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Literacy 7-12

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Literacy 7-12 > Strategies > Self-instructions

Self-instructions

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Overview

When students engage in a dialogue with themselves, they are able to orient, organize, and focus their thinking. By talking through steps and procedures, learners are able to go through the Composition process and consciously direct their Attention to relevant aspects of their learning.

Use It in the Classroom

Beginning at 6:15, watch this fifth grade teacher conference with a student about his writing. As he explains his plan, he shares his thinking and how he can improve his writing. Now when he continues to work independently, he can work on these next steps that he voiced to his teacher.

  • Teachers can introduce different types of self-instructions, like structuring an argument or implementing a strategy, that may be helpful for students during the writing process. When asking students to verbalize their thinking, teachers can understand how to support them in their writing. Teachers can also have students create their own multi-step projects on assigned topics to increase student autonomy in the classroom.

    • Design It into Your Product

    Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.

    Watch how Turnitin's Revision Assistant can help students plan their writing based on immediate feedback. Through targeted comments and ratings on a rubric, students know how to improve their writing, and they can apply these suggestions to other areas of their writing, creating a plan to enrich their pieces.

  • Developers can provide a place for students to keep track of their progress on more complex projects and papers to help students take ownership of their learning and prepare them for the future. Platforms can include prompts or sentence starters that encourage self-instructions, such as "I need to make a plan. First I will… and then…" or "I can revise and improve…". By asking learners to reflect on their processes and by providing examples that students can check against, learners continue to develop their understanding of writing.
    • View References

    Resources

    Below are additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
    Examples

    Helping Young Students Become Self-Regulated Writers

    Strategies to help students take charge of their writing, including self-instructions

    Research

    Metacognition & Self-Regulated Learning

    Subtopic that includes research on metacognitive processes that help learners plan what and how to learn on Digital Promise's Research Map

    Factors Supported by this Strategy

    Student Background
    Adverse Experiences
    Physical Well-being
    Safety
    Sleep
    Socioeconomic Status
    Social and Emotional Learning
    Emotion
    Self-regulation
    Cognition
    Attention
    Inhibition
    Metacognition
    Short-term Memory
    Working Memory
    Literacy
    Argumentative Reasoning
    Composition

    More Metacognitive Supports Strategies

    Annotating

    When annotating, students engage deeply with a text and make their thinking visible while reading.

    Journaling

    Journaling allows students to reflect on their thinking and feelings, process their learning, and connect new information to what they know, supporting their identity development and Sense of Belonging.

    Checklists & Rubrics

    Checklists and rubrics help students understand expectations as they navigate more complex tasks and assignments.

    Goal Setting & Monitoring

    Setting overall goals with actionable steps for achievement can help students feel more confident in their skills and abilities.

    Reflect on Learning

    Student reflection on learning, particularly when done collaboratively, is critical for moving knowledge of content and strategies into Long-term Memory.

    Self-monitoring

    When students monitor their comprehension, performance, and use of strategies when reading and writing, they build their Metacognition and actively participate in the reading process.

    Positive Self-talk

    When students reframe negative thoughts and tell themselves kind self-statements, they practice positive self-talk.

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