The basis of the Writing Strands approach to the training of young people to use their language well began with an understanding that, just as in any program designed to produce a sophisticated ability, a planned process of developing skills for established goals would be necessary. We began by identifying the writing skills needed by students entering major universities. We felt that if we could prepare gifted students for that level of writing skill, we could give to all students writing skills consistent with their abilities. Therefore, our goal is to build skills in the following four modes of writing: 1) argumentative exposition, 2) explanatory exposition, 3) creative and 4) research and report.

We felt that if students could 1) persuasively present positions on controversial subjects, 2) explain complicated situations and/or objects or processes, 3) give others the benefit of their research in reports, and 4) control the emotional reactions to their prose, they would be ready for university work. If they were not headed for college, they would still have the ability to use their language well for any purpose they might choose.

To this end, the following principles were adopted by National Writing Institute before work began on Writing Strands. They were our guides in the initial stages of the design of the assignments and they remain operative today.

1. Every person can learn to express ideas and feelings in writing.

2. There is no one right way to write anything.

3. The ability to write is not an exercise of a body of knowledge that can be learned like a list of vocabulary words.

4. Both writing teachers and their students learn in any effective writing situation.

5. The product of each student's writing efforts must be seen as a success for at least the following reasons:

A. Students in a writing class are not in competition with anyone else.

B. There is no perfect model against which any effort can be compared for evaluation, so there must be many acceptable ways to express ideas.

C. Every controlled writing experience will help students improve the ability to express themselves.

6. All student writing efforts are worthy of praise. The best help any writing teacher can give at any point is to show, in a positive way, what is good about a piece and how it might be improved.

7. Any writing lesson which is done independently by the student that has the errors marked, the paper graded and returned but does not have a teacher's feedback in the form of reinforcements and suggestions, represents a missed opportunity for the students.

8. All writing at any level is hard work, and every writer should be encouraged to feel the pride of authorship.

9. All young authors need to be published. This can be accomplished by having their work read to friends or family members, posted on bulletin boards (refrigerators), printed in "books" or read aloud by teachers.

CONCLUSION

At the beginning of this Overview page we listed our goals and the principles that guided our selections of skills and processes. Any writing program should do that and then outline the process of transmitting the selected skills to the students.

Once we had selected the four modes of writing, we divided them into their component parts and assigned those parts (writing skills) to appropriate student age and grade levels. We then had goals and strands of experiences designed for very young children that would lead to training for young adults preparing for university work.

We then had to design assignments to transmit those skills. We devised a formula for use with all of the assignments. 1) We identified the skill to be learned, 2) Listed Objectives, 3) Identified the length of time it should take an average student to complete the assignment, 4) Presented models, 5) Gave pre-writing exercises, 6) Broke the assignment into small increments (days or sessions) and, 7) Presented the student and the teacher with a places to record successes and needs for future work. After six years of testing in classrooms, homes, and tutoring situations, we published the Writing Strands books.