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FAQs

1. Q-Have the Writing to Win resource guides and complementary materials been tested with actual students?
A-Writing to Win resource guides are tested writing strategies that teachers throughout the SE United States have submitted to Dr. Combs over the last twenty years. There are two criteria for including a strategy in the resource guides: 1) submission by a teacher, 2) testing in classrooms by other teachers. Writing to Win guides have been used to bolster students' scores on state writing tests in over 100 school districts in five states.

2. Q-When can we expect to receive the resource guides that we order?
A- Orders for individual guides and complementary products are often filled within two weeks. Group orders of 15 or more guides can be filled in two to three weeks.

3. Q-Is there help available for our administrators and lead teachers in setting up our own Writing to Win program?
A- Orientation and follow-up training sessions can be arranged for your administrators and lead teachers as time permits, either during the school year or summer vacation.

4. Q-Does Writing to Win motivate students to write creatively?
A- Oh, yes. Teachers and parents report numerous ways that Writing to Win students show increased creativity in their writing:

  • tested brainstorming and jot-listing strategies (Prewriting Section)
  • framed draft strategies (Drafting Section)
  • powerful revision prompts (Revising Section)
  • stimulating journal strategies (Journal Section)
  • productive language skill strategies (Skills Section)

5. Q-How about helping students think critically? Do Writing to Win prompts insure that students' writing will show evidence of higher-order thinking?
A- Most certainly!Writing to Win guides are known for prompting critical thought among students, especially through their numerous tested journal strategies. That's why the journal section of each resource guide is called the Critical-Thinking Journal. Prewriting tools (Word Banks for grades K-5 and Advance Organizers for grades 6-12) empower students to think more critically than they have before.

6. Q-Can a home school parent use Writing to Win successfully?
A- Certainly; when a home school parent or concerned parent of a public school student follows the simple 1-2-3 steps in the front of the resource guide and writes each assignment along with their children, they will succeed like never before. Parents and new teachers of writing can find extensive guided writing procedures in the Topics section.

7. Q-Can Writing to Win help us with planning a writing curriculum?
A- Indeed; in two important ways:

  • Monitoring the Progress of Young Writers provides a guide for using a variety of standard tools for supporting teachers in implementing a writing program. Administrators and lead teachers may customize a sequence of tools to fit their local curriculum and state standards.
  • The Writing to Win resource guides provide a detailed sample scope and sequence of writing experiences as well as a calendar for journal entries that can be articulated from one grade to the next. Articulation between grade levels is the reason for the grade-level groupings in each guide, K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12.

8. Q-Are there grading rubrics in the Writing to Win materials?
A- Certainly. There are two kinds of Final Evaluation Forms, those written in the language of students that makes teachers' comments easy for students to understand and permit peer-evaluation. They all follow the language of state and national writing standards.

9. Q-Does Writing to Win fit the concept of writing workshop?
A- The real power of the Writing to Win system is that it can work with any existing writing program, whether it is workshop based or one based on a more traditional concept of the teaching of writing. Most of the strategies in each section of the guide can be executed in a 20-minute time period of the writing workshop.

10. Q-Have the effects of a Writing to Win program been tested systematically?
A- Widely. In states with statewide tests of writing, the systematic effect of Writing to Win training is obvious. In fact, test results have accelerated the spread of Writing to Win adoptions. School districts have inquired about a Writing to Win solution for their students when:

  • A Writing to Win district or school's writing scores spiked upward on a state report of writing test scores
  • Students from a Writing to Win district won 12 out of 13 awards for writing in their regional young authors' competition
  • A Writing to Win district or school sustained noticeably high writing scores for several years
  • A Writing to Win district or school maintained high writing scores in spite of a sizable and growing ESL population
  • One Writing to Win inner-city middle school turned in the highest scores in writing the first year of their state's testing program
  • One Writing to Win elementary school became the first elementary school in its state to receive an Exemplary Writing award.

11. Q-Are there provisions in Writing to Win guides for vertical planning of writing activities?
A-Writing to Win resource guides that span several grade levels encourage teachers of consecutive grades to plan together, making it natural that plans for one grade level lead into the plans of the subsequent grade.

12. Q-Are Writing to Win strategies appropriate for home school instruction?
A- There is no doubt. Countless e-mails have come from teachers and parents reporting that children have blossomed as writers at home when classroom experiences with writing had not worked previously.

13. Q-Does Writing to Win help students with organization?
A- Three guide pages make it simple for students from the 2nd grade on to manage a simple portfolio of their process and journal writing.

14. Q-Does Writing to Win follow the steps of the writing process?
A- The very structure of the resource guides follows the steps of the writing process (prewriting, drafting, revising, proofreading, evaluating, publishing). Writing to Win also acknowledges the recursive nature of writing, that in any step of the writing process, strategies of another step may occur.

15. Q-How can Writing to Win help students to write more while teachers grade less?
A- The secret to students writing more and teachers grading less lies in respecting students as writers and expecting them to write "what they are thinking" instead of expecting them to "figure out what we teachers want them to write." Writing to Win accomplishes this is several ways:

  • Set clear expectations, on the wall charts, for students in every writing assignment
  • Help students chart their own performance and progress on Log of Entries for Student Self-Check and A Writing Cycle for Student Self-Check
  • Encourage peer-evaluation as the first step of the grading process

16. Q-Can Writing to Win help my students who don't correct their errors?
A- There are two kinds of students who don't find errors-those who can't and those who can, but choose not to. Both kinds benefit from peer-proofreading with assigned jobs and defined expectations for grading their performance in correcting errors. Several tested proofreading strategies are in each resource guide.