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Writing Breaks: A Writing to Learn Strategy that Benefits Students

Matthew Blackwood

Manhattan College: EDUC 403

April 23, 2021

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Abstract

Comprehension for high school students can be challenging when they don't use different

techniques and strategies to help them understand what is happening in the text. This study will

focus on the strategy of writing breaks and how it has been effective in teaching a complex text.

Writing breaks is a way for students to stop and process a small portion of the text before moving

on to the next section. When introducing a writing break, students will start by reading anywhere

from a paragraph to a page of a text. After completing the small reading, students will write

down different critical components of what happened in that section. The writing components

last from 1 to 3 minutes, where students can freely write on what happens and their reactions to

what they just read. This is a low stake non-graded assessment of how the students understand

what is happening in the text After completing the first section, students will repeat the process

for the next section, whether it be a paragraph or a page.

Introduction to the Study

During the spring 2021 semester, I was able to tutor two students from Cristo Rey, a high

school in the Bronx. I am tutoring them for their English language arts class, where their focus

was world literature. After my first introduction to my students, I noticed that they were reading

the ancient Greek play Antigone by Sophocles. I was struck that they were reading a play that is

not the easiest to comprehend. Antigone was written thousands of years ago, so, therefore,

students have a more challenging time understanding what is happening in the play. On top of all

of that, this is the third play in the Oedipus Rex trilogy. Therefore, there might be some issues in

understanding what happened in the previous plays to understand what is happening in Antigone.

My cooperating teacher, Sister Jude, sent me her lesson plans and the materials that she

uses for her classroom to help me tutor my students. Sister Jude's suggestion was to do a
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dramatic reading of every scene each week. After trying this out, I noticed that the students were

not as engaged and interested in participating in a dramatic reading. Their comprehension of the

text was not as strong because they focused more on saying the words than understanding what is

happening in the play. I quickly had to think on my feet about the best solution to continue

reading the play out loud and continue in reaching their comprehension of the play.

Since I wasn't working one-on-one with the student, I had both students in the same

session; I needed to figure out how to make sure both students understood the material

individually and not copy off the other student. Therefore, I introduced writing breaks into our

tutoring sessions. I would still assign roles to each of the students, but after every page, I would

have my students take two to three minutes to write down things that happened on that page and

their reactions to that page in their notebooks. After the two to three minutes, each student would

share what they wrote down so that I can assess if they have fully understood what happened on

that page. This is called a writing break.

Research

When beginning to research writing breaks, it is crucial to understand how these writing

breaks will be facilitated and prompted. There are many different ways to begin a writing break

and instruct writing breaks. One way to use writing breaks is a questioning strategy for

summarization. This allows students to understand what they wrote down by rewriting and

summarizing what happened in the text by putting it in their own words. "One example of a

questioning strategy is a basic summarization or paragraph restatement strategy (e.g., Jenkins,

Heliotis, Stein, & Haynes, 1987; Malone & Mastropieri, 1992). Students are taught how to ask

and answer the summarization strategy questions as they read, as follows:

* Who or what is the paragraph about?

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* What is happening to the who or what?

* Create a summary sentence in your own words using less than 10 words.

Some studies have added the effects of including self-monitoring components to the strategy so

students are required to check off strategy steps as they are completed" (Mastropieri, Scruggs,

Graetz 106). This quote highlights how using simple questions can prompt students to think

about summarizing what they just read. These questions also allow students to process the text

step by step before they write down their summary.

In Mastropieri, Scruggs, and Graetz's study, they took 7th grade English classrooms and

taught them the three-step summarization strategy and writing breaks. Then they had a control

group that did not learn the three steps summarization strategy and writing breaks. "After five

weeks, students in the tutoring condition significantly outperformed their control peer

counterparts, with means of 81.8% versus 63.3% on criterion referenced reading comprehension

measures" (Mastropieri, Scruggs, Graetz 107). This quote highlights how over time, students

understood the material fuller when they were able to do the writing breaks in the three-step

summarization strategy. Therefore, introducing more writing breaks and summarization

strategies into the curriculum allows students to learn the material more accessible, whether it be

for a modern text or an ancient text like Antigone.

When using writing to learn strategies, we have to think about why we are using them.

When using writing to learn strategies, there is a purpose for students to use it. Students and

teachers who use writing breaks and writing to learn strategies have to wonder what is the point

of writing if it's not to demonstrate what you know. However, Gallagher argues that there is more

to writing than just confirming what you already know. Gallagher writes, "Writing is not simply

a vehicle that allows students to express what they know; Writing is a tool that generates new
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thinking. The very act of writing leads students to new ideas that they would not have produced

had they been simply asked to listen or talk," and "another national study found that when

students write, they reach deeper levels of understanding, generate new ideas and thinking,

enhance their critical-thinking skills, and are more likely to retain learning in the content area

(Graham & Perin, 2007). The research is clear: When students write, they learn more and

remember more," (Gallagher). These quotes highlight how students can learn while they write.

Writing generates new ideas and new thinking, that when simply just reading a text, the students

might miss that understanding.

When using writing breaks and writing to learn strategies for comprehension of what is

happening in a text, students are forced to read and therefore allow some understanding of the

text. What are the positive effects of comprehending the text? Not only do you understand what

is happening, but you would be able to relate to it more. Having the opportunity to connect to

something will give interest to what you are reading. A study conducted by Dai and Wang

concluded that "comprehension may exert a positive influence on interest; therefore,

comprehension and interest may have a reciprocal relationship. The present study was interested

in how NFC [need for cognition] and TA [transaction beliefs] may also positively mediated the

development of interest in the passage being read, andhow comprehension levels may further

contribute to post-reading interest besides NFCand TA by partially mediating their effects," (Dai,

Wang 337). This quote shows that students gain a better comprehension of the text, leave with a

better connection and interest in the material. When there is a relationship of interest and

comprehension, then students will have a further understanding and a more profound level of

knowledge for the text.

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Devise a Plan

Now that we have looked at the research behind writing breaks and the importance of

writing to learn, the next step is to understand how this will affect my teaching of Antigone to

my students. The first research by Mastropieri, Scruggs, and Graetz that we looked at talked a lot

about prompts and how you are going to prompt your students when they do their writing breaks.

Therefore in the two to three minutes that I am giving my students to write down their

summaries and reflection of what happens on that page of the dialog, I can prompt them using

the research that I’ve gained that will ultimately lead to a short summary about the page. For

example, I can give them the prompt of “who are what is this page about? What is happening to

that who or what? Then create a one sentence summary of what happened on that page.” This

will help my students to be able to think about what is happening on that page, who is being

affected, and how they’re being affected. This will give them a better reading comprehension of

what is happening on that page. Like I said earlier in the paper, each student will be writing

down their answers in their notebooks and then sharing them so everyone can write to learn.

Furthermore, because the students will have a better understanding of what is happening in the

text, they will be able to relate and find interest in the ancient Greek play Antigone.

For most of my time with my students, I will be focusing on Antigone. Once the Antigone

unit is over, they will start working on poetry. Since poetry is a much different text, I will

continue to use writing breaks, but instead of after every page, we will do writing breaks after

every stanza in a poem. Like Antigone, poetry can be more challenging for the students to

comprehend because of the figurative language and difference in style. However, this is not that

far off from Antigone because Antigone has a lot of poetry woven into the texts, specifically in

the Odes. The writing breaks will look very similar to the writing breaks for Antigone. I will ask
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the same prompts, but I will also ask “what are the devices that the poet uses (ex: rhyme,

alliteration, onomatopoeia). When we did that for “Two Names Two Worlds” by Jonathan

Rodriguez, the students were able to have a better understanding by looking at the poem in

smaller chunks. Writing breaks for poetry will continue to help my students comprehend and find

an interest in the text we are reading.

Next Step and Conclusion

Using writing breaks with my students has shown positive results so far. After my first

session with my students, I got an email from my cooperating teacher saying that my students

were some of the top players in a Kahoot on the prologue of Antigone. This was an exciting first

step to see how writing breaks can result in better comprehension and, therefore, better test

scores. Furthermore, when my students took a test in the first half of the play, both of my

students received 94% on their test. This is a fantastic example of how stopping and trying to

understand what is happening on the play page by page can result in better comprehension and

better test scores. Recently they took a test on the second half of the book. Both of my students

felt like they did very well on the test.

One of the limitations of this research is that I could not be with my students in person.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all of our tutoring sessions have been virtual over Zoom. One

of the most significant limitations of doing tutoring sessions over Zoom is that I cannot make

sure the students are on task for the whole two to three minutes in the writing break. If we were

in person, I would be able to make sure my students were on task.

The next step in my research is to continue using writing breaks in my tutoring sessions

and incorporating writing breaks into my future classrooms. Writing breaks gave my student the

ability to reflect on what they have learned and how they feel about the material. I also plan on
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doing more research on different tactics and practices that I can use in writing breaks. There are

many different ways of conducting a writing break, and the one I facilitated with my students has

been effective, but for future classrooms, I will try new methods.
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References

Dai, D. Y., & Wang, X. (2007). The role of need for cognition and reader beliefs in text

comprehension and interest development. Contemporary educational psychology, 32(3),

332-347.

Gallagher, K. (2017). The Writing Journey. In Literacy in Every Classroom (Vol. 74, Ser. 5, pp.

24–29).http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb17/vol74/num05/The-

Writing-Journey.aspx.

Mastropieri, M. A., Scruggs, T. E., & Graetz, J. E. (2003). Reading Comprehension Instruction

for Secondary Students: Challenges for Struggling Students and Teachers. Learning

Disability Quarterly, 26(2), 103–116. https://doi.org/10.2307/1593593