A Conversation with Karen R. Harris

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Dr. Karen Harris talks to us about Self-Regulated Strategy Development, elements of and strategies for writing instruction, and how social inequities can influence learning. Dr. Harris is best known for developing the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model of strategies instruction. Her research, which has primarily been conducted in under-served schools, focuses on effective instruction for complex learning areas. Karen has conducted research on the SRSD model of instruction for learning to write, as well as close reading to learn followed by writing to inform or persuade among students in inclusive classrooms. Self-Regulated Strategy Development has been deemed an evidence-based practice by the Institute of Education Sciences’ What Works Clearing House and there are now over 200 studies of SRSD for writing across several countries. Dr. Karen R. Harris is Regents Professor Emeritus and Research Professor at the Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University.

Resource list mentioned in this episode: https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/s/SRSD-resourcesinfo-list-11823.docx

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Episode Transcript

Lindsay Persohn (00:10):
Education research has a problem. The work
of brilliant educationresearchers often doesn't reach
the practice of brilliantteachers. Classroom caffeine is
here to help. In each episode Italk with a top education
researcher or an expert educatorabout what they have learned

(00:31):
from years of research andexperiences.
In this episode, Dr. KarenHarris talks to us about self
regulated strategy development,elements of and strategies for
writing instruction, and howsocial inequities can influence
learning. Dr. Harris is bestknown for developing the self

(00:53):
regulated strategy developmentor SR SD model of strategies
instruction. Her research, whichhas primarily been conducted in
underserved schools focuses oneffective instruction for
complex learning areas. Karenhas conducted research on the
SRS D model of instruction forlearning to write, as well as

(01:13):
close reading to learn, followedby writing to inform or persuade
among students and inclusiveclassrooms. self regulated
strategy development has beendeemed an evidence based
practice by the Institute ofEducation Sciences, What Works
Clearinghouse and there are nowover 200 studies of s RSD for

(01:34):
writing across severalcountries. Dr. Karen R. Harris
is Regents Professor Emeritusand research professor at the
Fulton Teachers College, ArizonaState University. For more
information about our guest,stay tuned to the end of this
episode.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink. And join me your host

(01:55):
Lindsay Persohn. For classroomcaffeine research to energize
your teaching practice. Karen,thank you for joining me.
Welcome to the show.

Karen Harris (02:06):
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.

Lindsay Persohn (02:09):
So from your own experiences in education,
will you share with us one ortwo moments that inform your
thinking now?

Karen Harris (02:16):
Absolutely. I had my first experience in education
as a tutor in high school. I hada wonderful teacher in high
school, I've moved about everythree years, I hit this high
school that was progressive, andit was college oriented. And
before that, I really didn'tknow what I wanted to do. And I
got involved in this tutoringprogram. We were tutoring

(02:40):
elementary grade children whohad moved into inner city
Chicago in at that time, whatwas a very low income area, and
primarily Appalachian families.
So they were coming from themines, West Virginia and other
places. And working with thatyoung girl and learning from
this professor opened my eyes tothe lack of equity in this

(03:01):
country and to the impact ofpoverty on children. That young
girl I tutored happened to bewhite. But there were children
of various races living in thisarea. And it was a uniform
impact across children that washighly negative. So I understand

(03:22):
and I and I know that in thiscountry, far more children
proportionately live in povertywho are children of color. But
what I saw was the levelingeffect of poverty in general.
And my heart went out to thesefamilies, I visited the child's
home. Her parents were caringand deeply wanted her to do

(03:46):
well. But there were eight ornine people living in a one
bedroom apartment difficult forher parents to help her with her
schoolwork because she wasgetting into things by middle
elementary school that theyweren't able to help her with.
And just that whole big scenarioof what goes on. In fact, maybe
one of the most illuminatingexperiences from that was my

(04:09):
best friend and I invited ourlittle girls for a sleepover.
And we drove out of the cityinto what was then country now
it's all city in that area, butthe girls immediately became
anxious and disoriented. Welearned later that they had not

(04:30):
been more than four or fiveblocks away from their own homes
and their school. And then theysaw cattle and fields and we
stopped to eat and we thought itwould be fun for them. We went
to a restaurant where you threwpeanut shells on the ground and
it was just a fun place but theywere totally overwhelmed with

(04:52):
the whole thing. And they orderhamburgers, but they came with
grill marks on and they hadn'tseen that before and they didn't
want to eat. And then we didn'teven make it to our, our houses
for the sleepover our homes,they wanted to go. And so we
took and to understand that bythird or fourth grade to have

(05:15):
your life impacted sonegatively, and so strongly by
that lack of experience that somany of us take these
experiences for granted, goingto zoos going on vacation things
that these, these girls hadnever done. And I ended up
choosing to teach my firstteaching placement was in West
Virginia, in a coal miningcommunity, because I wanted to

(05:38):
continue working with to facethese challenges. And I learned
a lot more from my fourthgraders that year. So those are
two things that have stayed withme throughout my entire career
and have pretty much affectedeverything I've done.

Lindsay Persohn (05:56):
Karen, your story reminds me of how many
assumptions we tend to bring tolife in general, but certainly
to teaching situations, it mademe think about, you know, in my
positionality, in CentralFlorida, we tend to think that
every kid knows aboutDisneyworld and the beach. But
it's just not the case. Youknow, when you live 45 minutes

(06:18):
from the coast, that doesn'tmean that every kid has been
there. And so just youmentioning that the children you
worked with hadn't been morethan four or five blocks from
home. It really does reframeexperiences all together, and
what we might think we knowabout people and their
interests, their experiences,their relationship with the

(06:40):
world around them. And yeah, Ithink it's so important for us
as teachers to first learn aboutkids and who they are, and where
they come from, and what theylike and what they don't like,
and you know what they'veexperienced so that we can
relate with them better, right,and then provide opportunities
that make sense to them. So Ireally appreciate you sharing

(07:02):
that with us.

Karen Harris (07:03):
Well, I fell into that assumption that if you live
near the ocean, you must havebeen to the beach, both in my
team and I our work in Florida,and our work just recently in
California in in very low incomeunderserved schools. And we use
acronyms to help childrenremember major elements of the

(07:26):
genre, people oftenmisunderstand that all we're
teaching are acronyms because wetend to say things like, Oh,
we're learning tide, or we'redoing tree, but tide is an
acronym that we use for theparts of informative writing.
And parts are only a little bityou have to learn so much more.
But the parts are prettycritical. And I kind of thought
kids would understand that atide was it rolls in, it's

(07:49):
powerful. And title, make yourwriting roll. And, and you know,
it would turned out veryquickly, we realized that some
of these kids had not seen thebeach. And we could either use a
little video to give them theconcept of what a tide was. Or
we could just kind of act itout. So they would understand.
And they'd love to do motionsand chants as well. So that all

(08:13):
worked out. But boy, again, I'mlike, I've been at this for 50
years, I should have knownbetter. So just exactly what you
said.

Lindsay Persohn (08:21):
Yeah, yeah, I think it takes those little
moments to remind us to kind ofcheck ourselves and check our
assumptions. So yeah, yeah, it'strue. It's very true. So Karen,
what do you want listeners toknow about your work?

Karen Harris (08:35):
Well, mostly, I wanted teachers and
administrators and anyone elseinterested. I also work often
with speech languagepathologists who get involved in
in the instruction in suchwonderful ways. But what I
really want them to know is thatwe now have about 200 studies of
self regulated strategydevelopment instruction for

(08:58):
writing shortened to SRSD,probably not the best name I
could have come up with, maybe Ishould have come up with
something more like grit, but itis what it is. And it took a
long time to get to that finalname. And so I'm not changing it
any further. But the mostimportant thing is that it
works. Not only does it work,but in part because teachers

(09:21):
aren't prepared to teachwriting. That's just a fact in
this country, very, very little.
In service preparation andwriting. Most teachers report
having gotten only one sessionor an hour in a course on
reading. And then theprofessional preparation they
get after graduating with theirdegree tends to be either
centered around a commercialcurriculum, or readers and

(09:44):
writers workshop, and I loveReaders and Writers Workshop,
but it is too limited to meetthe needs of a large majority of
our students. So I would like tojust start with look, this works
here. Kids move up a great dealin their capabilities, we now
have several states that arebeginning to use it even as low

(10:05):
as kindergarten, thekindergarten teachers wanted in.
So they're in, and what theycame up with the background
knowledge and the fun and thelittle plays they put on and
all, but all of it aimed at thisacademic language and
understanding of the kinds ofwriting that we do for other
people, whether it's a play andhow we want it to be fun, and

(10:25):
they just start doing sowonderfully. The younger we
start, the better most of thesechildren are in writing by
second grade, third grade,fourth grade. And if we carry it
forward, they're learning reallypowerful writing strategies and
capabilities for middle schooland high school. So if we could
get this scaled up, and in thehands of more teachers, that

(10:46):
would be so critical. And Iguess the second thing that's
really important to me toemphasize, is that SRSD is in no
way scripted, that there's ahuge faith in teachers. And it
is absolutely necessary todifferentiate SRSD instruction.
It's one of the key tenets. Yes,there are components. Yes, there

(11:09):
are six general stages ofinstruction, you need to use all
of that. But you need to breakyour classroom up into small
groups of some one on one, a lotof peer work that really helps
both the peer who's more aheadand the peer who is not quite
there was so much that teachershave to decide what and how to

(11:32):
do in their own classrooms. Thisis a tool designed for teacher
leadership. It's not designedlike a curriculum, and I
understand what writingcurriculums are up against this
commercial ones. And I havehelped with a couple of them.
And they want to do everythingas evidence based as they can.

(11:53):
But you've got three states inthis country that control
writing, curriculum andinstruction. And when they want
24 forms of writing taught infourth grade, there are 24 forms
of writing taught in fourthgrade. But we do not open a book
and say you do this today for 20minutes and this tomorrow. The
pacing is Teacher controlled,but students need to meet

(12:15):
initial criteria. As they moveforward. They meet that criteria
and they move into somethingmore complex and more
challenging. I guess one morething I'll add this is getting
to be a long answer. But it isnot a panacea. SRSD instruction
in writing is powerful, but it'sonly part of what students need

(12:38):
to learn. It has to beintegrated with evidence based
practices in handwriting,spelling, sentence construction,
and vocabulary. We just did ourfirst set of studies Yong Kim at
University of California,Irvine, and I and our team just
did our first set of studieswhere we actually put those
together, first and secondgraders learning close reading,

(13:00):
and marking up text and writingto inform. And the text is all
aligned with Next GenerationScience Standards. And that
study is now coming out. Welearned a lot about first grade,
this was an initial grant, weare fine tuning our first grade
expectations and progressionbased on teacher feedback and

(13:23):
Kid feedback. Our first graderswere amazing. Our second graders
were amazing. Everybodyimproved, everybody didn't start
at the same place andimprovement didn't always get
every child to the same place.
We were only there long enoughto teach the initial close
reading, marking up of texts,and then writing then that

(13:45):
needed to be followed by and wehave strategies for editing and
revising. And then that needs tobe followed by further
sophistication. It's, you'velearned the beginning. Where are
you going to take this now goalsetting is done for every
student. Some goals are acrossthe whole classroom. But

(14:05):
otherwise, goals aredifferentiated. And you have to
work at meeting students wherethey are, meet them where they
are. And if schools would justgive us the time. We could take
them so much further in schoolsgave us more time than normal,
but not enough time to keepgoing from there. So that is a

(14:26):
long term goal and inspirationfor me, a couple of states are
doing this. Teachers have gottentogether and created an across
grades curriculum. This is whatwill happen in kindergarten,
first grade and second grade andon through fifth and sixth grade
and my understanding is severalstates are now working on Middle
School in high school and theoutcomes in those schools. The

(14:50):
gains are so positive, but youadministrators you need to work
with your teachers and give themthe time that it takes SRSD is
also used in reading, and notjust reading for writing, but in
reading, to learn, writing inresponse to text, and so forth.
So, I'm going to be leaving aresource list that will give you

(15:13):
access to a great deal moreinformation, where the books are
how you can learn thesestrategies, that, Oh, there's
all kinds of free videos onYouTube. And so that will be
there to be to be helpful toteachers who want to go further.
And there are two companies,both of which I voluntarily
advise, I have no financialrelationship with either and

(15:36):
they'll be on the resource listSRSD online and think SRSD, and
they put up a ton of freematerials, and videos. So for
anyone who's interested, andleaves here going, Yes, I want
my kids to be able to do allthis. It was amazing to see our
second graders, and our firstgraders markup text really well.

(15:57):
So they they were learning whilethey did that, because they
could find the big idea thattopic sentence, they could find
important things people need tolearn and know, and are more
advanced second graders who wereready for it could add details
to those important things. Andthey knew how to craft a good
ending. And in the opening, theyknew how to hook a reader. Now,

(16:18):
I would love all teachers tohave access to this. We don't
sell it as a commercialcurriculum. It's not that I
would be against somehow beingable to do that. But that's not
what writing curriculumcompanies right now are looking
to invest in. We're trying togive it away for free as much as
we can. And we'll continuetrying to do that. It's not just

(16:39):
me, it's it's all the SRSDresearch community will freely
share their materials forteachers and students.

Lindsay Persohn (16:49):
That's wonderful that and thank you for
so much for that Karen, willmake sure that the resource page
is posted to your guests page onthe classroom caffeine website,
and we can link to it in yourshow notes as well. So thank
you, thank you for that. Thereare a couple of things that that
really struck me as you weretalking and I think first was
one of my own moments inteaching that may be kind of

(17:09):
stop and regroup was when Ifirst started teaching pre
service teachers, collegestudents. And after reading
their writing, I thought, whydon't I understand what they're
trying to convey to me. Andsometimes I remember thinking,
it's like, we're speaking twodifferent languages, what I've
asked for and what they submit.
And I realized in that moment,it was because those students I

(17:32):
was teaching, they were broughtup in the traditions of five
paragraph essays. And so when Iasked for anything that wasn't a
five paragraph essay, it seemedas though you know, if we
weren't to kind of unpack this,like what's going on here, they
weren't sure how to handle awriting task that was outside of

(17:53):
really that singular structure,they had been taught for a test.
And so it reminds me thatgenerationally in teaching, and
particularly, I think, for someof our newest teachers,
teaching, writing has got to bereally difficult when you don't
have writing strategiesyourself. Right, exactly. And
I'm sure that you, I know youfound some of this in your own

(18:15):
studies, which is why I'm sograteful for those professional
development resources for ourlisteners, because it's, you
know, again, you can't teachwhat you don't know. And so I
think that that's such acritical component of what we're
talking about here is that yes,for young people, for the school
age children that we areteaching, it's so important for
them to learn how to writebecause we know that writing

(18:37):
gives us power in the world, weknow that writing is a tool to
share our own voice. But whenwriting is reduced to a task for
school taught to you by someonewho also experienced writing as
a task for school, so much ofthat power is gone. Yes. Right.
And so is there anything elsethat you that you want to share
in relation to those ideasaround, you know, that kind of

(18:59):
generational impact of whatwriting looks like and how we
can work to collectively boostour efficacy in writing and
sharing our thoughts?

Karen Harris (19:10):
Oh, so much. Let me start with a couple of things
that really popped into my headas you were putting forth that
information in question. It'simportant to say for me over and
over again, that I love Writer'sWorkshop. But it's not enough.
And unfortunately, one of thethings we're not doing in this

(19:32):
country and in direct responseto your question, what do we
need to do? We need to quitpledging allegiance to some
single way of teaching writingwriters workshop, I mean, Don
graves, I started thedevelopment of SRSD in the 1980s
and Don graves was veryimportant to me, but Don graves
himself said in an interviewlater in his career, and I can

(19:56):
put the reference on theresource list for you. He was
asked him really hard questionsby this interview. And the
interviewer directly wanted toknow he thought writing was
better. And what Don said was, Isee a whole lot more writing
going on. But I don't see betterwriting. And nobody listened.

(20:17):
This is the father of the wholething. I mean, yes, Lucy
Calkins, others, but really itwas Don Graves who started it in
my opinion and just reading theliterature from the 80s.
Forward. There were otherwonderful people who took it
further to get to college tohighs, I mean, it was just
wonderful work. But what washappening, as Don said, For

(20:40):
Later in the same interview, weneed to teach other things, kids
need to be able to spell theyneed to be able to handwrite
they need to know conventions.
And we're not doing that. Andwhat happened, I think so often
happens when a movement takeshold people reimagine Writer's
Workshop in a way that wasn'tquite what was initially meant.

(21:03):
And people turn to vygotsky, somany readers, but vygotsky,
vygotsky, this is all vygotsku.
And this is what vygotsky said.
And I think, but that's vygotskyis rolling in his grave. The
truth is that vygostsky wroteabout how critical adults are in
learning. He wrote about howcritical adults were in guiding
learning. Oh, he didn't promote,stand and deliver. But the whole

(21:26):
concept of Stand and DeliverThat's so old, we have moved
away from that decades ago. Andthere are times when stand and
explain and discuss areabsolutely critical and
important. And there are timeswhen Guided Discovery and
supported scaffold of discoveryare also critically important.

(21:46):
And we we are divided up in thiscountry, into pro Writers
Workshop, anti writers workshop,and the misunderstandings and
the lack of preparation forteachers only make this worse.
So that's a first a firstresponse. My second response is
that I'm a little tired of thearguments over and this is not

(22:10):
how you intended it at all. Butin my circles, hearing
constantly about how awful thefive paragraph essay is, there's
nothing wrong with a fiveparagraph essay, it's a starting
point to be able to do thatmuch. What is wrong with this,
that's the only thing that'sexpected and the only thing you
learn, so you get the situationyou described, right? So

(22:31):
students need to learn to writefor so many purposes for for
example, Linda Mason and hercolleagues have done wonderful
work on writing in response toreading. They have done
wonderful work on writing to sumup what you've learned, but
without worrying so much about afive paragraph essay or a

(22:51):
paragraph structure even so thatyou are capturing key points for
your own learning. They've doneall kinds of wonderful work that
isn't necessarily genre based, aspecific genre, the big three,
of course, being narrative,persuasive, argumentative, and
inform, and the all of thatmatters. Now, we have kids in

(23:11):
our third and fourth grade work,who are not yet even able to do
a five paragraph essay. And isthat an inappropriate goal to
get them to understand that theintroduction doesn't just have
to be a sentence and a hook. Butit can say more, even further
engage the reader. And now thatyou can write more, let's even

(23:32):
write more. And then let'sfigure out ways to chunk this
for the reader and say moreabout each main thing we want to
get across, again in ways thatengage the reader. And those are
called paragraphs. And it's niceif you can have two or three.
And then you need a good ending.
But what about kids who areready to write seven or eight

(23:54):
paragraphs, we have one kid, weget high performing writers in
our work. And even in some ofthese lower income communities
that we're in, there are parentswho are able to help or there's
tutoring or there's an oldersibling, or these kids are have
that they just really glom on.
That's my scientific word towriting and it goes well for

(24:14):
them. And it's easier for themthan others. And we get kids who
are writing two or three pages,I'm not going to tell them to
write less. So what we do, thegoals that we set for students
are differentiated by where arethey coming out. And that means
that every student starts bywriting something for their
teacher the best they can do,but it's not going to get a

(24:36):
grade. Let me see what you cando. And it might be writing to
tell about one of the mostwonderful things that ever
happened to you is sort ofpersonal narrative, or inform or
persuade one group of kids thatwe worked with we did. They read
a lot of different texts ondifferent topics and one of them
was all the wonderful things youcan do in Orlando. of Florida.

(24:59):
And then the task was right topersuade your classmates that
your class trip should go toOrlando, Florida, we read other
things like put all aboutputting on a play. And they
wrote to their principal, whichthey actually did. And they got
to put on a play, and so forthand so on. So writing to
persuade they love writing youropinion, writing something you

(25:22):
want. This is children love thisfrom first grade, right on up to
upper elementary, we got a wholelot of kids who went home and
wrote letters to their parents,and often got something they
wanted, including a little girlwho came back to school, she'd
done it all it was it had agreat hook. And she shared it

(25:42):
with the teacher, she wanted apet. And she named the pet and
she named all the things shewould do to take care of it. And
she then went on about what shewould learn by having a pet. It
was beautifully done by theparents couldn't have that
particular pet right now. So shefelt like she had failed. And
the teacher said, Well, you needto understand and we emphasize

(26:04):
this, just because you can writeto persuade doesn't mean you're
going to persuade people all thetime. You did your best. Did you
talk to your parents about whyand then write to them again?
Anyways, it worked. And we had alittle girl who wanted to sleep
over but she had unfortunately,been asking for one that
evening. And she wrote abeautiful persuasion letter to

(26:27):
her parents. But being in thirdgrader, she wanted it tonight.
And she came back similar to theother little girl. So I failed
was didn't work. And the teachersaid, knowing this tune, she
said, by any chance. Were youasking for the sleep over
tonight? Little girl said Yeah.
And she so what do you thinkmight happen? If you asked about

(26:49):
planning asleep over in advance,and you rewrote your letter to
your parents, and she did andshe got her sleep over. And
again, she promised to beresponsible, they would go, you
know, be quiet and go into thebedroom when they were told to
they would clean up afterthemselves. It was a great
experience for her and theparents were thrilled. So there

(27:10):
is so much more students need tolearn, and that interacting with
your audience is such a big partof it. So

Lindsay Persohn (27:18):
yeah, I would agree. I think all of that is so
important also. And it also mademe think about writing for
authentic audiences and how muchpower there is in that for kids
rather than just, you know,writing to my teacher, because
it's a class assignment, youknow. And I think that these are
our big ideas that as we areplanning for writing
instruction, they have to beconsidered right, in order to

(27:40):
really get the most out of thetime that we are able to spend
on writing instruction. I wantedto get back to some other ideas
that you'd mentioned. Because Ithink that we know that the
handwriting debate was wasreally hot topic, even
politically for a while aboutkids, and handwriting. But in my
mind, that's largelymisunderstood, right, because

(28:02):
you know, handwriting is reallywriting fluency. And maybe
typing is taking some of thatplace. But I don't think, you
know, just like when e readerscame along, and everybody
predicted print books would goaway, just because we have
computers, it doesn't mean thatwe're never going to have to
write anything by hand again.
And so you know, understandingthat things like handwriting
things you mentioned spelling,right, not struggling for how do

(28:23):
I spell this word and spendingall of our cognitive energy on
how to spell a word or how toeven put down the sounds that we
hear, you know, we need to beable to communicate in more
conventional ways so that otherreaders and writers can
understand what we're saying.
Same thing for I think, sentenceconstruction, and also even for
vocabulary, word choice, right?
I think that understanding howthey fit into a broader context

(28:45):
of writing is just so criticallyimportant, because that's how I
think we get to what you weretalking about with
differentiation and, you know, atool designed for teachers to
lead, you know, we have to havea broader understanding of each
of these concepts in order toknow when to use what so to
speak, or when to take up whichideas and what sorts of skill

(29:05):
needs our students have, so thatthey are able to get what they
want out of life or to sharetheir message with the world.

Karen Harris (29:15):
Yeah, and you know, that means that teachers
and all of us together need totake more responsibility for
whether kids are learning towrite or not. So sentence
construction, for example, iscritical in good writing. But
our work from first gradethrough sixth grade has clearly

(29:35):
proven that you can do bothtogether. It is not necessary
for students to spend weeks oreven a couple of months doing
nothing but sentence writing andsentence construction. That is
not necessary. And in WritersWorkshop, has Donald graves also
said in this interview, we can'tdo it all in conference. We were

(29:58):
wrong and On, you have to takecontrol over writer's workshop
so that everyone is learning.
What we see in so much of theliterature on writer's workshop
are examples of the very bestwork that students can do. And
we don't see what's happening tothe other students. I had a
teacher flat out, tell me, if achild isn't reading and writing

(30:19):
in the school, there's somethingwrong with the child. And in
fact, I recently listened to tosoul the story, which is a whole
nother issue. I think phonics iscritically important. And as it
should be, it's it's certainlyhighlighted there and
highlighted in the reading Warsissue. But there's also a lot
more to reading than phonics asshe knows the wonderful person

(30:41):
who did that podcast, but shehad several teachers, teachers
who made the same comment thattheir years in Writers Workshop,
they would frequently say, Well,we're doing we're doing it
right, we're doing great. Sothere's something wrong with the
child? Well, we have only 27% ofour eighth and 12th graders in

(31:02):
this country, performing at aproficient level on the National
Assessment of EducationalProgress in writing, that is a
disaster. We have a crisis inwriting, we've made more
progress in reading than we havein writing. One of the problems
is too many people assume thatif you can read, you can write.

(31:23):
And that is a tremendous error.
There is so much to learning towrite. For. For listeners on the
resource list, you'll have thelink to a video that I
absolutely love. It's a shortvideo by Dr. Deborah Mckeown.
And she talks about everythingit takes to learn to write, and

(31:46):
I just use it all the time. Now,it's titled writing matters, and
you can find it on YouTube. Butit is incredibly difficult to
learn to write. And it takes allthese other skills. And we
haven't even talked about selfregulation of the writing
process, and self regulation ofme, the writer how I manage
myself. And all of this is socritical. But yet Writer's

(32:11):
Workshop allows choice and ithas all these wonderful aspects.
And teachers have owned it andhave come up with wonderful ways
to get students involved inwriting, I would never teach us
a child or an adolescent, thatI'm working in a classroom with
something they can already do.
And most classrooms have a hugethree to four year grade level

(32:32):
spread in writing, just likethey have in reading. So by
fourth grade, we've got kids whoare reading and writing at the
first and second grade level.
And we have kids in theclassrooms who are at the sixth
grade level. And that was what Ialso experienced as a fourth
grade teacher SRSD is anopportunity to say, look, I'm
going to meet every one of youwhere you are. I'm going to do

(32:55):
this in flexible ways. But Ihave really powerful things to
teach you. from third grade onour first and second graders
were such a delight, they had nonegative attitudes toward
writing, they were excited tolearn it. But from third grade
on one of the first things we doin SRSD is just a discussion in
a group in a safe place abouthow do you feel about writing?

(33:17):
What's the first thing thatcomes to mind when I say we're
going to write today are yourteacher gives you a writing
assignment and from third gradeforward? It's almost all
negative. Yes, we get a few kidswho put up their hands, like,
oh, it's gonna be fun, and Ilove to write, but the large
majority of the classroom arelike, I'm no good at this. It's

(33:39):
boring. I hate this. And I hadone student that was working
with a small group who justlooked at me and he goes, Look,
I was just born this way. Andyou are never going to be able
to teach me to write and thiswas fourth grade. And what I
said to him, and what we explainto the students is that most
people feel that writing ishard. And it is hard at times,

(34:00):
and at times it is fun. But thereason that you're having
trouble with writing isn'tbecause you were born this way.
Nobody's born a good writer orbad writer. And we say to them,
look, the reason that writing isreally hard for you right now is
that most teachers don't know alot about teaching, writing your
teachers working with us tolearn some things that work and

(34:22):
that kids are learning. And kidswho felt like you do now know
how to write, and they're ableto do it and they can enjoy
doing it, even though sometimesit's hard. In fact, some of our
kids say, as one little girlsaid in fourth grade, I wish we
could clone ourselves and justwrite all day, and the other
kids could go back to theregular classes. And we say to

(34:45):
them, if you will agree to learnthese really powerful tricks and
lower grades, we call themtricks and then we start using
the word strategies as well. Andif I work hard to teach you and
if you agree to work hard toLearn them, you will see how
your writing improves. And willyou work with us to learn these

(35:07):
powerful tricks about writing?
And you know, most kids comearound and say, yes, they will.
And then for some kids who arestill resistant, as they're
involved in small group and peerand learning, they begin to open
up to a superintendent who's onthe resource list, you can
listen to him talk about how hevisited a classroom, where

(35:30):
they're doing SRSD acrossschools and districts. And he
was so impressed because theteachers gave them a very
challenging writing test tobegin on that day. And the kids
were thinking and making notes.
And you could see that it wasdifficult for some of them, and
one of the young men who washaving difficulty, he all of a

(35:54):
sudden just raised his fist andsaid, It is better to try than
not to try at all. And thesuperintendent made a whole blog
about this experience in thisclassroom, and also the kids who
after class, came up and toldthem, I love to write now at why
didn't somebody teach us thisbefore, and he was just so moved

(36:17):
by all of that. So when studentssee that they can learn, nothing
succeeds, like success. And onceyou get them started, they want
to know more. So that is part ofwhat we do. And we, they do goal
setting, and they monitor theirprogress. And they graph when
they achieve their goals. Andit's just watching them come

(36:41):
alive to writing. And being ableto accept Yes, sometimes it's
hard. That's the way writing is.
But sometimes it's fun. And it'sreal fun when you've got too
good to be. I would say one morething, I think it's really
critical to understand SRST manyteachers today model, teachers
know that modeling helps, andmany teachers out there doing

(37:02):
good modeling. But what isn'tbeing done in most classrooms
that I visit is true selfregulation, modeling. That means
that teachers talk themselvesthrough and we don't stand and
model and kids just listen, thatdoesn't work with most students.
And when you get to large sizeclassrooms, it really isn't

(37:22):
going to work. What we do is wedo what's called collaborative
interactive modeling. They'velearned a lot about the genre,
the tricks, they're starting touse them. And the teachers
model, thinking out loud, oh,and having trouble. Okay, today,
I get to pick a topic. Oh, myGod, there's so many things. I

(37:44):
don't know what to calm down onnow. Okay, the teacher said, I
could talk to the teacher abouttopics or think about what we've
been learning or think aboutsomething that really matters to
me, okay. I can do that. Andthen she starts interacting with
class or he, what are somethings some of you are thinking
about, you might want to writeabout, and they start discussing

(38:06):
that. And then she says, okay,that helped me. I'm going to do
this idea. And then she goes,Okay, how do I get started? I
know, I have a trick for this. Iknow how to start, are very
young students learn. Pick youridea. Organize your notes,
right? And say more power is anacronym for that. There are

(38:27):
others tap to decide my topic,my audience my purpose, we
learned that one from teachersin Maryland, three decades ago.
And they learn then, okay, thatmeans I have to have an idea.
Now I need notes. Alright, howam I going to do that? Oh, I
know. I know. This, this acronymfor this kind of writing. If

(38:51):
it's stories, it's www whatequals to how it was to when you
get older, it's C space, whichis much more involved.
ideas I've mentioned for writingto inform the topic sentence the
big ideas, explanations anddetails and ending and tree for
writing to persuade is ourbeginning strategy, topic

(39:14):
sentence, at least threepowerful reasons why your, your
correct and your persuasive. Adddetails, and then have a good
ending. Those are beginningstrategies, there are strategies
that then go from there and gomuch further. So I have that.
Alright. I know how to make myown note page. So they often
start with a graphic organizer,we hand out but many teachers

(39:37):
just like, oh, no, they can.
They can make it on their ownpaper. It's gonna go straight
from there, like you own it. Youneed a graphic organizer, but if
that's what your class is readyto do, go for it. And it has
worked for them. So they learnedto make that and it's more
structured. It's not one ofthese webs where kids can get
stuck down then they don't knowwhat to do with it. What do I do
with this? So it's a bit morestructured, but it's flexible,
and they learn to Do not justfollow the outline blindly. Pow

(40:01):
IS pick your idea, organize yournotes and write and say more,
you're not stuck with youroutline. And they add, they
reorder. So then they write inall the way through, she talks
this out, but she keeps askingthem for help. Oh, I'm stuck
here. What should I say now wehave this one on video, this

(40:21):
little girl goes. Fourth grade,oh, you can say to yourself,
that this is not boring. This isfun. And it's just hysterical.
Every time I share that videowith teachers, you know, we all
start laughing. And this is alittle girl who hated writing
and said she'd never be able towrite. And you see her through
this ASCD video as sheprogresses and how excited and

(40:43):
happy she is. And she does havea learning disability. And she's
in an inclusive classroom. Butmany other students felt just
like her who did not have alearning disability. So it's all
of these pieces put togetherthat teachers need. And in
addition, we use model text.

(41:08):
Now, one of the problems that Isee in classrooms is that
there's excellent model textsread and discussed, but it's not
at students writing levels.
Okay. Excellent example. I wasin a classroom, and I love this
book, I wanna Iguana. So it wasthird grade. And they going back
over I wanna Iguana, which theyread much younger, but they were

(41:31):
choose doing great stuff with itlike, so what kind of writing is
this? And they knew this waswriting to persuade. And what do
you like in the book, and theywere finding, you know, this was
funny, or this, this was reallyimportant for the reader to know
and know, this little boy wantsan Iguana. And so after they did
all this great discussion, usingsome good vocabulary, some good

(41:54):
knowledge building, goodteacher, excellent teacher,
okay, and I want you to writeabout a pet you want. And you
know, think about what mightpersuade your parents. And she
was very good, because it'sreally misleading if students
think they're going to learn howto write to persuade, and then
get what they want. Becausethat's often what they want to
write about. And so they have tounderstand it's a discussion and

(42:16):
you're not always going to getwhat you want. But But she said,
let's give it a try. So just trythe writing it you don't
necessarily, it doesn't have tobe something that goes home. But
I'd like to see what how youcould persuade me or your
parents, that you should have acertain pet. Well, the kids were
stumped. And then all thisbehavior goes on pencil

(42:37):
sharpening, talking, all thisoff task behavior. And one of
the things we heard we hear mostoften from our teachers is my
kids know how to start. They'renot sitting there wasting time,
they're not lost. They're notengaging in behaviors that get
them in trouble, because theyknow how to start. They're not
sitting there staring at blankpaper. They start by writing out

(42:59):
their graphic organizer. Andthey they brainstorm, and we do
modeling and brainstorming, andthey help with the brainstorm
and all this. So we've createdfor instruction, writing level,
excellent models, rather thanreading books that students a
third grader can't write I wannaIguanna, but a third grader can

(43:19):
write a hook and a good openingand reasons why they should have
this pett and some details to gowith those reasons. Like, oh, I
would learn responsibility and,and details, how would you learn
that And anyways, and they get alot of inspiration from I want
to equal on it. But what theteacher found is that when she

(43:40):
entered into SRSD learning, andshe started SRSD in her
classroom, these kids now knewand understood writing to
persuade in a way that they hadnever understood it before. We
call it reading with a writer'seye, and she did a great job of
that. But then to write, youhave to master important
knowledge about that genre. Mostteachers don't even know that

(44:02):
important knowledge they need ongenres as genres over the grades
become a bit more extended, abit more challenging, and a bit
more intricate. And there's moreto them. For persuasion, we
learn to use emotion, we learnto use logic, we learn to use
ethics, or ethos, all of thesethings are important. And all of
them belong in a service SRSDinstruction, but you don't just

(44:23):
dump all of it on a kid at onetime. What we've actually found
in our writing to inform inwriting to persuade is that many
students go ahead and use themotion, even though we've never
talked about it, they'll reachout to the readers emotion, or
they'll reach out and use logic.
We do saving water is a is acommon topic that we work on.

(44:45):
And they'll make an emotionalplea even though we never
mentioned it. And then however,is this means this is a trigger
to us that we need new goals forfor kids. And it's time to start
talking about how to use thesein your writing. So we never
ignore any Part of writing,often as far as SRSD gets
misrepresented as formulaic andscripted, and there is nothing

(45:08):
further from the truth thanthat.

Lindsay Persohn (45:12):
Well, I think what really strikes me is that
it seems SRSD makes writingtangible. And I think that's one
of the hardest things aboutwriting is that we're actually
talking about ideas, ideas thatlive inside someone's head ideas
that we cannot see. And I alwaysthink about the writing process
as sort of taking this web ofideas, it's inside of our head,

(45:34):
and then having to turn thatinto something linear, that
makes sense to somebody else.
And it is complex. But I thinkthat the acronyms you're sharing
with us, the structures, thestrategies that you're sharing,
really do help to make thatinvisible process much more
tangible and much more visible,even talking through a think
aloud, right, where we aremaking our thoughts tangible to

(45:56):
someone outside of ourselves.
And I think that that's, it'sjust critical to successfully
sharing ideas with others. Andparticularly, you know, I do
think writing is hard. I mean,even you know, for me, now, I
find writing to be tremendouslydifficult. And it requires
extensive revision, and, youknow, lots of planning and lots

(46:18):
of research to, you know, toknow what kinds of details you
want to include and what youwant to say. But like I said,
without making those ideas andthose processes, explicit,
without expressing what thatlooks like, it really is just
this mystical kind of process, Ithink, for kids. Yeah. And thank
you for that.

Karen Harris (46:37):
You're welcome.
And I think, in addition, it'sso important to model feelings,
the good feelings that you have,while you're writing the bad
feelings that you have, like,I'm stuck, I don't know what to
do here. And then she, theteacher, she or he will have the
class help them get throughthat. They'll model being stuck
fell model. I don't know whatword to use here. But then the

(46:58):
students help them. So it's veryinteractive and collaborative.
And then peers plan and writetogether and give each other
feedback and help each otherout. There's all kinds of peer
activities that we do in SRSD.
And many of those are up to theteacher. In addition, it's so
important that people understandthat SRSD isn't just about the

(47:19):
parts of the genre, and thelanguage and the knowledge that
comes with parts. We teach somuch more. So even at the
youngest grades, we have goalsbeyond the parts and our kids
use we use rockets, ice cream,cones, whatever. And yes,
they'll know if they have alltheir parts, and they'll be
proud of that. But in addition,we have stars and all this other

(47:40):
stuff that they can color in ormark off for great vocabulary
choices. Unusual attention,getting linking words, setting
the topic clearly. But thenusing a hook that gets that
reader even more involved. And atopic sentence and a hook can
take more than two sentences.
What about a little story? Thisis a great technique. Okay, so

(48:02):
kids are riding on schooluniform. So can you do you have
a little story about a schooluniform? Did you ever have to
wear one? Do you know someonewho wore one? What was it like
for them? And they just theybegin to learn these other
tricks that good writers use.
I'm so many teachers have neverbeen introduced to what these

(48:23):
are. And there's a wonderfulbook. Oh, I'm blanking on the
title, I'll put it on theresources. There are wonderful
materials out there that canhelp teachers learn about genre.
This is part of why so manyteachers do turn to Writer's
Workshop, they're seeing whatwhat they've been doing isn't
working. But if they can open upa genre or writing test to kids,

(48:44):
so they understand it, give themownership over it. And they're
hopeful that the students willwill go further with that. And
that works for some students.
You know, I swear there arekids. When I taught
kindergarten, when I taughtfourth grade, I swear there were
kids, I could have stood in acorner on my head. And they
would have gone right onlearning. I mean, if it wasn't
hard for them, and it wasn'thard for me. But there were also

(49:06):
so many kids in my mykindergarten in my in my fourth
graders who weren't thriving inthe classroom. And I think when
we think about social equity andwhat writing means, and getting
jobs, and succeeding in goinginto higher education, or going
into community college, goinginto training in crafts or

(49:29):
occupations, writing is soimportant at a police officer in
one classroom. He asked the kidshow they felt about writing and
the kids were like, yeah, and hesaid, Well, look, if you want to
be a police person, you willhave to write every day. In he
said, I have used my gun onlyonce or twice in my entire time

(49:52):
as an officer, but I have towrite every single day and it
was like these kids were likeTaken aback, and we need to
think about this if we wantequity, if we want all children
to thrive, then we need to teachall children where they are. And
that's what SRSD does. And whenwe teach all children where they

(50:13):
are, and when children arethriving and learning, we are
part of creating equity. And wehave to look at Writers
Workshop, the research on it,yes, it gets effects. They're
very small, even on the NationalWriting Project, the best
writers, workshop materials andarticles and so forth that I've

(50:35):
seen and how they coordinatedacross schools and what they do
with writers workshop, it's soimpressive. But their effect
sizes are small, they're .2 .3effect sizes for SRSD. And some
people don't believe this tillthey see the research. But they
range from about .70, whichmeans the classroom is moving
forward, a very good distance toover to one point something is

(50:58):
unusual. But there's two reasonsfor that one, they're not
getting taught well about how towrite. And two, it is a powerful
method of learning. And ifteachers could say I can embrace
SRSD, and I don't have to giveup other stuff that's working
for me in writing, that it's soimportant that they understand

(51:19):
that we're not asking you togive up stuff that's working my
technical language stuff, we'renot asking you to give that up,
we're asking you to integrateit. And SRSD doesn't take place
all year, how long it takesplace. And when it takes place?
Well, it needs to take placelong enough that every kid gets
to the all the initialcriterion, and some kids will

(51:40):
get far ahead. But then otherthings need to happen. And then
they need to be integrated inwhat they've learned. And it it
takes teacher control teacherplanning. Right now there is no
grade by grade curriculum thatintegrates us SRSD into the rest
of what kids need to learn,except in a few places, like
parts of Tennessee, on the eastcoast, Massachusetts, Rhode

(52:03):
Island, where the teachers aremaking that happen. And it's a
challenge. It's a big challengeto teachers, but I know that our
teachers are up to it.

Lindsay Persohn (52:13):
Well, I thank you for that. And you may have
actually just answered my lastquestion for you today. Given
the challenges of today'seducational climate, what
message do you want teachers tohear

Karen Harris (52:25):
that we can make a difference, that we can't do it
alone, that as I've writtenabout the social equity issues
we live in, live with. They arecomplex. And in fact, I believe
in complexity science, whichteaches us that there are so

(52:46):
many intertwined factors goingon that create what we have
today in teaching and learning.
And that in order to make a bigdifference, we're going to have
to come together around thesethings. We're not going to make
a big difference alone, but wecan make a meaningful difference
in our classroom for our kids.

(53:06):
Teachers need to know in theirhearts and believe and
understand that they matter.
Despite what our culturesometimes tells us about schools
and teachers, they know thatwhen they see children learn,
they know it when they seechildren have joy in school,
because they can do somethingnew. They need to also know and
understand this is not all onthem. That until we come

(53:27):
together as a nation, until weare willing to spend what it
takes so that every child gets aquality education until we are
willing to invest in theirparents, their families in their
communities, until we take areally strong position that all
families should thrive and allchildren should thrive. Teachers

(53:50):
are doing everything they canand they are making a
difference. And many childrenare thriving, who would not have
without them. But it's not onthem alone.

Lindsay Persohn (54:01):
What an absolutely critical message and
I could not agree more. SoKaren, I thank you so much for
sharing your ideas today. Ithank you for your time, and I
thank you for your tremendouscontributions to the world of
education.

Karen Harris (54:15):
Oh, you're so kind. Thank you very much. I so
appreciate this opportunity.
Thank

Lindsay Persohn (54:20):
you. Dr. Karen R. Harris is best known for
developing the self regulatedstrategy development or SRSD
model of strategies instruction.
Her research, which hasprimarily been conducted in
underserved schools focuses oneffective instruction for
complex learning areas. Karenhas conducted research on the SR
SD model of instruction forlearning to write, as well as

(54:43):
close reading to learn followedby writing to inform or persuade
among students in inclusiveclassrooms. self regulated
strategy development has beendeemed an evidence based
practice by the Institute ofEducation Sciences, what works
Hearing house and there are nowover 200 studies of SRSD for
writing across severalcountries. Her current research

(55:05):
focuses on refinement of SRSD.
Practice based professionaldevelopment for SRSD. Validating
needed writing interventions,development of further writing
and reading strategies toaddress close reading and
writing to learn across thegrades. Technology supported
SRSD instruction, andintegrating SRSD instruction

(55:29):
with evidence based practices inhandwriting spelling, sentence
construction and vocabulary infirst and second grades. Dr.
Harris has led effectiveprofessional development in SRST
with both special and generaleducation teachers. Over 20
studies of professionaldevelopment on SRSD have been
conducted for writing forteachers most by independent

(55:51):
researchers, with all findingstrong effects on students
writing after ProfessionalDevelopment. Dr. Harris is a
former editor of the Journal ofEducational Psychology, and
associate editor of exceptionalchildren and a former senior
editor of the AmericanPsychological Association
educational psychology handbook.
She has served as president ofthe Division of Research for the

(56:13):
Council of exceptional children,and as president of division 15.
That's educational psychology ofthe American Psychological
Association, as well as in manyother leadership positions. She
is the author of over 200 peerreviewed publications, and she
contributes a leading researchand practice journals in general
education, special education,learning and teaching. Before

(56:35):
earning her doctoral degree. Shetaught fourth grade students in
a coal mining community and thenstudents receiving special
education services. Dr. KarenHarris is Regents Professor
Emeritus and research professorat the Fulton Teachers College
Arizona State University. Forthe good of all students
classroom caffeine aims toenergize education research and

(56:57):
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(57:20):
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(57:43):
hear from you. As always, Iraised my mug to you teachers.
Thanks for joining me