TEACHING EXPRESSIVE WRITING TO

HEARING-IMPAIRED STUDENTS

JOHN L. LUCKNER
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, IL
STEPHEN L. ISAACSON
WesternOregon State College
Monmouth, OR

Many hearing-impaired students have great difficulty communicating effectively and

sharing ideas using written language. The traditional approach of assigning writing
correcting the errors, returning the paper, and expecting improvement is still widely
practiced today. In contrast, this paper presents a model for teaching written language
to hearing-impaired students that emphasizes a high degree of student involvement,
with specific attention given to planning revising and rewriting as well as transcribing.
Recommendations also are made regarding direct instruction in necessary writing skills.

Writing and the Hearing-Impaired

Many hearing-impaired students have difficulty transmitting their thoughts in
a logical, orderly, or presentable fashion when required to write. Studies of the

written language ability of hearing-impaired students (Ivimey & Lachterman,

1980; Kretschmer & Kretschmer, 1978; Russell, Quigley & Power, 1976; Yoshinaga-
Itano & Snyder, 1985) indicate that they have limited success in mastering the
immensely complex process of writing. Johnson and Kadunc (1980) reported
that the written language generated by the average hearing-impaired high school
student was found to be approximately 60 ~/o intelligible. Similar data obtained
from hearing-impaired students entering college indicated that approximately
70% of their written language was intelligible (Crandall & Albertini, 1980). These
data suggest that a reader will encounter significant difficulty in comprehending
the written communication of many hearing-impaired students.
The importance of written language skills is emphasized by hearing-impaired
persons themselves. Hearing-impaired adults rank English language training as
a high priority and consider improvement of written language skills critical for

success (Costello, 1977; Donnels, 1976). Developing functional writing skills is

essential for future job-related communication, personal telecommunication with

other hearing-impaired individuals, and written communication with the hearing
world in situations in which signing or speech will not be understood. Hearing-

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impaired individuals must compete for jobs in a market that continues to em-
phasize and require exchange of information. The use of word processors and
telecommunication equipment is now pervasive in every kind of business or profes-
sion. Writing skills are important for skillful use of telecommunication devices
through which hearing-impaired persons correspond with each other (Geoffrion,
1982). In addition, there are many situations in which business or personal trans-
actions with the hearing world could be facilitated through written language.
Effectively communicating with hearing persons who do not sign or cannot un-
derstand a hearing-impaired person’s speech requires that a hearing-impaired
individual write intelligibly.

Instructional Problems
Development of good writing skills requires good instruction. However, three
problems exist in how we currently teach written language to hearing-impaired
students. First, many teachers do not introduce writing early enough (Conway,
1985). The hierarchy of language skills proposed by Myklebust (1965), in which
written expression follows its receptive counterpart, reading, is no longer consid-
ered accurate. Development of literacy does not necessarily follow in that order.
Children often write before they attempt to read (Chomsky, 1976; Graves, 1983),
and learning to write can facilitate understanding of language in its written form.
Therefore, teachers should devote sufficient time for writing, beginning in the
early school years.
Second, many teachers lack a theoretical model for assessing writing and plan-
ning a written language curriculum. Teachers often do not assess or teach skills
related to all the aspects of the written product (Isaacson & Luckner, 1988). In
addition, a complete model of written language should focus on the process of
writing as well as the resulting product. The complex, recursive process involves
generating, organizing and reorganizing ideas, transcribing thoughts into words,
and reviewing and revising those written expressions. Special attention must be
given to the cognitive activities the writer engages in while composing. Throughout
the composition process the teacher’s job is to help students in the many thinking,
selecting, and organizing tasks required.
Third, many educators do not use teaching approaches which make writing
a successful and meaningful experience for hearing-impaired students. In the

traditional approach of the past the teacher assigned, corrected, and graded stu-
dent writing, paying particular attention to surface errors (grammar, spelling,
and punctuation). Instruction usually centered on skills related to surface fea-
tures of the writing. Teachers assumed that students would learn to write from
feedback on errors. These traditional methods have not achieved the desired goal
of improving students’ writing skills (Kretschmer & Kretschmer, 1986). A com-
parison of recent research on writing skills with early samples of student writing
(Thompson, 1936) reveals that there has been no general improvement in written

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language skills among hearing-impaired students (Quigley & Paul, 1984). Clearly,
a new instructional focus and new approaches are needed.

The purpose of this paper is to present three teaching responsibilities which

are especially important in providing writing instruction to hearing-impaired

students. The responsibilities correspond to the three instructional problems dis-

cussed above. The three teaching responsibilities are: (a) allocating sufficient time
for writing, (b) following a model of written language that incorporates both
product and process factors, and (c) using teaching practices that promote
meaningful, successful experiences.

TEACHING STRA TEG IESjRESPONSIBILITIES

Allocating Sufficient Time
Educators tend to give insufficient attention to writing in the curriculum (Moores,
1987). Writers need regular chunks of time: to compare, time to think, write,
confer, and write again. Students need to know they will have specific time to
behave as writers and do what writers do: write. Research on effective teaching
practices (Englert, 1984; Rosenshine, 1983) has revealed the primary importance
of student engaged time in increasing pupil achievement. Crandall (1978) reported
that the number of instructional hours per week devoted to writing was found
to be significantly related to the rate of written language development in hearing-

impaired students. Graves (1985) has stated that students need to write for 30
minute periods a minimum of four days per week to see any appreciable change
in the quality of their writing. For young students, Ewoldt (1985) recommends
that a period of approximately 15 minutes be set aside every day for students
to be involved in writing.

Following a Model of Written Expression

The National Council of Teachers of English defined writing as &dquo;the process of
selecting, combining, arranging and developing ideas in effective sentences, para-
graphs, and, often, longer units of discourse&dquo; (U.S. Department of Health, Edu-
cation, & Welfare, 1979, p. 12). A model of writing instruction, therefore, should
take into account the process (&dquo;selecting, combining, arranging, and developing
ideas&dquo;) as well as the product dimensions of written language (&dquo;sentences, para-
graphs, and ... longer units&dquo;).
When different theories of written language are compared side by side (Isaacson,
1984), five product components seem to emerge: fluency- the amount written
(as a reflection of the number of ideas generated and the degree to which they
are appropriately elaborated in the composition); syntax-complexity of the sen-

tences ; vocabulary- degree of sophistication in the student’s choice of words;

content - originality of ideas, organization of thought, maturity of style; and
conventions - the mechanical aspects, such as margins, verb endings, spelling,

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and punctuation that teachers expect students to use. Attention to each of those
factors is necessary in order to produce an acceptable written composition. They
can be developed through short periods of skill instruction in addition to longer

periods of actual composition.

Writing is also a multistage process. Many cognitive decisions are needed to
generate these products. It is not possible for most good writers to generate a
perfect product on the first draft. Writers need to plan, execute (transcribing their
thoughts into graphic .form), review what they have written, replan, reexecute,
and finally edit their products to make the final draft. Figure 1 is a conceptual
model for teaching expressive written language to hearing-impaired students that
integrates both the writing process and product.
Using Validated Taching Practices
In the last 15 to 20 years, a growing body of research on writing instruction has

Figure 1. A Model for Taching Expressive Writing to Hearing-Impaired Children

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revealed several teaching practices related to improvements in student composi-
tion skills (Hillocks, 1984; Graham & Harris, 1988; Graves, 1983). Teaching prac-
tices that are important to the writing success of hearing-impaired students in-
clude providing input, setting appropriate tasks, teaching the process, and
preserving and publishing the products (Isaacson & Luckner, 1988; Wray, Hazlett
& Flexer, 1988).
Providing Input
The teacher first should initiate the writing process by providing input experiences
which inspire a purpose for writing. Input includes experiences such as trips,
stories, discussions, as well as obtaining visual stimuli which assist the student
in developing an interest in a topic. A strong relationship exists between the quan-
tity of input experiences and the quality of output in the form of writing (Lerner,
1985). Personal familiarity with a topic is an important factor in eliciting lan-
guage from hearing-impaired students (Gormley, 1981). Writers with very little
knowledge about a topic tend to produce descriptive sequences that lack logical
coherence (Quigley & Paul, 1984; Stein, 1983). A degree of familiarity through
experience is necessary to have the desire to communicate about the topic (Manson,
1982). Shared experiences, ideas, feelings, and attitudes are an important aspect
of the writing process. Because most hearing-impaired students have great difficulty
with English grammar, teachers should help students find their &dquo;voice&dquo; by providing
experiences, real and vicarious, accompanied by discussion. Composition topics
which inspire interest and stimulate thinking can be found in books such as those
by Carlson (1970) and Petty and Bowen (1967).
Setting Appropriate Tasks
The teacher’s first function in setting appropriate tasks is assessment. The stu-
dent’s interest in writing is increased through an accurate assessment of the students’
current level of functioning and the provision of tasks geared to the students’

present skill level. Short assignments are extremely important when students are
first beginning to write. Lengthy tasks which require complex organization, in-
tense concentration, and inordinate amounts of time may inadvertently create
an association in the child’s mind between writing and frustration, and the stu-

dent soon looses interest.

A related teaching challenge is ensuring that writing is personally relevant
for the student. Relevance can be appreciated in two ways: by having a personal
interest in the topic and by seeing the functional usefulness of the product. First,
students will be motivated to write when the topics they write about are per-
sonally important to them, reflecting their own experiences and feelings. Self-
selection of topics contributes to the child’s sense of ownership of the writing
(Rhodes & Dudley-Marling, 1988). From this sense of ownership can come a
greater motivation to express ideas effectively, which is very different than the
motivation that drives students to finish the writing assignment as quickly as

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possible. Therefore, assisting students in identifying their personal interests in
order to structure a writing program that capitalizes on these interests makes
good pedagogical sense.
However, a student cannot work on one kind of writing to the detriment of
the cognitive skills acquired through development of other modes and topics.
Teachers in the content area (e.g., science, social studies, English) assign specific
topics, state competency exams require specific text structures (e.g., persuasive,
compare/contrast), and employers expect specific writing skills (Algozzine, O’Shea,
Stoddard, & Crews, 1988). Therefore, teachers must turn to the second means
of establishing relevance: helping the student to see the functional usefulness of
the writing task. Discussing the importance of the writing task at the beginning
of the lesson, describing situations in which the skill will be used, and practicing
the skill in communicative contexts are ways in which the teacher can reinforce
the relevance of the writing task.
Concomitantly, it is important to ensure an appropriate climate for writing.
The primary quality of a positive learning environment is a warm and suppor-
tive atmosphere. It is in a supportive milieu that students can afford to take risks,
experiment with ideas and materials, and even make mistakes (Lickteig, 1981).
The teacher’s role must be characterized by an open and encouraging attitude
rather than a rigid and demanding demeanor. Student motivation can be devel-
oped by showing respect for student expression, by establishing a real purpose
to writing, by endowing writing with a special sense of importance and enjoy-
ment. This is particularly relevant to hearing-impaired students because positive
attitudes are crucial to writing improvement. Regrettably, many students do not
enjoy writing and may experience high levels of anxiety when writing is required.
When students are worried about correctness their writing becomes boring, stilted
and safe. If they think that the teacher is only concerned with correctness they
quickly become self-conscious and begin to worry about their spelling, neatness,
and correctness rather than what they want to say.

Teaching the Writing Process

All educators agree that writing is an immensely complex problem. To produce
a successful composition, a writer must decide what to say about a subject as

well as arrange the information in an acceptable format. The demands of this

procedure are frequently overwhelming for many hearing-impaired students. Un-
like hearing students who learn to read and write in a language that they have
already mastered, hearing-impaired students must learn to read and write in a
language that is unfamiliar to them regardless of whether they have been ex-
posed to signed forms of English (Akamatsu & Yelon, 1987).
Gormley (1981), Truax (1985), and Wray, Hazlett, and Flexer (1988) reported
using writing methods that encouraged hearing-impaired students to learn the
process of writing rather than only focusing on perfecting the product. They in-

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dicated that students using the writing process improved the quality of their writing
as well as increased their motivation to write.

Two important functions in teaching composition are modeling the process

and providing feedback on the product. The process that is modeled should begin
with the planning stage. Then the teacher should demonstrate the translation
of idea material, outlines, or patterned notes into acceptable written sentences.
One of the most important roles of the teacher is to teach students self-regulatory
procedures that will assist them in managing the many interrelated skills. The
teacher models self-instructions by &dquo;thinking aloud&dquo; while performing the task.
Graham and Harris (1988) even recommend that the model’s script be worked
out in advance and matched to the student’s language ability.
Collaborative writing allows the teacher to model the process to a beginning
writer while allowing the student to claim ownership of the content (Hennings
& Grant, 1981; Isaacson, 1987). Collaboration restructures the writing process,
transforming it from an individual activity into a shared, cooperative experience
(Johnson, 1988). Once the process is learned, collaboration can occur with other
students. In peer collaboration, students become co-authors of a shared product.
When students share the task of planning, composing and revising a piece of
writing, they see how other students use the writing strategies presented in class.
In this way students model the writing process for one another. The process en-
courages students to communicate about writing itself as well as about the sub-
ject that they are writing about. Students are able to share ideas and problems
and work toward a mutually satisfying product.
Specific teaching practices that enhance the composition throughout the plan-
ning, transcribing, and revising stages can be identified. In each phase of the
process the teacher models strategies, provides assistance when required, and
gives feedback.
Planning. Preparing to write is an essential factor in helping students make
decisions about content. Prewriting discussion can bring to the students’ con-
sciousness words and phrases necessary to shaping ideas and their expression
(Marcus, 1977). Taking time to plan allows writers to form an internal represen-
tation of the knowledge that will be shared through their writing.
4
Planning involves a number of subprocesses. The first is generating content1
ideas. The biggest challenge for young writers typically is finding enough things
to write about (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1986). The teacher can help by providing

thinking time and suggesting ways to generate ideas before the pencil touches
paper. Planning assistance includes discussing the subject, allowing students to
brainstorm with peers, or leading a role playing activity. Graves (1983) recom-
mended a series of short (three minute) conferences in which a student chooses
his own topic. In the topic conference the teacher asks open-ended questions about
the writer’s ideas and experiences. The first two or three conferences may not
result in any writing, but only give the student confidence that he or she has
ideas worth writing about.

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 Atwell (1985) suggested another technique. Students, working in pairs, sit si-
lently for three minutes, thinking about topics. During this time they purpose-
fully propose topic ideas, then reject topics that are too broad. In some cases
they may not care enough about the subject to want to write about it. Then,
they describe to their partner the ideas that came to mind. After three minutes
students change roles, and the other student shares his ideas. Finally, the group
is brought back together, and the teacher asks for volunteers to quickly describe
the topics that they discovered.
The act of goal setting is another important part of the planning process. Com-
position goals will guide the writers in rhetorical decisions. Goal setting is ad-
dressed in two ways. First, it involves procedurally helping the writer plan the
steps that are going to be followed throughout the writing task. Second, there
is a product goal that focuses attention on the audience that the product is geared
toward, the communicative purpose (to inform, to amuse, etc.), the length of
the product, and the timeline for its completion. This is useful for hearing-impaired
students because the process of planning provides direction and helps reduce
the number of cognitive demands inherent in the act of writing.
Helping the writer with the third planning subprocess, organizing ideas, means
teaching the student a simple text structure within which to best share the con-
tent ideas. Use of an outline, content map, or patterned notes are techniques
that can be helpful for this process (Alley & Deshler, 1979; Tompkins & Friend,
1986) and for assistance with the specific difficulties that writing presents for the
hearing-impaired student.
Transcribing. Students learn to write by writing. However, the act of writing,
in and of itself, does not necessarily improve writing quality (Dagenais & Beadle,
1984). Beginning writers need feedback which allows them to evaluate their success
in communicating their ideas. Careful development of a limited number of papers
under teacher guidance is better than independent production of many frequent
compositions (Glatthorn, 1981).
Helpful feedback comes during, as well as after, the composing. Teachers can
circulate among writers, looking over shoulders, asking questions, recommending
changes, and conducting brief impromptu conferences. Robinson (1984) found
probing-asking the student six to seven additional questions about the passage
being written - to significantly improve the quality of written expository texts.
Responses can come from the writer’s peers, as well. Teaching students how to
respond to another’s writing in progress is important (Perl, 1983). In her own
responses, the teacher must consistently model thoughtful, appropriate restate-
ments and questions that help writers reflect on and rethink the content of their

writing.
Reviewing/revising. The teacher also should model reviewing and revising strate-
gies. The ability to monitor one’s performance in writing is critical to good per-
formance. Recent research (Gormley & Sarachan-Deily, 1987) indicates that
hearing-impaired writers in general, do not make revisions in their writing. The

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importance of reviewing and editing may not be apparent because of an em-
phasis on task completion. In other instances, students may associate editing
with failure (it has to be redone because it was inadequate). This perception may
be a result of overcorrection on previous writing assignments.
To develop a positive concept of revision, students must be taught a specific
routine to follow in reviewing their own written work samples. Revision can occur
any time a writer chooses to change his or her text and frequently leads to new
cycles of planning and composing. Because students are least experienced and
comfortable with revision, they need more help with this skill than with other
phases of the composing process.
The entire proofreading process may be too involved for beginning writers
to tackle at one time. Although complete evaluation would require consideration
of all aspects, the task can be made simpler by focusing the student’s search on
one category of error at a time (Hull, 1987). One or two errors should be selected

for a given assignment until students refine both their writing and editing skills.
For beginning readers a review strategy may consist of rereading the sentence
to check for omissions and verify correct word usage. Later the student will look
for possible spelling and punctuation errors. More advanced writers may focus
systematically on all five aspects of the written product.
Peer evaluation also can be used to promote reviewing and evaluation skills
(Gere, 1987). There are many ways to structure peer evaluation. For example,
students can take turns reading their drafts to a small group of peers. Or they
may exchange papers with a partner and complete the evaluation for homework.
The teacher should establish a structure in which peers first give compliments
about the composition focusing on specific strengths. After a round of positive
compliments, the group can ask questions about things that were unclear to them
and make suggestions about how to revise the composition. Writers also can identify
trouble spots and ask the group for assistance. With peer evaluation, students
write for a real audience, and their work receives more immediate, concentrated,
and energetic feedback than an individual teacher can provide.
It is at this point in the writing process where careful application of another
important teaching function, feedback, is critical. To improve students’ perspec-
tive of writing, teachers have to change their roles from that of graders looking
for deficiencies to working editors responding to drafts in progress. The tradi-
tional practice of marking every error on a student’s paper often does more harm
than good (Graham & Harris, 1988). It is discouraging to the student and it pro-
vides too much for the student to deal with at one time.
A more effective practice is selective feedback. The teacher should provide
correction only for one or two specific aspects of the composition that have been
taught, practiced, and thoroughly reviewed (Isaacson & Luckner, 1988). For ex-
ample, if the student’s primary objective is to increase fluency, reinforce the stu-
dent for increasing the length of compositions and avoid marking in red pencil
the spelling and punctuation errors. If the objective is creating a topic sentence

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and two related sentences do not point out deficiencies in the student’s choice
of vocabulary. The teacher may scribble reactions, questions, and suggestions,
and it is always important to praise generously for descriptions, ideas, or humor
expressed. When papers are returned to students, the teacher should discuss the
targeted problems and reteach those items in which the student is deficient.
Preserving and Publishing
Providing an audience for an author’s work transforms writing from a meaning-
less exercise to a purposeful activity (Truax, 1985). Writing to an identifiable
reader reinforces the function of language as a mode of communication. The
work a student invests in first attempts, revisions, and a final product deserves
an outlet and recognition that goes beyond a grade from a teacher. Recognition

by readers can come when the teacher submits compositions to the school paper
for publication, posts them on a bulletin board, or includes them in booklets for
all class members to read. Sending student compositions to a local newspaper,
giving them to students in lower grades to read and discuss, sending them home
for parents to read, or producing a class literary magazine, are other ways to
reinforce students for their writing.
Another valuable practice is to keep a folder of each student’s writing including
drafts and revisions (Graves, 1983). Inside the folder students should record the
nature of the writing task, the dates it was undertaken and completed, comments
by peers and the teacher about weaknesses to be addressed and strengths to be
maintained.

Teaching Skills Related to the Product

Although insufficient as the only mode of instruction, skill building activities
can be effective way of building useful writing skills when used judiciously
an

in conjunction with process oriented instruction. Scardamalia and Bereiter (1986)

discussed the role of short, purposeful, game-like activities as a supplement to
process oriented writing assignments. Roit and McKenzie (1985) advocated the
development of parallel skills concept development pertaining to the process
-

of writing and basic writing skills necessary for an acceptable product - taught
concurrently rather than sequentially. As stated earlier, the five product compo-
nents are fluency, syntax, vocabulary, content and conventions. The following

approaches focus on each of the five product features.

Fluency. The first goal for the teacher of hearing-impaired children is fluency,
getting students to write simple declarative sentences and elaborate their thoughts
into compositions of gradually increasing length. Beginning fluency also develops
as children write simple messages to each other and the teacher, reinforcing the

communicative function of writing. In addition, teachers should try to make writing

a natural part of the curriculum. Students can record the growth of animals or

plants, label pictures or science specimens. They can write letters to principals,

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the cafeteria staff or community resources. The main point is to encourage stu-
dents to write. The importance and effectiveness of functional writing for hearing-
impaired students has been argued by Ewoldt (1985) who noted that &dquo;forcing
children to do irrelevant tasks can kill their enthusiasm for writing&dquo; (p, 120).
To encourage fluency many teachers recommend &dquo;free writing&dquo;, a technique
in which a writer sets down the words, phrases, and sentences suggested by a
topic in a continuous stream, uninterrupted by attention to mechanical or gram-
matical concerns (Alvarez, 1983). Dialogue journals also have been a popular
instructional tool (Staton, 1985). The teacher has the student write for a desig-
nated length of time or a designated number of pages without teacher evalua-
tion. The student selects the topic, which can range from simple copying exer-
cises to areas of student interest or concern in various forms of creative expression.
The teacher does not comment on grammar, spelling, or other academic aspects
of the student’s but responds only to the content of the message itself. The teacher
collects the journals and responds in writing on a daily basis (Bailes, Searls, Slobod-
zian, & Staton, 1986).
Syntax. Hearing-impaired students in general produce sentences of less com-
plexity than hearing students (Kretschmer & Kretschmer, 1978). Their style has
been described as relatively rigid, using many stereotyped repetitions (Myklebust,
1964; Quigley & Paul, 1984). Writing in a variety of sentence patterns can be
taught to beginning writers through sentence maps or patterned guides, such
as Sentences and other Systems (Blackwell et al., 1978), Apple Tree (Anderson et al.,

1980), or the Phelps Sentence Guide Program (Phelps-Terasaki & Phelps, 1980). The
underlying principle of these approaches is that students are provided with fre-
quent examples of basic sentence patterns. As new stimuli are presented stu-
dents have the opportunity to perceive the patterns and eventually produce the
targeted patterns. More complex patterns are then taught as transformations of
the basic patterns.
Research reported by Akamatsu and Armour (1987) indicates that having
hearing-impaired students transcribe videotapes of short signed passages in En-
glish word order can improve their understanding of syntactic word order. Scram-
bled sentences is another technique that can be used to assist students in
veloping an understanding of proper word order (Rhodes & Dudley-Marling,
de-I
1988). Sentences for scrambling can be taken from the student’s own writing or
from curricular content material. Sentence combining exercises are also an effective
way to increase a student’s syntactic maturity (Strong, 1983). The purpose of
sentence combining exercises is to make students more conscious of the transfor-
mational choices available to them for expressing their ideas (Mellon, 1981). Nutter
and Safran (1984) reported the use of sentence combining exercises with students
grades one through nine with definite gains in the syntactic maturity of their
writing. Cooper (1973) has devised a systematic outline to help teachers write
their own exercises, and Perron (1976) describes a number of sentence combining

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games and activities that can be used with elementary level students. Valuable
resources for sentence combining exercises with older students are Strong (1983)
and O’Hare (1975).
Vocabulary. The vocabulary of many hearing-impaired students is limited to
single words when discussing a topic (Yoshinaga-Itano & Snyder, 1985). They
often repeat the same words or phrases within a discourse (Moores, 1987). Since
vocabulary is woven into every phase of our lives, new words can be drawn from
any aspect of a student’s experience: television, sports, newspaper, advertising,
science and so on. One technique to increase vocabulary is the &dquo;new word book&dquo;
in which students can make daily entries. Teaching a topic-related set of words
to students before they write can improve the quality of a composition (Duin
& Graves, 1987).
Similarly, teachers can teach synonyms for over-used words. Synonym and
antonym charts may be hung in the room for reference during writing periods.
Mercer and Mercer (1985) recommend giving the student a short passage in which
several words are underlined. The teacher then asks the student to substitute
the underlined word for a more colorful or interesting word or phrase. The cloze
method also can be used to foster vocabulary development (Rhodes & Dudley-
Marling, 1988). The teacher writes a sentence with a word deleted, and pupils
insert as many words as possible. These sentences can be taken from reading
material or students’ written work and used as a way of reviewing subject area
content. Students can also be taught to develop and use attribute guides (Figure

2) in which objects, places, and people can be described (Alley & Deshler, 1979).
Such a guide structures students’ observations by directing their attention to sa-
lient features.
Content. Research and methods of teaching written language with hearing-
impaired students has focused primarily on the areas of grammar and vocabu-
lary (Moores, 1987; Yoshinaga-Itano & Snyder, 1985). These are two aspects that
hearing-impaired students have great difficulty with. As a result, educators have
been teaching to students’ weaknesses rather than helping them focus on their
strengths.
Content refers to the ideas, concepts, and overall integrity of the written product
(Wallace, Cohen, & Polloway, 1987). Content quality can be enhanced at both
ends of the writing process: planning and reviewing. Thoughtful planning con-
tributes to good content. Students can organize the sequence of events or actions
using a flow diagram (Figure 3) (Luetke-Stahlman & Luckner, in press). The
flow diagram is useful because it provides a simplified structure within which
students can organize their thoughts (Alley & Deshler, 1979). Mapping (Boyle,
1982) is another type of graphic representation that can be taught to students
to help them organize their ideas. These visual diagrams act as memory aides

throughout the transcribing stage.

One of the basic rules for writing intelligible compositions is that the writer
of the message must provide enough information for the reader to understand

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Figure 2. An Attribute Guide for Describing an Object

the message being conveyed. At the reviewing stage, peer evaluation is a valuable
technique to create awareness of reader concerns. Perl (1983) recommends an
&dquo;active listening&dquo; procedure whereby one student responds to another’s shared
composition by paraphrasing what he or she thought the author intended to com-
municate. The listener’s interpretation helps the author evaluate his or her writing
and make necessary revisions to accommodate the audience.
A skill building activity that promotes an understanding of main ideas and
supporting statements is to present students with mixed-up literary passages or
pieces written by their classmates (Rhodes & Dudley-Marling, 1988). The stu-
dents arrange the sentences in logical order. Another activity that can be used
to promote an understanding of unity and cohesion is to present students with
a topic sentence and a closing sentence. Students write two detail sentences that

complete the paragraph.

Conventions. Hearing-impaired writers generally make many errors in surface
mechanics (Gormley & Sarachan-Deily, 1987; Sarachan-Deily & Love, 1974).
Spelling, punctuation, correct word usage, and handwriting are the writing factors
most frequently taught, but are also factors that should be approached most cau-

tiously in the context of composition. However, a teacher of hearing-impaired

students must not neglect the teaching of spelling, punctuation, and handwriting;
they are among the factors that most influence judgments of quality (Brown,
1981). Initially they should be taught separately, on a parallel track, and not in-
terfere with or discourage beginning writers in their composition attempts. During

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Figure 3. Flow Diagram of How to Make Pizza

composition the mechanical concerns should not compete with the ideas for the
writer’s attention. As fluency develops, conventions should be introduced as an
editing task (Isaacson & Luckner, 1988). Editing for writing conventions should
begin with structured materials provided by the teacher and then, as editing skills

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become proficient, applied to the student’s own work in the reviewing and evalu-
ating stage.

SUMMARY
For many hearing-impaired persons, acquiring a reasonable degree of facility
in written language may contribute substantially to community self-sufficiency
and independence, vocational flexibility, and success in higher education. The
traditional pedagogy of selecting the topic, correcting the error, and exacting
improvement is still widely practiced today and has not proven effective for hearing-
impaired students. In contrast, the approach advocated in this paper emphasizes
a high degree of student involvement throughout the planning, transcribing,

revising, and rewriting stages. The teacher must also provide direct instruction
in the skills of writing, and assistance in the writing process through direct coaching.
Proponents of this approach to instruction regard writing as an ongoing, multi-
stage process, with equal emphasis given to each of the stages.
Research (Saur, Popp, & Hurley, 1983; Welsh & Schroedel, 1982) suggest that
a hearing-impaired student’s writing skill is one of the most important predictors

of academic achievement in mainstreamed or non-mainstreamed settings. How-

ever, literature in the field of deaf education is replete with references to the difficul-
ties that hearing-impaired students have in learning to write in a comprehensible
manner. One of the problems that exists is that there has been a dearth of litera-

ture on teaching writing to this population, which has contributed to a de-emphasis

on writing literacy (Wray et al., 1988). The purpose of this article has been to

provide educators with a resource for implementing a writing program with

hearing-impaired students. It is suggested that when writing is integrated in a
thoughtful and balanced way students’ motivation is greatly stimulated and they
learn what a powerful tool written messages can be for expressing their own
thoughts and in making contact with other people. The authors hope that edu-
cators will adapt the information that has been presented to meet the needs of
their students and to help their students develop a positive attitude about the
value of writing.

Address Correspondence to:

John L. Luckner, Ed.D.
Department of Educational Psychology
Counseling and Special Education
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, IL 60115-2854

About the Authors

John Luckner teaches deaf education courses at Northern Illinois University. Prior to
becoming a teacher trainer, he was a classroom teacher of deaf students for nine years.
Dr. Luckner taught in the Virgin Islands and Bucks County, Pa. He received his doc-

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toratein special education from the University of Northern Colorado and his training
tobecome a teacher of deaf students from Trenton State College in New Jersey. His re-
search interests include written language, problem solving and social/emotional devel-
opment.
Stephen Isaacson teaches at Western Oregon State College. He received his doctoral de-
gree in special education from Arizona State University in 1985. Prior to his doctoral
work, he was a resource room teacher, supervisor, and inservice presenter in Jackson
County and Portland, Ore. His area of specialization is learning disabilities, and his
research interests include teacher effectiveness and written language. For the past five
years he has served as a consultant to the Academy for Effective Instruction sponsored
by the Council for Exceptional Children.

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