Perspective-taking in Young Writer’s Descriptive Writing

This paper reports a perspective-taking strategy that assisted younger writers in representing the descriptive needs of their readers. There were 154 writers (78 5^th-graders and 76 9^th-graders) and 52 9^th-grade readers that participated in the study. Three conditions were contrasted: a feedback only condition, a “rating other” condition, and a “reading as-the-reader” condition. Readers’ correct description-to-tangram matches made for each of three sessions served as the dependent measure. Repeated measures analysis revealed both the 9th- and the 5^th-grade writers showed consistent significant improvement under the “read-as-the-reader” condition when revising their essays and when drafting anew. The results suggest that when young writers engage in a process that mirrors their readers’ experiences, they can more accurately revise their descriptive writing to meet their readers’ informational needs.