What is The Writing Revolution?

A method developed by Judith Hochman, first at The Windward School, and set out in the 2017 book with Natalie Wexler. It teaches writing explicitly from the early grades, starting with sentences, embeds writing in the subjects students are studying, and teaches grammar through students' own writing. It uses activities like sentence combining, sentence expansion and summarizing.

What is SRSD in writing?

Self-Regulated Strategy Development teaches specific strategies for planning, drafting and revising, along with goal setting, self-monitoring and self-talk. It moves through stages: build background knowledge, describe the strategy, model it, memorize it, support it, then independent use. Mnemonics such as PLAN and WRITE help students remember the steps.

Does teaching grammar improve writing?

Not when it is taught alone. Writing Next found that traditional stand-alone grammar teaching had a small negative effect on writing quality, while sentence combining had a positive one (0.50). Grammar taught inside students' own writing did better.

Should kids still learn cursive?

Common Core leaves cursive out, but several states, including California and Illinois, now require it. The What Works Clearinghouse counts handwriting fluency as part of a moderate-evidence recommendation, and one 2020 EEG study found handwriting engaged learning-related brain areas more than typing. Typing matters too.

Explicit writing instruction

Also called The Writing Revolution, Hochman Method, SRSD, Self-Regulated Strategy Development, sentence combining, copywork and dictation.

Ages Ages 6 to 18; sentence work from the early grades, strategy teaching from about age 8Grades 1–12Planning A plan you adaptScreens Little or no screen timeShelf Reading, writing and EnglishUpdated November 2026

Explicit writing instruction teaches writing the way you'd teach any hard skill: break it into parts, show each part, practice it with support, then let go. Children learn to build and combine sentences, then to plan and revise whole pieces using named strategies. The Writing Revolution and Self-Regulated Strategy Development are the best-known methods, and the research behind them is some of the strongest in writing. It suits children who freeze at a blank page, struggling writers, and anyone who wants writing taught rather than just assigned.

1 Where it came from

Judith C. Hochman developed her method as head of The Windward School (1988-1999), a school for students with language-based learning disabilities, published Basic Writing Skills in 1991, and wrote The Writing Revolution with Natalie Wexler in 2017; TWR 2.0 came out in 2024. Self-Regulated Strategy Development comes from the research of Karen Harris and Steve Graham, whose strategy mnemonics date to the 1990s. In 2007 Graham and Dolores Perin's Writing Next meta-analysis put numbers on which writing practices work.

2 The big ideas

Sentences are the building blocks. Children who can write a clear, varied sentence have something to build paragraphs and essays from.
Teach strategies outright. Planning and revising are taught as named steps the teacher models aloud, not left for children to discover.
Write about what you're learning. The Writing Revolution embeds writing in content, so a sentence exercise might be about the water cycle.
Grammar in context, not in drills. Grammar is taught through students' own sentences rather than as stand-alone worksheets.
Self-regulation matters. SRSD teaches children to set goals, monitor themselves and talk themselves through the task.

3 What a lesson looks like

A 4th-grade class is learning to plan an opinion paragraph with SRSD. The teacher first reviews what a good opinion piece has, then models the class's planning mnemonic, thinking aloud as she fills in a planning sheet about whether recess should be longer. The class memorizes the steps together. Over the next days, students plan their own with her support, then in pairs, then alone, checking their work against the steps and setting a goal. Earlier that week, in a ten-minute sentence warm-up, they combined Bats sleep in the day and Bats hunt at night into one sentence three ways, with and, but and because, and expanded The river flooded by answering when, where and why.

4 Reading and math

A writing approach. The Writing Revolution ties writing to reading by having students write about the texts and topics they study, and the What Works Clearinghouse rates integrating reading and writing as moderate evidence for older students.

5 The adult's job

The adult models every step aloud, gives short daily practice with sentences, provides planning sheets and checklists, gradually removes support, and gives feedback on specific things the student was taught to do. In The Writing Revolution, the teacher also chooses content-based sentences and topics.

6 How progress is checked

Students' writing is checked against the specific skills and strategy steps taught, often with a checklist the student uses first. Progress shows up as longer, better-planned pieces and more varied sentences, compared with a sample from the start of the unit.

7 Strengths and criticisms

Strengths

Strategy instruction had the largest effect in Writing Next: 0.82 overall, and 1.02 for low-achieving writers.
Sentence combining had a moderate, consistent positive effect (0.50).
Gives struggling writers and children with learning differences a clear way in.
Works in every subject, not just English class.

Criticisms and watch-outs

Whole methods are less tested than their parts. No What Works Clearinghouse report on The Writing Revolution as a whole was found; its case rests on research about its component strategies.
Can feel mechanical if sentence drills never lead to real writing for a reader.
Not a full curriculum. The Writing Next authors note that their eleven elements do not make up a complete writing program.
Don't lean on grammar worksheets. Writing Next found that traditional stand-alone grammar teaching had a small negative effect on writing quality.

8 What the research says

Writing Next (Graham and Perin, 2007), a meta-analysis for grades 4 to 12, ranked eleven practices. Teaching strategies for planning, revising and editing had the largest effect (0.82), followed by specific product goals (0.70), word processing (0.55), sentence combining (0.50) and prewriting (0.32); summarization, collaborative writing, study of models and process writing were positive too. Traditional grammar taught in isolation had a small, statistically significant negative effect on writing quality, while grammar taught in the context of writing showed strong effects in one study. The What Works Clearinghouse rates explicit strategy teaching through a model-practice-reflect cycle as strong evidence for secondary students, and fluency with handwriting, spelling, sentence construction and typing as moderate for elementary writers. On handwriting, a 2020 EEG study found handwriting activated brain areas linked to learning and memory more than typing did. Common Core does not include cursive, but several states have passed laws requiring it, among them California in 2023 and Illinois, by grade 5, from 2018-19.

9 How to try it

Start with sentences: give two short ones and ask your child to join them with and, but or because.
Take a kernel sentence, The dog barked, and expand it by asking when, where and why.
Before your child writes anything longer, plan it together on paper first, and say each step of the planning out loud as you do it.
Give one specific goal per piece, such as "three reasons and an ending", and check it together afterward.
Practice handwriting a few minutes a day until letters come without thinking, so the ideas don't get stuck behind the pencil.
Many homeschool families use Charlotte Mason's habits: copywork (copying a fine sentence neatly), narration (telling back what was read, aloud first and later in writing) and prepared dictation (studying a passage, then writing it from dictation).

10 Using Peabody with it

Copywork makerPrints a passage or public-domain poem as copywork lines in print or cursive, solid to copy or dotted to trace.
Dictation sheet makerA teacher's copy split into bits to read aloud, the words to study first, and ruled lines for the child.
Handwriting worksheet makerCursive practice sheets with a model line, fading dotted tracing and stroke arrows.
TypingFree typing practice for kids; Peabody has no sentence-combining or SRSD planning tool yet, so those steps stay on paper.

Peabody is free and has no ads. Pages on peabody.kids are for children; pages here are for the adults teaching them.

11 Programs that follow it

Programs and materials often named with this approach: The Writing Revolution (Hochman Method), Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD), Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW).

Questions people ask

What is The Writing Revolution?: A method developed by Judith Hochman, first at The Windward School, and set out in the 2017 book with Natalie Wexler. It teaches writing explicitly from the early grades, starting with sentences, embeds writing in the subjects students are studying, and teaches grammar through students' own writing. It uses activities like sentence combining, sentence expansion and summarizing.
What is SRSD in writing?: Self-Regulated Strategy Development teaches specific strategies for planning, drafting and revising, along with goal setting, self-monitoring and self-talk. It moves through stages: build background knowledge, describe the strategy, model it, memorize it, support it, then independent use. Mnemonics such as PLAN and WRITE help students remember the steps.
Does teaching grammar improve writing?: Not when it is taught alone. Writing Next found that traditional stand-alone grammar teaching had a small negative effect on writing quality, while sentence combining had a positive one (0.50). Grammar taught inside students' own writing did better.
Should kids still learn cursive?: Common Core leaves cursive out, but several states, including California and Illinois, now require it. The What Works Clearinghouse counts handwriting fluency as part of a moderate-evidence recommendation, and one 2020 EEG study found handwriting engaged learning-related brain areas more than typing. Typing matters too.

Sources

Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High Schools, Carnegie Corporation of New York (Graham & Perin) (2007).
The Hochman Method, The Writing Revolution.
About The Writing Revolution, The Writing Revolution.
Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively, What Works Clearinghouse (2019).
Cursive, Wikipedia.

Writer's workshop: A daily writing block of a short mini-lesson, a long stretch of children writing their own pieces while the teacher confers one-to-one, then a share.
Structured literacy and Orton-Gillingham: Explicit, step-by-step teaching of English sounds, spellings, syllables and word parts, each step building on the last; the root of most dyslexia programs.
Knowledge-building English: Reading and writing organized around weeks-long topics in science, history and the arts, so children build the knowledge and words comprehension depends on.
Charlotte Mason: Short lessons, real books instead of textbooks, telling back instead of worksheets, and time outdoors watching nature.
Classical education: Facts and memory work when young, logic in the middle years, argument and writing in the teens, with history taught in order.
Every approach in the curriculum guide

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