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.