A Visual Strategy for Teaching Written Expression: Meeting the Challenge Presented by Students of Native American Heritage

Learning styles have been identified as an important variable in the school success or failure of ethnic minorities in America. Whole language is compatible with the style of Native American children. Nebraska's Winnebago Public School teachers of Native American students use a method of writing instruction that is compatible with their preference for communal learning, approaching tasks visually, and learning by observation preceding performance (with time for quiet persistent explorations). One strategy is called TOWER, an acronym depicting the writing sequences (Think, Organize, Write, Edit, and Rewrite) and another is EDITS (Embellish, Delete errors, Insert corrections, Tally progress, and Submit for grading). These strategies combine Piaget's four stages of cognitive development with Bloom's Taxonomy of 6 hierarchical classes of learning. For example, of the 112 students taught, one seventh-grade student with a fifth- or sixth-grade level vocabulary increased the number of words in his essays by 5 times, average number of sentences by 3 times, and average length of sentence by more than 2 times, over 4 months. A ninth-grade student also showed improvements, including moving from less than grade 4 level work to grade 6-7 level. (Contains 2 tables of data and 13 references.) (CR)