Writing That Sticks: Using ARCS with Ruth Douthitt

Welcome & Guest Introduction

Jackie Pelegrin 0:01

Hello, and welcome to the Designing with Love podcast. I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you information, tips, and tricks as an instructional designer. Hello, instructional designers and educators. Welcome to episode 126 of the Designing with Love Podcast. Today I'm joined by Ruth A. Daltit, an award-winning Christian fiction writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, and a curriculum developer on my team at an educational services company. Ruth also hosts a Writers' Day podcast where she shares insights on the craft of writing and the writing life.

What ARCS Means & Why It Works

Jackie Pelegrin 0:38

In this episode, we're diving into the ARCS model of motivational design and how we can use it to teach writing more effectively in both synchronous and asynchronous classrooms. Welcome to the show, Ruth. Thanks for having me, Jackie. It's always fun to be here with you. Yes. And it's exciting because you've been on my podcast before in the early days, and now I've made some good changes. So uh so it's exciting to see how it's evolved and how it's grown over the years.

Speaker 1:02

Wonderful. Congratulations.

Jackie Pelegrin 1:04

Thank you. And congratulations on your success too with yours. So it's great. And uh yeah, it's wonderful. So before we jump into ARCs, can you share a little bit about your work as a curriculum developer and as a writer and how those two worlds shape the way you think about teaching writing?

Speaker 1:20

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I started off as a curriculum developer like 20 years ago. Wow, you can't believe it. Designing curriculum for my own classroom at community college, and then came over to the university where we work. And that's where I really started to learn more about asynchronous more uh learning and how we divide design centralized curriculum, which was really strange. I'd never done that before. So that was a learning process. But one thing I did learn was how to effectively design assignments that teach students how to write. And that's where I learned so many different ways, so many models to follow. The ARC model was one that we tried to utilize as much as possible because, as you know, with asynchronous learning, students drop off. They just get bored and they don't invest in the assignment. And then I got to go teach in my own classroom at a local middle school. That was so much fun. But I was teaching writing and language arts, and so I tried to take what I was learning at the university where we work and implement it into my own classroom for middle school kids, and that didn't work too well. That was tough. Mostly because they're, you know, it's in-person, it's synchronous learning in a totally different environment. And I found that uh being a writer myself helped because they started to invest in my assignments when I would tell them I'm doing this myself, I'm writing something myself, I'm having to do an outline and a rough draft, you know, brainstorm everything. And that made them realize, oh, okay, I might be actually able to use these skills later on in life. So then I decided after my first year of teaching to go back and revamp everything and redesign my curriculum. And the ARC model was so effective, it really was wonderful. When I left my classroom in 2016 and came back here to the university working with you, I thought maybe we should restructure some of our writing assignments following that model. Again, we kind of got away from it and then we returned back to it. So yeah, I can't stress

Ruth’s Path From Curriculum To Classroom

Speaker 3:26

enough how effective this model is when you want to teach writing at the college level or you know, in your in-person classroom to middle school. It's so helpful.

Jackie Pelegrin 3:37

It makes a difference, absolutely. So for the listeners that may be new to this model, ARCS, which stands for attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction, how would you explain it in plain language? And why is it especially helpful for writing instruction?

Speaker 3:53

The best way is to explain it where you want to get the students' attention right away. And you can do that with a hook or a funny story or tell them, hey, I'm working on an assignment just like this. And that gets their attention right away. And then you want to explain how the assignment is going to be relevant to them. They are going to use this type of assignment in their future academic careers or even in their career field. Once you do that, when they ask, why am I doing this assignment? and they can answer that, oh, because I'm going to need this skill in the future, now they're invested. And then you want to teach it in a way that they can say, they can answer the question, Am I going to even be able to finish this assignment? You know, you want to be able to give them that confidence, and that's the C. You want them to feel like, yeah, I can do this assignment, and that builds their confidence, and they now are even more invested in the assignment. And then finally, when they turn it in, they get that feedback, that quality feedback from the instructor, and they feel they can answer the question, yes, I succeeded. I successfully completed this assignment, and it leaves them with that satisfaction of, you know, I might be able to do this going forward. And I that's kind of how I broke it up into my classroom too.

Jackie Pelegrin 5:12

I love that. Being able to break it all down. And that's what's great about models like this is that it gives you that framework and that structure that you can utilize in all of your classes and in your assignments. So it's great. Yeah, absolutely. So let's let's dive a little bit into synchronous teaching because I know that that's something that you're familiar with, which includes that live online sessions or in person as well. Yeah. Uh, what are your favorite arcs aligned strategies to keep students engaged in writing during class that you like to use?

Speaker 5:43

Well, you know, a lot of students see writing as work, they don't really see it as fun. So I always would try and remind students you're gonna write something and read something every day for the rest of your life. And when you approach it that way, they kind of realize, yeah, I guess you're right. You

Plain‑Language ARCS For Writing

Speaker 6:03

know, whether it's a memo or an email or you know, some sort of a letter that they have to write, a text message, they're gonna be communicating in some written form for the rest of their life. So they might as well learn how to do it effectively, right? Right. So if there's any way that you can get the students' attention early on by remind like maybe telling them a funny story, an anecdote, or show them an example of the assignment, how it's applied in real life, whether it's a writing assignment or a technology assignment, anything that grabs their attention and shows them, hey, this is a skill you're gonna need to have for the rest of your life, not just for this moment, this course or this college program, but for the rest of your life. So that was something of a challenge for middle school kids, you know, because they don't tend to think about the rest of their lives, they're living in the present. Same with high school kids, they're only living in the present day. So if any advice I could give to teachers is start off with showing them how the assignment is going to be applied in real life, I did that a lot with functional text, teaching students functional text, how they have to fill out a calendar, a job advocation, a resume, how they have to analyze a table, you know, table content, graphs, anything like that. If you can just show them that example of the assignment in real life, now you have their attention and they're thinking, hmm, maybe I should pay attention to this, you know. So that's the first strategy is sh get their attention right away by showing them examples, real world examples. And then you transition to that relevancy. Because you're still gonna have some students say, Yeah, that's all well and good, but how is this relevant to me? How am I gonna use this in my future? And that's when you start to show them examples of how they're gonna need to write, to select a topic, to defend a position, right, for the rest of their lives. They're gonna have to know how to effectively communicate a defense of a position. And so that's why I had them learn academic, uh, I'm sorry, the argumentative essay in middle school. And now with our college courses, right, we need to teach them how to write, to take a defense on a position and to argue that position judiciously, not with emotional reasoning. So all of that is real-world stuff that we have to do. So the ARC model is good, not just for in the classroom, but think of how you use it in your real world living, right? Everyday living, we use this model. So those are some really effective strategies that I use. And then, of course, with like I said, with writing,

Synchronous Strategies That Hook Writers

Speaker 8:46

it's always work. So I try to make it fun and show them that writing doesn't just start with essay, essay, essay, always writing an essay, but maybe breaking it up into chunks that are more fun, you know, that they can see how important a thesis statement is. So we start there, or even the brainstorm. I used to show them fun ways to brainstorm an idea in my classroom, and that made them relax and realize, okay, this could actually be a fun assignment, you know. So those are just some strategies I suggest to some teachers, whether you're teaching college. You know, I used to teach a college presentation course, and my students were 20-somethings, and they were a little invested because they're paying for the class themselves, but they kind of get bored and uh whatever, whatever, that kind of stuff. So I would bring in guest speakers to come in and show them how they're gonna need to present ideas and take a position and defend it, you know, in a presentation, and that woke them up and they thought, oh wow, I better listen. I'm gonna have to do this in the real world, right? Sometimes any way that you can get them excited. And I know in online learning that can be a struggle because a lot of students start the module and then they start to, you know, their mind starts to wander throughout the module. So you have to really get their investment and then carry that through as much as possible.

Jackie Pelegrin 10:10

Right, exactly. Because they they have all of that energy to start, and then they start to in online learning. I noticed that in my classes they start to burn out about three quarters of the way through, and I'm like, come on, you're almost there. You can do it. Yeah, it's tough. So hard. I can tell sometimes their writing will start to drop off a little bit, and I'm like, oh no, or they don't turn in a completed, you know, matrix document where it's halfway filled out, and I'm like, oh no, they burned outbreaking.

Speaker 10:38

Yes, it's so heartbreaking. And that's why in our business, I think it's important to have those statements at the start of every assignment. This is why you need to learn this, this is why you're doing this, to remind them of the relevancy of it and how they will need to use the skill. These are the skills you're learning, and this is how you apply it in your act in your career field, right? Right. In hopes that they'll still stay invested. And I also believe at the very beginning of the unit for teachers to remind the students as why they're doing this. I used to always tell my eighth graders, I contacted the local high schools and asked all the honors, you know, AP uh teachers, what kind of writing you'll be doing next year. And this is the kind of writing you're gonna need to learn. And I would remind them of that all throughout the year so that they, those who are interested in AP courses would realize, oh yeah, I'm gonna need Mrs. Daltit's recommendation to get into an AP course. So right away they would sit up straight, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, I need to I need to get an A on this assignment. So if there's any way in your online course to remind the students as they go of the importance of these skills in their career field, that might help keep them invested.

Jackie Pelegrin 11:59

That's a good idea. I like that. Because, like, for example, in the instructional design program at GCU, the students in the introductory class, well, they revise the whole program and then they revise the courses. So in the introductory course, they have them start their portfolio and they have to write, you know, some blog posts in there and kind of you know talk about integrity and talk about character education. I'm like, oh, they're putting character education in there. That's great. Yeah, it's really neat. But I think what they need to do is is connect that a little bit better to the other courses and let them know this is important. You don't want to just think it's not important because, oh, this is the beginning and I'll have time because they add artifacts, right? And then at the in the capstone is where they finalize it and then they present it. So um, yeah, so it's interesting because sometimes they may not think it's important and or they may just not do that well on the blog post. But I'm like, this is gonna be used for your future employment. That's right. It's important to write well and do do all those things well. Yes, exactly. Right. So help helping them kind of see the bigger picture, right, is really helpful in those aspects too. The relevance, yeah. Right. Yes. So we talked a little bit about the the asynchronous, right? Where those are usually the online settings. And you even mentioned a little bit, motivation can drop fast in those classes because there's no instructor there. Uh they're they're on their own, right? So it's a little bit more, I feel like I'm more of a facilitator than an instructor

Relevance & Real‑World Writing Skills

Jackie Pelegrin 13:30

sometimes with those. But yeah. So what do you think ARCs looks like when students are working independently on those modules, like you were talking a little bit about? How do you think those instructors um can can kind of incorporate that a little bit more and still help their students maintain that autonomy as well?

Speaker 13:47

Yeah, I know it's hard because it's centralized curriculum and you all are, you know, facilitators more than anything. And I think it's important to make sure you're not overloading each week. And I know a lot of our programs do that, where faculty are poor things, they're having to grade three assignments a week, you know, and you can't give quality feedback when you're doing that. So especially with writing papers, um, students need to receive that feedback, or the S part of the ARCS model disappears and they stop caring about what they turn in if they're just getting, you know, good job, good job, good job on every essay. And uh so we need to provide better instruction and take those big writing assignments that are very important, and I I can't stress that enough. Students need to know how to write, but maybe break them up and scaffold them where we're starting with the easiest concept first. You know, pick a topic, write a thesis or a research question, and then we slowly introduce the more complex parts of the writing assignment, like the research, the bibliography, the lit review, those are huge. Those can be difficult. So that's where instructors need to come in and give that feedback. And so we need to provide time for that to happen. Because you know, sometimes you might have 10 students or you might have 30 students, and you as an instructor want to be able to give them quality feedback on the research they just selected. And so by chunking it out, by scaffolding the paper assignment out like that, we have found and research shows. I know ASU did a lot of research on this, that it shows that instructors can give quality feedback, and therefore students start to gain confidence and they start to think, I just might be able to finish this assignment. I think I might be able to complete this assignment well. And then they do the rough draft, get that feedback, make revisions, and turn in the final draft. That's about the best way to teach uh a writing project online. Otherwise, if you just overload them with a whole bunch of assignments each week, they will drop off. They'll start off all excited, but then mid through they're gonna get overwhelmed, and the poor instructor is overwhelmed too. You know, they want to give good feedback, but they are just so overwhelmed that they don't have time, and that's heartbreaking. Right. So e even in my own classroom, I did it that way. I had 33 students in three different seventh grade classes, and then 30 students in two eighth grade classes. That's a lot of essays to grade. Wow, that is yeah. My profess my principal was like, No, have them do an essay each week. And I told her, How on earth do you think I'm gonna be able to grade all those essays and give quality feedback? I'm not gonna be able to. So I would sprinkle in a couple of little fun essays, but teach that big argumentative essay throughout a whole unit and just separate it into scaffolded chunks, starting with the easiest concept first, give them that feedback, get them excited, and then spread it out. And I think you and I both agree that making sure that the students get to choose what they want to write about is key.

Keeping Online Learners Motivated

Speaker 17:05

When I taught writing, sometimes a science teacher would give me a topic, have your students write about this because I'm teaching it. Or the social studies teacher would say, right, have the students write about this because I'm teaching this. And I'd say, No. I allow my students to choose their own topics. And they'd say, Why, that's crazy. And I say, Because research shows that if they get to choose what they want to write about, they're more invested in the project. And that can go with a research project, a proposal, a presentation, or a paper. Let the student choose what they want to write about and they will be passionate about it. But when we tell them no, you have to write about this, the interest goes way down and they are no longer interested.

Jackie Pelegrin 17:52

Right. That's so true. And I think too, it the way we structure, you know, writing, like you said, the writing assignments where they're scaffolded. You know, it's very interesting because a lot of, I don't know if you hear this with the courses you now work on for the college, but I hear so many of them in the not just writing intensive, but just overall, they want to remove that rough draft component because they think it's a waste of time because students aren't revising it from the rough draft to the final. And I'm like, well, then we're not setting them up properly then.

Speaker 18:19

That's right. We're not explaining the purpose of the rough draft then. Right. If they see it as worthless, then we're not setting it up properly. Yeah, we need to explain to them why it's an important part. And I always used to tell my students, because I'm an artist, you know, I would show them the first sketch of my painting, the second sketch, you know, painting, and then I would show them the finished piece, and they'd see the process of a painting. I I would tell them, I don't just start painting and then bling, it's done. It takes a process, and it's the same thing with write in book. I would come in and show them stacks of papers that I printed out of my rough draft and my editor's comments, and I would show that to them, and then I'd hold up the finished product and I'd say, see, that's the rough draft, and it has all the editors' comments, and I made all these changes, and then that's the final project. And that's the importance of showing them the rough draft has meaning, it has purpose, you're not wasting your time. But again, it does come back to can the instructor give good quality feedback on on that rough draft? Or are they overwhelmed and they just can't? And all they're saying is good job. Well, then yeah, the student's not going to go back and make any changes. Right.

Jackie Pelegrin 19:40

They're just gonna resubmit it as their final project. So and it, yeah, it loses its value, absolutely. I think one thing you brought up, Ruth, that is so important that I think sometimes we forget when we're working on curriculum is it it varies in the class sizes, with online and on ground too. Uh where you could have a class, I've had classes, you know, with three students, and then I had one recently that had 25 in it. And yeah, it's hard because if you have 25 students, you have less time that you can spend on each assignment. But if you have three, you can spend more time with those students. Give them more quality, individualized feedback. But if you have 25, that's a little bit harder to do. So I think we need to remember, remember that as well as we're built when we're building all the curriculum and those teachers that are listening when they build the curriculum. Yeah.

Speaker 20:28

I'm working on an English course right now, one of the, you know, English composition, it's the course that students have to take. And uh online it's only seven weeks. On ground, you know, it's 16 weeks, so they can bring in guest speakers, they can go on field trips, it doesn't matter, they can have a jolly good time, but online it's only seven weeks, and we're trying to teach them how to write, how to be persuasive in their writing in seven weeks. That is huge. So over the years, we've had two or three assignments per week. And some I asked the

Scaffolding, Feedback, & Workload

Speaker 21:05

subject matter experts who teach the course, how many students do you generally have? They say about a hundred. And I'm thinking, you know what? There is no way you can give quality feedback on these assignments when you have that many students. It's insane. But sometimes our hands are tied. So we revise and we revise, you know, the ADI method, we implement and then we evaluate, and now we're going back and revising.

Jackie Pelegrin 21:30

Doing another analysis, yeah. Yes, we are silical process, yep. It's not linear anymore with ADI, so it's more silical now. Yeah, that's interesting. And even with a TA, I I still don't think they can give quality feedback even with the TA. They just can't. Yeah, that's tough. Absolutely. Wow. So I wanted to bring in a little bit of a bonus question. So if if an instructor wants to redesign one writing assignment using ARCs, what's a great before and after examples? Of how you transform it to improve motivation and overall outcomes of that assignment for the students.

Speaker 22:07

That's a great question. I'll I'll start with my own classroom when I was a writing teacher for middle school. We always had them do tell me what you did over the summer essay when they'd first get back, you know, from summer. And it would turn out some of the assignments weren't that great. So I changed it into an assessment where they were still writing this the essay, but for me, I was using it to evaluate their level, their writing levels. And so what made it more of an investment for students is I would tell them what I did over the summer. I would start off with a story, or I would tell them a funny story about when I was in middle school, and now they're listening, and now they're interested, and they're learning something about me. And then I would ask them to write their essay, and I'd go through the brainstorm and you know the topic and everything. And those essays were so much better. And so I was using it as an artifact to look at and assess their level of writing. And so that informed my next writing assignment. I could tell who was going to struggle and how to scaffold it out and everything. So that's an example of how to just go from write this essay to making it more of an arc using the arc model, get their attention, uh, make it relevant. I would tell them this is gonna help inform all the other essays that you're gonna be doing this year. And I would give them confidence. I would show them how to I would model a brainstorm. I would take my story that I just shared with them and show them how to make it into an outline. And then at the very end, I we'd all get so excited. Some of them would choose to read their essays in class, you know. So that's one example. For the college example, um, like I said, I would just have them do a presentation for my presentation course, but then by bringing in a guest speaker, that brought in that relevance. Now they understood that even though they were graphic design students, they were still gonna have to present their designs to the client. And that scared them to death. They thought they could just hide behind a computer. No, my guest speaker was a creative director of a local agency, and he said, Absolutely not. I asked my employees to get out there and present their designs to the client. So now I had their undivided attention and they were completely invested in this assignment. And they cared about it, and I could tell the quality just went sky high. And on the day they made their presentation, they were dressed up compared to the very first presentation where they were in shorts or t-shirts. One kid even wore a back uh baseball cap backwards. The second presentation, after the guest speaker, he was dressed appropriately, and uh that made all the difference by showing them, by getting their attention and showing them the relevance of these assignments. And they had confidence they can do it, and at the very end, it was so nice to see them do all the presentations, they were very satisfied with their work.

Jackie Pelegrin 25:03

So wow, I love that. That before and after, that's great. Thanks, Ruth. I appreciate that. Sure. So as we wrap up, if uh if any of our our listeners want to apply ARCS immediately, what are some uh small changes, maybe three small changes they can make

Choice, Drafts, & Real Revision

Jackie Pelegrin 25:20

this week to improve motivation in their writing instruction, whether they teach synchronously or asynchronously.

Speaker 25:26

I think the main thing is to show the relevance of the assignment in the real world for students. So that you're telling them, I used to always tell my students this, I'm not wasting your time. You're going to need this in your future academic career and in your chosen career field. I would tell that to eighth graders, I would tell that to my college students. And that always woke them up. So do your best to show the relevance of your assignment. That's not just busy work. Students hate that when it's just busy work. So always stress at the beginning of each week, if you can, the relevance of the assignment. And you'll start to see your students become more invested.

Jackie Pelegrin 26:08

Absolutely. I love that. That's what you you know, working with uh counseling curriculum for a little while, now and then you know one of the college leadership, the director, she she uses that term a lot. No busy work. Make it relevant. Yes. And you know, I push the purpose statements a lot. If I don't see a purpose statement, I'm like, get that purpose statement in there. Yeah. So it's so important to do that. It doesn't have to be really long, it just has to have meaning to it. It has to give them an an introduction into what it's about. Like you said, it's utilizing that the ARCS model really well. Why?

Speaker 26:43

Why are you having me do this assignment? We need to be able to answer that question.

Jackie Pelegrin 26:47

Mm-hmm. Exactly. Because so many assignments, especially in older courses, you'll see in this many words, do this paper. And I'm like, right complete this worksheet. Exactly. And I just cringe because I thought, oh, what were we thinking? Exactly. We didn't we weren't thinking about the the motivation behind it. It was let's let's just get this course done, right? Let's just get it, get it off our plates and and the the subject matter experts, the faculty weren't thinking of it either at the time. So yeah. And especially now with AI technology, we need to be uh more we need to have them more invested in it. And uh yeah, because I'm sure you hear all the time that faculty will say, I think they did that DQ using AI, and it's like, well, no, you may think I we can't prove it, but you know, we have to make it more to where they will invest in it and they won't just go to some AI tool and want to just, you know, have it write the paper for them, right? Yeah, is to get it done, exactly. Right. Because motivation is so key to that, absolutely. Great. Is there anything else you wanted to share about that or any other tips that you wanted to share? Anything else?

Speaker 27:56

Well, it's just that the ARC model, like I said, it's really good for real life. You know, you don't just need it for your education, but think about how you use it every day too, to make sure that you know the work that you're doing is relevant. And when you're leading meetings or professional developments, you know, staff development meetings, are you getting their attention with a funny story or you know, an anecdote, something that shows them that the meeting content that you're the agenda that you're about to present is relevant and you're not just wasting their time. And of course, leave them with some confidence. You know, you might be introducing a new skill or a new process, you know, a change in the company. Well, give them confidence that they can do it. A lot of people are afraid of change, and you know, our company introduces a lot of new policies and processes, so that change can make it scary. But if we can explain it in such a way that the attendees of your meeting or your staff development feel confident that they can do it, then that's key. And then, of course, leave them satisfied when they are able to utilize AI to help them in their job, or they are able to complete, you know, a new process. Be encouraging and remind them, you know, to have that satisfaction. You did it. You didn't think you could, but you you did it. So it's just a great model to use in real life at work and also for instructional design.

Jackie Pelegrin 29:18

Absolutely. Right. Yeah, that's the great thing about a lot of these models and and tools that we have in our tool belt, you know. Let's utilize them and not just let them sit on a shelf somewhere. Let's actually put them to use. I love it. Great. Well, Ruth, thank you again for being here and for sharing practical grounded insights that my listeners can actually apply right away because that's the whole point of this podcast is making it practical, making it actionable for them, but also making it evergreen, right? This is not gonna go go away anytime soon. It's gonna be around. So I love that. Absolutely. Yes. So for anyone who wants to keep learning from you uh or wants to reach out to you, what's the best place to follow you or connect?

Speaker 29:59

Well, you can go

Class Size, Seven‑Week Constraints

Speaker 30:00

to my website at artbyruth.com. It's artbyruth because I always started off as an artist, you know, before I became an author or a teacher. So it's artbyruth.com. And there you can sign up for my newsletter to learn more about me and my upcoming projects. You can listen to my podcast episodes there on my website and uh see all my books there as well. Or you can follow me on Instagram, I'm author R A Dowthit there. That's probably where I'm at the most, and then a little bit on Facebook, which is Ruth Douthet, you can find me there too.

Jackie Pelegrin 30:32

That's great. I love it. I'm glad that you're really active. I'm I'm the opposite. I'm active on LinkedIn, but I'm hardly on on Instagram anymore. So it just depends. Yeah. Yeah. It's good to have those connections and have people that follow you. So that's great. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. And hopefully we can do another episode down the road on another model and how that applies to curriculum in real life as well. Absolutely. Thank you, Jackie. Appreciate it. Thank you for taking some time to listen to this podcast episode today. Your support means the world to me. If you'd like to help keep the podcast going, you can share it with a friend or colleague, leave a heartfelt review, or offer a monetary contribution. Every act of support, big or small, makes a difference, and I'm truly thankful for you.