"If you look at other countries - in France, their debt to GDP is 112%. In America, where the economy's growing, it's 130% debt to GDP. Ours is around about 99%. We have wiggle room. Give Britain a break."

The union leader said that workers "are literally hurting beyond anything that you could comprehend" due to the cost of living crisis.

She added: "We need the straitjacket off a little bit, get some wiggle room there.

"Borrowing to invest is not the same as other borrowing. It's borrowing to invest."

You can watch the full interview with Sharon Graham on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips from 8.30am tomorrow morning on Sky News.

Sir Keir Starmer said he always suspected Boris Johnson's relationship with the truth "would bring him down"- as he revealed how he "set a trap" for the ex-prime minister over the partygate scandal.

In an interview with The Guardian, the Labour leader said he "couldn't care less" about the insults Mr Johnson hurled at him over the despatch box, including when the then PM called him a "pointless human bollard".

"I'm not saying I have great insight, but I felt his character would bring him down," he told the newspaper.

"I thought, there's a guy who is detached from the truth. Whether he's lying or not, it doesn't matter to him."

Sir Keir then laid out the specific way he "set a trap" for Mr Johnson to catch him out over the Downing Street parties scandal, according to The Guardian.

Read the full story here :

Scarlett Maguire, a pollster with JL Partners, says focus groups run by the firm in Rishi Sunak's constituency show that the D-Day blunder and the recent betting scandal in the Tory party have cut through to voters.

Both issues have been "incredibly damaging" for the prime minister, she says.

Ms Maguire said one voter told researchers that the betting scandal "showed a complete disregard for voters".

"They were saying the impression was that it was just like Partygate. It was indicative of a political class and this particular political party that takes voters a bit for a ride and takes their votes for granted," she says.

"That sense was something that came through very strongly."

Ms Maguire said these issues mean voters could perceive Mr Sunak as being "out of control".

However she pointed out that the public also "do not like the sound of a Labour majority", and there's an "appetite" to prevent this.

"It about whether that works and about whether people actually think 'you know what? I am really cross with the main parties... I'm going to do more of a protest vote'."

Next up on the show is pollster Scarlett Maguire , director at JL Partners.

She's asked first about the big polling story of the campaign, which has been the rise of Reform UK support in the UK.

Asked if the Conservatives should be worried about this, Ms Maguire says she is "sceptical" that Reform could end up with a greater share of the vote than the Tories - in part because they are not standing in every seat.

However she notes the rise of Reform has been "the defining feature of this campaign - or at least the only real action we've seen in the polls".

Ms Maguire says Rishi Sunak's decision to call the election while 20 points down in the polls was unprecedented.

"He desperately needed a campaign where he could win back those voters that started voting Reform and also win back those Conservatives that were now telling pollsters they don't know. So far, he's not done either," she says.

Next up is a discussion with the Politics Hub panel on JK Rowling's accusation in The Times newspaper that the Labour party is "abandoning women".

In a 2,000-word essay, the author said she will "struggle to support" Labour if Sir Keir Starmer keeps his current stance on gender recognition.

Sir Keir has defended Labour's record on gender equality in response, saying he was "proud" of his party's history on the subject.

Charlie Rowley , former special adviser to Michael Gove, says the issue is a "sticky wicket" for Labour, but he adds that there are "so many other issues in society" that require focus.

"Party leaders shouldn't be getting caught up in the minutiae of this kind of conversation," he says.

Meanwhile, Ava Santina Evans, political correspondent at PoliticsJOE, says Labour advisers are worried the issue will "ramp up just before polling day".

She adds it's unfair to trans people in the UK "to experience this sort of rhetoric before the election".

"This election really is a lot to do with the politicisation of people's bodies," she says.

Be the first to get Breaking News

Install the Sky News app for free