Volume 3, Issue D ::: December 1999 Using Research on Writing by
Marilyn K. Gillespie Marilyn Gillespie highlights some research
on writing instruction and discusses what it offers to adult
basic education. I was introduced to research on writing in the
mid-1980s while starting up Read Write Now, a small library
literacy program in Springfield, MA. Janet Kelly, who co-
directed the program, had just finished a graduate course on the
teaching of writing in elementary schools. She described the
latest writing process research and speculated that it might be
uniquely suited to our desire for a learner-centered classroom.
We were looking for ways to move beyond simply teaching skills.
We wanted literacy acquisition to be part of a process whereby
adults developed personal goals for change, found their own
voices, and acquired the ability to speak out and give an
opinion on things that mattered in their lives. Janet introduced
me to the work of researchers Donald Graves (1975), Lucy Calkins
(1975), and others who h