Developing quick writing skills of middle school students with disabilities

Two multiple-baseline, across-participants design studies were used to examine persuasive quick write (10-minute writing responses) performance of seventh-grade students with disabilities. In the first study, 6 students were taught by a graduate research assistant; in the second study, 10 students were taught by their special education teacher. In both studies, students' written responses were evaluated before, during, and after self-regulated strategy development instruction for the POW + TREE planning strategy (POW: pick my idea, organize my notes, write and say more; TREE: topic sentence, reasons-three or more, explain, ending). All study participants improved in the number of persuasive parts included and the quality of the written response immediately after and weeks following instruction.