Findings
During Phase One, I found several themes emerge as I collected and analyzed the data.
Adjusting to new structures and expectations takes time and support.
First, while the students initially felt excited and enthusiastic about the Writing Workshop, once they were given regular extended periods of time to write, it took a while before they were able to grow into this change in writing instruction. As observed before and during my needs assessment, my students typically received sporadic writing assignments with clear requirements in terms of subject matter and length. While some students did write beyond these requirements, most students wrote the bare minimum and all students paid little attention to creativity, expression and meaning. Sometimes their writing would be read and conventions corrected by a teacher. Other times, their writing would be checked merely for completeness and students would move onto another activity. Needless to say, when students were expected to choose what to write about within the realms of a broad theme (personal narratives), many students had a hard time coming up with ideas. Furthermore, as evidenced by their comments and my observations of off-task activity during the first week of implementation, students did not know what to do when given more time to write. Comments such as, “I’m done,” and “I don’t have anything else to write, “ were commonly spoken during the first week of Phase One and I had to constantly encourage students to add more, write more, reread and think. Despite this challenging start I was pleased to find that with consistency my students were able to grow into these longer periods of writing time and increase their self-efficacy as writers.
Challenging work can be meaningful work.
There were a small number of students (6) who believed that week one's writing activities helped them improve as writers. All of these students said that making lists and brainstorming helped them come up with more ideas. Other students said they did not improve because they couldn't think of anything, they are 'bad spellers' and because 'writing hurt' their hand. The largest increase in the number of students who believed they improved as writers happened during the second week of Phase One, then remained steady afterward. Students attributed 'writing everyday,' 'talking to the teacher,' and 'reading other students writing' as reasons for their improvement. I believe that time to increase their stamina in writing also played a role in their perceived improvement.
Adjusting to new structures and expectations takes time and support.
First, while the students initially felt excited and enthusiastic about the Writing Workshop, once they were given regular extended periods of time to write, it took a while before they were able to grow into this change in writing instruction. As observed before and during my needs assessment, my students typically received sporadic writing assignments with clear requirements in terms of subject matter and length. While some students did write beyond these requirements, most students wrote the bare minimum and all students paid little attention to creativity, expression and meaning. Sometimes their writing would be read and conventions corrected by a teacher. Other times, their writing would be checked merely for completeness and students would move onto another activity. Needless to say, when students were expected to choose what to write about within the realms of a broad theme (personal narratives), many students had a hard time coming up with ideas. Furthermore, as evidenced by their comments and my observations of off-task activity during the first week of implementation, students did not know what to do when given more time to write. Comments such as, “I’m done,” and “I don’t have anything else to write, “ were commonly spoken during the first week of Phase One and I had to constantly encourage students to add more, write more, reread and think. Despite this challenging start I was pleased to find that with consistency my students were able to grow into these longer periods of writing time and increase their self-efficacy as writers.
Challenging work can be meaningful work.
There were a small number of students (6) who believed that week one's writing activities helped them improve as writers. All of these students said that making lists and brainstorming helped them come up with more ideas. Other students said they did not improve because they couldn't think of anything, they are 'bad spellers' and because 'writing hurt' their hand. The largest increase in the number of students who believed they improved as writers happened during the second week of Phase One, then remained steady afterward. Students attributed 'writing everyday,' 'talking to the teacher,' and 'reading other students writing' as reasons for their improvement. I believe that time to increase their stamina in writing also played a role in their perceived improvement.
Another theme I found during Phase One pertains to students’ enjoyment of writing. Despite the increase in expectations during writing instruction, more than half of the students consistently stated that they enjoyed the writing lessons and activities. The number of these students remained relatively constant during Phase One and they stated they enjoyed writing because they 'liked to read other people's stories,' they 'got to write a funny story,' they 'wrote a lot,' and, because they saw themselves as being 'a good writer.'
This data was encouraging because it illustrated for me that many of my students enjoy challenging work if it is meaningful to them. Although some of them felt that they didn’t improve during certain weeks, they still enjoyed the act of writing, sharing their stories and reading their friends’ stories. This data also clearly identified a small group of students (7) who consistently stated that they did not enjoy these writing activities. These same students did not perceive the writing lessons and activities during Phase One as helpful towards their improvement as writers. This made me realize that I should have focused more time and energy in helping these particular children find their voice as writers as well as the pleasure in writing.
Students perceptions of themselves as writers do not always correlate with performance.
At the end of Phase One, I was able to compare students’ writing pieces to the pieces they wrote during the needs assessment. Each student kept all of their Phase One prewriting activities, drafts and final pieces in their writing folder. All pieces were reviewed using the 6+1 writing rubric. All students improved in their writing in the areas of clarity, sentence fluency, word choice, creativity, length and convention. 10 students improved significantly in their use of writing conventions, sentence structure and descriptive language and this group included some students who consistently stated that they felt they did not improve as writers and did not enjoy the writing lessons and activities. Another significant finding I discovered from this data is that two of my most capable writers (as determined by using the 6+1 Writing Traits Rubric to review their work samples) consistently had a negative image of themselves as writers and a negative attitude about writing. Four students, whose writing samples show that they are emerging writers in some areas and developing writers in other areas (based on the 6+1 Writing Traits Rubric), consistently kept a positive image of themselves as writers as well as a positive attitude toward writing. I was surprised to learn that students' perceptions of themselves as writers did not always correlate with their performance as writers.
Feedback from an authentic audience appeared to play a role in developing a sense of pride within students towards their writing pieces.
Based on students' behaviors and comments during the Author's celebration, I believe that having an audience and receiving feedback from this audience played a significant role in developing students' pride in themselves and towards their work. Students encouraged visitors to read their stories and 100% of the students noted on exit slips that they appreciated the comments they received on their feedback sheet. However, what I found interesting was that after the event, not all students were willing and ready to start the writing process over again. I observed that even though students were proud of what they accomplished, that didn't necessarily mean they would want to do it again and that it does take time to build students' stamina to write for an audience.
One of my original subquestions was, “How does an awareness of different audiences shift the structure of students’ writing?” Because students only participated in creating one large writing piece during this phase, I was not able to collect any data related to this subquestion.
These findings, as well as the findings and observations mentioned in the Implementation Section, helped me rethink how I would collect data during Phase Two and informed my planning of Phase Two writing activities and lessons.
Students perceptions of themselves as writers do not always correlate with performance.
At the end of Phase One, I was able to compare students’ writing pieces to the pieces they wrote during the needs assessment. Each student kept all of their Phase One prewriting activities, drafts and final pieces in their writing folder. All pieces were reviewed using the 6+1 writing rubric. All students improved in their writing in the areas of clarity, sentence fluency, word choice, creativity, length and convention. 10 students improved significantly in their use of writing conventions, sentence structure and descriptive language and this group included some students who consistently stated that they felt they did not improve as writers and did not enjoy the writing lessons and activities. Another significant finding I discovered from this data is that two of my most capable writers (as determined by using the 6+1 Writing Traits Rubric to review their work samples) consistently had a negative image of themselves as writers and a negative attitude about writing. Four students, whose writing samples show that they are emerging writers in some areas and developing writers in other areas (based on the 6+1 Writing Traits Rubric), consistently kept a positive image of themselves as writers as well as a positive attitude toward writing. I was surprised to learn that students' perceptions of themselves as writers did not always correlate with their performance as writers.
Feedback from an authentic audience appeared to play a role in developing a sense of pride within students towards their writing pieces.
Based on students' behaviors and comments during the Author's celebration, I believe that having an audience and receiving feedback from this audience played a significant role in developing students' pride in themselves and towards their work. Students encouraged visitors to read their stories and 100% of the students noted on exit slips that they appreciated the comments they received on their feedback sheet. However, what I found interesting was that after the event, not all students were willing and ready to start the writing process over again. I observed that even though students were proud of what they accomplished, that didn't necessarily mean they would want to do it again and that it does take time to build students' stamina to write for an audience.
One of my original subquestions was, “How does an awareness of different audiences shift the structure of students’ writing?” Because students only participated in creating one large writing piece during this phase, I was not able to collect any data related to this subquestion.
These findings, as well as the findings and observations mentioned in the Implementation Section, helped me rethink how I would collect data during Phase Two and informed my planning of Phase Two writing activities and lessons.