Extended Discourse Genres

Extended Discourse Genres

• Extended discourse includes both speaking and writing formats.
• Integral part of school curricula across all grades.
• Skills in extended discourse improve over time:
  • Increased length and complexity.
  • Greater range of topics, purposes, and audiences.
• Requires:
  • Planning: Organizing thoughts before producing discourse.
  • Audience Awareness: Understanding the audience's perspective and knowledge level.
  • Sustained Effort: Maintaining focus from beginning to end.
• Relies on various language/literacy skills:
  • Language Skills: Essential for students with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) or Learning Disabilities (LD).
  • Perspective Taking: Challenging for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
  • Executive Functioning: Difficult for students with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and LD.

Challenges for Students with DLD/LD

• Spending less time in the writing process stages:
  • Prewriting
  • Drafting
  • Revising
  • Editing
• Produce shorter texts with less elaborate language.
• More frequent spelling and grammatical errors.

Assessing Writing and Speaking

Standardized Tests

• Examples: TILLS (Test of Narrative Language).
• Curriculum-required writing tasks, including artifact analysis of:
  • Narratives (biographies)
  • Expository texts (book/lab reports)
  • Persuasive texts (advertisements, editorials)
• Student responses to state assessment prompts.
• Portfolios of student work selected collaboratively with instructors.

Assessing the Writing Process

• Evaluating how students produce written assignments:
  • Ask about types of required writing assignments.
  • Think-aloud strategy to verbalize the writing process.
  • Identify if the student:
  • Understands writing goals.
  • Chooses the appropriate genre/macrostructure.
  • Takes the audience's knowledge into account.
  • Utilizes a planning process to refine their thoughts.

Assessing Written Products

• The final assignment submitted to the teacher.
• Scoring systems:
  • Holistic: Overall impression score; checks if writing meets grade level.
  • Primary Trait: Criterion-referenced rubric focusing on specific traits like spelling, organization, and ideas.
  • Analytic: Measures specific aspects of writing, including microstructure attributes like syntax and lexical diversity.
  • Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM): Assesses content based on curriculum criteria.

Structure of Extended Discourse

• Discourse can be analyzed at two levels:
  • Microstructure: Involves vocabulary, syntax, and morphology.
  • Macrostructure:
  • Coherence: Genre-specific organization and schema analysis (narrative, expository, persuasive).
  • Story grammar and organization patterns (enumerative, descriptive, compare/contrast, problem-solution).
  • Cohesion: How well sentences flow together using transitions, pronouns, and repetition.

Assessing Written and Spoken Presentations

• Fluency indicators in:
  • Timed writing tasks (number of words, spelling accuracy).
  • Spoken presentations (number of words, presence of pauses).
• Error analysis including handwriting performance.

Writing Intervention

• Importance of relevance and motivation:
  • Engage students with topics that matter to them (e.g., personal experiences, hobbies).
  • Encourage writing for realistic audiences beyond teachers (e.g., peers, community).

Go-Meta: Learning Strategies and Approaches

• Teach stages in the writing process:
  • Planning
  • Drafting
  • Revising
  • Editing
• Emphasize self-regulation:
  • Monitor each stage for a complete writing process.
  • Provide strategies for independent monitoring during writing.

Writing Expository Texts – Planning

• Self-questioning strategies:
  • What is my goal and audience?
  • What do I know about the topic?
  • Where can I find more information?
  • How should I organize this information?
  • What text structure (genre) suits my goal best?

Writing Expository Texts – Helpful Strategies

• Utilize supports like:
  • Discussions with peers, SLP, or experts.
  • Visual organizers to structure and recall information.
  • Reviewing sample texts for similar structures.

Writing Expository Texts – Drafting

• Develop main ideas from graphic organizers into simple sentences:
  • Elaborate with detailed explanations and examples.
  • Ensure connections between ideas and overall essay coherence.
  • Use introductory phrases and linking sentences for fluidity.

Writing Expository Texts – Revising

• Peer review focuses on:
  • Clarity, necessity of sentences, and completeness.
  • Identifying main vs supporting ideas and areas needing expansion.

Writing Expository Texts – Editing

• Focus on mechanics:
  • Inspect formatting, paragraph lengths, and margins.
  • Read aloud to catch errors (missing words, incomplete sentences).
  • Isolate proofreading for specific errors: spelling, punctuation, grammar.

Intervention Targeting Cohesion

• Practice related to clear referents:
  • Identify pronouns and their referents.
  • Discuss and clarify relationships in texts.
  • Train students to combine sentences and use conjunctions effectively.