The direct and indirect effects model of writing

The Direct And Indirect Effects Model Of Writing (DIEW) is one of the latest models to try and expand our thinking around writing development (Kim & Schatschneider 2017; Kim & Park 2019; Kim 2020; Kim & Graham 2022). DIEW is largely the work of educational psychologist Young-Suk Grace Kim. Kim wanted to better understand the development and processes of six-year-old writers. Unlike The Simple View Of Writing, the DIEW model provides greater focus on how young children develop the compositional elements of their writing and, importantly, their writing ideas. 

(Taken from The Science Of Teaching Primary Writing and adapted from Kim & Schatschneider 2017; Kim & Park 2019; Kim 2020; Kim & Graham 2022)

Kim’s model can be organised as a house. According to Kim, the foundations of writing are built on control mechanisms. In layman’s terms, this means children having the maturity to plan, manage and review their writing. Next comes one of the most interesting aspects of Kim’s model – her focus on idea generation skills. Kim shows us how children draw on skills like inference, perspective taking and theory of mind in order to generate great ideas for writing (Young & Ferguson 2022a). 

After laying down their foundations, Kim believes children build their ‘writing house’ using four pillars: foundational language skills, knowledge of the writing processes, children’s affective needs and discourse-level talk. 

1. Foundational language skills includes using their transcriptional skills such as encoding, spelling, handwriting, typing but also their knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and their ability to read. 
2. Children need to be knowledgeable of the processes writing goes through including: planning, drafting, revising, editing, publishing/performing. 
3. Children’s affective needs must be developed and attended to. This includes attending and developing their sense of: self-efficacy, self-regulation, agency, volition, motivation, writer-identity  (Young & Ferguson 2021a, 2022b; Young et al. 2022). This also includes attending to, and regulating, their emotions (Young & Ferguson 2022c). 
4. Finally, we have discourse-level talk. This is essentially Kim’s phrase for content and genre knowledge. 

All of these pillars are required and they all need to be strong if children’s ‘writing houses’ are to stay up. If the house is stable, children can produce writing fluently, accurately, happily and of quality.

Why is Kim’s model useful to us? Well, it highlights the importance of certain cognitive resources which all too often can be overlooked and underdeveloped in schools. Hence, the name direct and indirect effects model of writing. Kim’s calls our attention to:

• Explicitly teaching children how to manage themselves as writers and their writing process (Young et al. 2021, Young & Ferguson 2022b).
• Explicitly teaching children how to generate quality writing ideas (Young & Ferguson 2022a).
• The fact children write better texts when they can draw on content that they are knowledgeable of and passionate to write about (Young & Ferguson 2022c)
• The impact children’s reading has on their abilities to write (Young & Ferguson 2020, 2021a, 2022b).
• Teachers must attend to children’s emotional and affective needs (Young & Ferguson 2021a, 2022b, 2022c).
• Children draw on their genre knowledge to help them write. This includes making decisions at sentence and grammatical levels (The Writing For Pleasure Centre 2022, Young & Ferguson 2021b, Young & Ferguson 2022d).

Our hope is that by sharing this model for writing, we can help turn the tide on the pernicious underachievement of writing in schools (Ofsted 2009, 2012; DfE 2012, 2017, 2019, 2021). Indeed, the problem teachers and schools often face is knowing how to develop all these cognitive resources efficiently and effectively in their classrooms (Young & Ferguson 2021a, 2022b, 2022c).

References

• DfE. (2012). What is the Research Evidence on Writing? Education Standards Research Team. London: Department for Education.
• DfE. (2017). National Curriculum Assessments at Key Stage 2 in England, 2017 (revised). London: Department for Education
• DfE. (2019). National Curriculum Assessments at Key Stage 2 in England, 2019 (revised). London: Department for Education.
• DfE. (2021). The reading framework: teaching the foundations of literacy London: Department for Education.
• Kim, Y.-S.G. (2020) Structural relations of language and cognitive skills, and topic knowledge to written composition: A test of the direct and indirect effects model of writing, Br J Educ Psychol, 90: 910-932
• Kim, Y.-S. G., & Schatschneider, C. (2017) Expanding the developmental models of writing: A direct and indirect effects model of developmental writing (DIEW), Journal of Educational Psychology, 109(1), 35–50
• Kim, YS.G., Park, SH. (2019) Unpacking pathways using the direct and indirect effects model of writing (DIEW) and the contributions of higher order cognitive skills to writing, Read Writ, 32, 1319–1343
• Kim, Y.-S. G., Yang, D., Reyes, M., Connor, C. (2021) Writing instruction improves students’ writing skills differentially depending on focal instruction and children: A meta-analysis for primary grade students, Educational Research Review, 34, 100408
• Kim, Y.-S.G. (2022) Co-Occurrence of Reading and Writing Difficulties: The Application of the Interactive Dynamic Literacy Model, Journal of learning disabilities, doi:10.1177/00222194211060868
• Kim, Y.-S. G., & Graham, S. (2022) Expanding the Direct and Indirect Effects Model of Writing (DIEW): Reading–writing relations, and dynamic relations as a function of measurement/dimensions of written composition, Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(2), 215–238
• Ofsted. (2009). English at the Crossroads. London: Ofsted
• Ofsted. (2012). Moving English Forward. London: Ofsted
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2020) Real-World Writers: A Handbook For Teaching Writing With 7-11 Year Olds London: Routledge
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2021a) Writing For Pleasure: Theory, Research & Practice London: Routledge
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2021b) The Writing For Pleasure Centre’s Grammar Mini-Lessons For 5-11 Year Olds Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. Hayden, T., Vasques, M. (2021) The Writing For Pleasure Centre’s Big Book Of Mini-Lessons: Lessons That Teach Powerful Craft Knowledge For 3-11 Year Olds Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2022a) No More: I Don’t Know What To Write About. Lessons That Help Children Generate Great Ideas Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2022b) Handbook of Research On Developing Young Writers Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2022c) The Science Of Teaching Primary Writing Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2022d) The Writing For Pleasure Centre’s Sentence-Level Instruction: Lessons That Help Children Find Their Style And Voice Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Young, R., Ferguson, F., Kaufman, D., Govender, N. (2022) Writing Realities Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre