Running head: INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

Writing with Disabilities and Writer’s Workshop Annotated Bibliography

Dr. Lorie Jacobs

WRIT 3304.04

Group ARGH

Hannah Hawkins, Gabriela Hendricks,

Amber Higgins, and Rocquelle Mitchell

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INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

The Inclusion of Students with Writing Disabilities

in Writers’ Workshops Annotated Bibliography

Introduction

This document is designed to explore and inform readers of why, and how, to teach writing for

students with disabilities with integrated writers’ workshop. Students with learning disabilities,

such as dyslexia, struggle, with the writing process, and often need extra support and

assessments from their teacher. The topic of writing with disabilities is so important to teachers

today, especially in the state of Texas, in order to inform future educators of ways they can

benefit students with dyslexia or dyspraxia. Texas recently changed their dyslexia code and

require students with simple learning disabilities to be placed in general education classrooms.

All teachers will experience a student with a learning disability within their class and need to

learn easy ways to successfully teach them. Adding to the main topic, the idea of incorporating

writers’ workshops into lesson plans for struggling students, gives a specific type a lesson that is

very beneficial in growing writing skills. Writing workshops are lessons where students

determine what they write; and in a collaborative setting, they write often to ensure many

opportunities for practice and success. This article provides insight to the idea of writing with

disabilities with integrated writers’ workshop by providing readers with scholarly articles,

practitioner sources, and activity examples for teachers to apply in their own classrooms.

Annotated Sources

Ahlgrim-Delzell, L., Otaiba, S. A., Allor, J., Bethune, K. S., Carlone, H. B., Delano, M., . . .

Agran, M. (2015). More Language Arts, Math, and Science for Students with Severe

Disabilities. Brookes Publishing.

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INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

This source is a post on Brookes Publishing website which shares, seven important steps to

consider when designing programs for teaching written expression to students with disabilities.

The seven steps are excerpted and adapted from the guidebook titled, More Language Arts,

Math, and Science for Students with Severe Disabilities. The seven important steps are: assessing

students’ current repertoire, making writing meaningful, encouraging imitation, teaching spelling

skills, encouraging sentence construction, teaching narrative writing, and providing editing and

revision instruction.

The purpose of this source is to outline important steps that teachers should keep in mind when

creating programs or writing workshops to help teach written expression to students with

disabilities. The text is informative, and the language is simple and easier to follow. The

audience would generally be general education teachers, special education teachers, or even

more specifically, writing teachers. The audience can be so specific because this is not material

that the public would search for; it is specifically created with teachers in mind.

This source would be extremely helpful for any teacher who is teaching writing skills to students

with disabilities because it gives great tools for teachers to keep in mind when creating lessons or

programs for their writing workshops. The source is short and an easy read that teachers could

read after they understand what learning disabilities are.

A Lesson Plan to Help Students with Dyslexia with Spelling. (2018). Retrieved from

https://www.educationcorner.com/spelling-lesson-plan-for-dyslexic-students.html
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INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

This source is a lesson plan which discusses examples of spelling stations a teacher can create to

help her students with Dyslexia. The stations suggested in the lesson plan are letter magnets,

puzzle time, colorful words, pop quiz, word art, and flashcards.

The purpose of this lesson plan is to provide examples of activities that can help children with

Dyslexia improve their spelling. The source is both informative and procedural, and the intended

audience would be teachers or maybe even parents who would like to help their student or child

with spelling. The source is short and rather simple to read because it is meant to give ideas to

the audience or be easy to follow so that the audience can create similar spelling stations.

This source is great for a teacher who is looking for activities to do with their students to

improve their spelling skills. This source contributes to the topic of our article because spelling is

a skill that is needed for writing, and the better that the student becomes at spelling, the better of

a writer they can become.

Cardullo, J. cardullo. joanne. h@edumail. vic. gov. a., & HENDERSON, J. henderson. jane.

e@edumail. vic. gov. a. (2013). Writing Workshop: literacy for special needs students.

Leadership in Focus, (30), 18–20.

The scholarly article is focused on the idea of Writing Workshop programs through a specific

school for students with intellectual disabilities in Vermont. It discusses how a writers’ workshop

be set up and the important role it has on students with disabilities. The text also shares the

success the workshop had on the students at the school and advertises that it has made a strong

positive impact on the students writing capabilities.

The purpose of this article is to inform readers that writers’ workshop for students with

disabilities is a success in the education community. The article proves the idea with testing and
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INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

data from student success rates. The short amount of information is beneficial to all general

education teachers, special education teachers, and more specifically writing teachers. The study

teaches and proves that writing in a community is beneficial to a student’s work and helps teach

the student the best methods for themselves to learn.

This article is full of so much great information it can seem overwhelming to a beginning

teacher. This article is intended to spark ideas for teachers with more experience in teaching

writing. The facts that the article provides can benefit and potentially change the way teachers

approach writing for students with disabilities and would be a great tool and asset to think about

when teaching students with special needs.

Fu, D., & Shelton, N. R. (2007). Including students with special needs in a writing

workshop.Language Arts, 84(4), 325-336

This scholarly text came from a language arts textbook that discusses the importance of inclusion

of special education students in writing workshops. The 12-page document discusses how

writing workshops will benefit students’ social language skills and improve the overall quality of

students’ writing. Fu and Shelton dive further into the issue by providing great resources for

teachers through examples on how to introduce their ideas into their writing lessons. To conclude

the paper goes in depth about the value of inclusion in writing workshops and the assets it would

bring to the writing community.

The purpose of this text is to educate teachers about writers’ workshops and the asset they are to

a classroom with students with disabilities. The audience aimed for this article are readers who

have been educated about learning disabilities. Teachers who do not understand students with

dyslexia or teaching writing for that matter, will have a hard time understanding this article. The
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INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

paper is well articulated and provides vivid details of students’ progress throughout. The article

even gives pictures of examples of student’s work to back up their claims.

The use of this article outside of this assignment could be very useful to writing teachers. Those

who struggle to relate or connect with their students who have disabilities will benefit greatly

from this article and could potentially be given ideas of how to approach teaching those students

more efficiently. This article is not for beginner readers, it will require some background

knowledge before discussing all the details the authors have written, however, it is a must read

and provides great information discussing the topic of students writing with disabilities and

combining writers workshop to their benefit.

L. (2014, July 23). WI Module 2: Writing Disability Simulation. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_u9V0R6fqo

This video simulates what students with writing disabilities go through when attempting a

writing task. It required the person watching the video to follow instructions and the finished

product will look like that of a student with a learning disability.

This source is useful for any educator to not only understand what a student might be going

through but to also help identify if a student in their class may be having difficulties. The

audience of this video is intended for any person who is wanting more insight to the struggles

students with dyslexia go through daily. The language of the video is straightforward and

professional, making the subject serious and not a joke to any viewers that dyslexia is something

funny.

To any future educator, it is important to understand students the best way possible and

sometimes it is helpful if the teacher has sympathy and can relate to the students struggles. If we
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INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

can see things through their eyes as teachers, the issues at hand are understood and can be

assessed better. This is a great tool to get into the mindset of a student with a learning disability

and may help with how to teach them in the future.

Osen-Foss, J. (n.d.). Download: Graphic Organizers to Help Kids With Writing. Retrieved from

https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/learning-at-home/encouraging-reading-

writing/download-graphic-organizers-to-help-grade-schoolers-with-writing

This source is a graphic organizer which can help students write a detailed-rich paragraph; the

source has both an example and a blank activity for anyone to use. The graphic organizer has a

picture of a hamburger and states that paragraphs are like hamburgers, “they both are composed

of several layers.” The organizer depicts the topic sentence as the hamburger bun, the supporting

details as cheese, the hamburger patty, and lettuce, and finally, the conclusion as the bottom

hamburger bun.

The purpose of this activity is to help students develop a detailed and thoughtful paragraph. The

idea of graphic organizers is important for all students, especially students with learning

disabilities because it can help them write clear, focused, and detailed paragraphs. This source is

intended for teachers to use for their students. The activity is set-up in an easy to follow,

instructional format so that teachers can instruct students how to use the activity and students can

easily follow this activity on their own.

This source is great for teachers. It is a good activity to incorporate into writing workshops for all

students, especially students with learning disabilities. The lesson can be useful for any general

education or special education teacher who is looking for a graphic organizer to help their

students develop better paragraphs.

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INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

Sensational Achievements. (2018, January 09). Play Activities for Children with Dysgraphia

[Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBrTIp9nlE4

This YouTube video briefly defines Dysgraphia and then lists and describes six activities that a

teacher or parent can use to help their student or child with Dysgraphia. The activities discussed

in the video can help build multisensory learning and aid children diagnosed with Dysgraphia

with their formation/writing of letters, spelling, shoulder stability, and sequencing skills.

The video’s purpose is to give examples of multisensory activities that a parent or teacher could

do with a child with Dysgraphia to help the child improve their writing, shoulder stability, and

sequencing skills. The video is informative, and the language is simple so that not only teachers,

but parents and children can watch and use this video to help them. The video is intended for

anyone who is interested in activities to help people with Dysgraphia and the intended audience

could be general education teachers, special education teachers, parents, children, or anyone

interested in teaching Dysgraphia students.

This source is great for teachers, it is simple and short but provides the teacher with a lot of

examples and ideas for them to create lessons to help students with Dysgraphia. This source

would be great to look at after you have learned what Dysgraphia is and some of its

characteristics. However, we believe it can be important to watch when creating writing

workshops with students with learning disabilities because it can help them improve on skills

that are needed for writing.

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INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

Sturm, M. J. (2012). “An Enriched Writers' Workshop for Beginning Writers with

Developmental Disabilities.” Topics in Language Disorders, 32(4), 335–360.

This article discusses different approaches that can be taken for children with communication

and writing disabilities to overcome the roadblocks they have in their everyday learning. It goes

through the enriched writing workshop process and shows you how it can be modified to fit the

needs of these students who are struggling.

The purpose of this article is so it can show the reader that, even though many people believe

that children with learning disabilities will always struggle with their writing, there are certain

approaches you can take so that their work is successful. The writing workshop allows students

to focus on the positive perception they have in their own writing and gives them the motivation

to keep working towards their goal.

This article can be extremely useful to teachers because it breaks down the writing workshop

process, so it can be adapted into any classroom but at the same time specifically targeting those

students with these certain learning disabilities.

Urschel, Heather. (2018). Teaching Strategies for Students with Learning Disabilities. The WAC

Clearinghouse. Retrieved from https://wac.colostate.edu/resources/teaching/guides/ld/.

Originally developed for Writing@CSU

The source is a teaching resource for how to help students compensate for learning disabilities

and then lists strategies that teachers can teach their students with learning disabilities to help

them become more effective readers and writers. The resource a packet that is broken up into

subtopics: introduction, guide focus, what are Learning Disabilities, role of formal assessment,
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INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

LD students in your composition classroom, LD students in a writing center tutorial, teacher

resources, annotated bibliography, relevant web sites, and citation information. The packet

begins by giving the audience some background information on learning disabilities by briefly

defining learning disabilities, “common” learning disabilities, signs that a teacher could observe

to help possibly identify a student with a learning disability, and informal and formal

assessments. Following the background information, the packet provides specific strategies/tips

that teachers or tutors may employ on students with Learning Disabilities. The author ends the

packet with a long appendix (16 appendices) which discusses: classroom accommodations,

strategies for LD students in writing classrooms, assessment, informal assessment, specific

symptoms of LDs, approaching a student/tutee about potential LD, motivating writers, teaching

writing/reading strategies, reading strategies, writing strategies, organizing strategies, flowcharts,

breaking research papers down into steps, editing proofreading strategies, essay test taking

strategies, a self-evaluation for teachers, and dyslexia and dysgraphia.

The source is informative and primarily for reading/writing teachers, and special education

teachers. The language is more complex, and the packet is lengthy, due to this, the audience,

more than likely, is composed of individuals who were conducting research on helping students

with learning disabilities to read and write. This source is not something that someone would

generally read for fun but rather, they needed a professional resource to aid them in their

research.

This packet would be a good source for a teacher who has a lot of time and wants to learn a lot

about teaching reading and writing strategies to students with learning disabilities. The benefit of

reading this source is that it discusses everything that a teacher needs to know about learning

disabilities and teaching reading and writing. It not only defines what learning disabilities are,
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INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

and discusses signs typically associated with students with learning disabilities but teaching

strategies and ideas for lessons that can benefit students as well.

Wilder, S. (2018, October 03). Dyslexia. Retrieved from

https://tea.texas.gov/academics/dyslexia/

The handbook for dyslexia from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) is an important source for

all teachers especially those in a general education classroom. This handbook contains

information about how dyslexia can affect learning in different grade levels and ways to assess

whether a student may have dyslexia. This book provides procedures that can help students with

dyslexia succeed in reading and writing. The last chapter shows and explains the laws we must

abide by when teaching students with dyslexia.

This handbook can be used by any educator or parents who may have concerns about their

student, have students with dyslexia in their class, or by any person who wishes to understand

more about what dyslexia is, and how to cope with it. It could also be used by administrators to

ensure cases are being handled properly and following the law. The language of the document is

very informative, like that of a contract. Teachers are to abide by the rules in this handbook and

understand how to assess dyslexia in their general education classrooms. The document is very

serious and used daily by teaching professionals.

This handbook should ultimately be used to refer any situation where guidance is needed. As a

teacher, aide, or parent, who needs more information about how to go forward when concerns

arise for one of their students, this book provides the different Teacher knowledge and skills

necessary. This handbook can answer many questions and provide useful information about how
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INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

to proceed through all steps of evaluation and assessment and how-to tailor instruction

afterwards to help the student the most.

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INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

References

Ahlgrim-Delzell, L., Otaiba, S. A., Allor, J., Bethune, K. S., Carlone, H. B., Delano, M., . . .

Agran, M. (2015). More Language Arts, Math, and Science for Students with Severe

Disabilities. Brookes Publishing. http://blog.brookespublishing.com/7-steps-to-teaching-

writing-skills-to-students-with-disabilities/

A Lesson Plan to Help Students with Dyslexia with Spelling. (2018). Retrieved from

https://www.educationcorner.com/spelling-lesson-plan-for-dyslexic-students.html

Cardullo, J. cardullo. joanne. h@edumail. vic. gov. a., & HENDERSON, J. henderson. jane.

e@edumail. vic. gov. a. (2013). Writing Workshop: literacy for special needs students.

Leadership in Focus, (30), 18–20. Retrieved from

https://libproxy.uhcl.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&

db=eue&AN=99326467&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Fu, D., & Shelton, N. R. (2007). Including students with special needs in a writing

workshop.Language Arts, 84(4), 325-336 https://www-jstor-

org.libproxy.uhcl.edu/stable/41962201?pq-

origsite=summon&seq=3#metadata_info_tab_contents

L. (2014, July 23). WI Module 2: Writing Disability Simulation. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_u9V0R6fqo

Osen-Foss, J. (n.d.). Download: Graphic Organizers to Help Kids With Writing. Retrieved from

https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/learning-at-home/encouraging-reading-

writing/download-graphic-organizers-to-help-grade-schoolers-with-writing
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INCLUSION OF DISABILITIES IN WRITERS WORKSHOP

Sensational Achievements. (2018, January 09). Play Activities for Children with Dysgraphia

[Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBrTIp9nlE4

Sturm, M. J. (2012). “An Enriched Writers' Workshop for Beginning Writers with

Developmental Disabilities.” Topics in Language Disorders, 32(4), 335–360. Retrieved

from https://oce-ovid-com.libproxy.uhcl.edu/article/00011363-201210000-00005

Urschel, Heather. (2018). Teaching Strategies for Students with Learning Disabilities. The WAC

Clearinghouse. Retrieved from https://wac.colostate.edu/resources/teaching/guides/ld/.

Originally developed for Writing@CSU

https://wac.colostate.edu/resources/teaching/guides/ld/#focus

Wilder, S. (2018, October 03). Dyslexia. Retrieved from

https://tea.texas.gov/academics/dyslexia/