ERRR #029. Judith Hochman on How to Teach Students to Write

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In today’s episode we’re speaking to Dr. Judith C. Hochman. Judy is the creator of the Hochman Method and founder of The Writing Revolution, a nonprofit organization dedicated to training and supporting teachers and school leaders to more effectively help students to learn to write. Judy served as the Head of The Windward School in White Plains, New York, a nationally renowned independent school focused on teaching students with learning disabilities and is the founder of the Windward Teacher Training Institute and a former district Superintendent in New York.

Judy lectures, presents workshops, and gives courses for educational organizations, colleges, and universities, as well as public and independent schools throughout the United States. She is on the Advisory Board of Everyone Reads, a national advocacy organization for dyslexia and related learning disabilities and received the New York Branch Award from the International Dyslexia Association. Judy, in partnership with Natalie Wexler, is the author of The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing In All Subjects and Grades, the book about which we’ll be speaking today, as well as  numerous other book chapters and articles.

I really enjoyed my discussion with Judy, as well as the preparation for it. As a mathematics and physics teacher, I hadn’t previously thought as much as I perhaps should have about the role of writing instruction in my classroom, and indeed the role of writing instruction as a gateway to increased student understanding of content, and Judy’s work has really opened my eyes.

The first segment of this interview with Judy covers in detail some concepts that were new to me prior to reading this book. These concepts include fragments, sentence types, conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, and appositives. And crucially, in each case, how these tools of writing can best be used to help support content delivery, and improved writing, across multiple grade levels.

From there we address challenging questions such as the role of structured writing instruction in the classroom, and its impact on creativity. The role of templates to help students write, from the sentence level to that of the multiple-paragraph essay. The ultimate way to scaffold students writing summaries, And then onto a discussion of assessment and what quality assessment of writing can look like.

Links mentioned in the show

• Check out a good summary of Judith's book The Writing Revolution on the blog Thinking about Teaching.
• Template that Ollie uses to help students to interpret a linear regression: A one (units of x-variable) increase in (x-variable) is associated with a (gradient as a positive) (units of y-variable) (increase/decrease) in (y-variable).
• Twitter people to follow:
  • Natalie Wexler (keep an eye out for her new book ‘The Knowledge Gap'),
  • Robert Pondiscio (twitter profile doesn't seem to exist any more)
  • Daisy Christodoulou. See ERRR episode with Daisy and her book ‘7 Myths about Education‘
  • Daniel Willingham. See ERRR episode with Daniel
  • Doug Lemov , book Reading Recondsidered
  • Emily Hanford

Listen to all past episodes of the ERRR podcast here.