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dissertation entitled

New Roles and Routines for
Elementary Teachers and Students:
A Staff Development Project Using
Computers to Teach the Revision of Writing

presented by

Glenn Lawrence DeVoogd

has been accepted towards fulfillment
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NEW ROLES AND ROUTINES FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS AND
STUDENTS: A STAFF DEVELOPMENT PROJECT USING COMPUTERS TO
TEACH THE REVISION OF WRITING

BY

Glenn Lawrence DeVoogd

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Teacher Education

1 995

ABSTRACT
NEW ROLES AND ROUTINES FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS AND
STUDENTS: A STAFF DEVELOPMENT PROJECT USING COMPUTERS TO
TEACH THE REVISION OF WRITING
BY

Glenn Lawrence DeVoogd

Traditional teacher and student roles and routines for constructing and
revising knowledge have persisted in the classroom since the rise in popularity
of the common school in the middle 18003. Technology has dramatically
changed much of our society outside of education. The arrival of the
computers in schools offers opportunities to reform education as well. This
study, drawing on ethnographic theory and method, examines some of the
ways four elementary classrooms changed in a staff development project where
computers were relatively new. Over the course of the study, teachers and the
staff developer co-constructed several methods for using the computer that
were fundamentally different from traditional classroom roles and procedures.
Students began to take a more active role constructing and revising knowledge
in the context of pairs and small groups. Wnereas traditional sources of
knowledge-in the classroom included the teacher and the textbook, in these
classrooms student experts, personal knowledge, student voice, and other
sources were common. The use of technology offered a different context and I
medium that changed the participant structure of the classroom. These

participant structures can accommodate students of increasingly diverse styles

of learning and cultures. I include principles for using technology that make it
an excellent tool for revising writing. I finish by posing two future scenarios of
what schools could look like as they use technology in the schools. Future
studies might spend more energy to document long-term outcomes of
classrooms where the character of interaction and participant structures has

changed as a result of the use of computer and a vision of student

empowerment.

Copyright by
GLENN LAWRENCE DEVOOGD

1 995

Dedicated to Lawrence Robert and Ursula Edith DeVoogd

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

No man is an island and certainly this work is a reﬂection of the
importance of community. Ich bedanke meine Mutter fur ihre ganz grosse
Liebe und meine gute Erziehung. Als meine erste Lehren’n, sie hat mir so viele
Bucher gelesen. I thank my father for his passion for learning and his endless
support for my education. My father has been a model of discipline, freedom,
and guidance that is the mark of all great teachers. For their support and joy I
thank my brothers Bruce, Jon, Thom, and sisters-in-iaw Linda and Janet. I'm
particularly indebted to Bruce for his consistent loving encouragement
throughout the dissertation writing period. For their understanding during times
of frustration, constant joy, and for giving me time to finish this work, I thank my
wife Karen and my children Skylar and Josef.

I could not have wished for a more supportive and enlightening
committee. In addition to being thoughtful contributors in the formation and
revisiOns of this text, each member became a mentor for me. For friendship,
thoughtful editing comments, her joy in my progress, and for keeping me
focused on Ios de abajo, I thank Margaret Gallego. For planting a seed of
inspiration that would last over a period of two and a half years’ work, for his

guidance and materials, I thank Pat Dickson. For his tremendously helpful

vi

editing comments and big ideas, I am grateful to Doug Campbell. For
uncommon wisdom and fun at every step of the process, I am indebted to Chris
Clark. Most importantly, i thank my director Susan Florio-Ruane who took a
personal and intense intellectual interest in the process and and the content of
my study. She guided me throughout the writing of this text by highlighting
ideas, helping me to rethink problems, and pushing my thinking in so many
ways.

This book would not be possible had it not been for the interest of the
teachers, Patti, Maria, Katie, and Kari, who worked hard to learn about writing
revision with technology. I thank Tom Stark for his encouragement and prayer.
in appreciation for transcribing and editing I thank Karla Bellingar and Sandra
Gross.

Most lmportantly i thank God from whom all blessings flow. Part of the
call to growing in our knowledge of God is having the skills and strategies that
allow us to wonder, articulate, and clarify His will for our lives. God grant that
this work will be an inspiration to do all those things for myself and for those

who read this work.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: TO REFORM OR TO REFLECT ....................... 1
An Overview of the Study ............................... 1
Whose Information? .................................. 1O

Literacy Instruction as a Set of Power Relationships ....... 1O
Constructing and Revising Knowledge ..................... 18
Empowerment Through Revision of Knowledge .......... 18
Accommodating Diversity of Personal Knowledge ........ ‘ 19
Reform and Technology ................................ 21
Problems Integrating Technology into Education .............. 22
Lack of Access or Understanding? ................... 22
Confused About the Role of Computers in Education ........... 23
A Wandering Curriculum: Programming as Construction . . . 24
Current Options for Computer Use ........................ 26
Opportunities to Reform Education with the Use of the Computer . . 29
lnforrnation Management .......................... 29
Revision of Knowledge Using Multiple Sources of Data ......... 30
Revising Graphics ............................... 31
The Social Context for Revising With Computers ......... 32
Learning to Use the Computer as a Tool for Revision .......... 34
Developing Technical and Professional Knowledge ............ 36
Goals of this Research ................................ 39

CHAPTER 2: THE METHODS AND CONTEXTS OF RESEARCH ....... 42
Research as a Process of Exploration ...................... 42
Data Collection and Analysis ............................ 49

Data Sources .................................. 50
Data Analysis ....................................... 60
Presentation of the Data ............................... 65
Context and Complexity ........................... 68
The Research Sites ........... - ........................ 69
The Geneva School District ........................ 69
My Role as Participant in the Study ....................... 73
Tera Elementary School ........................... 76
Maria ........................................ 79
Katie ......................................... 82

viii

Fruitland School District ........................... 85

Fruitland Summer Migrant Program ................... 86
Patti ......................................... 88
Kari ......................................... 90
Why I Chose These Sites .......................... 91
Software ...................................... 95
CHAPTER 3: NEW PROCEDURES TEACHING REVISION ........... 98
Interweaving Reading and Writing Processes ................ 100
Editing Templates .................................... 102
Editing Illinois .................................. 104
Other Evidence of Editing the Teacher's Template ........ 109
Using Prompts as Templates to Frame Student Writing ......... 114
Matter ........................................ 1 14
Spiders and Bats ................................ 115
Clocks, Parts of the Earth, and Story Pictures ........... 118
Progressive Story ............................... 123
Is the COmputer the Best Tool for Learning Using Templates? . . . . 125
Revision on Computer and on Paper ...................... 128
CHAPTER 4: SHIFT ING ROLES .............................. 136
Shifting Roles for Teachers ............................. 136
Evolving Participant Structures ......................... 137
The Role of Students as Experts ..................... 143
Revision in Student Groups ........................ 155
The Role of the Partner in Pairs ..................... 156
Revision in Small Groups .......................... 166
Mini-lessons: Teaching Revision ..................... 178
Mini-lessons: Revising Graphics ..................... 185
Mini-lessons: Revising Technical Procedures ............ 187
Who Revises Knowledge? .............................. 188
CHAPTER 5: PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE IN REVISION OF STUDENT
TEXTS ............................................ 191
Integrating Personal Knowledge with School Subjects .......... 195
More Examples Integrating Personal Knowledge ......... 200
Revising the Appearance of Text and Graphics ............... 203
Changing the Font Size ........................... 203
Changing the Font ............................... 207
Editing Graphics ................................ 208
CHAPTER 6: WONDERING ALOUD ABOUT TECHNOLOGY, TEACHER
EDUCATION, AND LITERACY ........................... 218
Teachers Shift Roles and Routines to Improve Revision ......... 220

ix

New Routines As Scaffolds for Writing Revision .......... 220

Small Groups and Pairs of Students .................. 222

The Role of Experts .............................. 223

Teacher Role .................................. 225

The Engaged Learner ............................ 229

A Personal Machine .............................. 230

Addressing Cultural Diversity ....................... 231

Obstacles for Teacher Development ................... 234

What Can This Study Say About Writing Instruction? ........... 235

Integrating Writing Revision Into Other School Subjects . . . . 235

Relieving the Cognitive Burden ...................... 235

Revising Writing With Computers .................... 236

The Future of Research and Schools ...................... 245
APPENDICIES

A. Overview of Classroom Technology Tools ................ 250

B. Handbook for the Fruitland Migrant Program .............. 253

C. Data Gathering Tools ............................... 255

REFERENCES ........................................... 256

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Sample Schedule of 3 Classroom in the Geneva School District 57
Table 2. Sample Schedule of Observations at the Fruitland Migrant

Program ........................................... 59
Table 3. Sample of Chart to Organize Coded Data ................. 63
Table 4. Overview of Schools and Classrooms .................... 74
Table 5. Timetable for the Study. .............................. 94
Table 6. Shift in Roles From Traditional Group to Small Groups Using

Technology ................................... _ ...... 223

xi

Figure 1.
Figure 2.
Figure 3.
Figure 4.
Figure 5.
Figure 6.
Figure 7.
Figure 8.
Figure 9.

Figure 10.
Figure 11.
Figure 12.
Figure 13.
Figure 14.
Figure 15.
Figure 16.
Figure 17.

LIST OF FIGURES

New routines and procedures. ......................... 4
Emerging participant structures. ........................ 6
Shifting roles in writing. .............................. 7
Shifting roles and routines in student revision of writing. ....... 9
Example of a semantic map .......................... 65
New routines and procedures. ........................ 101
Revising spiders text .............................. 116
Revising bats templates ............................ 116
Kelvin's parts of the earth ........................... 119
Jacob's parts of the earth .......................... 119
Clock template . .‘ ................................ 121
Math clock template .............................. 121
Original edited Hawaii ............................. 134
Minicomputer ................................... 210
Joe goes to karate ............................... 212
Drugs can kill you ............................... 213
Jordan jumps .................................... 217

xii

CHAPTER 1: TO REFORM OR TO REFLECT...

An Overview of the Study

Educational reformers note that with few exceptions, schools have not
changed much over the past century. Traditionally, teachers and textbooks
have formed the primary sources of knowledge for education. The principal
activity in schools centers around the telling and accrual of knowledge that is
considered unchanging and appropriate for all students. Much of the computer
software reﬂects those traditional school-type activities.

Many with different educational philosophies have sought to use the
computer as a tool to beneﬁt student's Ieaming. In some schools, teachers with
constructivist views of Ieaming helped students Ieam to program computers
using LOGO to construct and revise microworlds. Other teachers used the
computer as a tutor or to manage student Ieaming for them. Many competing
software developers designed attractive programs for use in the schools.
Teachers were inundated with choices about different software to use, but in
fact teachers are not sure what software to use or how to use it in the
classroom.

The school districts in this study decided to use technology to help

2

students use the computer as a tool to construct and manage ideas in school.
it was their goal to empower students to control the computer Instead of merely
responding to the computer prompts. Students could access information from
the growing sources of knowledge and then revise the information according to
their needs.

As a teacher who was interested in writing instruction and in particular
student revision of writing, I saw the potential for using the computer as a tool
for revising writing. I also realized that revision of ideas was a much larger
concept related to revision of writing. Certainly, those who found it easy to
revise their ideas about any topic would also find it easy to revise their writing.
Revision of writing, when it takes place at the idea level beyond superficial
changes in text, involves the revision of ideas. In this text, I think of the ability
to revise knowledge in general to be an important part of revising writing and
sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably.

I saw the potential for revising writing with the computer, but many
obstacles still existed. Studies of writing revision have discovered that it is rare
for students to revise in schools. Others who study computers note that the
existence of the computer does not impact the schools. It is, rather, the
teachers and the context in which the computer is used that allows computer
use to act as a change agent. As I studied these goals and the general
directions computer use was taking in the schools, I became intrigued by the

tremendous amount of work it would take to transform classrooms to use the

3

computer as an instrument for revision of knowledge in general and the revision
In writing in particular. Although there is potential for computer to be used to
reform education, there exists the likelihood that in many classrooms the use of
the computer will merely reﬂect traditional practices of schooling.

' So many questions remained. How could the computer be used as a
tool for constructing and revising knowledge? How can we educate teachers
about these practices? After teachers and staff developers learn to use the
computers to revise knowledge, what will the classroom look like?

To answer these questions, I worked in two ﬁrst-grade and two fourth-
grade classrooms in two distinct educational settings. In those classes, I
worked with teachers as a staff developer and co-teacher to enact a curriculum
revising knowledge using the computer as a tool. These settings as well as the
methodology of the study are described in Chapter 2. An overview of the site
including characteristics of teachers and students is located on Table 4.

This study describes the use of technology in the classroom over the
course of 10 months. Our ﬁrst task was to think about principles of study using
the computer consistent with emerging curriculum guidelines on technology and
other cun'icular areas (see appendices A and B). What I found was that over
the course of the study, as the teachers and I changed the routines and
procedures of the classroom to explore the uses of the computers, the roles of

the students and the teachers began to change.

Different methods were used to teach revision in the classroom. One of

4

the most common methods was to encourage students to revise a content area
passage written by the teacher. The processes teachers employ to revise
writing at the keyboard and on paper away from the keyboard are described.
Chapter 3, which describes the new routines and procedures that teachers and
I developed as co-workers, is a signiﬁcant part of the study for a couple of
reasons. Below, Figure 1 illustrates a semantic map of the major concepts
reported in Chapter 3. New classroom routines and procedures emerged from
discussions with teachers about how to integrate the use of computers In
classroom lessons. Teachers provided opportunities for students to revise in
two different ways: (a) an emphasis on students revising writing on paper and
keyboard, and (b) students editing writing and graphics the teacher had created
as a template. The units the teachers and I planned and I have reported on in

this study are listed around those two broad areas.

 

  
 
  
   

 

 

 
    

 

  

 

 

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State ; Rages 8 —-CEi}ltlng templates good“ 8
Procedures I Earth
Illi 0" POP" 5 Teaching Spldcrs PIOQI'OSSIVO
nols keyboard with a Bats stories
Technology
—

 

Figure 1. New routines and procedures.

5

Chapter 3 gives the readers a fuller sense of the context of the
classroom situation where we were attempting to use technology to revise
knowledge. Teachers and staff developers may ﬁnd this section interesting as
an example to critique in their own search for using the computer as a tool for
constructing and revising knowledge in the classroom. This chapter also
reveals portions of the process that emerged as we pursued these goals. Many
studies describe staff development projects in which the desired outcome was
deﬁned in terms of speciﬁc methods that had been proven worthy by
researchers. This project, in contrast, describes endpoints in a journey of
discovering new routines and procedures in which the desired outcome was
deﬁned only in terms of principles such as construction and revision.

Most importantly, this chapter leads to a fuller understanding of how
participants discover new roles themselves as teachers and learners. That
discussion takes place in Chapter 4 on Emerging Participant Structures.
Participant structures refer to relationships students and teachers have with
each other and what their rights and obligations are in the different roles they
play.

In a sense, these changes in routines and procedures provided a
context that enabled all classroom participants to relate to each other in ways
that changed the character and the tone of Ieaming. The computer as a form
of media and staff development acted as catalysts and provided an opportunity

for this Important transformation of goals.

6

In Chapter 4, this shift of roles in the classroom and an emerging
participant structure that differs from traditional classrooms is examined. As
teachers use the computer in the classroom as a tool for constructing and
revising knowledge the classroom, the participant structures in the classroom
change, resulting in smaller groups, more student talk, and more student control
of the Ieaming process. Group work allows students to regulate their own
information; students become less dependent on the teacher.

The classroom changes in the emerging participant structures are detailed
in three groups (Figure 2). In the ﬁrst group, the role of the expert computer

person is examined. Expert computer persons take on the roles of secondary

 

 

 

 

 

 

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prooi eader
eI ; borator
Small Scaffold
groups 8 Pairs .
‘ . Computer ,
Relief for writer ~ Emerglng 1 Expert
structures w Technical Secondary
Large group i Specialist Author.”
Mini-lessons

 

Figure 2. Emerging participant structures.

7

authority, scaffold (help fellow students understand the content of the lesson),
and technical specialist (roles previously reserved for teachers). The partners
In small groups and in pairs take on the roles of proofreader, elaborator,
motivator, and relief for the person who is writing. Mini-lessons are a tool
teachers use to teach large group students to revise writing, graphics, and
knowledge of technical skills in a whole group setting.

Educational historians and reformers have described how classrooms are
structured to value teacher and textbook knowledge. Students become
increasingly passive as their ideas 90 unexplored in favor of static school
sanctioned knowledge.

In Chapter 5, the shifting role that revision in writing plays to help include

some of the student's prior knowledge and preferences in the teaching of

Integrating
pers . nal knowledge

 

 

 

 

 

Personal
Shifting preferences
roles for in the
writing appearance
of writing
Integrating

personal voice

Figure 3. Shifting roles in writing.

8

different subject areas is described (Figure 3). The nature of student revisions
using the computer as a tool reveals that students revise in ways that reﬂect
personal choices. Students revised their writing by integrating their personal
knowledge with other sources of knowledge. The written product that results
from such an experience can reveal the child's prior knowledge and personal
experiences.

The shift in the role of writing in the classroom became more evident when,
instead of duplicating the teacher's or textbook's schema, students expressed
their personal choices and emotions concerning different topics. The students'
expression of choice and emotion are less interesting in literacy classes where
student voice is more common. I am more encouraged by the expression of
choice and voice in social studies and science classes where student voice and
choice have not been so common. Students continued to participate in the
revision of knowledge by expressing themselves, revising graphics and text to
suit their personal interests. The role of revision in writing in the classroom can
be more than just another tool to accumulate facts. Chapter 5 provides
examples of ways in which revision of writing with the computer can supply a
context that allows students to participate more in the construction of a more
personal knowledge.

The common thread that ties all of these chapters together is their focus

on shifting roles and routines in student revision of writing (Figure 4). As

teachers and l established new classroom routines and procedures, a

9

participant structure began to emerge that was fundamentally different from the
type of teaching and Ieaming that had taken place in the classroom previously.
The teacher and students related to each other differently. The role of writing
became a role of personal expression. Students integrated their voice and
personal knowledge with content area knowledge. Figure 4 illustrates the
principle shifts in roles and routines in student revision of writing.

It is inappropriate in a study of a few classes to propose that what is

Progress ve story

   
  
  

Illinois One picture Ocean

   
 
 

New
5““ Routines & Editing templates “0°“ &
on a HR. Procedures Earth
p p Teaching Spiders Progressive

keyboard with & Bats stories
Technology

    
 
  

Integrating
pars-pnal knowledge
_. Personal
Changing preferences
student —in the

writing appearance
, of writing

 
     

 

- Shifting Roles and
proofreadcr : Routines in Student
' Revision of Writing

   
   

  
  

 

   
 

 

 

 

 

Small
groups

 

 
   
 

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Integrating
personal voice

  

participant
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Technical Secondary
Specialist Authority

Figure 4. Shifting roles and routines in student revision of writing.

10

described In those classrooms can be generalized across contexts to all
classrooms. Instead, this study provides examples of shifting roles and routines
In the revision of student writing that may appear interesting to researchers and
practitioners. The study provides a rough view of means by which teachers
provided a more engaged personal experience for students revising their writing
with technology.

The rest of Chapter 1 explores in detail some of the ideas researchers
have expressed In the areas of writing revision and the direction of the use of
technology in the classroom. It also brieﬂy explores traditional concepts of
knowledge with an eye towards looking at writing using the computer In a
different way. Questions and ideas as to how to pursue these different Ideas in
the classroom form the basis for the research questions at the end of the
chapter.

Whose information?
Lite Inst ctio as a at of Power Relationshi 3

Traditional classrooms in the past and now are places where students
have Ieamed from the teacher and the classroom textbooks. Students listen to
lectures that teachers give in the classroom and read the book for other
Information. These two sources have formed the primary basis of content
students were compelled to use.

The physical structure of the classroom has been shaped to reﬂect the

importance of teacher and textbook knowledge. Classrooms have been shaped

11

with desks separated and facing the front to minimize student conversation and
maximize attention to the teacher (Cuban, 1984) and to books. Teachers have
felt it necessary to structure the classroom so that students can gain the most
advantage of the information available. That information was received in backs
and from the teacher. Children reading books and listening to the teacher
lecture have long been recognized as getting an excellent education. The
students' purpose was to soak up as much information as possible from the
teacher and the text. However, this type of education has been referred to by
reformers as dull and passive (Cohen 1988; Freire, 1970; Goodlad, 1984). In
John Goodlad's (1984) book entitled A Place Called School, researchers saw
students passively listening, reading textbooks, completing assignments, and
rarely initiating anything despite stated school goals that stressed curiosity and
Involvement.

Other researchers similarly report that telling and accruing information
dominates the classroom (Cohen, 1988; McDIarrnld, Ball, & Anderson, 1989).
This traditional approach incorrectly views the concept of "knowledge" as
something that is static and unchanging. By treating knowledge as a static,
unchanging entity, teachers are really misrepresenting its true character.
Knowledge is actually revisionary and pluralistic in nature (Schwab, 1978). In
order to give their students a more realistic concept of knowledge, teachers
should acquire a ﬂexible understanding of the subject matter they teeth. A

ﬂexible understanding of knowledge means the ability to (a) understand

12

relationships within and across disciplines and experiences, (b) do what
specialists In the ﬁeld do, (0) discover how knowledge In the ﬁeld is created,
and (d) seek different application for knowledge (McDIan'nid, Ball & Anderson
1989). A ﬂexible understanding of knowledge is very difﬁcult to explain to
students in a "telling" style of teaching. To gain a ﬂexible understanding of
knowledge one has to work with the knowledge, create it, and relate it to other
types of knowledge.

Reforrners emphasize the need for the treatment of knowledge and truth
as an entity that is not static, but rather ﬂexible (Cohen, 1988; Lampert, 1985;
McDIarrnld, Ball, & Anderson, 1989; Roehler, 1989; Schwab, 1978). The most
fundamental commonly accepted evidence of teaching is that of the telling and
accrual of knowledge (Ball, McDIarrnid, & Anderson, 1989). A typical
studentlteacher exchange consists of the teacher telling and the text informing
the students of some kind of content. The students are then tested to see if
they listened to the teacher and understood the text. In these instances,
knowledge Is strictly controlled by the teacher and the text she used. This
concept of the job teachers perform is deeply embedded In thoughts and
actions of both teachers and the community.

This relationship of teacher and textbook monopoly over knowledge and
power in schools has persisted throughout this century. For example, Cuban
(1984) discusses how stable teacher-centered practices were in his book

detailing the stability of classroom practice from 1890 to 1980. He described a

13

professor who studied rural schools in Texas in 1922 and found that in 88% of
the classes the textbook and teacher were the primary sources of information.
Typical dialogues between teacher and student consistently followed a similar
pattern: teacher question, student answer, and teacher evaluation (Cazden,
1985; Mehan, 1988). Although Cuban ﬁnds that for short periods of time
educational movements shifted educational practices away from teacher-
centered instruction, his conclusion is that there has been no signiﬁcant change
in teaching practice this century. In other words, the measure of the students'
goodness is the amount of facts they know, even though standardized tests are
criticized for only being able to demonstrate what a student knows and not how
helshe knows it.

Controlling knowledge in a school Is also a way of mediating the
relationship of power by the teacher over the student. For some educators,
the purpose of schooling is to teach a particular collection of knowledge, as
claimed in Hirsch's (1987) book Cultural Literag (1987) and Bloom's (1986)
book The Closing of the American Mind. Many times these particular
compilations of knowledge imply value systems that are not shared by all
cultural groups. These sets of knowledge are culture-bound and particular
cultural groups have an advantage in schools where the content of the
knowledge the parents teach matches that of the school (Heath, 1983).

Since norms and procedures of teaching and Ieaming are almost always

strictly regulated by the teacher, the cultural knowledge taught by the teacher

14

does not always ﬁt the student of a minority culture. In other words, the
method of Ieaming in certain school practices is not congruent with the method
of Ieaming in the home environment (Delgado-Gaitan, 1987 for Mexican-
Americans; Heath, 1983, for rural European-Americans and African-Americans;
Phillips, 1972, for Native Americans). These proponents of cultural congruence
between classrooms and the community claim that students can best succeed
in mainstream society when they feel comfortable in their classrooms. This
comfort Is created when classrooms are congruent with community from which
the students come (Singer, 1988).

If educators insist students learn only using certain traditional classroom
norms and knowledge that conﬂict with knowledge and norms of Ieaming from
the home environment, the child may become more easily disenchanted with
school. Students may not develop in knowledge or social norms that are
important for growth in their own community. In the short term, the result may
be that students experience limited growth and affection for school. In the long
term, for a society that depends on lifelong Ieaming, the results may be more
profound.

Of course this does not not imply that all knowledge or norms at school
should become congruent with home knowledge (Zeuli 8 Floden, 1987). The
home community can consists of Ideas and norms teachers do not want to
promote. However, it is important that the child feel welcome include ideas and

norms from his/her home for discussion at school.

15

In schools, so often we, as teachers, demand students accept our
version of the truth or we impose a textbook version of the truth to the
exclusion of the child’s personal knowledge and personal voice, and to the
exclusion of other voices that are not mainstream enough to qualify for inclusion
Into textbooks. We have wanted children to accept the power the printed word
has over them (Scollon, 1988). Children often get the impression that what is
written in the textbook Is more authoritative and relevant than that which they
have heard spoken by their friends or relatives. Because of the authoritative
style in which we present and test students on textbook and teacher
knowledge, the sanctioned school knowledge has supremacy over student
knowledge.

In schools we expect students to accept a position of submission in
respect to content and style of Ieaming In classrooms, but this forced
relationship does not have to exist. Constructivists have a vision of schooling
where Inspired students use personal knowledge in the classroom and express
their voice as an equal scholar in the classroom (Cognition and Technology
Group at Vanderbilt, 1992; Dwyer, Ringstaff, 8 Sandholtz, 1991; Newman,1990;
Papert, 1993). They claim that teachers should not just transmit information
that students receive. These theorists emphasize student construction and
coordination of effective problem representations (Daiute, 1985). Students
need repeated opportunities to engage in in-depth exploration, assessment, and

revision of their ideas over extended periods of time.

16

With constructive approaches, students who engage in generative rather
than passive“ Ieaming activities recall that information more readily because the
information is created and used. In contrast, teachers who simply transmit
knowledge to students will ﬁnd that their ideas are inert and not as easily
recalled. In a classroom where construction is important, information from
various sources are constructed as they integrate with student voice and
personal student knowledge.

In search for this vision of schooling, three issues are central. First,
when teacher and textbook information are used to the exclusion of student
knowledge, a richness of knowledge that reﬂects personal knowledge and
diversity that otherwise would not be present is missed. This point is the
Important aspect of multicultural education that was discussed above.

Second, duplicating teacher and textbook knowledge is a passive
process that only teaches students to be docile and obedient to authority. As a
method of Ieaming, this passive process trains our young people to be
dependent learners who need the direction of the teacher to progress. This
type of thinking keeps students from constructing personal divergent thoughts
that are important to a liberal education.

Passive Ieaming is also unexciting (Goodlad, 1984) and does not provide
the sense of personal freedom and creativity that is vital to foster a feeling of
ownership with the learner. That sense of ownership involves the learner to

give them the critical element of motivation necessary to learn complex

17

strategic processes (Paris & Oka, 1986). When students are active Ieamers
and learn skills when they need those very skills to complete the task, they are
motivated. But ﬁrst, students must gain the will to do the skill.

Third, when students accept teacher and textbook knowledge they often
merely duplicate the teacher‘s schema while holding onto their own schema.
Some call this duplication of the teacher's scheme as replication, as opposed to
an integration of personal and school knowledge, celled restructuring (Roehler,
1989). Students accommodate the school schemes to help them survive the
educational rites of passage and then revert back to their own schemes when
they leave school. Knowledge in a child's life becomes unnecessarily
compartmentalized and students ﬁnd it difﬁcult to access their prior knowledge
dependent upon the context they are in. School knowledge is used at school;
church knowledge at church; knowledge about friends with friends; practical
knowledge is used In other places. School knowledge does not become
integrated into personal experience coming from other contexts. Hence,
copying school schemes leads to only temporary and not truly educative
experiences.

Contemporary educational reformers believe that students should not
passively accept information from the teachers and textbooks. Instead they
should constantly monitor that information against their own existing knowledge
and integrate the synthesis of those two into their own schemes (Garner, 1988).

Some reformers look for teachers to provide adventuresome teaching (Cohen,

18

1988) or perhaps adventuresome Ieaming that allows for students to initiate
projects, drawing on many sources and constructing new lnforrnation from what
students and their classmates experience (Gardner, 1993; Harste, 1993;
Smagorinsky, 1993). As students and teachers leem to use the cemputer to
construct knowledge this way they provide avenues for educational reform
(Papert, 1993).

The next sections describe speciﬁc concepts of revision that are
particularly well suited for work on computers in the classroom. These sections
expand in practical ways on the concepts of constructivism discussed above.

Constructing and Revising Knowledge
Empowerment Through Revision of Knowledge

Revising knowledge is one of the foundational concepts for lifelong
growth and Ieaming. Revision in writing instruction has been somewhat of a
struggle for teachers. In a review of research on revision in written
composition, Scardamalla and Berelter (1986) cited many studies that found
small proofreading changes, but few changes at the idea or paragraph level.
Similar conclusions were found when students used the computer (Murray,
1986; Owston, 1992; Reilly, 1992). In fact in some cases the computer was
used to type in ﬁnal drafts of papers with no editing similar to using a typewriter
(Murray, 1986). This paucity of revision has been a source of frustration for
many teachers who hoped the ease of changing and moving text would

persuade their students to revise.

19

In the content areas revision or reconceptualization is vital so that
students do not merely replicate the teachers knowledge for the sake of
evaluation but rather restructure their own understandings to reconceptualize or
include the new information presented. Using the conceptual change model of
teaching science, students are asked to expose their conceptions which are
occasionally misconceptions about science. Success or failure of the Ieaming
is dependent upon the teacher's ability to persuade students to revise their
incorrect understandings of these concepts (Anderson & Smith, 1987; Roth,
1989)

000 in ive ' of Personal Knowled e

Another part of revision concerns the diversity of perspectives that
people have. This diversity is expressed by (a) the differences In background
experience, (b) our thoughts and options expressed as "voice," and (c) linguistic
differences.

More recently, educators have come to recognize the importance of the
prior knowledge the student and the classroom community bring to the Ieaming
situation. In A Ngtiog of Readers (Anderson, I-leibert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985)
the authors argue the point that reading is a constructive process requiring prior
knowledge. No text is completely explicit but requires readers to draw on what
they know. Prior knowledge of any topic has a profound effect on how people
Interpret information they are given (Anderson, 1977). Science educators

discovered that when students' understandings of the world conﬂicted with the

20

inforrnatlon presented In class, the student would leem the information brieﬂy
for purposes of surviving in school and then would revert to a more personal
understanding that the student started with (Anderson & Smith, 1987). Science
educators propose that teachers start with exploring the students' prior
knowledge. In language instruction and the literature concerning literacy
development, researchers also concern themselves with the role of prior
experiences, linguistic experience, and knowledge of social norms in students
(Au & Kawakami, 1986; Wixson, & Peters 1984; Wilson, & Anderson, 1986;
Heath, 1983; Smith, 1983). These researchers described school settings where
the students' prior knowledge about the use of language differed with teacher's
ideas about appropriate language and caused a conﬂict In the classroom.

The fact that we construct and revise knowledge In social groups
accounts for the fact that different groups have different perspectives, according
to McCartney & Raphael (in press). Part of prior knowledge comes from the
cultural group In which students Ieamed language. Instead of building on the
strengths of students with language differences, the teachers treated the
students' prior knowledge as a deﬁcit. In order to accommodate this diversity
and make a personal meaningful connection with students, educators have to
do a better job building on the literacy that students bring to school (Auerbach,
1989). Just because computers make revision less complicated does not mean
that teachers will teach revision. What is needed is a pedagogy in which

revision Is taught and valued in authentic writing situations.

21

Student voice and self-expression are concepts that allow the student to
maintain a sense of identity and uniqueness while they are Ieaming speciﬁc
content. The student voice affords students a sense that they can connect
school content with their goals and purposes in life. Dewey (1938) emphasized
the role of individual knowledge and experience. Most knowledge in schools Is
Imposed from outside the experience of students in a static, matter of fact way.
What Dewey calls the "traditional approach" does not Invite the student to
challenge, edit, or modify Information presented.

In this section, some of the reasons why it is important to revise
knowledge in the schools instead of simply asking students to accumulate facts
were discussed. Different computer programs and the teacher's use of the
programs, in part, can determine whether students revise knowledge or simply
learn to duplicate school-sanctioned knowledge. The next section provide an
overview of the uses and lack of use of technology in the classroom.

Reform and Technology

Technology now permeates every segment of our society. From grocery
stores to auto shops to the music studio, technology has changed the way we
live. Yet schools have not changed. In fact, schools have been perhaps the
last profession that teaches literacy that is not computer literate (Papert, 1993).
According to Power On (US Congress, Ofﬁce of Technological Assessment,
1988) a government study, despite the presence of computers in 98% of the

schools In the United States, only half of the nation's teachers report having

22

ever used computers. The number of teachers who use computers regularly Is
much less. The study reported that computers are hardly ever used for
subjects such as reading, math, or science (also Glenn & Carrier, 1989), but
are used almost exclusively for Ieaming about computers themselves.

Unlike many machines, the computer does not make our life more
comfortable, transport us, do any physical labor, or prepare our food. The
computer is a machine that allows people to record, store, communicate,
display, and manipulate thoughts and ideas. The computer allows teachers and
students to use personal knowledge and add it to school knowledge. One
would think that In schools, where the life-blood of activity centers around
thoughts and ideas, there would be quite a bit of interest and use of computers.
And yet this Is not the case. In the next few sections I discuss some of the
reasons why computers have not been used or integrated into the regular
curriculum.

Problems Integrating Technology into Education
Lag, of Access or Understanding?

It Is hard to get a good sense of how many computers are available in
classrooms because the numbers are changing as schools buy computers or as
computers rapidly fall into disuse. By most reports, only a few computers are
seen in classrooms (Yeaman, 1993). By 1988, 98% of the schools had at
least a couple of computers, and overall the ratio of children to computers was

18:1. Even if computers were evenly distributed among all schools, which we

23

know they are not, the average might be only one computer per class. At the
same time, statistics from the US. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau
report that only 52% of all children grades 1-8 and 39% of high school students
use computers. Children of color are reported to use computers at a rate 18%-
23% less than white students In grades 1-8. So we can conclude that there are
computers in practically every school, but only between 39% and 52% of all
students have used computers. Certainly lack of access is a problem, but lack
of use when computers are available appears to be an added problem. Some
reports make the case that although there are computers in schools, lack of
teacher training about how to use the computer has kept the computers from
being well used in schools (Brennan, 1991; Bulkeley, 1988; Schlug, 1988;
Yeaman, 1993). This issue of teacher training will be a focal point in this study.
Confused Apout the Role of Computers In Education

One of the reasons technology has not made speedy progress has been
that educators have not always been clear about the role computers play in
education. There is a general sense that computers equal to progress and
progress is good. But schools have done little to articulate goals or roles for
the computer In any more detail than that. Many agree with the former
Education Secretary, Lamar Alexander, that "Computers and technology are
Intrinsic in the administration's aim to 'relnvent the American school)" But
neither he nor researchers admit to having speciﬁc plans to guide the effort to

Integrate computers into the curriculum (Kondrake, 1992). In a study of 14

24

schools making plans for school restructuring, only seven schools even
mentioned computers in the plan (Ray, 1991). Of these seven, the role of the
computer was mentioned in such vague terms that it was hard to ascertain if
the computer was to have any effect at all. There is no shortage of such a
vague, general sense that more computers equals to more progress. What Is
lacking Is a more profound exploration of the curriculum and the computer's
place within it. From such a study, speciﬁc methods and purposes for
computer and staff development could evolve.
LWagdering Curriculum; Programming as Construction

When schools ﬁrst started purchasing computers, a strong movement
focused efforts on giving the student as much control of the computer as
possible. Some in the educational community feared the computer would
become an electronic workbook or a video game where students would lose
creative control and the machine would take control. At the time, drill and
practice (I.e. math facts) and video game software, in which students only had
limited choices, were popular. Programming activities started competing with
drill-and-practice activities on the computer to get the attention of educators. A
group of constructivists Including Semour Papert (1993) delved into a simpliﬁed
version of programming called LOGO. Using LOGO students would give the
computer a set of commands to draw with lines. Students had to use
programming language such as REPEAT 4[FORWARD 80 RIGHT 90] to create

a square. With the same intent the computer classes of the secondary school

25

focused on Basic programming. By the mid-803, the most common application
of computers was programming (Mehan, 1985). Of course, the focus on
programming limited the ability of the schools to integrate the use of computers
into the schools (Schlug, 1988).

Programming seemed to be on tangentially related school subjects. The
focus on programming also limited access on the computers to those who knew
programming commands and how to Integrate their use with math. Also,
educators equated the entire use of computers with the knowledge of
programming. There was a sense that if you knew how to program, you could
use the machine. Otherwise, you should not bother. Integration of computers
In traditional school subjects was conﬁned to a very limited amount of reading
and certain types of math. Instructions were difﬁcult to follow and inservices
were much less than adequate. Even though programming was common
among teachers who used computers, most teachers opted not to use them at
all (Bulkeley, 1988).

The emphasis on programming, while providing intense use of computers
in the classroom for some, hes not been appealing to most educators
throughout most of the 803. In effect, the fact that computers were used for
programming deferred any kind of changes in education because teachers were
not interested in programming. As a result, computers were only used by a
small group of educators who enjoyed this technical side of computers. The

and effect was to pigeonhole or side line the use of the computer to a small

26

group of educators. Others, prompted by the narrow scope of the computer
curriculum, encouraged educators to focus on applications to other parts of the
curriculum and enhancements of Instructional practices when thinking about
goals for computer use as opposed to making computer goals a separate
curriculum for Itself (Newman, 1990; KuIIk & Kulik, 1989).

In contrast to its past technical reputation, ﬁtting somewhere between
aerospace design and air conditioning repair, the computer is capable of
exciting people, like teachers, who are interested in ideas. A number of studies
have been done with computers that indicate that they can be used as tools
that can make the activity and look of classrooms fundamentally different than
we have ever imagined.

Current Options for Computer Use

Of the many different types of educational computer programs available
for the schools today (simulations, drill-and-practice applications, computer
managed instruction, and word processing), word processing provides for the
greatest opportunity for revision of knowledge because the writer constructs
whole ideas and integrates school and personal knowledge on the computer.
Students also control and manage the Ieaming process which allows them to
be more ﬂexible, creative, and initiating. Although the constructive style is more
evident during writing instruction, there is also a need for students to initiate

and revise Ieaming In other areas of school work (Anderson, Heibert, Scott, and

Wilkinson, 1985; Wixson & Peters, 1984). Constructive software like word

27

processing gives the students opportunities to become self-regulated Ieamers.
The uses of word processing will be an important focus of this study.

Computer managed instruction refers to the type of software in which the
computer asks the student for limited answers, assesses the student's answer
against Its criteria for the correct answer, and prescribes a future set of
questions. In this way, the student does not have control of the Ieaming
process. Instead the computer regulates the student's Ieaming process. Drill
and practice are sometimes a part of computer managed instruction but are
more narrowly deﬁned to cover content to be Ieamed as rote. There is a
narrow range of responses possible, ﬁxed by the teacher, and presented to the
student in small steps.

Computer-managed software instruction often breaks down tasks into
atomistic units and offers automated tasks, in which the computer deﬁnes
acceptable performance. Michael Apple (1992) points out that these
characteristics of Instruction as they are used on the computer allude to the
types of work that do not empower students or teachers to be great Ieamers
and earners in their future. When using this type of software there is little time
for reﬂection and deliberation. The type of passivity and lack of opportunity to
regulate and manage Ieaming using this type of software reﬂects a type of
schooling which reproduces a society of low-wage workers (Freire, 1970;
Newman, 1990; Oakes, 1985; Willis, 1977). Unfortunately, this type of software

is very common among ethnic, minority, and low Income populations while other

28

students use more constructive type software (Borta cited in Mehan, 1985).
Computer-managed software is allowed to regulate and control students'
Ieaming and reﬂects the type of relationship many low-Income parents have
with their employers. Teachers also tend to prefer this type of software
because students do not require the teacher‘s time to plan or manage (Bahr,
Kenny, 8. Hannafcrd, 1993).

Computer managed Instruction limits Ieaming for students at the lowest
and least empowering level and the same is true for teachers. In the 19705
and 19803 one of the largest and most subtle educational reform movements
took place as the publishing industry published teacher-proof curriculums.
Today software from Joostens and IBM (called Edu-quest) has the same effect
on classrooms in the information age. Out of practice and deskilled, the
teacher becomes a technical manager. In an approach described by Erlwanger
and called Individualized Programmed Instruction, students learn by doing
worksheets and taking tests. When the student completes the worksheets and
passes the test helshe can go onto the next higher level after a conference with
the teacher. In Interviews with Benny, Erlwanger discovered that although
Benny had been getting most of his math correct, the boy's strategies and
rationale were incorrect and could cause Benny many problems in his future
work in math. This example calls our attention to the need to address the
teachers' professional knowledge base in any reform. Since computer

managed instruction contains the same elements as the teacher-proof

29

curriculum of the past, it Is unlikely that Benny would fare any better in the
1990s It appears that the use of computers In the classroom could easily
become a vehicle for continuing the traditional education described earlier.

Student empowerment, as a type of educational reform, occurs In part
when students have the opportunity to revise whole thoughts and regulate their
Ieaming. Another critical element in such a reform movement includes the
ability to revise knowledge to reﬂect students' different backgrounds,
perspectives, and development.

The next sections explain some ideas about what reform is necessary
and how computers can be a tool to facilitate those reform goals. In particular,
the focus Is on the computer as a tool to foster construction of knowledge, to
provide the opportunities for revision and manipulation of Ideas, to allow the
student to add voice to writing, to provide for more resources, and to add
graphics to text.

Opportunities to Reform Education with the Use of the Computer
lnforrnat an ement

Most of the opportunities for reform dealing with the computer pertain to
the computer as a machine to express, communicate, store, and manipulate
ideas. The computer becomes a type of idea manager. Schools deal with
knowledge as a central goal. It is knowledge that educators treasure, and the
computer Is a machine that allows Ieamers to create, store and manipulate that

knowledge. Some scholars report that our next period of history will be labelled

30
the information age. David Thomburg (1994) has recently declared that the

Information age is already passed and that now we are in the communication
age. If either of these are true, computers and technology as a whole will play
an integral role in the society managing that knowledge. Students will think of
information not as something to possess completely since there is much more
information In the world than any person could possibly learn. Instead people
will think about information as an entity to manage. Students will realize that
information helps them manage their own lives Instead of being controlled by
others.
Revision of Knowledge using Mgltiple Sources of Data

Now with the advent of use of the modem, CDs, networking, telephones,
and reference software, there is a great deal more potential for information
available to the classroom. The burden of access to a wide variety of
information with technology is greatly simpliﬁed. Students can see information
from various perspectives and in different forms. This allows them to evaluate
differences in information from different viewpoints. With easy access to a
greater variety of Information, teachers will no longer have to spend greet
amounts of time telling and providing information to students, which is presently
the most common activity in classrooms (McDIarrnld, Ball, & Anderson, 1989).
Teachers will have more time to be able to teach students about knowledge.
Educational researchers have long sought classrooms where the ﬂexibility and

revisionary qualities of knowledge are considered. Teachers can also spend

31

more time guiding the leamer to be more strategic in their use of Information to
revise their own knowledge.

The real power of accessing more information with the computer lies not
in the ability of the student to memorize more lnforrnatlon, but rather to use the
greater fund of information to revise using more personal information. Personal
Information Is the type that Is meaningful to the Individual In his or her unique
context. Since there is more information, the student can sort out which
Information is most important to him/herself and create a production that ﬁts
his/her needs. The student may want to consider the audience or purpose for
writing.

a in ice

Graphics provide infomiatlon and context to the document students are
revising. In classrooms pictures can be digitized into the computer with video
cameras, scanners, and graphics libraries. Especially for students who are not
artistically talented, these graphics can add meaning and give a personal touch
to text in a way that was not previously available. Students can scan in
pictures of their family with a text dealing with their family. Pictures of historical
scenes and science experiments can add Invaluable information and a
professional look that has never been available to students before.

For students Ieaming English, the context that a picture provides Is very
beneﬁcial. The picture helps give away the meaning of the words in the text.

As children look at the picture they can more easily predict what the words on

32

the page say. Even for native speakers, pictures with text increase student
recall (Whitmer, 1991).
W

A number of researchers have considered how the use of the computer
facilitates collaboration between students. Collaboration is when at least two
people contribute information as a team to solve a common problem.
Collaboration Is particularly helpful when people are trying to solve complex
problems (Polin, 1991). The mechanical procedures for editing and saving can
be complex for beginning users with computer, and therefore foster
collaboration and coaching. Even more importantly, a collaborator can provide
the dialogue that would empower students to write with perspective and voice.

Certainly collaboration can be practiced in many subjects and many parts
of the school day. However, the computer facilitates collaboration because of
the public display of the monitor (Daiute, 1985). It is more difﬁcult for two
students to work together on pencil and paper because only one of the group
can read the text at one time. Flower and Hayes (1980) found that for students
whose mechanical ability to write was not automatic, there was a great
cognitive burden on the child to just form the letters and spell the words. Since
so many of the child's cognitive capacities were devoted to mechanical tasks, it
was difﬁcult for the child to focus on how helshe was presenting the content.
Students who were unable to juggle those thoughts usually ignored the

rhetorical question. During writing time using the computer, since one student

33

Is consumed typing In Information, the other can read the text and deal with the
rhetorical questions.

One of the obstacles teachers and students face in education is that
often people carry out strategies mentally without explicitly explaining how they
are being strategic. The act of collaboration, I.e., sharing information, forces
students to verbalize their Intentions, therefore making invisible strategies public
(Reilly, 1992). In some classes student computer experts emerge to help other
students (Michaels, 1990; Murray, 1986).

These types of collaborations fundamentally change the nature of
schooling. As teachers allow students to share knowledge about language,
computer, and content with each other, they recognize the importance of the
knowledge that rests in all people. Traditional forms of teaching such as
lecture-recitetlon-seatwork (Ringstaff, Sandholtz, & Dwyer, 1993) in which the
teacher has the answers and student try to access them, appear less attractive.
In collaboration there is a sharing of power and control that empowers the
Ieamers to initiate goals and actively pursue them. These factors are
particularly important considering the needs of individuals with backgrounds
unlike that of the teacher or the majority culture.

Of course none of the reforms mentioned here will be realized by simply
installing technology in the classroom (Reilly, 1992). The presence of the
machinery itself will not affect the routine behavior that students, teachers, and

parents have all become used to over the past 100 years. In fact, technology

34

can be a force for deterioration In the schools as well. Mindless repetitive
programs that do nothing more than satisfy a child's interest for action can
substitute for rigorous study. It appears that technology will give educators the
tools to reform education, but will education be reformed? As usual the
greatest potential for reform depends on the teacher, hence the importance of
staff development. In the next sections, I will outline some of the recent
thought about staff development for computers especially when the goals are
revising knowledge.

Leamlng to Lisa the Computer as a Tool for Rm

Many studies emphasize the primary importance of the teacher's role

 

and the social structure of the classroom on how computers are used in the
classroom (Mehan, 1989; Michaels, 1990; Pisapia, 1992; Reilly, 1992). In and
of Itself, the computer makes no impact unless the social structure and the
teacher In the classroom inspire or at least accommodate a change. In a
study of two teachers who had computers in their classroom, Sarah Michaels
(1990) found that teachers used the computer In different ways consistent with
the type of social structure they maintained. In answer to the question, "Do
computers make a difference?" one would have to answer, "No, teachers make
a difference." Computers in and of themselves do not have an impact on the
classroom. The existence of computers in a classroom is a "dependent
variable" (Michaels, 1990) reliant on teachers and the social structure to form

patterns of use and goals.

35

Teachers would normally use the computer differently depending on their
goals and the social structure of their classrooms. Some teachers, in the
Vygotskian tradition, give models of how to use the computer and gradually
give up control of the computer (Koran, 1993). Others report having tried
models and metacognitive guidance (Salomon, 1989). Teachers who try to
integrate their computer time with the writing process need to deliberate a great
deal about how process writing ﬁts together with computer use. These patterns
of use require the teacher to think carefully about goals and progress and how
these ﬁt with computer lessons. Certainly, this Is difﬁcult in a world where
teacher time is limited.

in contrast, some teachers have minimal interaction with students who
work on the computer (Murray, 1986). Teachers who use computer-managed
Instruction may only need to schedule student access to computers. This Is an
attractive option for teachers already very busy doing other projects or In need
of individual time to teach students with special needs. Perhaps for this reason,
teachers prefer that students do computer work independent of their regular
classwork (Bahr, Kenny, 8 Hannafcrd, 1993). In essence, teachers give up the
option to control curriculum when they choose this method because the
computer-managed instruction software is not always ﬂexible enough to
accommodate differences in curriculum. We see the different goals and
outcomes of classrooms where teachers use computer-managed instruction as

well as those who use the computer for revising knowledge.

36

An Important decision teachers make concerns the question of student
access to computers. Researchers report that computer use at all is fairly
uncommon (Behr et. al, 1993; Bulkeley, 1988; Brennan, 1991; Yeaman, 1993).
On the average, Bahr found that the computer was used 15 minutes per day.
How the teacher allows students to access the computer determines how much
and what purposes the computer is used for In the class.

Lack of teacher knowledge about computers often signaled lack of
student success on the computer (Brennan, 1991). In fact teachers
recommended more training (Schlug, 1988). Chamey, Reden, 8 Kusbit (1990)
report better scores for students when the teacher provided guidance than
when they followed a tutorial or just explored on their own. The next section
investigates methods of teacher training that may result in teacher growth
Ieaming to use the computer In the classroom.

Developing Technical and Professional Knowledge

Teacher knowledge about technology can be divided into technical and
professional knowledge. Technical knowledge is knowledge which can be
reduced to procedural lists are usually done repetitively such as accessing and
saving ﬁles. It Is necessary that teachers become technically competent on
software and hardware to feel comfortable enough with the computer as a tool
to teach with. Technical knowledge becomes the teachers' tools that allow
them to make professional decisions.

Professional knowledge is information that allows teachers to make

3335

(“ii

Dir-i

III:

era

37

decisions about applying the best uses of technology based on the teacher's
knowledge of the unique context of the situation. This unique context consists
of the teacher's own knowledge, the students' knowledge, the curriculum, and
the context (Schwab, 1978). With these four types of knowledge, the teacher
as a professional decides on methods to use with the computer as a tool for
constructing knowledge. As this study will Illustrate, the fact that the context
and the curriculum have changed dramatically with the introduction of computer,
inﬂuences the teacher's traditional ideas about how to prepare for teaching. It
Is this change In thinking that may be the source of the computer's potential to
reform practice.

Teachers appear to have persistent difﬁculty integrating the computer as
a tool into classroom instruction. Much of the literature on technology teacher
Inservice describes traditional style lecture (Chamey, Radar, 8 Kusbit, 1990).
In these types of Inservices, teachers go to a lab where a room full of
computers is set up in rows and a teacher at the front of the room gives
Instructions about how to run different types of software. Most often computers,
setup, and software differ from the computers teachers have in their
classrooms. Since the machines teachers leem on in the lab do not work
exactly the same as others in the classroom, teachers often become frustrated
when they try to use what they Ieamed in their inservice in their own classroom.

Anothe'r group of research that merits consideration for this study

examines staff development situated in the classroom. Feiman-Nemser and

II)
to

194'

{i‘

38

Roseen (1992) discuss "Guided Learning." Different perspectives range from
Schon's (1987) "reﬂective practitioner" to Showers (1985) structured teacher
"coaching." Signiﬁcant elements of guided Ieaming include (a) the Importance
of the collegial nature of the relationship between teacher and mentor
(Hargreaves 8 Dawe, 1990) and (b) integrating and practicing the goals of the
teacher education program in authentic settings (Brown, Collins 8 Duguid,
1989)

Those serving as coaches or guides to teachers attempting to integrate
technology into their practice should share trust, support, and a good sense of
self-worth as a professional. Such norms of collegiality can break teacher
lsolationlsm and create an atmosphere where change and educational reform
are possible (Hargreaves 8 Dawe, 1990). An important part of collegiality is a
sense of reciprocity where teacher and teacher guide share information that is
indispensable to the success of the reform. Reciprocity not only gives teacher
and guide a sense of professional self-worth, it also ensures that both
participants are investing commitment, taking control, and adding vital
lnforrnation needed to determine the success of the goal.

Staff development programs are more effective when the activities that
teachers and guides work with are situated in an authentic context (Bemal 8
Villarreal, 1990; Brown, Collins, 8 Duguid, 1989). The more the Ieaming Is
distanced from the classroom where the teacher eventually has to use the

practice, the less likely the teacher will implement the activity. Many people

39

assume a separation of knowing and doing. They falsely speculate if teachers
know how to use the computer, they can teach and implement the curriculum
using the computer. Brown et. al (1989) point out that knowledge is mostly not
abstract, but situational and dependent on the context. Guides and teachers
can practice authentic activities that are closely related to integrating technology
into the curriculum by observing lessons in the classroom being taught using
technology, co-planning, or co-teaching such lessons.
Goals of this Research

So far this chapter has reviewed traditional and constructivist ﬂexible
concepts of knowledge and how they relate to the use of computers in the
schools In the past and present. A vision of the use of the computer as a tool
for revising knowledge in schools that is empowering has been projected.
Finally, ways to cultivate that professional knowledge among teachers and
students In schools have been discussed.

The focus of this study centers not only on what the computer can do,
but also what happens when teachers, students, and l, as the staff developer,

-= .1: .la a s: . ei g t dntsus e ou-ute sato-lfo e s .

knogdedge. This is the principal question of this dissertation.

The teachers and I approached our exploration by agreeing to explore
the use of the computer as a tool for constructing and revising knowledge using
student experts and cooperative Ieaming approaches to develop a sense of

student voice and an awareness for the audience. I hoped that as time passed,

I90

ISII

SJ."

.3“

If!

IQ-

40

we could develop a number of teaching techniques that would be helpful for us
as we Ieamed to use the computer as a tool for revising knowledge across the

curriculum. This desire led to the forrnetion of the ﬁrst two subquestion of the

study. What Is the path teachers follow to make this transformation toward
using the computer as a tool for revising knowledge? (b) What methods do

teac_l'jers use to help students use the computer to revise knowledge across the
W? These questions are addressed primarily In Chapter 3.

During the course of the study, I noticed the participant structure of the
classroom changed from one that used primarily whole group to one that used
primarily small group instruction. I also noticed that overtime, the Ieaming took
on a different character. To me this was a fascinating and unexpected
evolution that led to the third subquestion addressed in Chapter 4 (c) 1V_h_a_t

mangep are evident in the social structure of the classropms when computers
visin kn wled cross the cu culu ? my

changest Ieaming are observed in the different social contexts? Although the
beneﬁts of this style of teaching were unexpected, as we noticed the evolution
in character of the classroom In one classroom in particular, we began to
consider this context as a tool for teaching in the classroom.

The fourth subquestion of the study addressed in Chapter 5 concerns the
actual revisions students made in their writing that reﬂect their personal choices

as opposed to revisions that reﬂect conformity to grammar rules or consistency

In style: (d) Whgt age the ways students express their personal knowledge,

41

persoan voice, and personal preferences as students use the computer as a
tool for revising knowledge across the curriculum? Here I am interested in a
typology of the different types of knowledge that is expressed by students
during the revision process. I'm also interesting In the different contexts In
which that voice is expressed.

The above questions give direction to the content of what is to be
researched. The next chapter should provide the methods that will be used to
investigate these questions. At the end of the chapter, I describe the setting in

which the research took place.

42

CHAPTER 2: THE METHODS AND CONTEXTS OF RESEARCH

The primary goal of this description of research methods is to provide the
reader with a sense of how I came to understand the culture of classrooms
where students and teachers constructed and revised knowledge using
technology. In describing my research methods, I draw on thinking from
various ethnographers to describe data collection and analysis. I also add
some of the substance of my analysis during my data collection, analysis, and
presentation for this manuscript.

I start by describing some of the history of the study by pointing out the
shifts and narrowing of focus of the study. In subsequent sections, l relate how
I collected, analyzed, and presented the data of the study. Other conceptual
Issues that guided my practice such as preserving the context and complexity
of the evidence and my role as a participant observer follow. The second half
of the chapter consists of a description of the contexts of the study where I
describe the schools, teachers, and students involved in this study.

Research as a Process of Exploration

In contrast to some studies where deductive reasoning leads the

researcher to establish and test a hypothesis, I used a more inductive approach

to research that allowed "what was happening in the classroom" to lead my

43

topic of study. This does not mean that i had no area of focus when I started
to gather data. On the contrary, as the four subquestions Included in Chapter 1
illustrate, I focused on the area of staff development using technology.

Although questions on that topic directed the general focus of my observations,
the topic of study shifted and narrowed overtime reﬂecting my growing
understanding of the teachers and the context I studied. I therefore include this
section on the evolution of the study to provide the reader with a sense of the
history of the study in hopes that the reader might see how I arrived at results
of my research.

From the time the general focus of my research was established, the
study evolved continually until I ﬁnished writing the ﬁnal draft of the text. In
part, the focus of the study shifted based on my emerging understanding of the
grounded theory I was becoming more thoroughly acquainted with. Even more
than that, however, the focus of the study evolved based on patterns of
behaviors I observed In the classroom. In this section and periodically In
subsequent chapters, I will comment on my emerging and evolving
understandings before, during, and after the collection of date. However, more
lmportantly, I will show how the topic of study was a dependent Interplay
between my purposes for the study and what I observed to be happening in the
ﬁeld.

Ethnographic researchers decide conceptual issues before entering the

site (Erickson, 1986). At ﬁrst, I prepared for this study by identifying certain

44

general conceptual issues that were interesting for me to observe in the
classroom. Even before my observations my thinking about the study was
changing. In December 1992, I wrote a short summary of areas I had expected
to focus on in my proposed observations. In this document, I focused on vague
Ideas of staff development for computer writing. Two months later, I
established framing questions and a draft of a proposal which further focused
my ideas Including classroom management and content area writing using the
computer in the classroom (research document, 215/93)‘. My thinking had
evolved to an expanded focus that included more areas to study. in
subsequent longer drafts of proposals after I had done extensive background
reading (research documents, 3I10/93), I matured in my understanding of
grounded theory (Glaser 8 Strauss, 1967) concerning the use of computers in
schools. As I read articles and organized the ideas presented in research on
the use of technology, staff development, and writing, my ideas about the role
of the computer in schools and more speciﬁcally in writing were clariﬁed. I also
came to understand some of the more and less successful methods of staff
development. At this stage of my proposal, my research questions (as noted at
the end of chapter one) became more speciﬁc reﬂecting a greater depth of
knowledge. I also began to link ideas about teacher change to the larger

issues of educational reform that are reﬂected in the ﬁrst chapter.

 

1 Research documents consisted of my writings in log format and early thoughts
of my study that were written before my study ofﬁcially took place.

45

The focus of my observations shifted again in response to what I was
observing in the classroom. After I gathered data during a visit to the site, I
would often pause to analyze or reﬂect on the general directions of my
observations. Most of the date that highlights shifts in emphasis was gathered
in the researchers log (types of research are discussed later in the text). I used
the leg as a place to provide personal statements of belief and as a place for
taking stock of the progress of the study as a whole.

This concept of reﬂexivity between the proposed goals and what is
observed at the site allows the ethnographer to narrow the focus of the
observations (Bogdan 8 Biklen, 1992). This narrowing of focus during the data
collection, In turn, allowed me to focus my ﬁeldnotes and interview questions. I
pursued many goals while gathering data that I did not ﬁnally report on in the
and. Part of the reason I narrowed my focus was because I had too much data
at the end of my collection period to create a cohesive writing concerning all of
topics for which I had gathered information.

Even before that time, however, I narrowed the focus during data
gathering as I noticed Interesting and signiﬁcant shifts In the participant
structures in the classroom. As I noticed shifts in the classroom toward small
grouping, peer Ieaming, and revision, my observations noted those areas of
interest in more detail to the exclusion of other less interesting phenomena. I
found these themes interesting in part because i do not believe these ideas

have been fully explored in current research for this context. I also focused on

10‘ 9

Mil-r

46

these ideas because the shifts in the roles of students and teachers in this
context of evidence of educational reform that was discussed in Chapter 1. I
mention a few evolutions of change in emphasis here and others later on in
appropriate parts of other chapters.

At the beginning stages of data collection, our progress In the staff
development and student projects was slower than I had anticipated. I had
recorded my frustrations in the Researcher Log (described later) with the
thought that obstacles could be a possible focus for the study. During this time,
teachers were asked to pack up their room for a building renovation project that
was taking place. Teachers also complained about cutbacks in state and local
funds to the district which resulted in staff layoffs and moving their principal to
another building. The state government had also announced four means by
which they would reduce funding to the district. Other proposals altering
funding for the schools were pending in the legislature and at the ballot box. I
recorded my thoughts about a general mood that we seemed to be in and the
implications for my study:

Right now I feel I could do my dissertation on obstacles to staff

development. Teachers are so upset about what ls happening In the

district (and state) that capacity of information and change is being

reached. I think I have to back off... ( Researcher Log, 5125/93)

My Ideas for what the study could look like reﬂected what I was

observing In the classrooms at the time. The emphasis on obstacles for the

47

use of technology would have been a shift In focus for the study that I did not
foresee at the beginning of the study.

In addition, at that time in the study, the technology due to be placed in
the school was just in the process of arriving. One new computer had been in
the-classroom less than a year previously and many teachers were still trying to
get printers in their classroom. The building had not been wired for cable for
television or networked with the server, and the library had not completed its
transformation to become a media center. I had anticipated a period where we
would be testing hardware and software to make sure it worked; however, after
the ﬁrst month, comments referring to obstacles to staff development became
frequent.

During a period of two weeks In the second month of the study, four out
of ﬁve of my Researcher Logs (5/21-6/4/93) recorded the mention of different
obstacles we were encountering while pursuing the use of computers in the
classroom. However, my observations of different obstacles did not persist. In
subsequent logs, obstacles were only mentioned two more times In the entire
study. In the ﬁnal analysis, I decided not to pursue obstacles as a focus for the
study since it was not a focus on subsequent reﬂections by the teachers on the
use of the technology.

There was, however, a persistent interest in the roles and responsibilities
of teachers and students and in establishing routines and procedures for

computer use throughout the ﬁrst months and continuing on until the end of the

48

study. The first fourteen Researcher Logs covering the first four months of the
study reveal discussions on topics of routines, roles, and responsibilities of
teachers and students using the computer In 12 out of 14 of the log entries
(Researcher Logs 4119-7-31193). At this point In the study, we explored ways
to use the computer consistent with a constructive philosophy and yet
integrating with the classroom work. Since the teacher was not able to be at
the computer all the time and the computer was still relatively new to students,
we immediately discovered the need to establish routines and roles that allowed
students to Ieam from each other.

Subsequent entries continued to reﬂect these same areas of focus but
narrowed to include those concerning only revision, grouping, and gathering
information from many multiple sources. Only as I approached the data
analysis and writing stage of the dissertation did I come to realize that my most
complete data came from revision, grouping, and gathering information from
many different sources.

As I entered the writing stage of my dissertation, my topics for writing
Included a much broader focus. After I wrote the ﬁrst chapter on revision and
reexamined my data, I realized that I had a great deal of excellent data to use
and decided to limit my focus to revision. One more major shift in focus
occurred as I wrote the dissertation when it became clear that some of the most
interesting and revealing data was found in Chapter 4 on the topic of social

contexts for revising knowledge. Again the focus of the study narrowed to

49
reﬂect my thinking and understanding of the data in the writing stages of the

study.

One of the purposes of mentioning the shift and the change of focus is to
give the reader a ﬂavor for some of the history of the development of the
writing. More importantly it shows how my study was one of exploration and
that there was a constant dependent and close relationship between the data
that I was collecting in the ﬁeld and the narrowing focus of my observation and
writing. The events I observed In the ﬁeld helped me to reﬂect on my purposes
for the study and helped me refocus the topic of the study. The description of
this process is intended to help the reader understand how the concept of
reﬂexivity played a role in the writing of the study.

Over the course of the different stages of the study, from the proposal
writing stage, to the reﬂections the data collection stage, to continued thought of
the study as l was analyzing data and writing up the results, there was shifting
and narrowing of focus. In my role as a staff developer, I was not without
inﬂuence directing the course of the classroom events. I explain my role as a
staff developer and how that role impacted the study at the end of the chapter.

Data Collection and Analysis

The purpose of the data collection has to become informed about the
ideas and practices in the classroom concerning the use of the computer to
revise knowledge across the curriculum. In the next paragraphs, I provide the

reader with a general summary of the theory and practice for this study.

50

Starting in the section on 'Data Sources,‘ I have Included in more detail the
practices of data collection and analysis.
Data urces

The following data sources were chosen because they generate different
viewpoints of the classroom. Assertions that are supported with evidence from
three different sources are considered to be more credible than evidence that
comes from just one source. I worked to establish this triangulation (Bogdan &
Biklen, 1982; Hammersly 8. Atkinson, 1983) of data for the different assertions.
By presenting the occurrence of the events from the different sources, I hope to
strengthen the plausibility of the assertions.

The different forms of data were useful to give a view of the work of
revising knowledge that is heavily weighted toward the teacher's perspective.
This perspective was particulariy important because the teacher Is crucial In
promoting revision of writing and the use of the computer in the classroom. As
the teachers come to feel comfortable with technology as a tool for literacy for
themselves, they can begin to perceive it as a tool for the students. Also,
because teachers have such a dominant role in the establishment of rules and
procedures in the classroom, teachers can limit or expand access and the use
of the computer. As a staff developer, my goal was to help the teacher
integrate the practice of technology as a tool for achieving the curriculum.
Hence, the study focuses on the teachers' perspective since their role as

facilitator Is so vital to computer use In the classroom.

51

The different data sources also provided conﬂrrning or disconﬁrming
evidence as I searched for signiﬁcant patterns of thoughts and behaviors. I
collected and analyzed the following kinds of data: (a) audiotapes of classroom
events and informal debrieﬁng discussions after lessons with teachers that
document changes in teachers' Ieaming, thoughts, and observations about how
the classrooms change; (b) student work including computer printouts and
videos created by students; (0) audiotapes of formal interviews with teachers at
various points of the year to show the development of teacher thought; (d) my
ﬁeldnotes recording classroom and contextual events; (e) the Researchers Log
to express my feelings and to get a macro view for how the study was
progressing ("taking stock" of the study); (f) audiotapes of planning sessions
and planning documents from the teachers, myself, as well as district staff
development and outcome documents.

Different perspectives necessary to achieve triangulation are gathered
from different people and different contexts. Audiotapes of classroom events
differ in context from debrieﬁng sessions which took place immediately after the
lesson. The audiotapes of the classroom events Illustrate in detail what
happened at the time of the lesson. These were particularly helpful in teasing
out what was actually discussed during class time by the participants. Using
this instmment, student voices are also heard and lend a different viewpoint
from teacher and researcher. This source acts as a check against the

debrieﬁngs and the ﬁeldnotes which recount chunks of the lessons through the

52

lens of the researcher in the case of ﬁeldnotes and the teacher in the case of
debneﬁngs.

Student work on the computer was usually printed out as a ﬁnal copy or
in rough draft depending on the purpose of the printout. Other work students
created with the aid of the computer was never printed out (see software
section at the end of this chapter for further explanation). Instead they were
recorded directly on videotape and sent home for the parents to view on their
VCR. In this study, they are identiﬁed in the text by the word "video" followed
by the date (e.g. Video, 8/6/93). The advantage of recording on video as
opposed to printing on paper is that video allows for full color images as large
as the television set, full motion, and audio.

Student documents, as artifacts for research, provide a perspective
different from other data. Distinct from data that shows the process of
classroom Ieaming activities, student documents display and products that often
are not recorded on an audiotape. The invisible thoughts that students have
are made visible on paper or video and supply an additional different
perspective.

In contrast, debrieﬁngs capture the teachers' thoughts in a context
separate from the students before the teacher has a chance to organize or
analyze the lesson. In this context, the researcher gains access to the
teachers' thoughts which are often not evident in the transcript of the lesson.

Since debrieﬁngs happen immediately after the lesson, the teachers' memories

53

are ﬂasher, more detailed, and less likely to be altered by the teachers'
interpretations. During the debrieﬁngs the topic of conversation was left
somewhat open in order to capture in detail the thoughts the teachers had
concerning that topic in particular. Since debrieﬁngs occur usually separate
from children, teachers are able to speak more freely that they would around
children. During debrieﬁngs I also voiced impressions as a staff developer and
responded to the lesson.

Audiotapes from informal interviews were used to capture a teacher‘s
ideas after she had a chance'to think about classroom events over one week
(in the case of the ﬁrst- and fourth-grade teachers in the migrant program) or
three weeks (in the case of the ﬁrst and fourth grade teachers in the regular
school year). I usually had prepared four questions to help focus the
conversation and I refrained from giving my opinions for that period of time.
The teachers' answers were usually longer and more detailed during the
interview that in the debrieﬁngs. The teachers had an opportunity to express
their Ideas at a more general level. I discovered that teachers used that time to
take stock of different aspects of the study and summarize what they had
Ieamed or what they were feeling.

In ﬁeldnotes I recorded the actions and words of class lessons focusing
on speciﬁc areas of interest for the study. Similar to the audiotaped lessons,
with the ﬁeldnotes I recorded the context of the classroom at the time it was

occurring. Because the writing occurs during the classroom session, the

54

perspective is fresher and more literal from that of a planning session,
interview, or log which typically takes place long after the events have taken
place and allows for more memory loss and interpretation. However, while
writing the notes, I was able to concentrate my observations in speciﬁc areas of
study. In contrast to the audiotapes, l was able to record the actions and the
visual cues that added emphasis to the voice of the participants whereas the
audiotape was limited to the recording of the words. Fieldnotes were expanded
In the ﬁeld and then expanded again when I entered them into the computer
each day data was gathered. Audiotapes were transcribed at the end of the
study.

Occasionally I reviewed the data I had collected for emerging themes
and pattems. Many of these themes and patterns were recorded In the
Researcher Log. The Researcher Log was my chance to comment with my
"voice" on events and themes that were not appropriate in ﬁeldnotes or
debrieﬁngs. I allowed myself more freedom to explore my thoughts and
feelings about the study in general. The context and voice in this document
differs again, therefore lending an additional perspective that is not present in
other data sources.

I met with teachers not only to gather information, but also to ponder
issues with them and co-plan our next steps. I wanted to develop jointly a
vision for teaching using technology with the individual teacher and to

Implement the vision In that particular context. I recorded those planning times

55

with short debrieﬁngjsessions of a couple of minutes up to 10 minutes to think
about how the lesson went and to revise subsequent future lessons. Often the
planning and debrieﬁng purposes of these sessions commingled. Our thoughts
In a debrieﬁng led directly into changing plans for the next session. We often
responded to problems in past lessons by planning to change future lessons so
that the same problems would not arise. In addition to the quick prelesson
planning and postlesson planning/debrieﬁng, I met with each teacher weekly for
an approximately 20 minute extended planning period.

Again, the purpose and context are different for planning. Audiotapes of
actual planning sessions and planning documents all take place prior to the
actual lesson. At times plans are written or simply made by either the teacher
or I and then discussed with each other for revision.

As signiﬁcant themes and patterns emerged, I examined those aspects
in the ﬁeld more closely to see if the themes and patterns played a signiﬁcant
role to shift the roles and routines of students and teachers in the classroom.
Signiﬁcance Is deﬁned by how the words and actions of the participants
described in the data affect their subsequent words and actions. If an event
appears to be signiﬁcant, I examine subsequent data to identify other events
that conﬁrm my belief that the event signaled a shift in the roles and routines of
the participants of the study.

I also examined data to identify continuing patterns of generalization and

disconﬁrming evidence to be able to deﬁne the question more exactly. I

56

pursued disconﬂrming evidence, examining showing discrepant cases especially
closely to ﬁgure out why these cases did not follow the general pattern. At
times the answers were very useful in illuminating locally distinctive subtleties in
the different sites. Other times, the discrepant cases compelled me to modify
assertions slightly. Also, I came to feel the need to recognize the existence of
other pressures I had not recognized in earlier versions of the assertions.

It was helpful to establish a long-term relationship with teachers in order
to get to know them better, to establish rapport, and to practice habits of
thinking over time to effect change in teachers' thinking and use of the
computer. In the Geneva School District,2 I worked with a ﬁrst- and a fourth-
grade teacher from the end of March until June 1993 and August to February
1994. From September to February, we met to discuss plans to change the
classroom to use of computers for authoring across the curriculum. I met with
each teacher to plan, model lessons, debrief, joint teach, or hold interviews at
least two or three times a week. We co-planned lessons and thought about
routines and procedures that would allow computer use to continue during the
regular course of the day. These routines and procedures included charts and
grouping that helped students know when they had access to the computer and
assignments and assigned roles that explained what students were to do at the

computer. We usually planned during an art or gym planning period.

 

2 The Geneva District Is described later In this chapter. Pseudonyms are used
throughout this text when referring to the teachers, students and schools
involved In this study.

57

Sometimes directly afterward, I modelled or tried out a lesson by myself or
jointly with the teacher. We frequently had short ﬁve-minute debrieﬁngs
discussing how the lesson went and conﬁrming plans for future meetings. A
formal interview was scheduled approximately every three weeks on Fridays.

A sample week is shown in Table 1. ,

Table 1

Sample Schedule of a Classroom in the Geneva School District

 

 

 

 

| Geneva Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday I
Marla Plan & Joint teach Joint teach
(ﬁrst-grade model lesson 8. lesson
teacher) lesson debrieﬁng
Katie Joint Joint teachlng Joint
(fourth grade teaching 8: ll. debrieﬁng teaching 8.
teacher) debrieﬁng Formal

Interview

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not every week of the study was the same. However, the above’ table is
an example of the type and frequency of the activity that might take place In a
typical week of data gathering.

In the Fruitland Summer Migrant School’ more intense work needed to
take place since the study lasted only six weeks. This site Is important

because it provided me with a contrasting context. Students came from a

 

3 The Fruitland District is described later in this chapter.

58

different background and teachers may have been willing to take more risks in
this summer program that they would not have taken the regular school year.

I met with a ﬁrst-grade and fourth—grade teacher with eight other teachers
for half-day inservice/planning sessions before the students arrived. I also
worked with the fourth-grade teacher for a half-day inservice before the summer
school started. During the summer work, I worked with each teacher in class
for approximately an hour every day during the time when each class had ﬁve
computers to use. I held interviews and planning sessions every week and with
short debrieﬁngs before and after most of the class periods. This schedule
reﬂects a more intensive study than the study in the Geneva District because
the duration of the study was limited to six weeks in the summer. The same
cycle of planning, teaching, debrieﬁng, planning, teaching, debrieﬁng occurred
in the Fruitland School as needed. Sometimes we planned for a number of
lessons but after trying out the lessons we decided to alter the plans during the
debrieﬁng. We usually planned on for a series of lessons. As in the Geneva
district, I modelled lessons when the format was different or when we tried out
a new method. Planning sessions occurred based on our needs. We made
new plans for each unit and then altered plans as appropriate to meet the ’
needs of the students. Interviews were given most weeks on Friday for 15 to
20 minutes.

During the summer, I met with the teachers more times a week to

become familiar with the teaching, context, and students to make progress over

59
the few weeks In which the study took place. Table 2 shows teaching every

day and periodical modelling of lessons, joint teaching and debrieﬁng

throughout the week.

Table 2

Sample Schedule of Observations at the Fruitland Migrant Program

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- ‘I _
l Fruitland Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Kari Planning, Joint teachlng Joint teaching Joint teaching Joint
Model 8- debrieﬁng & debrieﬁng 8 planning teachlng, &
teaching Interview
8: debrieﬁng
I
Patti Model Joint teachlng Joint teaching Joint teachlng Joint
teachlng & debrieﬁng & planning & debrieﬁng teaching
& debrieﬁng 8 Interview
Data Analysis

In this study, data analysis was supported with theory building. As
themes emerge during the data collection (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983),
Potential theories of explanation were developed. These served to narrow the
StUdy's focus and were tested against subsequent data. After my ﬁrst reading
0’ the data, I formed 23 analytic categories‘ or codes that I used in the second

r eading to identify speciﬁc evidence and categorize the evidence by one of

\
‘See Appendix C for examples of research analyzing documents.

60

those codes. Codes referring to provisional categories were selected based on
their ability to inform my research questions and the frequency that the
categories surfaced in the various texts.

The categories were divided into ﬁve main groups all focusing on using
technology: (a) staff development, (b) obstacles, (c) revisions, (d) activities, and
(e) context. In turn, each of those categories were subdivided to describe sub
groups. Staff development was divided into examples of times when someone
modeled a process to help teachers Ieam. That code was described SDM.
SDT was the label of staff development that was directed toward technical
procedures. SDI referred to staff development concerning Instructional Issues.

Drawing on the constant comparative method outlined by Glasser and
Strauss (1967), I continually subjected my ideas to the categories identiﬁed to
see that the data described the categories listed. In staff development, I
noticed signiﬁcant events were comprised of elements of teacher conﬁdence or
lack of conﬁdence. Because there was no category to describe conﬁdence as
an element of staff development, I created a new category SDCON. While
reading the data, I noticed the context of the staff development was also
signiﬁcant and created the code 800.

Obstacles were divided into OT referring to technical obstacles, OC
focusing on obstacles that were contextual in nature, and OK referring to

obstacles "kids” caused.

61

Revision of knowledge (RK) was Indicated next to data where students
made idea level changes In papers. When the revision was carried out on
paper I Indicated RKP. I wondered about the length of the revisions and
labeled those parts of the data with RKL.

Activities were identiﬁed in various ways. AESL referred to activities with
English as a second language students. Activities where cooperation or lack of
cooperation were noted, was labeled AC. Teachers devised different
procedures for students to get access to the computer (AA). In some data,
ideas referred to classroom management and were marked with AM. AMML
referred to parts of the data where mini-lessons were taught. If there was
mention of students using multiple sources I labeled the data AMS. When
experts were used I marked AE on the side of the data sheets and then
recorded that example in the chart.

The ﬁnal categories allude to the contexts of the different classrooms.
PC refers to Patti's context. In the same way, MO was marked next to ideas
referring to Maria's context, KC for Katie's context, and KariC for Kari's context.

Categories that Informed my questions, had high frequency, and
appeared signiﬁcant became candidates to develop into the focus of the study.
Whereas information in other categories that proved less promising for the
study were used less. Since I recognized the most signiﬁcant and frequent
data informed the category of revision of knowledge, that became a focus of the

study. Given that I have recorded many examples of revision of knowledge

62

from every data source In those charts (Appendix C), I can be robust In my
abilities to generalize the ﬁndings of this study to other classrooms.

All of the data except for some of the teachers' plans were recorded as
ﬁles on disks and on the hard drive of my computer. All of the ﬁeldnotes were
Identiﬁed by date and topic. I printed out the data and marked the evidence
with the codes I had decided to use. Later, I photocopied all of the coded data
so that enough copies were made so that evidence on a page containing one
type of code could be placed in a folder designated for that code. I also made
sure each page was dated and identiﬁed for the data source represented. The
result was a group of ﬁle folders with data in the form of sheets of paper with a
particular code on each of the papers in that folder.

I thought that the one sheet of paper would provide enough context to
understand the code placed on the paper. However, I found myself wanting to
read more of the context and so I sought out the computer ﬁles on disk. I read
the context and additional information by accessing ﬁles on the computer.

I used a variety of different ways to organize ideas that were emerging
as I worked with the data. The methods of organizing and thinking about the
data in writing developed as tools along with the assertions for the study. As I
discovered themes I recorded thoughts on a matrix I called "big ideas" where I
recorded prominent examples of each code listed by data type. A sample listed
in Table 3 for one of the codes. For example, as I was reading the "ﬁeldnotes"

and I discovered a comment or action by the teacher that served as evidence

63

of classroom "management," I recorded that date, a summary of the comment

or action, and sometimes a little quote from the ﬁeldnotes In the table where it

crossed between ”Staff Development-Modeling" and "Fieldnotes examples."

Table 3

Sample ofChart to Organize Coded Data

 

 

 

 

 

 

Codes Fieldnotes Interview Researcher Planning Debrleﬁng
examples examples Log examples examples
examples
Staff Development-
Modeling
Staff Development- ‘
Technical J

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I identiﬁed a strong or interesting example of each code I placed the
date and a description In the matrix (see Appendix C for example). In this way,
I was able to recognize clearly the frequency and signiﬁcance of patterns
emerging in the data. As I looked across different categories, I could observe if
evidence patterns were present from different sources. The strength of the
assertion was measured in part by the frequency of the pattern across the
different data sources. When substantial data from three sources existed, I was
able to claim a triangulation of data (Bogdan & Bilken, 1982). This triangulation
allowed me to measure the signiﬁcance and decide if the pattern was strong
enough to report in the study. In this way I was able to decide which themes

were worthy of closer study.

64

As I reviewed all of the data from different data sources all with the same
code, I reexamined each piece of evidence to see if the events where worthy of
further study. Sometimes upon rereading ﬁeldnotes, I discovered those
ﬁeldnotes contained signiﬁcant events. That is, the events for the ﬁrst time
signaled shifts in roles and routines of the participants. Many times these were
the events that describe in this manuscript and examine in detail.

Based on the apparent strength of an emerging pattern which I observed
forming on the coding table (Table 3), I wrote down some Ideas In a narrative
form to test out an assertion. Sometimes the narrative was simply a free
standing text that stated an argument. Other times I tried to tie in ideas
together forming what I could envision an abstract would look like. Sometimes I
speculated on the composition of different chapters. In between forming the
analysis, I talked to colleagues who helped me clarify some of the major
emphases. I also drew semantic conceptual maps (example on Appendix C)
that helped me clarify the emerging themes and patterns. An example of that
semantic map is shown in Figure 5. The main heading, "Revising Writing" has
subheadings of "social contexts" and "content." Each of these subheadings
represent an emerging idea. Examples originating from the coded evidence are -
clustered around the subheadings to demonstrate support for each subheading.

As I wrote, discussed my ideas with others, and charted my thoughts
patterns and routines surfaced as a result of the different ways in which I was

thinking about the data. I found that narrative writing, interwoven into every

65

step of the process, became longer and more detailed. Eventually the narrative

writing grew to a point when I decided to write a chapter.

 

 

 

 

[ I Revising Writingi
example x

 

example

 

(Social Contexts example

 

 

example ex mple example

Figure 5. Example of a semantic map

Eresentation of the Data

The aim of qualitative research is not proof in a causal sense, but the
demonstration of plausibility (Erickson, 1986). The ﬁrst chapter Includes the
question and subquestions that become the focus of the study. Using data as
evidence, I attempt to lead the reader to observe Interesting patterns of
behavior that recur In the study that speak to the questions of the study. In the
previous section, I noted how I gathered and analyzed data looking for patterns
of generalization that occurred repeatedly In and across settings. At this stage

of the study I must organize and record that data in a way that makes the

assertions seem plausible. It is not enough that events were observed only a

66

few times. It is important to persuade the reader that adequate evidentlary
warrant (repeated examples) exists for the assertions to be made. Therefore, a
concerted effort has been made to support an assertion with many examples.

I used number of different ethnographic tools In the presentation of the
data to help make my assertions plausible. Much of my evidence take the form
of quotes from interviews or conversations I had with teachers. At times, I use
longer quotes to give the reader a better feel for the context of the situation. In
the same way, I use vignettes as a tool to help the reader obtain a clear,
detailed understanding of the pattern of events I found to occur repeatedly. A
vignette Is a description of an illustrative event I wrote drawing on different
sources such as Interviews, written work of the participants, teacher plans,
interviews, audiotapes, and ﬁeldnotes. I started writing a vignette using a core
event as a basis. Then I mixed in examples from other events that meshed
Into a coherent narrative. All the events In the vignette were taken from
evidence, but the vignette does not describe the event exactly as it took place.

Usually I provide the longer quotes and vignettes at the beginning when I
am just starting to develop an assertion to give the reader a fuller, more
detailed sense of the event. The reader may use that quote or vignette as an
easy way to remember the "ground" or ”anchor" of the evidence for the
assertion. As my assertion develops and the use of fully detailed examples
appears repetitive, I tend to use shorter quotes reducing detail by removing

sections. The places where I remove text is indicated by ellipses (...). This

67

allows the reader to focus on data relevant the assertion and allows the study
to be more readable.

Preceding and following descriptive evidence, I provide Interpretive
commentary that links the evidence to the assertion and highlights important
aspects of the descriptive evidence. In a vignette or a direct quote, there Is so
much rich description that is "multi-vocal in meaning" (Erickson, 1986, p. 152)
that the reader cannot take it all in on the ﬁrst reading. Therefore, the author
has to point out to the reader the details that are signiﬁcant for the author.
Othenrvlse, the reader will get "lost in the thicket of uninterpretable detail”
(Erickson, 1986, p. 152). Especially used as foreshadowing commentary,
Interpretive commentary acts as a road sign to give the reader a chance to
anticipate the patterns to come. Following the descriptive evidence, Interpretive
commentary restates the links between the assertion and the data in more
detail. This also gives me the opportunity to pause to discuss the signiﬁcance
of that piece of data and develop an aspect of the assertion that was not \
apparent In earlier data.

One of the problems I encountered In earlier drafts of my writing was that
repeated long descriptive data passages became tiresome. I felt a
responsibility to provide many examples in order to prove that the assertion
made was not a one time occurrence, but rather common in the study, but I
also did not want the writing to become tedious. To remedy my dilemma, I

borrowed from Erickson's (1986) thoughts to provide a long vignette or quote to

68

instantiate the assertion followed by several other pieces of slightly different
evidence that allow the reader to experience a range of examples. The ﬁrst
long vignette or quote makes the assertion clear and concrete with more detail
and within a fuller context. These types of rich vignettes and quotes are called
”particular description." The purpose of particular description is to clarify the
assertion for the reader. The pattern the researcher is asserting Is exempliﬁed
In the particular description. Following that, the many different examples
supporting the assertion are called "general description" that provide evidentiary
warrant by demonstrating the frequency and breadth of evidence (Erickson,
1982).

In this section, I have presented ethnographic tools In an order In
which they are most commonly written in this study. However, the order
presented here should not be considered the only order in which to present the
data. I jostled the order where the data and the meaning was more clearly
conveyed by a different order or where the order seemed unnecessarily
repetitive.

on nd Ie I
Throughout the study, there was an attempt to conduct and report the
study In the contexts and complexity in which they took place. This type of
study contrasts with a study where isolated bits of coded information are
recorded and lifted from the context of the situation (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982).

As I have indicated In the above section on the exploration of the study, there is

69

an attempt to focus observations within the context in which they occur.
However, I made an explicit attempt to record the context of the situation In its
complexity In my ﬁeldnotes. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed in whole
pieces. They were not broken up into separate parts. An attempt was made to
provide the reader the context of the research sites as you will note in this
section. In the parts of the study where I wanted to provide quick examples for
the purpose of showing typicality, I provided the reader a sense of the context
in the interpretive commentary preceding the data.

During the course of the study, I worked as a staff developer with two
ﬁrst-grade teachers and two fourth-grade teachers in two separate contexts and
with two separate timetables. Below I describe those different contexts.

The Research Sites
The Geneva §chool District

The Geneva School District is located in a metropolitan area in the
midwest near a major university.‘5 Students from the Geneva District come
from neighborhoods that consist of a concentration of students of diverse
cultures and languages. Other neighborhoods are composed of low income
housing and neighborhoods similar to suburban areas. Support for staff
development in the district exceeded opportunities in surrounding areas.
Teachers were given ﬁve days to attend conferences of their choice with the

approval of the administration. There were numerous voluntary inservice

 

5 An overview of the schools and classrooms is noted on Table 4 page 72.

70

opportunities. Many of the inservices took place after school. When an
initiative was undertaken by the district to revise a curricular area teachers were
provided with substitutes so that they could attend lnservlces during school
times.

The district also encouraged teachers to develop personally and
professionally by undertaking one of three different types of sabbatical lasting
from one year to six weeks during the summer. Many times, teachers were
given incentives to develop curriculum during the summer or to attend
inservices. A series of eight inservices for the purpose of providing all staff with
the basics of word processing, spreadsheets, and data bases were provided In
August and after school three times a year at the high school.

The district had recently received some funds to enable the district to
update and increase the amount of technology in the schools over several
years. With the exception of one multimedia station per elementary school
(purchased three years earlier), the elementary schools had not been supplied
with new computers since each elementary school had been furnished with four
Apple II computers ten years earlier.

A District Technology Committee consisting of parents, teachers, and
administrators had recommended and had approved a plan to provide each
elementary teacher one new computer. This occurred In the Spring of 1992, a

year before the study began. Six months later the district made sure all

71

teachers were equipped with a printer.6 The fact that the computer was still
somewhat new to the teachers, who were only vaguely familiar with the basic
workings of Microsoft \Mndows and the computer itself, was a constraint to the
professional development and the use of the computer as a tool for revising
knowledge, which was the focus of the study.

Two elementary teachers were to work outside of their classroom half
time In the spring of 1992 as Teachers on Special Assignment (TOSA) for the
purpose of developing the technology curriculum and to aid teachers to Ieam
how to use the computer In a technical sense and to Ieam how to use the
computer as a tool to aid classroom instruction. The district has a tradition of
hiring existing classroom teachers who have special interests and special
training in different curricular areas to provide staff development to their
colleagues in the district. I was one of the TOSAs hired half time to help
teachers in elementary schools in technology. The two teachers who agreed to
work in this study were friends that I had known through our work on various
district-wide committees.

The district curriculum in the Geneva School District is developed by
committees of teachers In the district who take an interest In that subject
matter. Committees give opportunities for all teachers to give Input on the
curriculum at various stages of the drafts of the curriculum. Although the

writing curriculum had not been altered In recent years, the technology

 

‘Table 5. Time line for computer purchase and staff development.

72

curriculum had completed the development process and was approved just
prior to the commencement of this study. (A copy of parts of the curriculum Is
listed in Appendix A). The curriculum focuses on the use of the computer as a
tool for construction of knowledge and the management of information. I was
co-coordinator of the technology committee and l facilitated the development of
that curriculum In the various stages.

This familiarity was both a strength and a constraint for the study. My
familiarity with the district allowed me easier access to the site and the people
in the site. Because I worked in the district on technology, my familiarity with
the equipment enabled me to recognize technical and professional problems
common in this district. As an "insider" I also began the project with a certain
level of rapport with the teachers that would not have been the case had I not
been in the district. Finally, because I had a hand in forming the district
curriculum, I had a sense of ownership and advocacy for the curriculum that
Inspired me to work even harder to make sure the main Ideas of the curriculum
were Implemented in the spirit in which they were formed.

One of the tasks of the ethnographer is "to make the familiar strange"
(Erickson, 1986, p. 121). My familiarity with the district was a disadvantage in
the sense that I may not have noticed routines and patterns of the school that
might have been more obvious to a person familiar with the district. Since I
was aware of this fact, I worked at distancing myself from the site by being

more observant and by becoming familiar with other settings in which

73

computers were used in different ways. By becoming more familiar with other
sites, the differences in routine and patterns of behavior dealing with computers
became more apparent to me in the Geneva district.

My RQIQ as Participant in the Study

Whereas in Geneva I was working as a staff developer, in the second
research site, the Fruitland District during the summer, I served as a director of
the migrant program and staff developer for technology and other areas.
(Overview of schools and classrooms is summarized on Table 4.) In Fruitland I
had to balance these roles of ethnographic observer and participant (staff
developer). The balance between researcher and participant was most difﬁCult
when l was demonstrating or co-teachlng a lesson and unable to take ﬁeldnotes
during class events. In that case I recorded my thoughts in written form after
the class session and/or recorded my thoughts or taped the lesson to help me
recall the events when I wrote up the ﬁeldnotes that night.

My work as a staff developer in both situations was to help the teachers
develop an understanding of roles the computer could play in the schools. Part
of that work involved transferring control of the task of teaching and devising
methods and thoughts about the use of the computer to the teachers. I

modeled often when I thought the teachers felt insecure teaching using

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75
technology because of their inexperience with technology as a tool. As Katie
explains at the end of the study:

You did do co-teaching in the beginning....You started out kind of

shoulder to shoulder teaching with me, ﬁrst teaching it by yourself,

and shoulder to shoulder teaching and you began to distance

yourself from the actual instructor but you were still there as the

resource person to talk over about what you saw or what we can

do next or, you know, how things are going (Audiotape interview

1I10194).

Katie notes that I worked closely with her modeling the teaching of experimental
methods. As the teacher gained in knowledge and conﬁdence, I worked more
as a consultant reﬂecting ideas I had and on ideas the teacher had concemlng
the lessons.

Although each teacher and classroom was a different situation that
necessitated slightly different styles of staff development, I worked with
teachers using the guided practice model (Feiman-Nemser & Rosaen, 1992)
which includes observation, conversation, co-planning, and co-teaching.
Finally, teachers taught by themselves and I acted more as an observer and
consultant. However, my goal was to have the teacher guide the instruction
without my input.

I met with teachers as a staff developer who was encouraged to provide
input as well as just listen to the teacher's perception and proposals for future
lessons. Therefore, some of the tapes document my suggestions and

proposals as a co-constructor of the event. Although I did have the authority in

the migrant program to force changes, I avoided exerting my authority because

76

I know that to force teachers to make changes would have preempted co-
planning.
Tera lementa chool

The school, with just less than 200 students, Is a one story brown brick
building located on the edge of a middle income neighborhood bordering on a
church, a shopping center, and a park. The playground consists of a basketball
court, a baseball ﬁeld, a soccer ﬁeld, and a large peastone covered area where
children climb on a variety of climbing structures. On the Inside of the school,
the halls are covered with brightly colored art work and a dark green crushed
stone ﬂoor Inlaid with decorative stone tile. Over the course of the study a new
gymnasium, art, and music rooms were added to completely enclose a grassed
in courtyard area. Also ofﬁces and classrooms were rebuilt and equipped with
a mounted television, telephone, and wired for cable television and a computer
network.

The original library that existed for the ﬁrst three months of the study was
a cramped book room with a small room housing a rarely used multimedia outﬁt
and four Apple II computers. During the summer the library was moved to a
newly constructed area and the original space converted to become a spacious
media center with large windows. A separate room in the media center houses
the computer network and a stack of three videotape recorders. A multimedia
cart loaded with a television, a monitor, a computer, a VCR, and a video

camera sits on one side of the library next to a computer which accesses

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77

international news stories by cable. Unfortunately, water leaked into the media
center a couple of times delaying the opening of the library for approximately
the ﬁrst two months of school.

In the ﬁrst three months of the study, the atmosphere in the Tera
Elementary School appeared somewhat confused. As described earlier In this
chapter, teachers felt somewhat disappointed that there was no assurance of
state funding for the next year pending a statewide vote in June. The Geneva
School District had its state funding reduced four times over the previous year.
As a result many staff In the Tera Elementary School had received a ”pink slip"
Indicating that there was no assurance of their employment for another year.
Budget reductions had also forced building principals to take responsibility for
two Instead of one building while taking an assistant principal. The staff, who
had played a major role in selecting their current principal, was scheduled to
lose their principal and acquire a principal from another building.

As soon as the weather warmed up in March, bulldozers, trucks, and
front end loaders prepared the ground for the massive building additions that
were to take place. The loud rumbling sounds and vibrations proved to be very
distracting to teachers and students of the building. Finally, in the last weeks of
school, teachers were pressured to pack up all their materials before the end of
the school year so that workers could start the renovations of the existing

building as soon as the school year was over.

78
Students at the Tera Elementary School in the Geneva District

comprised a very diverse population. Many attend school coming from foreign
countries while their parents study at the university. As a result, there are
many students do not speak English when they arrive at school. Students for
whom English is a second language frequently spend one to three hours a day
In an English as a second language (ESL) room especially staffed to teach
English.

Tera Elementary School is also the elementary school in the district
where many hearing-impaired students come to receive instruction from
specialists. Similar to the ESL room, students spend up to a half a day in a
hearing impaired classroom depending on the quality of hearing the children
experience. The fact that such programs and such a diversity of students exist
at Tara was a major consideration in my selection of the site for study of the
use of technology in the construction of knowledge. I was interested in how the
context of the computer as a mode of Ieaming would impact upon the Ieaming
of students for whom oral language is an obstacle. I was also interested In
exploring the context of Ieaming for special education children given the
computer's ability to access and manipulate graphic images.

Over the course of the school week, classroom teachers had three hours
of lesson preparation time while special area teachers taught their class.
Students attended physical education classes, music classes, and art classes

for approximately one hour a week. Other students were tutored or taught In

79

small groups by part-time teachers including a reading teacher, Ieaming
disabilities teacher, a librarian-aide, and social worker.
Marja

Maria's ﬁrst-grade classroom was largely unaltered by the building
renovation with the exception of the addition of the 21" television monitor and a
telephone. The following is a description from ﬁeldnotes taken on
November 19:

The room is colorful and the walls are full of pictures and ﬁgures. In
the front of the room there is a "Smells We Like and Don‘t Like" chart
with names of foods. A chart describing the parts of the nose is also
tacked to the front of the board and hung down over the blackboard.
Next to that is an ABCs chart, a Jobs Chart, November calendar,
rules, and a seasons chart with colorful animals on it.

On the north wall, many small plants in plastic containers sat
on the heater. Designs cut out of paper were taped to the windows
above the heater. The clock Is displayed on the monitor with the date
and a revolving message displayed at the bottom of the screen. The
science table with lots of projects making rainbows, rocks, and
mirrors magnifying glasses.

In the back of the room are cubbies (eight inch square storage
spaces) and a table were the crayons, scissors, and other supplies
were stored. There is also a table that had a number of Korean
books and artifacts on it. Next to that table Is a bIn full of folders
labelled, "Take home folders." Behind that on the back wall Is a
birthday graph made of little cakes outlining how many birthdays for
each month. Towards the door there were book shelves with paper,
and supplies.

On the south wall near the door is the teacher‘s desk which Is
stacked with shelves, papers, a teacher planning book open and full
of writing. A pencil jar had all kinds of writing instruments and
scissors in it and a ﬂower is in a small vase in the middle of the desk.
In front of the desk is a round wooden table and In front of that is a
book shelf were books were put in groups and space is made for
displaying one book at a time. In the southeast corner of the room Is
the computer on a large table. There is a disk storage container that
Is full disks and a few other papers around the container. On the left
side of the computer is a printer (Fieldnotes, 11/19/93).

80

In the center of the gray-carpeted ﬂoor, four groups of three tables
with two chairs each were clustered facing each other. To the north side of
the room, there was an open space where students often sat during group
times. During sharing time each day, four students were scheduled to bring
something to show the group from home and talk about. Students sitting on
the carpet were expected to sit up and listen to the sharing. Students were
expected to raise their hands to get a turn to ask a question or speak while
they were sitting on the open space in whole group. Maria seemed
particularly engaged in ﬁnding out why the children brought what they did
and what stories they could tell about their sharing object. She supported
students by asking them questions about their sharing and soliciting
questions from the group.

Whole group lessons were also carried out while children sat on the
ﬂoor "by the easel." Maria used the chart paper on the easel to record
children's stories that students read over and over. Later in the week,
students read books made up of the same stories to each other in paper
books Maria made up for them. When a "language experience book" was
read to another, the listener signed the book. Math and science lessons
were also often started with a short group time In front of the easel.

After the group time, Maria often dismissed students one by one to
go quietly to their table and perform an activity by themselves or with their

partner. There were quiet times when students were usually allowed to talk

81

to each other brieﬂy. During times other times students were expected to
talk to their partners to fulﬁll their task.

Maria pursued professional development in a variety of ways. She
attended workshops in technology, developed social studies curriculum and
purchased materials with her own money, often sharing them with other staff
members (Fieldnotes, ’ 10130). She was an active member of the local area
reading council and at one point showed a video on portfolios over the cable
television network as an inservice to all teachers (Fieldnotes, 1126).

In the area of technology, Maria found the computer workshop
classes provided by the district to be "Intimidating" because "the person right
next to you might be real competent and you're not" or "the instructor might
point you out like you made a mistake" (Fieldnotes, 115194). At home,
Maria's husband provided programs and graphics for Maria to use at school,
but she had trouble Ieaming from him because he would become Impatient
or leave her alone. Maria used their home computer to write newsletters.

Maria often spoke of how the students of today Ieam quickly on the
computer. At the end of the program she expressed her amazement that
"ﬁrst-graders know how to open a ﬁle and save a ﬁle." She claimed that
students appear "conﬁdent" of performing tasks on the computer in front of

the class whereas that is not the case on the "easel" (Fieldnotes, 214194).

82
K_a_tI_e

Katie taught fourth-grade at Tera Elementary School in the ﬁrst three
months of the study and then transferred to Highland Elementary School
after the summer break where she taught a fourth/ﬁfth-grade class. In the
front of the room (east wall), a blackboard was framed by brightly colored
bulletin boards to the sides and above the blackboard. One bulletin board
described products in Michigan and the second posted newsletters and
information of interest to the students in the classroom. Cabinets under the
bulletin boards stored books and above the blackboard a projector screen
and a set of maps were afﬁxed to the wall. A door led to a classroom
storage room ﬁlled with wooden cabinets and class supplies.

The northeast side of the wall had the entrance to the room.
Otherwise the entire north wall was ﬁlled with wooden cabinets for storage.
On the west wall (back of room) one IBM 386 computer was joined by the
older Apple Ile, a rectangular table, a moveable storage cart, and a large
round table. Groups of students often used the tables in the back when
there was a group project.

A full set of 10 year old World Book encyclopedias was stacked In a
movable book shelf near the southwest corner of the room near the sink and
drinking fountain. The windows ranging from three feet along the south wall
to the ceiling kept the room bright and warm on sunny days. Counter space

along that wall was covered with language arts activities and science

83

projects (cup-size plastic potted plants). Desks were clustered around the
room in groups of four with the teacher's desk and 36 six Inch square boxes
called cubbies near the door.

Students were split up into small groups for instruction in reading and
language arts. Small groups of students met with Katie and were assigned
work to read and other work inside their reading group. LEIR centers
focusing on a similar theme were set up in different parts of the classroom.
Students performed the tasks In one center and then moved to other centers
to do the tasks there. Social studies and science lessons started typically
with textbook reading and whole group discussion initiated by Katie followed
by individual pencil-and-paper activity. Math activities commenced with a
teacher-directed discussion and frequently followed with Individual
reinforcement exercises.

Students were allowed to use the computer without a time lImIt to
write assignments or make an entry in the computer. Katie complained that
students aren't "comfortable" using the computer to save their writing or
access previous ﬁles. "They sometimes expect the minute they get back
there It's just gotta be instantaneous [access to ﬁles and printing]" (Interview,
5120193). She also laments the fact that during recess time students also
enjoy using the computer to play Tetrus, an action game with shapes
instead of playing Carmen SanDiego, a problem-solving simulation game.

Like Maria, Katie's husband uses their home computer quite often, but Katie

84

does not cite him as one of her resources for Ieaming the computer. Both
of Katie's teenage children used computers at home and at school for
writing and editing regularly. "Their writing Is done mostly on computer“
(Interview 1110194).

Katie had experience developing district curriculum and constructing
her own. For language arts, she employed the tools of a published
language arts program called Language Experiences in Reading, but
improved upon the content of the program's activities until she had created
her "own" themes and content. Katie is also an active member of the local
reading council and the district elementary technology committee that
generated and approved a part of the district curriculum.

In the Fall of 1994, Katie transferred to a fourth/ﬁfth—grade combined
classroom in Highland Elementary School. Like Tera Elementary School,
Highland had undergone renovations, but the renovations at Highland had
taken place the previous summer. Since Highland had been a technology
pilot school much of the networking was being tested there ﬁrst and each
classroom had three computers for every classroom from second- to ﬁfth-
grade.

Highland Is an older elementary school constructed In a rural area
that eventually became a suburban area. Highland was located on the
comer of two major roads where there was a large grocery store and

several other stores and businesses. Surrounding this intersection were

85

houses and apartments which were built In the previous twenty years. The
students who attended Highland came from these upper-income houses and
from apartments and condominiums ranging from middle to low-income
housing. Students of a variety of races and economic levels attended
Highland. The halls which had light colored tile ﬂoors, light colored walls
and bright lights, were lined with student art work.

Katie's classroom at Highland was very similar to her classroom at
Tara Elementary School. Similar to her old room, her room at Highland was
ﬁlled with clusters of four student desks and encircled by three tables and
many shelves for books and classroom materials. There was a wall of
windows where she stored science materials and LEIR stations. Three
computers (One 486 and two 386 PCs) and a printer dominated the back of
the room contrasting with the one PC in her Tera classroom. Cubbies,
storage shelves, an entrance, and two tables were located In the west wall
opposite the windows. The bulletin board which framed the chalkboard was
ﬁlled with the student's art work similar to Katie's room at Tera Elementary.
Some of the differences was that the teacher's desk was opposite the
entrance and the room at Highland was much shorter and smaller than
Katie's room at Tara.
Fruitland School District

Fruitland Is a middle-sized postindustrial city in the midwest.

Although there Is still a great deal of diversiﬁed Industry in the area, It is

86
much reduced from the 19503-1970s when foundries and factories provided

parts for a ﬂourishing auto industry. The depressed housing market caused
by lack of jobs in the area has allowed low income people to continue to live
in the area. In the south and west outskirts of the county there are many
fruit crops and processing plants that provide seasonal work for many to
supplement their income. Most of the Intercity area is composed of middle
to low income racially mixed population.
Fmitlagd Summer Migrant Program

Enough migrant workers travel and reside in the area to necessitate a
summer migrant school for the children of people who work in the fruit
crops. With the help of the Fruitland School District and the State Migrant
Department, I initiated a program in Fruitland ﬁve years previously and
served as director. Students, who had to move for the purpose of picking or
processing food represent the lower classes with 70% of students of
Mexican decent, Twenty percent are of African American decent, and 10%
stem from European origins. Although the program has a home-study
program, most of the 300 students In the program attended this school
program which lasts four weeks in July and the ﬁrst two weeks of August.

Almost all students are bussed from the urban areas to attend only
momIng classes in this school In one of nine classrooms from kindergarten
to 12th grade. The classrooms are located in an older elementary school

that occupies an entire city block. The school is surrounded on all four

87

sides by lower priced houses which are old but adequately groomed.
Surrounding the school are spacious playgrounds and grassy areas. The
basketball backstops have no hoops because as the principal explained, "I
do not like to put them out because people steal them." There Is a large
backstop in front of a baseball diamond. The large shiny gray metal pipe
swings, slides, and climbing equipment of the 19503 Is set on a hard dirt
surface where grass survives sporadically.

In the south end of the building, there are two dark wood trimmed
portable classrooms with a porch to cover the entrance door. Just north of
the portable classrooms Is a one-story red brick structure which leads to an
old two story darker brick portion of the building. The migrant program uses
the portable classrooms and the classrooms at the south end of the building.
At the south entrance of the building, some people sit behind a folding table
full of plastic wrapped sandwiches and a piece of fruit on a foam tray.
Students at the program were served breakfast and lunch which they ate on
table clothes set on the grass (later in the summer 10 picnic tables were
used).

The red-tiled ﬂoor In the south hallway is brightened with skylights.
Empty coat racks are on one side of the hall and light blue shiny wall on the
other side Is covered with posters and newsletters from each of the

classrooms. The ﬁrst room was locked up and stacked with furniture. In the

88

rooms, cupboards and ﬁle cabinets were turned around to prevent access
during the summer.

The curriculum for the summer school focused on reading and written
literacy. Subjects such as science were to be integrated with reading and
writing (expectations for reading and writing are listed in Appendix B).
Experts from outside the district trained teachers and parents in science
workshops and provided each classroom with equipment and help
Instructing two "hands on" science lessons.

Each classroom had at least one Macintosh LCIlls in the room and
the teachers were expected to integrate the use of the computer in their
classroom. In addition, two ﬂoating laboratories of four Macintoshs
(computers mounted on carts and wheeled to each room) were used in each
classroom one hour a day. Students were also given a swimming lessons
every day for two weeks at the end of the program.

2.3.11

Patti had moved into the area aﬁer preparing to be a teacher In
another state for years. She was hoping to ﬁnd a position teaching
elementary school In the area. The migrant program hired her on the
strength of her knowledge of the use of thematic, interactive, literature
studies for children.

I provided a computer (like the ones we used at school) for her to

take home. My main purpose was to understand some of the ways having

it w
lair;
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89

the computer at home would be useful for a teacher. Patty had "very little
background" of the computer programs we were using. Patti's daughter who
was familiar with the computer, helped her when she got "stuck" using the
computer. Since Pattie "ran out of time" at school she did "most of the work
at home" since she had a computer at home (Audiotaped Interview, 916193).

I encouraged Patti to Ieam to use the computer over the summer by
pointing out that computer knowledge might give her an edge when applying
for teaching positions. By the end of the summer she felt conﬁdent enough
to help In a workshop we gave concerning the uses of hypercard7 in the
classroom. She also put her hard copies of her hypercard books Into her
professional portfolio.

The strong presence of the computers was obvious during the hour
that Patti's fourth-grade classroom had the ﬂoating lab. On the north wall of
the room four computers were lined up in front of the chalkboard. On both
sides of the chalkboard, Patti had put up two brightly colored bulletin boards
with children's work. Students desks clustered In groups lined the west wall
where two windows were located. In the south side of the room many
tables were ﬁlled with science experiments. The teachers desk was situated

in the south of the room In front of the bathroom and sink/counter area.

 

7 We used hypercard to present text and pictures with the computer.

90

Karl

During the regular school year, Kari worked in a smaller neighboring
school district with two other young teachers who worked for the migrant
program. Although she has not gotten a computer in her classroom In the
neighboring school district, she hopes to get one in the next year or so.
Kari does have an Apple lie with a printer at home that she uses because
she Is "busy In the classroom" and "does not have any time" to use the
computers at school. Kari used her computer at home to copy writing by
students to make personal books for each child. At the beginning of the
summer, Kari attended a half-day inservice about the use of computers in
general and the use of Kidpix‘ in particular. In addition, Kari attended night
classes regularly and planned on completing a masters degree eventually.

Kari placed all the ﬁve computers In the classroom on the southeast
portion of the room not far from the door which made It easy to place the
four ﬂoating computers into the room everyday. Further on the south side of
the room, two decorated bulletin boards framed the chalkboard. In front of
the bulletin boards was a large carpeted open space where students sat
while Karl and students shared books and where many whole group lessons
were taught. In fact, mini-lessons using the computer were also taught from
that spot since a computer was stationed at the southeast comer of the

carpet and all the students could sit within 10 feet of the monitor.

 

' Kidpix Is a drawing program for children.

WI
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01 1'11

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91

The teacher's desk was located in front of a wall of wooden framed
windows on the west side of the classroom. In the northwest corner of the
room, some furniture that was not being used In the classroom was stacked
next to a tall wooden cabinet that Karl did not use. In the northeast corner
of the classroom, a tiled bathroom protruded Into the roOm next to a sink
and a low counter top with cabinets. The upper half of the east wall was
composed of windows to the hallway. Students performed individual and
group work as they sat in groups of four at tables (two students per table) in
the middle of the room.

Most of the day consisted of activities in literacy in Kari's classroom.
Kari read to the students almost every day and allowed students to read and
write every day. Students were allowed to talk and share Ideas with each
other In the classroom which Is consistent with what Kari says are her
"beliefs on what Ieaming looks like and how kids Ieam." Kari explained, "I
think kids Ieam from interaction....l think having at least two kids at the
computer Is great" (Interview 7126/93). During reading students read stories
they have written sometimes and other times they read from easy trade
books. During writing, Kari encouraged students to use "magic spelling"
[Invented spelling] to write about themselves and their own experiences.

Wh I hose These ltes
I choose to do my research in two different sites to provide

comparison and contrast. The Geneva School District is located In a

92

metropolitan area In the midwest near a major university. This setting
contrasts with the Fruitland District which is a middle sized post-Industrial
urban cIty with a great deal of agriculture surrounding It. Students from the
Geneva District come from neighborhoods that consist of a concentration of
students of diverse cultures and languages. Other neighborhoods are
composed of low-income housing and neighborhoods similar to suburban
areas.

The teachers and school systems were also contrasting. At the
migrant program In Fruitland, the teachers were newcomers to the system
whereas the teachers In the Geneva system had been In the district over 10
years. I wanted to investigate the different contexts in which teachers might
feel freer or less free to change their style of instruction. In my experience
as director of a summer migrant program, I ﬁnd that summer is usually a
time when teachers may not feel as constrained by patterns and norms of
traditional classroom behavior. In contrast, both Katie and Maria were
observed during the regular school year when traditional expectations may
serve as a constraint to change. Thus I felt the summer school contrast
might help me Ieam about differences in the teacher's ease of change In
routine and procedure In the different contexts.

I choose the particular sites for many reasons. Primarily the sites
were schools In which the use of the computer had just been introduced and

teachers would be just starting to determine how to use the computer in

93

their classrooms. Table 5 shows a timetable describing the period of time
when teachers In the Geneva District received at least one computer and a
printer. All computers were distributed close to April 1992. Over a period of
several months, printers arrived and were allocated to classrooms. It
should be noted that this study started approximately a year after all
teachers received their IBM 386 computers. I thought that teachers needed
at least this period of time to gain a personal sense for the use of the
computer in the classroom. I felt that after a year of Ieaming about and
getting used to the computers themselves, the teachers would be ready and
motivated to Ieam about instructional uses for students.

Teachers In all of the classrooms studied had a computer in their
homes, but they had limited contact with the computer. In three of the four
cases, the principle user of the computer in the home was someone other
than the teacher in the study. Even after the year when the computers were
In the classroom, we encountered over the course of the study many
technical obstacles to overcome to get the computers and software to work
seamlessly. In every classroom, students and teachers were Ieaming
technical procedures to write, edit, and print throughout the approximately
ﬁrst two months of the study. The teachers in the Geneva District had two
opportunities to help students Ieam technical procedures (see Table 2). In

April and May teachers helped students Ieam technical procedures. Then In

94
Table 5

Timetable for the Study.

95

the fall, with a new group of students, teachers helped another group Ieam
to use the computer.

The study at the summer migrant program in Fruitland was
considerably shorter, albeit more intense. Teachers worked In the
classroom for six weeks during July and August 1993 (Table 2). Although
extra technical support was given to each classroom in the form of trained
computer experts from the high school, Ieaming the basic and advanced
technical procedures was an important ﬁrst step students and teachers had
to work through.

oftware
A ﬁnal part of the context of the study is the software that was used. In the
following section, I describe the software brieﬂy so that the reader can
understand how the software works and also get a sense for the place the
software plays in the context of the study.

In the two ﬁrst-grades participating in the study, both of the
classrooms used primarily a paint program for children called Kidpix. Kidpix
allows the child to draw a picture, stamp some pictures that are already
drawn, and construct text on the same screen. That screen is printed out
and saved as a ﬁle.

Many of those screens can be made to appear In a sequence as if

each screen was a page in a story. To put the screens In a sequence one

96

must use a presentation software. The presentation software for Kidpix Is
called Kidpix Companion. So with Kidpix Companion, students can create
and save several screens in a linear fashion to create a "storyboard." Some
people think of the storyboard as a slide show and each picture or ﬁle as a
frame In the slideshow. In the migrant program, we were able to record
those storyboards on a videotape for students to bring home and show their
parents. In the Geneva School District, stories were put together In
storyboards, but they had to be saved and played using a computer and a
nd

In the fourth-grade migrant classroom (Patti's class), we used a
program in a way similar to how we used Kidpix In the ﬁrst—grade
classrooms. This program, Hypercard, can be used to create very
sophisticated programs. However, we just used Hypercard to write a series
of text and picture cards in a manner that allowed them to be presented as
linear pages in a book. Many of these Hypercard presentations were also
stored on a video cassette and taken home to show parents.

In both fourth-grades, Word Perfect (Katie's class) and Claris Works
(Patti's class) were used as word processing software. Using that software,
students were able to access pictures and Integrate them Into the text.

They were also able to cut and paste text and change the size and style of

memm.

97

In the previous chapter, I described theoretical and methodological
concepts that guided this study. In a middle section, I described how those
concepts were used to gather the data, to analyze the data, and to present
the data In written form. Finally, I portrayed the context of the four
classrooms from a rather wide angle to speciﬁc details of the setting. The
larger centext of the study includes the cities and schools In which the
classrooms are located. I also narrowed the focus of the context to Include
the physical classroom, the teacher as a professional, and the software that
was used In the school.

In the following chapter, these methods are put Into practice to
describe some of the many routines and procedures the teachers used to
revise student writing. One of the most common procedures was to
encourage students to revise a content area passage written by the teacher.
I also describe other contexts where student revision occurs. Some
students revised their writing at the keyboard. Other students revised
infonnatlon on paper and then Input that Information In the computer later.
These different routines help the reader get a better idea of the Inner
classroom workings so that the reader can appreciate the changes In the

participant structure that are described In the fourth chapter.

98

CHAPTER 3: NEW PROCEDURES TEACHING REVISION

The procedures that we, as teachers, used to teach revision on the
computer over the course of the study were limited in part by the fact that
we did not use complicated software. We used Kidpix for the younger
grades and Hypercard and word processing software for the older grades.
The only exception is the use of the multimedia equipment in one classroom
for a couple of projects early in the study and the use of a card that helped
us capture Images made for computer on a videocassette recorder.

In order to be of use for a large audience of teachers and
researchers, it seemed important that we use common and Inexpensive
software In this study. The four classrooms where the research took place
had between one and four computers, which is typical in most schools and
allows educators to apply ideas from this study to a broad audience.

Using relatively simple software also allowed us to focus more on
Ieaming school subjects other than technical computer procedures. Most of
the teachers had very few experiences on newer computers and l was afraid
that an intensive study of technological procedures and Ieaming complicated
software would shift the focus of the study from using computers as a tool to

teach in classroom to teachers Ieaming technical procedures on the

99

computer. In this study, the report of class routines and procedures is
intended to demonstrate how these teachers changed teaching methods
dramatically as a result of the use of computers and time to collaborate and
think about the best role for the computer In a classroom.

The terms routines and procedures, teaching methods, and processes
are used Interchangeably in this chapter. They refer to actions performed
sequentially or not, that provide a structure for teachers and students that
allows them to Ieam how to revise writing more easily than they could
without that structure.

Revision, for the purposes of this document, will be deﬁned as a
meaning-related change students made In a ﬁle on computer or on paper of
a picture or text. Revision will also refer to changes students and teachers
made In procedures. Revisions include replacing one word with another
word to alter or clarify the meaning, adding personal knowledge, deleting
text or pictures, and elaborations on text and pictures. At times the revision
occurs just a moment after the author has written and other times change
occurs days and weeks later when a person rereads the paper after a long
break. When a student adds a sentence, word, or a graphic to improve the
communication, those additions are all considered revisions rather than copy
editing.

Because a child enters into Ieaming situations with some kind of prior

knowledge, any Integration of that child's prior knowledge and school

100
knowledge is, in effect, a revision of the child's knowledge. When a child

does not show evidence of integrating personal knowledge with school
knowledge I do not consider revision to have occurred. This type of reaction
to the subject matter is referred to as "duplication" or mimicking. However,
If the child has revised his/her scheme to integrate personal and school
knowledge, revision is present. In every case, the revision as an objective
In the lesson was subordinate to the construction of content knowledge and
process goals for reading and writing instruction. This includes times when
students revised pictures on the computer and words they had written or
words that had been written by someone else. In most cases, students
revised writing on a computer about a subject matter area. Occasionally,
students edited pictures they had copied from clip art or pictures that they
had drawn themselves.
lnterweaving Reading and Writing Processes

Understanding and responding to text is one of the most fundamental
activities that occur in schools. And yet not all students comprehend what
they read. Others comprehend In a cursory way, but do not deliberate and
contemplate texts. We ﬁnd this to be true in content area reading in which
students after reading a science text, for example, have no ability to recount
any of the meaning of the text. This Is a common frustration for teachers in
content areas, but It is also common during reading lessons. Students often

read a text but do not monitor their comprehension or evaluate what they

101

read. Teachers look for children to recite a dispassIonate replication of the
text. In these cases students do not express their prior knowledge or voice
which gives them a unique understanding of the text. In the section below
on editing templates, students are invited to elaborate on the text by adding
their prior knowledge and voice to texts about Illinois and the ocean.

In the diagram in Figure 6 below, I have outlined the types of routines
and procedures the teachers and I developed concemlng the revision of

knowledge in the curriculum.” These routines and procedures are divided

 

 
   
 

   

    

     
 
  
 
 

   
 
 
  
    

 

 

    
      
    
  
 
 

   

   
  

       

Progressive Illlnols One picture

story New tem/plate Ocean
Routines 8

Revising Procedures “0:“

States on papers I Teaching

keyboard ~ with Spiders Earth

Technology 8
~ Bats Progressive
Illinois stories

 

 

 

Figure 6. New routines and procedures.

into two parts: (a) revising on paper and at the keyboard, and (b) editing

templates. Much of revision occurred as students made changes on a text

 

’This section concemlng routines and procedures describes the methods and
some of the purposes for using the teaching tools described. The processes
described In the following typology of methods is limited to those used for the purpose
of revision and elaboration. Although most of the information In this section portrays
the use of templates, a short section at the end mentions the use of revision on paper.

102

already printed out. Revision was also common when student partners
noticed mistakes or thought of elaborations while they were working on the
computer. In other cases, the teacher prepared a picture or a text in
advance to be revised by the student. The teacher then asked students to
access the ﬁle that the picture or text was on and revise it (Editing
templates). Surrounding the Revising on paper 8. keyboard and Editing
templates are the titles of lessons we taught in those perspective areas.

In the next section, I discuss methods teachers and I used to help
students revise templates that the teachers had created and saved on the
computer. In the subsequent section concemlng revising knowledge on
paper and keyboard, I discuss teaching methods teachers and I developed
to promote revision of knowledge.

Editing Templates

In these lessons we attempted to use the potential ease of revision
and elaboration that the computer makes possible, to help students engage
In the content of the text and foster a greater degree of constructive
knowledge in their own minds. Students were asked to access a ﬁle on
computer that had already been written and revise it to Include personal
knowledge. Most of the time a paragraph had been written by the teacher
for the students to revise. Other times teachers drew a picture for students
to revise. Often, we would insert meaningless phrases or deliberate

mistakes in the text to force the reader to engage with the text. Since

103

teachers experience difﬁculty Ieaming to use the computer or simply working
on the computer during class, this writing happens at home or when
students are not with them.

Katie demonstrates the use of such an editing template in a lesson
recorded on audiotape (1125194). At ﬁrst she stands to the side of the
computer with the class gathered around the computer and she leads the
class through the procedure to take a ﬁle off the hard drive, edit that ﬁle,
and then save It on their own individual disk. She has made the text rather
large on the screen so the students can see what she enters on the
keyboard and what has been written. She asks questions that prompt
students to explain the procedure. As knowledgeable students explain the
procedure she demonstrates it by performing the procedure on the
computer.

Afterward, in the lesson described below, Katie allows students to
describe possible editing changes to the text as they are looking at the text
which is still showing on the screen from the discussion about saving the
text on disk above. Students are still gathered around the computer, but In
this part of the lesson, Katie does not actually demonstrate the changes as
the students suggest them. Of special Interest in this classroom section are
the procedures and purposes Katie outlines for editing this informational text
on the state of Illinois. These thinking procedures and purposes are

important because they depict how Katie uses the computer to help students

10

104

read actively and consider writing revisions in a classroom context.

First, she tells students they will personalize the template that she
wrote for them. To familiarize the students with what she means by the
word personalize, she solicits four examples from the group. We have had
previous discussions about personallzing, so this does not take much time.
Katie then tells students the three-step procedure for revising the social
studies text. Later, as she is observing the groups revising the text on the
screen, she notices that one student has Increased the font size on the
screen so everyone could see. We see a glimpse of a mini-lesson she
gives as she points out the beneﬁts of increased font size. Lastly, we see
evidence of a student recognizing that the point of the lesson is revision, as
a student recognizes a "trick" In the text. Before this event took place
students had read about Illinois and had other experiences working in
groups so they were familiar with how to work In groups.

di 'n l nois

Katie: We have been reading in the book about the plains areas...
In your group you are going to be looking at the material that has
been placed on the computer. Some statements are correct; some
statements have misconceptions In them, or incorrect information.
It's going to be your job and the job of your group to look at the
statements that are made and use the information in your social
studies book or other resources to correct those statements that are
wrong. And also put a little bit of your own ideas, your own thinking
into it. Okay. For example, if it says Illinois is a state in the plains
region. How could you say that In another way that would have
your own ideas into it but still have the same basic information?
John.

Ardema: Illinois has, I mean, Illinois is in the eastern plains.

30

40

105

Katie: Okay, another idea in using the same information. How
could we say it a different way? Ardema.

Andrew: Illinois is part of the plains.
Katie: Okay. That would work. Andrew.
Chris: Illinois has plains...

Katie: Chris.

Chris: Illinois is part of the Great Lakes region and is also part of
the Central Plains.

Katie: Okay. So what we've just shown you are some examples of
ways of taking basic information but making it more personal by
putting in your own ideas or your own concepts. Now, this is what I
propose you do ﬁrst. It's going to be kind of a three step process.
((a) You'll go to the computer, you'll look at the text; you'll make
some changes; you'll print it out; (2) you'll go back to a table with
your group, continue to make changes or additions on the printed
page; (3) then you will take your printed page, go back to the
computer and rewrite a ﬁnal draft. So that during those three
steps....As a group, you're going to have to take turns and decide
who may be doing some of the typing, who may be doing some of
the reading, and as a group decide what you wanta keep, what you
wanta change. (Students are assigned In groups to the computer
with ﬁlled out note cards in preparation for the group editing and
elaboration...

(After groups are divided Katie notices one computer where Brad
has increased the font size to large font. Katie calls the group to
look at what Brad has done.) That's a good idea, to organize jobs
then call up your information. Okay. Good. Because this is such a
large group, Brad, tell us what you did so everyone in your group
can see.

Brad: Well, I highlighted it and went up to size right here.

Katie: So you increased the font so your group could read the
monitor. Excellent problem solving... (Students go back to their
computers in groups as Katie ﬂoats from group to group observing
revisions students make.)

106

Student: Why does it say California and Texas [are plains states]?

Katie: Why do you think it says California and Texas [are plains
states]?

Student: ...to trick us. (Audiotape, 1125194)

Each group over the course of the next two weeks is told to (a) read
and edit the text about Illinois on computer, (b) print it out and add and
change the text again, and (c) Input the new enhanced text on the computer
editing a ﬁnal time on computer. Katie gave the directions three times In the
above section since it was a new procedure.

After giving brief instructions about the activity, Katie quickly reminds
students that she wants them to write using their own words. She asks
students to come up with alternative ways to say that Illinois Is a Plains state.
Four students use their own words and add nuances of difference to the idea
that Illinois is a Plains state. One student remarks that Illinois is In "the
eastern Plains." Another student points out that Illinois Is only "part of the
Plains." And ﬁnally, a student adds that Illinois as a state belongs to two
regions. Katie afﬁrms students' different expressions and elaboration on this
fact.

Her goal is to help students understand that there are many ways to
say the same fact and each are correct. This fact is important and points
out (a) the diversity of truth, that true statements can be said in more than

one way, and (b) that it is good to construct personally the facts in the text

107

using one's own language and not just read over a section to see if It Is true.
More will be discussed about personal voice in a later section of this chapter.

A small section in this passage shows how groups are expected to
increase the size of the text on the screen so that all the students In the
group can read it. In line 45, Katie took the opportunity to show the rest of
the class what Brad did and had him demonstrate that little procedure very
quickly just before students were to write on the computer. This quick minI-
lesson shows Brad as an expert In this procedure. By occasionally pointing
out procedures that children do, Katie is developing a group of experts in the
class that can contribute to the classroom community. It also helps students
to see that the teacher is a co-leamer and not the source of all answers In
the group (note discussion of experts in Chapter 4).

The original template text I wrote about Illinois is short and ﬁlled with
inaccuracies. Katie and I hoped that the mistakes in the text would
encourage the students to think of the text as a puzzle and read the text
more carefully to ﬁnd the errors. Katie asks the students to change the
mistakes during their ﬁrst viewing of the text. Then they print out the text and
go to study Illinois to elaborate on the text. When the group ﬁnishes
elaborating on the text they add that Information to the already modiﬁed text
for ﬁnal editing. At the end of the passage, the text states that California and
Texas are Plains states which the students disagree with. Students sense

the inaccuracy in the text and point it out to the teacher calling It a "trick."

108

The students appear actively engaged in the text as they recognize
the "trick" phrase. They seek to distinguish between the accurate and
Inaccurate sections of the text. The purpose of the reading has become
more Interesting as the author of the text tries to "trick" the students. The
"trick" provides added incentive for the student to immerse him/herself In the
content. Although students may not have intrinsic motivation to Ieam the
content, the student becomes engaged in a sort of game with the teacher
where the currency of the game is the content the teacher Is trying to
present. In the end the student is in fact tricked Into reading and engaging
the verity of the text.

The computer allows for easy revision of this "trick" in a small group
setting. Technology plays a major rolein this lesson because It Invites
students working as a group to revise the text and make the text their own
with ease of revision. Students can add their own knowledge Into any part of
the text without recopying. In addition, with the aId of the computer as a tool,
student cooperative groups added together their thinking and research
seamlessly In a ﬁnal report.

The important aspect of this example is the way In which it illustrates
a new procedure that creates a context where students work together
actively expressing their voice and personal knowledge with their peers
Instead of just with the teacher In a lecture style approach. The procedures

and purposes Katie promotes in the classroom allows the computer to be

109

used as a revising tool where small groups of students work with each other
to revise this social studies lesson.
W

Editing the teacher's template was a popular activity through the
course of the study. In this section, I would like to provide the reader with
examples of activities that offer evidence supporting the assertion that editing
the teacher's template was not uncommon as an activity. I will also provide
the reader with some insights concerning the depth and breadth of these
activities.

The ﬁrst example comes from a lesson in Katie's science class called
"The Ocean." That lesson was the ﬁrst that we designed to allow students to
revise a teacher-made template. Our goal was to consider the concepts
student voice, revision, and the use of many technical and content experts
(Audiotaped interview, 1015193).

In the section below, Lamar was called on to act as an expert to help
Lisa, a quiet gIri who smiled often. Snickers from other boys were heard
although Lisa was smiling broadly. As Lamar got up to help Lisa, he gave a
coy smile to the snickering boys and told them to "turn around" and face the
teacher.

The following section describes how the class and the pairs working at
the computer are both constructing knowledge on the same topic: oceans.

The group at their seats are reading about the oceans and discussing. Only

110

a few people out of the entire class are able to respond personally to the
text, but at the computer there was conversation between Lamar and Lisa.
They also responded In writing using the computer.

In this example, Lamar helps Lisa think of ways to access her prior
knowledge about oceans by suggesting she think of books she has read
about oceans and television shows she has seen with or about oceans.

By doing this he shares a strategy for accessing prior knowledge with her.
Lisa and Lamar also make use of their knowledge about language to revise
the style of writing to employ simlles "It looks like night time" and "the ocean
looks like a bath tub" to replace the teachers use of descriptive words in the
template.

Lisa and Lamar also take ownership over the meaning of the text by
changing words and claiming authorship. All of these activities In which they
are involved in the following passage illustrate their active construction of
meaning as they are reading and revising.

ceans
Students are editing the passage on Oceans that I saved

as a ﬁle on the hard drive of each of the computers. Three pairs

of students met in the back of the room at three computers to

read over the page-long passage I wrote about oceans. The

other section of the class about 15 are sitting in their seats with

their science books open to a chapter about oceans. The

students were reading silently. After a while Katie would

interrupt their reading to make a comment on the text.

Sometimes students raise their hands to comment or ask a

question.

The pairs on computer are generally engaged looking at

the screen occasionally pointing out parts of texts to their
friends. They usually read a sentence or a paragraph, talk and

111

then type on the keyboard. Lisa was reading the Oceans writing
I had made up for editing. She was plodding slowly through the
third sentence with Lamar when I came to observe. The title of
the ﬁle on the screen was, "Life in the Ocean" and on the next
line it read "by Lisa Bow." I saw that she had already erased
Mrs. Katie's name and replaced It with her own. They were
reading the passage and talking In muted tones. The rest of the
class was quiet, "A few feet below the surface."

Lamar pointed to the ﬁrst sentence of the , "Do you want
to change that one or keep that one?"

"I don't know. I don't have any experience with the ocean
Lamar."

"Well, whatever. Ms Katie said If you saw anything on TV
or you've seen in books."

I interrupted their conversation, "Lisa you can ask Lamar
and use his experience about the water if you want." She asked
Lamar if he had seen the ocean and he said that If looked like a
big bath tub.

She changed the passage from, "If you look at the coean
[sic] from the shore or from a boat, it looks like a hug4e [sic]
mass of blue salty water" to "My friend Lamar looked at the
coean [sic] from the shore and it looked like a big bath tub
[bathtub] of blue, salty water." (Fieldnotes, 11118193)

Lisa starts to make the writing hers by changing the name of the author
from Mrs. Katie to Lisa Bow. She begins to use Lamar's experience with the
ocean in the text. This validates his experience and makes him an authority
and expert not only in terms of content but also in terms of how the information
is expressed in words. In the sentences above and in the examples that follow,
it is interesting to note that the information does not change as much as the
way the information is expressed.

Both Lisa and Lamar have power to claim truth in this event. By
changing the words "huge mass of salty blue water" to the simile "like a big

bathtub of blue, salty water" they express the text knowledge they have

1 12
(substituting "big bathtub" for "huge mass"). Interestingly, both these students

have some of the same racial background characteristics as those in Heath's
(1983) "Trackton" where the use of similes by African-American students is
reported. By allowing students to use their own language to express the ideas
In the text,10 these two students express their ideas In ways compatible with
their home culture. They change the style of writing to something more akin to
their language style. They claim the power to change the text to their language
style.

Their prior knowledge about the ocean interweaves with the Information
from the text to form a synthesis of information that is new and personal.
During the course of the conversation they changed a number of words and
sentences to use their own words. In the second sentence of the text, following
the example above, Lisa and Lamar edit further.

"But if you look deeper [in the ocean than the shore], you will ﬁnd It Is

different In different places"

...got changed to...
"If you look deeper, it looks like night time"

The use of the simile, "it looks like nighttime," by these two children of
African-American decent suggest that these students may have a different way
of expressing descriptions than the teacher. Here they use a simile for the

second time to describe the ocean. The teacher may begin to notice this to be

 

1°See lines 8-29 of "Editing lllinois' excerpt in which teacher suggests students
express the information "in another way."

113

a pattern in these children's language. The two students deleted "you will ﬁnd it
Is different in different places." Perhaps the students did not understand that
"deeper" did not mean deep in the ocean but rather deeper than the surface of
the ocean. The teacher may wonder If these students missed the ﬂow of the
meaning from the ﬁrst sentence, or perhaps they do not understand the
concepts of different environments In the layers of the ocean.

By the students' addition of "it looks like night time," they do display an
almost poetic understanding about deep parts of the ocean. In this section, the
teacher can assume students know that it gets pitch dark deep in the ocean.

Several aspects of assessment are important to highlight as a result of
these Interesting additions and deletions. First, these deletions and additions In
the text enhance the teacher's ability to assess the students' understanding of
the prior knowledge of the content and their style of expressing themselves.
The teacher may doubt Lisa's and Lamar's understanding about the different
levels of the ocean or the students' ability to understand fully the meaning
across sentences and not only inside of sentences. If the teacher puts that
information together with her understanding that Lisa's reading lacks ﬂuency
(see above notes), she may come to a fuller understanding of Lisa's
comprehension of the content in science. The teacher may also notice the two
students do have an understanding of the deep ocean and express that

understanding with a poetic simile.

114

Secondly, the teacher can assess Lamar's and Lisa's engagement In the
text as demonstrated by the revisions they make on their paper during the
lesson. In contrast, those in the classroom reading the information In the book
are leaving very little evidence of what they Ieam. The teacher's ability to
assess and examine a child's prior knowledge of style and content of science
information appears to be enhanced by this writing passage.

The Ocean assignment was the ﬁrst teacher template Katie and I tried in
her class. We noticed during our assessment of the unit that many students
edited the ﬁrst section of writing, but not the later sections. (I will discuss in
more in depth on this ﬁnding In other parts of this study.) For example, In
Lisa's and Lamar's paper four out of ﬁve of the sentences in the ﬁrst paragraph
were changed in some way. The second short paragraph showed no revisions.
In later paragraphs a decreasing number of changes were made. We decided
to reduce the amount of writing In subsequent templates to give students a
chance to make changes on a greater breadth of information instead of just the
Introductory comments that exist in the ﬁrst paragraph.

Using Prompts as Templates to Frame Student Writing
Mama;

The next unit we used in Katie's class was a template in science on the
topic of Matter. The template for Matter was much shorter than the template on
the Oceans, consisting of sentence prompts with space for the student to leave

comments, examples, and personal knowledge. Students were asked to erase

1 15
parts of the template they did not understand.

The phrases not only act as subtopic headings, they also provide
Information that the student can give examples for. Gina and Ardema wrote the
following examples for their report on matter:

Matter and Its Properties

By Gina and Ardema

Matter Is anything that takes up space. For example, people are
matter. Physical properties are those we can ﬁnd out with our senses.
For example, smelling a ﬂower.

Chemical properties describe how substances can be broken
down or combined to make other substances. For example, mixing an
egg with milk. (There were no further examples, deletions, or revisions
given in the rest of the template) (student documents 1219194)

Students expanded on the meaning of the science concepts by listing
examples of what they thought the concepts meant. It was our hope that by
paring down the amount of writing, students would elaborate more on the
writing (Fieldnotes, 214193). We did not ﬁnd a signiﬁcant Improvement In the
volume of revisions, but we did ﬁnd that students were elaborating with
examples in full sentences.

Sgiders and Bats

Patti, who shares the same grade in the summer migrant program,
provided a similar scaffolding template. During reading, student interest groups
had been studying different animals. Patti wrote a blank hypercard stacks

(Figure 7 & 8). Each card in the stack simply stated a question that the

students answered. Since we were just a summer program, we set up simple

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Spiders
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They live in a hole under the

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ground.
Peqe I

Figure 7. Revising spiders text.

 

 

4th Gr arters !
Summer I Iigranl 1
Program - I993 #j

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

"vi/I‘iere do bats live? I
l

 

' ._ Bats choose dark crannies to
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'i" :erjwilh people Eats Item
from many Ir. :nds or places in

the dark And some bals live in
the conlr ie . ‘

 

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page I l

 

 

 

Figure 8. Revising bats templates.

 

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{Other inforﬂtion...

Pages

 

 

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The spiders can walk sideways and they can
walk backwards. They can walk upside down.

They can climbe up the trees. Can not harm
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1 17
hypercard stacks whereby the students only had to press on the right or left

arrow to go from card (page) to card. In the examples listed about spiders and
bats, Patti designed an attractive frame for the text and framing questions. This
style is more appropriate when students only have a day or two to write the
information. Also, notice that students are more dependent on the teacher to
construct the process. It Is the teacher who set up the hypercard stack and
wrote the questions.

One advantages of the Ocean type of template is that students have to
read and understand the passage. While they are reading, students look for
possible places where they could edit or correct mistakes. In the process of
reading, the students are being exposed to the content. The questions in this
hypercard passage do little to teach students anything about Bats or Spiders as
the students read the questions.

There are advantages to using this system, however. Although, It Is
written in a linear fashion, this hypercard stack could easily become interactive
by simply constructing a simple menu. As the year passes and students add
information about other animals, the students could have a simple
encyclopedia.

Also, notice that the framing questions are the same for both Spiders
and Bats. These categories that are created and that children have to ﬁll out
on a series of animals could come to serve as organizers students use to

chunk their thoughts about any animal.

118
Slop_ks, Earls of the Earth, and Stogr Pictures

Editing templates for young children seemed to take the form of graphic
representations more often than in the upper grades. In Maria's ﬁrst-grade,
students were Ieaming about the different parts of the earth such as the crust,
mantle and core. Modeling for Maria, I brought the children as a whole group
in front of the computer and taught them how to draw a number of concentric
circles on top of each other to simulate a cross-section of the earth. Then I
labeled each part of the earth accordingly (Fieldnotes, 4127/93).

Unfortunately, the ﬁrst-graders had a hard time drawing their circles so
they would be concentric. Jacob, a student whom we had trained to be an
expert on the computer, suggested we use his cross section of the earth (as a
template and erase the parts of the earth) and allow the students to attach their
own thoughts to the picture to describe the different parts of the earth
(Fieldnotes, 516193). The fact that the expert student made the template that
other students used and the fact that this template was a graphic made this
template unique.

In the following examples, Jacob and Kelvin show the same picture of
the earth, but different text. Students were free to add information they had
Ieamed about the earth on their picture. Kelvin choose to write only one
sentence and then label the other parts of the earth (Figure 9). Jacob was
more elaborate in his writing giving more information such as, "[The] Mantle is

made of silicon, magnesium, and Iron." This system of writing about the parts

119

 

The. 0001515 the, 1101515

 

 

 

 

Figure 9. Kelvin's parts of the earth.

 

Ma. 111.18 In (18
013ilic011,

  
   

 

Crust made of
8:130 011

 

 

Figure 10. Jacob's parts of the earth.

120

of the earth allowed students to quickly construct their knowledge of the earth
on the template (Figure 10).

A similar exercise was constructed as Maria had decided to teach the
students to tell time. In an attempt to change the curriculum, we decided to
have our next groups of students at the computer draw a clock with hands and
a sentence telling the time of some activity. Me, a student in Maria's class, got
frustrated when she could only draw an oval Instead of a circle. "It took us 20
minutes just to draw the clock which was too long" (Fieldnotes, 511 1193). From
that point on we decided to have the students access a clock without hands
and allow students to draw hands on the clock and add text (see Figure 11 8:
12).

In Kari's ﬁrst-grade class, students were constructing pictures using
Kidpix. After the students had drawn their picture using their own writing and
the graphics library, they were to write a sentence that would tell the ﬁrst part of

a story. After the students had written their ﬁrst page they were to make a

121

 

 

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Math clock template.

 

 

122

second page and so on until they ﬁnished writing their book. Each page was
then put on a storyboard in which the pages of the story appear In sequence.

As the summer progressed we realized that students were taking too
long to create each picture. Having to create an original picture for each frame
was becoming an obstacle to students ﬁnishing their stories (Fieldnotes,
7120826). To solve this problem, we asked the students to draw one picture
that would ﬁt every frame of the story and edit it just slightly to ﬁt the meaning
of the text, in effect, this one picture would become each child's template for
the story. The child needed to revise that one picture to ﬁt the meaning of the
different screens of text.

These video books were eventually put onto videotape and sent home.
Since we do not have a color printer, we did not print them out on paper (In
black and white they are too dark). I modeled a story I wrote about my
daughter Ieaming to swim. The pool stayed the same but my daughter moved
around the pool area (Video, 816193).

Ferris writes about his adventure called Tubing. Ferris' title frame has a
solid blue background and black letters that spell out, "Tubing by Ferris
Walker." The other three frames show the same picture on a blue river running
horizontally through the screen. On the river are four people In inner tubes.
The text is written above the river and reads: "page 2, I went tubing. It was fun.
page 3, I ﬂipped my dad over. and page 4, I had fun. I ate a sandwich and

some pop" (Video, 816193).

123

This example of a template demonstrates Individual expression and
control. Ferris chooses his own topic for the story and the appropriateness of
the text. In contrast to previous templates where the group and not the
individual was In control. Ferris told an adventure for the purpose of personal
expression during writing time. Since one of the goals in our writing was to tell
personal stories, it would be inappropriate to illustrate using those stories by
having a teacher drawing that all students could use. The focus here is on the
Individual and not the group story.
Progressive StoLy

Patti's class also used Patti's story starter as a template to get started
writing a story that was added to and changed over the course of a number of
days. In the story starter, Patti wrote the beginning of ﬁve different stories on
the ﬁve computers. Then she asked students to continue the story. When
those students were satisﬁed with what they had written, they asked if another
wanted to continue. In the ﬁeldnote below, Patti was trying to Interest students
in continuing a story she had written on the computer concemlng a hotly
contested basketball game. Later, on a second computer, Patti asked Andrea
to read a story starter Patti had written about their ﬁeld trip to the beach.

The story was called, "The Big Game." The story was not ﬁnished
and the student read "until...
"Until what?" asked Pat. "Until what? Think back to when

you played basketball. Think back to when you went to the beach

or went swimming." She continued to encourage students to

remember their own personal experiences and relate them to the

unﬁnished story. "OK Andrea, did you want to read?" Andrea read
a story slowly about the beach, sand, and dunes. It was time to go

124

back... Patti asked students to remember times when they had

been at the beach especially on the ﬁeld trip they were on. Patti

told the group she had written these story starters on her computer

at home (Fieldnotes, 814193).

Students volunteer to go to the computer and write and then call In a
loud voice to see if others want to continue the story. Patti takes the story
home overnight and edits it. Pattie rereads the story with the new ending.
Students can then edit that story and/or add or elaborate on the story.

The template in this story is the story starter. Students are encouraged
by Patti to elaborate on an incomplete story using their own experiences. Each
computer has a different story and children have to volunteer to go. The fact
that students volunteer allows students who do not feel passion enough to write
about the subject to pursue other writing. For others the progressive story is an
opportunity to write about a topic they enjoy or a style of writing that is crazy
fun. Some students never participate, although most enjoy hearing the stories
read every day to the class (More discussion as it relates to personal voice in
the progressive story is located In Chapter 5 on the Nature of Student
Revisions. Another speciﬁc event where story starter was used Is described in
Chapter 4 in the section concemlng the role of the partner in pairs when Brandy
and Nicole work together on a story.)

This template, like the others, has common elements as well as
elements that are unique to the particular interactions of Ieamers and material.

Thus there Is both a ritual quality in the activities over time and across groups,

but also a continuously inventive quality Ieamers express to one another.

125

Students build on each other's story and make the project a class collaboration.
However, students Involved must contribute creatively If the project Is to be
successful. The students In their revision create a new template every day to
revise and elaborate on. One of Patti's foci for the lesson is for students to
see the connection between reading and writing. As students come to read text
they will Ieam to be more critical and their opinions will be valued. This value
rises out the teacher's respect and promotion the student voice and student
knowledge in the paper.
Is the Computer the Best Tool for Learning Using Templates?

The editing template In this case Is used as a scaffold for students to
Ieam the content and the processes of reading critically and revising
knowledge. To be successful, the student has to read the text to understand
the content, assess it for Its correctness or clarity, and elaborate with
Information they are Ieaming In class. However, the question still remains as
to whether the computer is the best tool for this activity. Could this scaffolding
have occurred just as easily with pencil and paper? Certainly, we could have
printed out the document and copied it for every student. Then we could have
asked students to recopy their editing remarks on another sheet of paper. This
seems like an equivalent activity, but actually It Is cumbersome, less
empowering, and denies students access to tools of the future.

Changing words, elaborating on text, and deleting text as revision

activities are done more efﬁciently using the computer. One of the obstacles to

126

student revision Is that they often do not want to recopy a whole text over to
revise and so they feign perfection and avoid revision In order to keep from the
drudgery of recopying text. On paper there is no easy way to Insert some text
or edit text neatly without a full recopying. The exception to efﬁciency occurs
in this case when students have to elaborate on the text with pencil and later,
they key that information in the computer. V Unfortunate as It is, we found this
duplication to be helpful in the process of editing. This discussion takes place
later In a section on Revision on Paper.

When students edit their own texts using the computer they become
more empowered by controlling more of the process and giving more voice to
the content. As previously mentioned, students tend to avoid revision
altogether in order to avoid recopying their text. The student is also
empowered by controlling the text in a form that is more similar to the format
other published authors publish in. Students' papers look more reﬁned and
Important especially for those with sloppy handwriting or those who make
unintentional errors In their paper and have to erase a great deal.

The particular appropriateness and ease of using the computer for this
activity also encourages students and teachers to use such activities that allow
students to express their voice In the writing, and helps them understand the
relationship between reading and writing and between readers and writers.
Because of the ease of revision on computer, students become encouraged to

develop their own voice. It the teacher, parents, or students ﬁnd their content

127

objectionable or even If students change their mind, they can easily modify the
text to accommodate teacher concerns. The process they go through contrasts
sharply with those who have to recopy the entire paper using pencil and paper.
Since this study Is not a comparison study, there Is no data to show the
hesitancy of students. However, the purpose of these lessons was to inspire
students to deliberate carefully on text in order to revise and elaborate It.

The ease and effectiveness of using this activity with the computer also
helps students understand the connection between reading and writing. As
students Immerse themselves In giving voice to their writing and access their
prior knowledge, they come to understand that text can be changed to ﬁt their
needs and that authors have less power over them.

By using the computer, students are Ieaming to use the tools they will
one day be using as they become more proﬁcient In language In high school,
perhaps In college, and in the work force. As In other activities, the amount of
time students spend on the computer managing text increases their ﬂuency
using those tools. Every day most of us see adults whose potential Is never
reached because they never gained ﬂuency in reading and writing. The same
Is true for today's students if they do not gain ﬂuency using the computer.

Finally, this activity provides for easy integration of the teaching of
literacy strategies in the content areas. Although reading and writing skills did
not start out to be the objective, in many cases teachers found themselves

using reading and writing mini-lessons to promote the students' content area

128
knowledge. Katie's instructions about changing the wording in the text to the

students "own words" invites students to process the meanings of the content
and contribute personal style or content to the text.

In this section, new routines and procedures for teaching with technology
have been examined through student revision of templates.

Revision on Computer and on Paper

The purpose of this next section Is brieﬂy to describe some of the
processes that occurred during the course of the study involving revision on
paper and revision at the keyboard. Most of the revisions took place as
students were composing on the computer or while they were editing and
elaborating templates at the keyboard. At times when revising at the keyboard
was not sufﬁcient, additional revising was required of the students on paper
away from the computer. I do not intend to compare between revisions that
occur on the computer with those made on paper. Instead the procedures
themselves and how they emerged are explored. These emerging
procedures further describe the context and evolution of classrooms where
teachers and students are Ieaming to use the computer. The events are
signiﬁcant In themselves because they describe routines and procedures of
classrooms using the computer. These views of the routines and procedures
also prepare the reader for the next chapter on shifting roles by providing a
description of procedures students and teachers enacted in the classroom.

Often since computer work was not highly regulated by the teacher,

129

procedures and purposes for revision were deﬁned by the students. Jacob is
the computer expert in the following section. Jerrod and Xu are the users. The
procedure is whenever Jerrodor Xu make a mistake, Jacob suggests a
correction. The program used Is Kidpix. The "Uh oh guy" or "Undo guy" Is a
button on the menu that reverses the last set of keystrokes or action done on

the picture.

It Is Jerrod's turn to draw. He accidently erases over some of
the letters but remembers to hIt the Uh Oh Guy. Jerrod puts
trafﬁc lights on a black wire across the screen. Jerrod draws
a stop sign with the support pole but slipped and drew the
pole right through the middle of the sign. I recognized my
opportunity to teach Jacob and Jerrod something and I
showed how to stamp the stop sign over the old sign (and the '
pole) to make the sign appear as If there is no pole in the
middle of It. Later on, Jerrod clicks on a window stamp over
top of an old window he has mistakenly drawn a cross
through. Jacob's thirty minutes was up and so they saved
their picture In order to print it out at recess.

Jacob helped the children with their writing. When Xu
clicked on the letter "A" she mistakenly clicked on the color
red. Jacob started to correct them, "You accidently made the
cursor on red. You want to have black so it prints darker."
He pointed out red on the screen (and Xu changed the color
to black). (Fieldnotes Maria, 6/4193)

Jerrod edits his erasuregone wild by using the "Uh oh Guy" (undo). I
taught (part of my job was to develop the skills of the experts) Jerrod and Josh
the technique of stamping over something to cover it up. That was the second
revision. Jerrod demonstrates that he is Ieaming by doing it himself later.
Finally, Jacob shows Xu how to change the color of the text when Xu had

mistakenly clicked on the color red. There were no other opportunities to edit

130

except when the student was writing or immediately afterward. There was no
time given to contemplate or edit the picture.

Katie found editing during the course of the writing to be quite common.
Most of the errors were pointed out by a partner or accompanying expert. "Kids
keyboarding do not edit...they are not reading the screen" (Audiotaped
Interview, 2I4194).

Katie: They also while one person was actually typing, the other

person was reading the screen; adding things to It. Saying, "Why

don't you say this or let's put this in now. Kind of like a

proofreader or just someone to help elaborate...

Glenn: proofreader?

Katie: Yeah. Going through and picking out mistakes or even

saying, "Okay, here's something else you can say about that topic.

So they were giving information as well as proofreading about It.

(Audiotaped interview, 1110194)
In front of the computer one student typed in the Information and the
other person worked as a proofreader who could make suggestions
about information the student might add or correct. Greater depth and
breadth of editing experiences at the computer are cited In the section on
Social Contexts for Revising (small group revision and pairs revision).

In the Editing Illinois account above Katie provides the students
with a procedure they are to follow that interweaves editing on paper and
editing on the computer. The students' ﬁrst task was to edit their papers

for incorrect grammar, spelling, or obvious nonsensical phrasing on the

screen using the keyboard. Students were to print out the edited

131

template for group revision away from the computer. Students split up,
assigning themselves to different sections of the report and gathering
more information. After the students gathered the information, they met
as a group and listened to each other's elaborations on the content of
the template of the papers. When they had arrived at a consensus for
what was to be added, students input the revisions on computer onto the
edited copy of Illinois. Finally, students were asked to look over the
paper one more time as a group to edit for a ﬁnal copy (Audiotape,
1125194).

In this style of editing, Katie has the students step away from the
computer and think about editing to the exclusion of all other activities.
Katie felt that this time was important in order to get more information
and more opportunities for revision. In this audiotaped interview, Katie's
evolving thoughts about multistep revision are evident as she and I
review with dissatisfaction the revisions on papers turned In:

Katie: Right, they changed, but I think they changed very little.

And I'm not sure if it's one of those things where maybe we have

to incorporate, you know, you change It and then you've gotta go

back and change it again. Maybe go through three changes to
see if that would encourage them to elaborate more. Instead of
just accepting one change. Maybe have it be a three-step
process. Okay, now you wanta go back and let's put some more

In. See what else you can do with it or maybe actually go through

as a teacher, I as a teacher and highlight a certain area and say,

Okay, this is a good start but I want to see more adjectives in this

paragraph or something." Maybe we have to make it Into a multi

step process. I don't know. Instead of thinking, "one time, one
shot, It's done." (Audiotaped interview, 1110194)

132
Katie's thoughts about the need for a multi-step approach to revising writing are

driven by her dissatisfaction in the number of student revisions. She believes
students will make more elaborations If they are given more opportunities to
elaborate and revise. This three-step process bore fruit In the Illinois unit where
students editing in three steps. Two of the opportunities for revision occurred at
the keyboard and one opportunity was away from the computer on paper.

Teachers provided opportunities for editing on paper in other writing
activities as well. In Katie's unIt on states, students wrote brochures to attract
tourists to visit the area they studied. We gave mini-lessons on editing and
writing for the tourist audience (Planning documents, 4128193). In cooperative
groups, students constructed a tourist ﬂier with a digitized picture they took with
a video camera. Students were then given time to edit their writing to make It
more attractive to tourists. After students had edited their papers to the
satisfaction of the teacher, they were allowed to go to the computer to input
their revisions.

The two texts below were taken from the Hawaii group before and after
the group editing session on paper. The unedited text on the left appears more
factual in nature. On the right after the editing, many of the facts have been

deleted or altered to accommodate the purpose of this paper.

133

mm 591mm
Hawaii Hawaii

It is the Aloha State. Hula dancing You can ﬁnd Hula dancing just

is a special dance from Hawaii. about anywhere in Hawaii. Come
The capital is Honallulu on Oahu. and enjoy the rainforests.

There is many rainforests.

As the two versions illustrate, students changed the edited version to
include more language designed to attract tourists. (See Figure 13 for the
original text) Instead of stating the fact that, "Hula dancing is a special dance
from Hawaii," students changed the wording addressing the tourist audience,
"You can ﬁnd Hula dancing just about anywhere in Hawaii." In the last
sentence, instead of stating a fact, "There are many rainforests." the edited
version speaks to the visitor, "Come and enjoy the rainforests."

In the progressive story, Patti printed out a copies of each story that
students had elaborated upon already, for students to edit. Patti combined and
edited the children's suggestions overnight on computer and provided the edited
story on the computer to be elaborated and extended for another day. She
continued this process for a number of days.

The methods for editing on paper Involve similar procedures. Students
either write their own text or are provided a template to edit. Usually, they are
given an opportunity to edit their paper on the computer as they compose or

after they compose. The paper is then printed out by the students. Then

Figure 13. Original edited Hawaii.

Hawaii

Fit—181' heﬁlc'ha‘state.
(Hula- dancing is a specialg:
imp ~dance from Hawaii. f. time—

  
 

Fit:

Rwahur— ..
There is many—Ln “2% 211. w“
rainforests. HoriQﬂTulu is the
most populated
city in Hawaii.On the island
Hawaii there is a volcano
national park.There is a
monument for the USS
Arizona in
Pearl Harbor.The coldest it gets is about
77 degrees.

There is a park called the Wainnea
Canyon Park on

Kauai island.Surfing (cowabunga) is major
in Hawaii.

You will enjoy scuba diving.Say hi to the
fish.

135

students are asked to join groups to delete sentences and Insert new Ideas on
the printed text. Students are then asked to input the alterations in the text.
Finally, they proofread the text and print It out.

This chapter provides the reader with an Idea of the shifting routines and
procedures teachers used to promote the revision of knowledge using the
computer. Most importantly, this chapter leads us to an understanding of a
place where participants discover new roles themselves as teachers and
Ieamers, in the next chapter on Emerging Participant Structures. These
changes In routines and procedures provided a context that enabled all
classroom participants to relate to each other in ways that changed the
character and the tone of Ieaming. In the next chapter I explore how these new
routines and procedures acted as catalysts to provided for transformation of the

traditional roles for students and teachers.

136

CHAPTER 4: SHIFTING ROLES FOR TEACHERS AND PUPILS

New routines and procedures portrayed in the previous chapter not only
altered the organization and appearance of the classroom, it created a number
of new roles for the teacher and the students in the classroom that does not
exist in traditional classrooms. In general, students and teachers were familiar
with their roles, but as the classroom organization changed, it began to make
sense to students and teachers to change the ideas that deﬁned their role in
different situations. Role will be deﬁned as a group of tasks and attitudes
students and teachers are expected to perform when the situation requires it.

Shifting Roles for Teachers

Past research regarding using the computer In the classroom claims that
the computer is dependent variable in classroom Ieaming (Michaels, 1990).
That is, the computer itself does not improve student writing (Pisapia, 1992).
Improvement In skills is dependent on the context. For purposes of this writing,
the fact that revision is easy to perform on the computer does not mean that
students will actually revise their writing. The best a computer can do is to
facilitate revision in writing. Students do not just revise or edit their writing
merely because they are using the computer. Rather, the teacher Is obligated

to provide contexts that are conducive Ieaming environments and to guide

137

students to Ieam and practice revision of knowledge on the computer.

As a goal in staff development, I worked with the classroom teacher to
provide different contexts that would promote student revision of writing by
using student experts, small groups, and teacher directed mini-lessons. As
Ieaming professionals, both the teachers and I developed these tools as a part
of our joint experimentation (Felman-Nemser & Rosaen, 1992) to discover
routines and procedures that would empower students to be capable Ieamers
by constructing and revising knowledge. In the ﬁrst section, I describe a portion
of the path we embarked upon to select these contexts as helpful for our
teaching. Later In this chapter, I will describe these different contexts and how
they affect student revision of knowledge across the content areas.

Evolving Participant Structures

As teachers began using the computers as a tool for constructing
knowledge across the curriculum, the most obvious transformation observed in
the classroom was the change In social organization and grouping for
Instruction and student work. The physical presence of the computers and our
decision to use them were Important factors In determining the context In which
the students were going to work in the classroom. Since there were not
enough computers so that every student could work on a computer, we did not
have the option of teaching the computer within a whole group where each

student or pair of students worked on their own computer.

138

Students who worked on the computers were considered one small group.
If students working on the computer were working in pairs, those working in the
pair were still referred to as the group working on the computer. Most of the
time the teachers improvised management charts that described when each
group was entitled to use the computer, so the teachers could easily say, for
example, "The blue group is ﬁnished on the computers and it is time for the red
group to use the computers." At least one other group was formed by the
students who were not on the computer. Therefore, there were at least two
groups In the class when students were using the computers.

In Katie's class, there were distinct transitional stages In the social
systems the class progressed through as they moved from working without
computers to working with them. At ﬁrst, we were not sure what the different
groupings would yield in terms of changes in social system, I. e., the
organization of time, space, activity, and participants' rights and duties. When I
ﬁrst observed the classroom, social studies and science lessons often followed
traditional classroom procedure. Students were reading the texts and
discussing the contents of the text with teacher initiated questions (Log,
4120193). This is typical of an interactional style reported by Mehan (1979) and
Cazden (1988) to be the dominant style of interaction between the teacher and
the students. First the teacher would jnltiate a question, a student would
Respond to the question, and ﬁnally, the teacher, would Evaluate the student

response (IRE). Students' opportunity to speak was limited to responding to the

139

teacher's prompting questions.

As time passed, students were allowed to work in pairs at the computer
and between pairs at the computers, but the group sitting at their seats was
virtually following the same interactional pattern that dominated In the ﬁrst stage
of the study (Fieldnotes, 11116193). Katie stood in front of the group as one
child would read the content area text. The reading was followed by teacher
questions and comments with student responses.

In a third stage, Katie describes the social structure as small groups of
students working together. The ﬁrst group works at the computer. Another
group "meets with" her In the corner of the room at a half moon table which is
called the Reading Group Table as she guides students to proceed through
steps "on their own" (Audiotaped interview, 1217193). Students in a third group
are "at their seats doing research" by themselves. "The computer should be
like a center so it's always a work in progress" (Audiotaped interview, 1110194).

In this ﬁnal third stage, Katie does not teach students, she meets with
them. This terminology marks a change in the role of the teacher from a
teacher who thinks of teaching as presenting knowledge to the group. Meeting,
In contrast, is a time to think about ideas and problems of study together with
students. As Katie changes, she "meets" with the students as they are
proceeding through the steps "on their own." The fact that Katie uses the

word, "meets," implies a different kind of interaction than what was typical In the

140
ﬁrst stage. Finally, as students do work "on their own," she indicates that
students have begun to become independent Ieamers.

In retrospect, Katie also recognizes our development as Ieaming
professionals as we moved through the different contexts reﬁning our routines
and procedures. As she states In the exit interview:

I talked about maybe doing it like in a reading group format...so
what I saw you helping me with Is kind of getting me to different
plateaus, getting the class to different plateaus. We started with
one idea and then we did the same idea again but we either
changed or reﬁned when we did it again" (Audiotaped Interview,
214194).

Our techniques evolved step by step as we responded to the needs of the
students to make the lessons better. Gradually, we moved from (a) whole
group instruction to (b) a small group on the computer and whole group
routines and procedures for the students who were not on the computer, to (c)
three small groups. It is signiﬁcant that we moved through the stages of
reﬁning methods of teaching using the computer. It is perhaps even more
meaningful that Katie has become metacognitive about this process of
professional Ieaming.

Similar shifts in grouping from whole group toward guiding small groups
were not evident in other classes because of different contexts. Kari and Patti
were given inservice at the beginning of the summer describing how teachers
were expected to have a group at the computer and a group at their seats

working (Fieldnote 713193). These summer migrant teachers did teach using

whole-group methods in other classes, but during the hour a day when they

141

had ﬁve computers, students worked in two groups while the teacher ﬂoated
around the room helping all the students (Fieldnotes, 7127193 & 816193).

Patti attributes the small groupings to the fact that the class has ﬁve
computers for an hour "because that way you can break your class Into two
groups which makes it workable. If you only have two, you are doing more
whole group things and the people on the computer are missing out"
(Audiotaped interview, 816193). This was, in fact, the case in Maria's ﬁrst-grade
classroom in the Geneva School District where there was only one computer in
her ﬁrst-grade classroom. There was no real shift in social structure of the
classroom to small groups as was the case in Katie's classroom. Two students
typically went to the computer, while the rest of the students worked much as a
whole group would normally work. Although this pair of students at the
computer did form a small group and acted much like a small group, the other
students In the classroom were taught in much the same as they had been
before the use of the computer.

Maria normally made rounds walking from student to student in the
classroom to evaluate each student's work. This evaluation, she called
"checking," included assessing the correctness of the student response and
giving comments to help the student Improve his/her paper. As she made her
rounds she would stop off to visit the pair on the computer which was often
doing the same exercise students were doing at their seats (Fieldnotes,

1131194). Students in Maria's class were not split into two groups. Students at

142

the computer were simply using a different medium to write and create their
pictures than the other students did.

Maria's case notwithstanding, the other three classrooms did form a social
structure that centered on the use of small groups as a medium for instruction.
What seems signiﬁcant about this ﬁnding Is how the number and character of
the computers seems to have acted as a catalyst to change the participant
structure of the classroom. As the teacher uses the computer the amount of
whole-group instruction seems to decrease and the small group and Individual
work of the students increases. In effect, this shift toward small grouping Is
changing the principal mode of instruction that has not signiﬁcantly changed in
over a century (Cuban, 1984). When the teachers in this study use the
computer, they do not have whole-group instruction (except for mini-lessons)
which has been the traditional standard mode of instruction. The use of three
or four computers in the room acts as a catalyst for changing the social
structure In the classroom.

As a result of small—grouping in the classroom, many new opportunities for
student participation became apparent. As classrooms begin to use more pairs
and small groups there Is greater opportunity for the students to speak. In a
classroom where lecture Is the norm, students can have turns to speak after
waiting for the teacher, who usually talks the majority of the time. In pairs,

students could be speaking more than half of the time.

143

In this section, I have described the conversion that occurred in the
social organization of one classroom and the emergence of small groups as a
result of the shift the teacher making use of the computer In three other
classrooms. These shifts from whole-group to small-group began to change the
fashion in which students participanted in the classroom as Ieamers. Students
were now talking more to each other and teachers were talking with the
students In a different manner.

In the next section, I will examine students revising knowledge in small
groups using the computer. The next sections of the chapter are divided Into
three contexts of small groups. First, I examine the role of the student expert
who is trained as a helper to one person who is assigned to work on the
computer. Second, I will explore the revisions of students who worked together
in pairs. Finally, I will assess the style of revisions students generated when
they were In small groups of more than two. Finally, I include a third context for
Ieaming called the mini-lesson where the class teams as a whole-group.
Throughout these sections, I will emphasize the change In character of the
revisions and the participant structure in which the basic character of schooling
for students and teachers have changed.

The Bgle of Students as Experts

In order to be successful Ieaming to use the computer, students have to

Ieam some technical knowledge to complete simple and complex procedures.

Teachers seem particularly sensitive to the fact that if they have to ﬁx the

144
computer all the time, the computer does not end up being particularly
beneﬁcial. When interviewed about computers in her classroom, Katie, for
example, said:

I think everyone's sorta feeling that (rush, rush, rush) at different

times. I think all teachers are. Not having enough time to really

ﬁgure out the problems for yourself. And it's not, I mean, you're

gonna have problems like this all the time using computers.

People that use them all day long run into problems. They just

have to work it out. You're right. We don't have the time to do so

(Audiotaped Interview, 1110194).

Here Katie points out the difﬁculty of Ieaming how to solve technical problems
when there Is so little time to do this In the school day already crowded with
academic responsibilities. To relieve the teachers of the technical burden,
technicians were hired to work for the entire district to deal with extraordinary
technical problems. Another group, Instructional consultants (my job), were
hired to help teachers ﬁgure out how to handle the technical problems without
disrupting their teaching.

As a part of my job, I recommended teachers train student "experts" or
have me or others train student experts In different software to provide guided
practice to novice students who were not yet able to work alone. In case
studies conducted by Murray (1986), experts evolved typically in classrooms in
spite of whether they were trained or identiﬁed by the teacher or not. We also
trained students how to manage speciﬁc problems that were common, but still

difﬁcult for competent students to solve. These student experts were trained by

me to deal with simple and complex problems as well as short lessons in expert

145
etiquette. Expert etiquette included being polite and guiding the novice through

the process instead of taking over and doing it for them.

In classrooms where most of the students were mostly competent on the
computer, but who just needed occasional help with a problem, they could seek
out the expert instead of the teacher to get a solution to the problem. To seek
out the expert, the computer user~ simply got out of his/her seat at the computer
and requested help from the computer expert. The expert would then go to the
computer and give the student help. If the expert could not solve the problem,
helshe would sit down and the user would select another expert.

This process of using an expert not only relieved the teacher from being
contacted often by students to solve technical problems, but much more
Importantly, this process changed the participant structure in the classroom.
Whereas in traditional classrooms the teacher alone had authority and
appropriate knowledge to help students In the classroom, the use of student
experts in the classroom recognizes that students in the classroom are also
responsible enough to be authorities and knowledgeable enough to be
teachers.

In using student experts there is the recognition on the part of the teacher
that It Is more efﬁcient to draw from everyone's knowledge and not just the
sanctioned knowledge of the teacher. In fact, often the computer experts
became more knowledgeable about the computer than the teacher. At that

point authority and sanctioned knowledge becomes less Important. The teacher

146

becomes a leamer and the classroom becomes more of a community of
Ieamers.

The use of experts in classrooms also provides a context In which
students could work on their social skills such as being polite, communicating
clearly with actions and words, and how to help people Ieam Instead of just
doing things for people. As important as those skills are, students rarely have
opportunities to work on such skills in traditional classrooms where the teacher
expects students to listen and not talk.

Expertise grew quickly in classrooms to the point where even students
who were not trained as experts became capable and were called on by their
friends to solve problems. At ﬁrst there were only a few experts In the school
who would be available to leave their classrooms. As students who were
interested had the opportunity to be trained and watched more advanced
experts solve problems, they became greater in number and more
sophisticated.

There were usually three or four experts in every classroom. As students
were just getting used to the computer or a new piece of software, the experts
would often accompany a student or pair of students to the computer. In the
context of Individual or pairs of student with a computer expert, the less
experienced novice can Ieam from the "knowledgeable other" (Vygotsky, 1978)
In the example below, pairs of students In Maria's ﬁrst-grade class get help

from student experts. Note how student experts help the novice Ieam to use

147

the computer in a very kind way. Also, note that the expert helps to teach
capitalization skills by pointing out that mrs. should start with a capital "m."

Ian (student expert) helped a pair of children, Yashee and
Susie, with their writing. When Yashee clicked on the letter "A"
she mistakenly clicked on the color red. Ian spoke in a soft voice
to correct her, "You accidently put the cursor on red. You want to
have black so it prints darker." He pointed out red on the screen.
Yashee put the mouse over on the black but she didn't click on
black she just held it there for a long while.

Susie said as she jumped, "Click!"

Ian also repeats, "Click!" Yashee took the hint from Susie

10 and Ian and clicked on the black square so that she would type In

black...

(Later they switched and) Susie typed "mrs" In lower case
letters.

Ian responded, "Uh oh you need a capital to start Mrs..
Here, you have to hit this to 'get a capital." Ian pointed to the
CAPS LOCK key. Susie tapped on the CAPS LOCK key and
typed MRS. "Opps, you forgot to turn the Caps Lock off." Susie
clicks on CAPS LOCK again. "Ok Caps Lock off." says Ian
(Fieldnotes, 6/4/93).

Here we see Ian helping and asserting his authority as expert by offering
Yashee and Susie technical support and some advice about punctuation. In
the ﬁrst paragraph, Ian relaxes his authority by politely telling Yashee she has ‘
"accidently put the cursor on red" and informs her that she "wants to have black
so it prints out darker" (there was only a black and white printer available). Ian
acts as a authority here to determine what color the student wants to use. He
does not ask the student the color that she wants. He tells her, albeit very
politely for a ﬁrst-grader. In addition, he gives her technical Information about

colors and printing that she might only discover by trial and error otherwise.

148
Susie, Yashee partner, helps Yashee perform the next step which Is to

click on the black space. Susie adds a little hop to the click. This kinesthetic

hop accents the words and idea that Susie is trying to express to Yashee. Ian
follows up with a "Click" of his own to help give direction to Yashee action. In
this section, Ian gives more technical support to Yashee.

In the last part of the passage, Ian helps Susie by infonnlng her that Mrs.
starts with a capital letter and by giving the technical support to tell her about
how to make the capital letter. He even follows up by guiding her to make it
correct when she misunderstands his help. Ian helps not only with technical
support to tell her how to make a capital letter, he also gives Susie punctuation
advice to tell her that she needs to use a capital letter to start the word Mrs..

To summarize, Ian gave technical support at least four times in that short
passage, including some information that allowed Susie to write with correct
punctuation, and he imposed some authority as he informed Yashee to use the
black instead of the red color for writing. As an expert, Ian made his thoughts
very public, therefore allowing Susie and Yashee to beneﬁt from his thinking.
His cognitive thoughts, which normally would have been carried on silently in
his head had he been sitting in his seat, were made public. This collaborative
setting, with a public screen that all three children could see, allowed cognition
to become visible by Susie and Yashee. Both of them were able to see what

Ian was thinking and beneﬁt from his thoughts.

149

Susie and Yashee did not just take Information from Ian. They were
responsible for generating the sentence and the computer drawing as well as
providing most of the physical typing and mouse work. Since every person
contributed, it was a collaborative effort.

Four aspects seem particularly signiﬁcant to draw out of this examination
of student Ieaming. First, this context has allowed collaborative activity that
makes the cognitive public (Reilly, 1992). There Is a fundamental change In
how Ieaming takes place in this setting in comparison to the typical teacher-
student Interaction (IRE) where the teacher initiates and evaluates interactions.
This type of collaborative effort also is a change from the "sage on the stage"
model where the teacher is simply imparting knowledge to the students
(Ringstaff, Sandholtz & Dwyer, 1993).

The second signiﬁcant aspect of this example is that these students were
Ieaming computer and grammar in the context of actually using it for their own
purposes. All three of the students In this group understood what the goal was
In this Ieaming activity and they all worked toward that common goal. The
Ieaming transpires in a context in which the student uses the information to
complete a project. In that sense the Ieaming is very performance-based
(Kentucky Department of Education, 1991). In effect, the success of the
performance is dependent on the effort of all the students in the group.

Thirdly, Ian appeared to be particularly skilled at giving direction and

advice without being abrupt. First, he tells Yashee she has "accidently" chosen

150

the wrong number rather than telling her she was wrong or confronting her
directly. He was good at signaling mistakes with endearing words such as
"oops" and "uh oh." Ian also takes the blame on himself for not turning the
caps lock off even though he sits furthest away from the keyboard. Certainly,
Ian's interpersonal skills make working collaboratively a more pleasant Ieaming
expenence.

Finally, Ian, as an expert, acted with a limited degree of authority in the
group. Since his technical knowledge was necessary to complete the activity
with success and this was a tool that Susie and Yashee were not familiar with,
they accepted the expert's limited authority.

In the next passage, the expert asserts her authority, perhaps in a manner
that makes it more directive. This passage marks a different tone from the
previous passage. The following section contrasts Yu's style of teaching to
Ian's. It demonstrates Yu's approach as more directive than Ian's and raises
Issues of when, how, and to what and students who occupy expert status In
groups have an opportunity to Ieam politeness strategies to mitigate that
authority as they help others to Ieam. It also illustrates some diversity In terms
of the type of technical and subject area support that the expert offers. Yu
models and collaborates with another student to spell words. Yu helped Jake
and Andrea write about their hospital visit.

"You have to set it down! You have to set it down! Press itl Press
Itll" Yu leaned forward to the computer and then toward Jake as she

raised her voice. Jake clicked on the mouse to place the cursor on the
screen and Andrea started to write. Andrea types "we."

10

151

"No!" says Yu as she leans forward and points to the "w." "You
have to put a capital." Andrea backspaces over "we." Yu presses on
the Caps Lock key while Andrea types "We."

"How do you spell went?" asked Andrea.

"Sound it out." Yu asks Andrea. " Wa, wa, wa...eh, eh, eh...nn...t."
as Andrea types each letter Yu gives her the letter sound. Then Andrea
spells "to the."

"How do you spell hospital?"

"Hu, hu, hu, hu...ah, ah, ah...ssssss." (Fieldnotes, 614193).

In the middle and at the end of this passage Yu offers expertise beyond
the technical expertise that she Is trained In by pointing out a need and
technical skill for making a capital "W' to start the sentence and by helping
Andrea sound out the words "went" and "hospital." These events are notable
mostly because it Is an excellent example of peer teaching (Ringstaff,
Sandholtz, & Dwyer, 1993) of revision and scaffolding in a meaningful context.
Yu helps the children revise their knowledge of the technical processes of using
the computer as well as revising their text for capitalization as they are involved
In the process of constructing the text. In this setting students are not Ieaming
isolated content which they are expected to practice later. They are Ieaming In
the process of doing meaningful activity. The character of school that is
examined here differs from traditional methods (Goodlad, 1985). Maria explains
the character of this type of Ieaming:

That was wonderful dialogue because they were, they were
coaching each other, plus they were helping each other to Ieam
more about the computer but just wonderful conversations that
you cannot have when a teacher is teaching them. You're giving
them information and then they're almost regurgitating it back.

But there, there was a lively discussion going on (Audiotaped
interview, 614193).

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In the example in this section and In examples that follow In this chapter,
students Ieamed from the process of interaction that took place. And yet these
Ieaming contexts Involved students talking to students and making sense to
each other without teacher dominance. Certainly, one of the most profound
differences between these group contexts and traditional classroom contexts is
that in this context, students manage their own Ieaming. One Indication of
student regulation of Ieaming and of less dependence on the teacher Is the
dominance of student talk during most Ieaming times and less teacher talk.
Another aspect of the character of the revision in this setting Is the way In

which these ﬁrst-graders are able to use all their senses to experience the
activity. Andrea feels the keyboard as she types in the letter. The entire group
can hear the sound of the letters being typed through a simulated sound given
off by the computer. Most importantly, all the students can see the text on the
lighted screen which is set up high enough for every one to see clearly (Daiute,
1985). Maria characterizes the multimedia, multi-sensing nature of the activity
below:

For young children, It's almost like, It's, the computer Is technical

but at the same time, they're the ones that are manipulating it. It's

not me. And It's almost like in ﬁrst-grade everything has to be

hands on. And they have to touch it and they have to feel it and

you do not give them paper coins. You give them real coins to

count. And they're touching and that makes Ieaming, it's just

more important to them. They were making the model. It wasn't
me (Audiotaped interview, 614193).

Yu is able to provide the encoding of the words "went" and "hospital" In a

153

way that allows Andrea to spell those words when she was not able to spell
them without Yu's scaffolding. Yu helped just enough to allow Andrea to
control some of the process and still be successful. This type of guided
participation Is comparable with the types of scaffolding Rogoff (1986) cites in
her studies of how parents scaffold for their own children to allow them to be
sucCessful.

Yu shows another part of the character of her instruction as she
demonstrates her Impatience with Jake and Andrea. In line 1 she showed her
agitation by repeating the phrases, "You have to set it downl" and "Press it!"
twice each and correcting Andrea harshly with a "Not" as she corrects Andrea's
capitalization. Yu's body posture also indicates a hostile tone as she leans into
the monitor and then toward Jake to emphasize the importance of her words.

Part of Yu's training as an expert was that she was to refer to the monitor
and keys on the keyboard or point with the ﬁnger to help direct the novice to
what to do instead of performing the tasks on computer for the novice. Yu
shows her aggressiveness again by actually pressing the CAPS LOCK key
instead of just pointing to it or referring it.

This type of impatience and aggressiveness in revision demonstrates a
discrepant case of student expert helping other students that Is worthy of some
comment. First we note that in this passage, in spite of Yu's aggressiveness,
Andrea still feels comfortable enough to ask Yu how to spell words. This Is not

always the case. Maria comments that she had observed Yu being aggressive

154

with another student, Leon, and noted that he had lost his conﬁdence and
became frustrated as a result of Yu's being "so hard" on him (Audiotaped
interview, 618193).

The fact that student experts can be overbearing can be seen both as a
pedagogical problem and an opportunity. When student experts are too "hard"
on their fellow students Ieaming may become disrupted when students become
frustrated, argue, or one student stops talking because talking can be so
unpleasant. However, this problem becomes an opportunity for the teacher to
address issues of etiquette and equity among students in the classroom. If, In
fact, the classroom becomes more of a community of Ieamers where students
help each other students will have to acquire the skills of working with each
other gracefully.

In the previous sections of this chapter, we have seen how the teacher's
use of the computers in the classroom has resulted in small groups. Whereas
In the whole-group the teacher manages the Ieaming and deﬁnes the content,
in the classroom with small groups students have more control. In the
classroom with only one computer, small-grouping is limited to one whole-group
with a pair of students on the computer. Students gain authority and become
technical specialists when they play the role of expert in some classes. In
small groups, students have the opportunity to construct their thoughts and
make revisions on their own. In the following section, we will examine the

different roles students perform inside those pairs and groups.

155

Revisio tude t Grou 3

There were many different contexts for small groups in classrooms.
When students worked on the computer for this study teachers divided students
In various ways. At times teachers allowed students to select their own
partners. Other times the teacher selected the pairs and small groups of
students. Self-selected or teacher-assigned pairs of students felt free to share
Information from pair to pair of students In the classroom. At times the pairs of
students worked at the computer and some of the students worked at their
seats. In some cases, cooperative groups of four worked together both on and
off the computer. Most frequently, however, pairs of students worked on the
computers while the rest of the students worked in small groups, as one large-
group, or Individually while getting help from each other as needed.

I have titled this section "Revision in Student Groups" in order to Include
data drawn from all group contexts. As I was reviewing the data I noticed that
most of the data was applicable to both paired-groupings and small-groupings
and so In this section I review that data together.

As the classroom breaks up into smaller-groups students are able to
manage their own Ieaming. By assuming their Ieaming management, students
become less dependent on the teacher and do more Ieaming on their own.
Students assume the management roles that were once reserved for teachers.
In the next section, I examine the roles that the partner takes as a kind of

Ieaming manager.

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The Role of the Partner in Pairs

Traditionally, students worked alone during writing time producing their
texts without advice or revision by other students. Even the arrangement of the
seating In traditional classes made it cumbersome for students to work In small
groups (Cuban, 1984). In process writing, students are allowed to take on the
roles of audience, co-author, and editor (Elbow, 1973). In this section, I explore
the role of students as they work together on the computer. The context
differs from many process writing classes In the sense that partners on the
computers are not pursuing their own writing. They are co-constructlng the
writing publicly displayed on the screen. In the following section, Katie
describes in a teacher interview the roles a student partner plays during the
composition of a text. As you read through the text, notice the different roles
Katie describes students playing during the writing. Katie outlines some of the
tasks students perform as they work together in groups. She talks about
working In pairs and small groups here. In those pairs or small groups, the
writer sometimes composes or occasionally types In a text already written by
hand.

The partner In each pair is the student who is not typing In the text. In
the beginning section she refers to the partner having many functions:
(a) trouble shooting - proofreading, (b) elaboration, (c)"relief when they are
tired."

Glenn: How, in terms of collaboration, how do you see kids
collaborating on the computer? What's your sense for how or if

157

it's working well or if it's working not so well in instances.

Katie: There are times when they will collaborate. Sometimes it
happens when someone has to go back and troubleshoot‘1 for
someone else. And as they're reading to see where the problem
is, they'll go back and say oh, why didn't you say this or that so
sometimes they're doing that. Not a lot yet. There was more

10 when we did have two children working on one text. There was a

20

30

lot of collaboration then. And it worked very well.
Glenn: Can you, like speciﬁc examples of worked very well?

Katie: It worked well in that, ﬁrst of all, when one got tired,
actually typing the text, the other person took over. So It seemed
to move quickly. Or they took turns. I'll type a paragraph, you
type a paragraph. So one person didn't feel bogged down with all
of the work. They also kind of, while one person was actually
typing, the other person was reading the screen and adding things
to It. Saying why don't you say this or let's put this in now. Kind
of like a proof reader or just someone to help elaborate. So that
worked out very well.

Glenn: proofreader?

Katie: Yeah. Going through and picking out mistakes or even
saying, okay, here's something else you can say about that topic.
So they were giving information as well as proofreading about it.
And that seemed to work ﬁne.

Glenn: So working, working in pairs seemed to Increase the
amount of revision or not?

Katie: I think so. It did. It seemed to. And It also made the job
easier, I think, for them. For the students just because they had
someone else to rely on (Audiotaped interview, 1110194).

The ﬁrst function as she describes it is "troubleshooting or proofreading" (line 6)

when students read to ﬁnd out where the "trouble" Is. Later in lines 28-30,

Katie clariﬁes "trouble" by explaining students are "going through and picking

 

"Note: Italics are added by the researcher reﬂect key points in the text.

158

out mistakes" and "proofreading." This type of editing consists of picking out
obvious errors such as spelling and text that does not make sense. The ﬁrst
function Katie observes partners performing is editing on a surface level.

The second function of student partners Katie refers to that works very
well is elaboration. Katie gives examples of how elaboration Initiated by a
partner by quoting what students say, "why didn't you say this" (line 8). She
repeats this same quote on line 21. In two other locations she speaks of
"adding things" (line 20) and ﬁnally she summarizes in line 30 by saying "giving
information." Beyond these variations in terms there is no elaboration on her
deﬁnition of elaboration.

The third function, described in the paragraph on line 14, refers to a kind
of sharing of the many tasks a writer has to consider all at once. There she
tells about students "getting tired" and "all bogged down" as they are typing and
"doing all the work." The typing Is a burden that appears to be taxing to the
students. The person who is keying in the words is very busy cognitively just
with the manual act of inputting the text. A child of elementary school age
rarely has had enough practice with tasks such as correct spelling and
keyboarding so as to make them automatic. Most may consume quite a bit of
their attention just to concentrate on typing alone. In this Instance, while one
student Is typing, the other student proofreads and elaborates. Taking turns,

the partners switch when one is tired. At the end she adds "It also made the

job easier for them."

159

Here she makes reference to the apparent heavy cognitive burden In
composing and how the partner then performs an editing function. The two
students share the burdens of the processes of writing that would be too much
for one writer alone. This cognitive burden is referred to In Flower and Hayes‘s
(1981) article on juggling constraints in which they claim students have a
difﬁcult time juggling many variables at once.

One of the ﬁrst and most difﬁcult questions for students concerns the
content and style of writing. In the next example, students ask that question
and as a pair of writers work together to motivate each other to write an
adventure story. Patti, the teacher, has given the students a story starter that
they access from the computer. Students are to read the beginning of the story
and write a middle and an end. Brandy and Nicole, in their ﬁfth and ﬁnal week
of summer school, play around with each other, talking quickly back and forth.

In these bits and pieces, taken from my ﬁeldnotes, notice the roles that
each of the partners takes as they work on the story playfully. They are having
fun writing this story together and just talking about the story. Nicole and
Brandy help share the burden of typing and thinking of a story line by switching
roles during the session. Brandy reads the story line while Nicole types. Later
they switch roles. Perhaps the most signiﬁcant part of this quote is to see how
the partners use each other's thoughts and elaborate with their own. This
Interplay of thoughts and Ideas seems to motivate the girls to write and Improve

their text. The nontyping partner elaborates on the text and proofreads the text

10

20

30

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for nonsensical wording and In one case starting the sentence with "and."
Finally, each partner seems impatient when they have agreed on something to
say and encourages the other to work quickly with commands such as, "Type
It." and "Write it."

"What we going to write? Nicole asked smiling at Brandy.
Then Brandy accessed the ﬁle on the disk and read the story
starter about a what happened on a class ﬁeld trip to the lake
when the teacher notices that Ben Is missing.

"And then he went to go help us." Brandy blurts out.

"And then uh..." Nicole moves the keyboard to herself, types,
and then pauses to put her ﬁnger to her mouth and still smiling
looks up...

"Then he was playing In the lake and then he
diiiiiIiiiieeeeddd." Brandy speaks In a low voice and draws out the
word died. "He drowned."

Nicole smiling even more than before is entertained. "Waitl
We could put we found him in the lake dead."

"Yeahl So the rangers took them out to the lake." Brandy
says quickly with looking with big eyes to Nicole. "Now type It."
But Nicole doesn't want to and Brandy switches seats with Nicole
and Brandy types the story.

"So we went down to the lake and we saw..." Nicole speaks
as Brandy types

"...him dead in the lake." Brandy says as she types.

"Iay...ing. Go, go, go....And the.." Nicole encourages Brandy
playfully.

"And the rangers took him to the lake and out to the
hospital." Brandy suggests looking at Nicole who nods quickly.

As Brandy is typing, Nicole reads over the story. Nicole
reads: "Our elementary school had been planning a trip for weeks.
The day of the trip arrived. When they went on the ﬁeld trip they
put their feet In the water. They also saw some lady bugs and
other things that nature made. It was time to go back to school,
but no one could ﬁnd Ben. We would get off the bus and go get
the rangers. They, then we would ask if they would help ﬁnd
Ben?? She stops. "That don't make sense." Nicole tries the
sentence again, "Then they said would go help us go ﬁnd
Ben...ﬁnd Ben in the lake."

Brandy stops her typing and focuses her attention on the part
Nicole says doesn't make sense. Brandy then edits that badly

 

161

worded section. Nicole gives suggestions about how to edit that
section as Brandy types something akin to what Nicole is saying.
Nicole continues to talk as if dictating to Brandy but Brandy only

40 types some parts of Nicole's ideas and adds her own. "Then we

found him In the water face down. Then we took him to the
hospital. And they go to the hospital."

Brandy, "H O HOU. How do you spell hospital."

"H A U...has, has pit tul. It's H O U S P l T A L." (Fieldnotes,
814193)

In this quotation, again we see these students working with each other as
proofreader, elaborator, motivator, and relief person, already mentioned In the
previous passage. Nicole fulﬁlls the role of the partner by performing a task
that Brandy could not focus on at the time. As mentioned earlier, she
performs the role of proofreader and sense-maker. Nicole provides some relief
of the cognitive burden that lies so heavily on beginning writers. Working
together these two writers can compose and proofread the text.

In addition to elaborating on each other's ideas and providing relief by
proofreading, each of the students encouraged the other to hurry by comments
they made. On line 15, Brandy becomes impatient with Nicole and urges
Nicole, "Now type it." In a separate incident, Nicole encourages Brandy to
"Go, go, go." This type of comment is more commonly expressed by teachers
when students are not making progress. Here we see students, who both
have ownership In the project, pressuring each other to hurry. Just as in the
example above, these students are showing signs of being empowered by self-

regulating and managing their own Ieaming in a paired-group.

Finally, Nicole acts as an expert speller on line 44 when Brandy asks how

162

she spells hospital. Nicole acts In the role of an authority or expert which
again Is commonly the role that the teacher plays in the class. So, here are
examples of students in a paired-group fulﬁlling roles such as expert, authority,
proofreader, sense-maker, and elaborator that are all roles typically played by
the teacher during reading conferences. The computer with its public display
has allowed the students to act independently of the teacher and to take on
the role of the teacher as dispenser of wisdom. The use of the computer in
pairs has empowered students to look upon themselves as capable revisors of
knowledge and has given them the opportunity to practice that role.

The student at the computer who was not writing was expected to fulﬁll
many roles as partner next to the student keying in the words. Beyond
fulﬁlling these roles, however, the most notable feature of the passage Is in the
interweaving of ideas and interaction between this pair of students. This
interweaving of ideas begins when Nicole invites Brandy's participation with the
question, "What we going to write?" Brandy answers her questions by
accessing the story starter ﬁle about missing Ben on the ﬁeld trip and read it.
In essence Brandy leads Nicole through a process which she can use to
answer the question.

Then they proceed to continue the story that the teacher started. Brandy
tries out a sentence, "And then he went to go help us." It appears that Nicole

does not exactly like that sentence because she begins to try out her own,

163
"And then uh..." This is Nicole's ﬁrst attempt to change the Brandy's original

thought.

Being unsuccessful at getting approval with Nicole the ﬁrst time, Brandy
tries again with, "Then he was playing in the lake and then he diiIIiIIIeeeeddd."
This is the second shift to elaborate on the ﬁrst thought. Later she adds, "He
drowned." This is the third elaboration on the original thought and an attempt
to get Nicole's approval.

Nicole seeks to improve on that idea, "Waitl We could put, We found him
In the lake dead." Now we can see that the general direction of the story has
been established by Brandy's suggestion and Nicole's elaboration and restating
of the story line. It Is not until Nicole makes a suggestion herself that she
consents to using Brandy's Ideas about Ben drowning in the lake to become
the story line.

Brandy's agreement with Nicole's thought contains elements of what
Brandy has been suggesting all along. Brandy then elaborates further on that
idea. "Yeah! So the rangers took them out to the lake." The thought
develops with the interaction of between the two students. It Is the reciprocal
interweaving of ideas that fosters the development of the ideas. Each student
gives input, albeit simple elaborations on each other's Ideas, until there is
mutual consent to go ahead. Each student by giving consent and content to

the Ideas has a sense of ownership in the story. It is at that point, when there

164

is mutual ownership, that the ideas get composed Into a story on the
computer.

The next part of the text that demonstrates an lnterweaving of Ideas on a
common text between Brandy and Nicole starts on line 26 when Nicole rereads
the section that Brandy writes. In fact, Nicole is proofreading the text while
Brandy types in the text. In line 32 she reads a section with bad wording and
brings it to Brandy's attention. Brandy's full attention is on producing the text
and so Nicole performs an editing or proofreading role. Nicole points out the
sentence, "They, then we would ask if they would help ﬁnd Ben." Brandy
focuses her attention on Nicole and the sentence in question. Brandy does
not type what Nicole suggests, but rather types "something akin to what Nicole
was saying" (line 39).

Nicole suggests Brandy write:
"Then they said would go help us go ﬁnd Ben...ﬁnd Ben In the lake."

Brandy modiﬁes the statement that Nicole suggests and writes:
"Then we found him in the water face down."

Instead of writing exactly what Nicole suggests she write, Brandy writes a
sentence that is similar to the sentence Nicole suggests. Brandy and Nicole
share in the ownership of the text. There is an lnterweaving of Ideas from the
two students which results in the ﬁnal written product.

The lnterweaving of ideas In this section may give us a ﬂavor for the way
that Schwab (1959) thought about the Ieaming community. A most signiﬁcant

concept that was observed was the way in which students in the Ieaming

165

community co-construct knowledge. Brandy and Nicole collaborated by
providing valuable information that contributed to the whole story. They also
demonstrated cooperation by building on each other's statements. In the case
of Brandy and Nicole, collaboration involved working together toward a
common goal that was constructed jointly.

These students also cooperated by giving up proposed story line
sentences, if the partner did not respond enthusiastically to them. Perhaps
this event Is an example of what Elbow (1973) describes as audience. In
other words, the person who suggested sentence or phrase allowed the other
person to act as audience and censor. If the phrase did not sound good to the
audience-censor, it would not be used.

Cooperation in this case can be deﬁned as the willingness to go on even
when you do not get your way. If students cannot compromise, give in, or give
up on that part and go on to another part, the students are not cooperating.
Collaboration, in contrast, implies a more constructive style of work. In
collaboration, each person becomes more energized with thoughts and Ideas
when they are discussed in a group. Collaboration and cooperation seem to
have been Important qualities that made Brandy and Nicole's work successful
In a classroom where students had some responsibility to regulate their own
Ieaming. Knowing and Ieaming about cooperation and collaboration seem to
be important In classrooms where students have to work together to co-

construct knowledge.

166

In this pair and on this assignment, cooperation and collaboration were
exercised to provide a context where perhaps each of them Ieamed more in
the group than they would have as Individuals. In the next section, I will
demonstrate how students in a small-group collaborate and cooperate to revise
writings during a social studies class.

evi ion in mail rou 3

Rules and procedures for using the computer seemed to change oﬁen as
we attempted to Improve our instruction using computers. At one point In
Katie's class, in an attempt to improve the revision and discussion of the
writing, we shifted from using pairs of students working together to groups of
three and four. In these class periods the only whole-group instruction took
place in the form of mini-lessons. First, the proposed procedure Is described
In a class discussion. In the second passage, a group edits each other's texts
In a group setting. The whole-group class discussion and following small-
group session took place at the end of the study and conﬁrms some of the
roles students play as proofreaders, elaborators, and motivators as mentioned
above. In this section, I present two long passages that give the reader a
sense for what those roles look like in the context of small groups. They are
examples of these roles that have been already described, but the purpose
here is to display them for purposes of frequency and breadth of experiences

in these roles.

167

Students in this project have already edited topic sentences for surface
errors and some nonsensical phrases. They printed that edited version out
and now have split up the topic sentences so that each person in each small-
group has one. The procedure and student roles for grouping in Katie's class
are expanded upon. Instead of what seemed to be simple elaboration from
personal knowledge, in this project students were expected to access multiple
resources outside their personal experience.

The roles the students play and theiprocedures that groups follow to
ﬁnish the project are described by Katie. First she refers to a class session
when students made some decisions about how they were going to proceed.
This Is an example to student control or self-regulation within the groups.

Katie's plans to have students edit, elaborate, and take turns on the
computer, as quoted in the previous Interview, bear fruit in the lesson we are
about to view. Her earlier discussion on plans referred to revision completely
at the computer; this lesson requires students to elaborate extensively away
from the computer and then come together as a small-group to pool their
information into one large expository report. Students also appear to have
some role In deciding what steps they will move through.

Katie: But you met In groups and you made some decisions.
What decisions did you make before you started? Dell.

Dell: We split up the [topic] sentences to make paragraphs.
(Children expanded the sentence to make them Into paragraphs.)

Katie: Okay. Tell me more about that then.

168

Steve: Well, we had to look, we had to look In resource books and
things and then we wrote down on our paper what, a paragraph
about that sentence and then we're gonna share it (in their own
small-group).

Katie: Okay, so you're gonna elaborate....So you're going to

elaborate on each of those sentences or each of those strands.

Then what are you going to do, perhaps tomorrow? For example,

John's group has divided up the facts and they each done

elaborations on separate facts. Their group now has to go to the

computer. John only has his fact written on his paper. How are

you going to get the entire report done?

Marco: You're gonna maybe take turns [and type] what you

have [written] in the different sentences. (The template was made

up of topic sentences students were supposed to elaborate on.)

Katie: Okay, so you're each going to be typing up your paragraph

and you're going to rotate when It's time for your turn. Today,

you're going to get in your groups, you're going to continue the

researching, using the social studies books or any other books

you come up with.

Students are asked to write expository text by editing and expanding on
topic sentences that are referred to in earlier sections of the study as editing
templates. The group decided each student should take one or two topic
sentences that was already written for them by the teacher on a computer ﬁle
and expand on them to make them into a paragraph. Each student had a few
sentences they were responsible for and they were to expand each sentence
Into a paragraph by gathering information from other sources. For example, a
student might choose to write about a topic sentence on "animals in the desert."
The student would research and write more on that topic sentence on "animals

in the desert" until It was a paragraph.

169

In the case above, the elaboration is much more extensive than it was
when students were to elaborate using personal experience. The template Is a
group of topic sentences that act as a structure and scaffold to help students
frame their thoughts. In future writing students may be able to cover all the
Information Katie wants them to cover without using topic sentences as a
scaffold but for this assignment the topic sentences indicate the areas Katie
wants the student to work in.

Katie can determine that students Ieam speciﬁc content as summarized
by the topic sentence. And yet students have some choice to determine the
book, phone, video, or personal source they want to use. At the beginning of
the quote, Katie alludes to a previous class when the students decided to split
up the topic sentences given to them so that each student would have one or
two sentences to expand into a paragraph. We see that Katie already Is
developing a sense of independence In the groups. She allowed them to
manage the role of each member of the group in order to achieve a positive
result.

She continues to ask students to proceed through the steps of the lesson
to make sure the students know the entire process. The previous day they had
made a decision to split up the sentences amongst themselves. Today the
students would read in books and research the sentences they had chosen.

Later, they would share their sentences with each other, the group revising as

170

they shared. Finally, students would take turns typing in their work on the
computer and helping the typist with the ﬁnal editing.

Here Katie demonstrated her knowledge that we have to teach students
long strategies to complete successfully the task instead of teaching Isolated
skills. The fact that students reviewed the whole task from beginning to and
makes their work seem much more meaningful. It also allows students to
become more independent as Ieamers because they know the entire strategy
for composing these reports in groups. Katie gives students time to practice
this strategy of researching, writing, and editing for themselves in their groups.
Students are then given freedom to regulate their own Ieaming with teacher
guidance.

Throughout the lessons there is an important mix of teacher guidance
and group autonomy that deserves mention. In the section above Katie asks
questions about the group process by which students follow to complete their
writing. Although she has determined the steps students will proceed, Katie
allows for the possibility that a student may have a different but acceptable
process to complete the writing by asking the students how they will proceed.
Most of the process allows for a great deal of student Input and student choice.
During most of the study time, Katie guides students making suggestions about
the process and the content of the study as students advance in their study.

With certain broad teacher limitations, student make decisions inside of the

171

group. This guided autonomy helps the students invest themselves in the
lesson.

The previous quote described the framework for a procedure the
students had decided to work within. In this next section, a vignette during the
same unit more clearly notes the ownership students take over the writing.
Ownership in this case is deﬁned as a sense of control and caring for the
activity. Ownership is indicated by students making lots of comments and
offering opinions about the text. Although the teacher ﬂoats from group to
group and gives a comment, most of the input is from the group. They show a
sense of Independence from the teacher by expressing their own comments as
well as accepting guidance from the teacher's model.

As empowered Ieamers, they regulate their own group's information,
changing what they do not think Is correct according to their own prior
knowledge about the world and their making sense skills. The term
empowerment refers to the groups ability to pursue Ieaming Independently by
regulating the information that belongs in the text. The students elaborate on
their topic sentence In creating a paragraph, and they "share It" with their group
who act as editors (proofreaders), changing and adding to what the child has
written. Students have written their thoughts on cards which they read to the
groups for their comments.

Students and the teacher encourage individuals to "write more" for the

paper. Alter that Incident students encourage each other to write more to each

force Brad to make sense and do it according to the group desire instead of

just Brad's desire. The group is acting as a group and not as Individuals. Most

words. Students ﬁnd themselves even editing their own paper in progress as

10

20

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other. The teacher acts as a model. Students have begun to take over the job
of editor by asking each other to lengthen their writing thus supporting the

teacher's comment to write some more.

Also note the group authority with which the group seems to move to

of the changes in the following are on the idea level and only involve a few

they are reading to the group. You will also notice that Jin, who speaks with a

heavy accent, plays a less demanding role In the group than the others.

Groups were formed in different parts of the room. Each
group of 3 or 4 sits together with papers they have written on but
which also have the topic sentences printed out from the
computer. Brad, Ashley, Jin, and Ardema sit together at the front
of the room around a half moon table. One by one they take
turns reading. During, after, and on top of each child's reading,
the student's partners make editing comments for the paper.

Ardema reads her paper ﬁrst. Brad wants her to mention
Great Lakes again in her paper to clarify that she is referring to
the Great Lakes region in her report. She goes to add that, but
Ashley with arms outstretched and looking at-every one in the
group says, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Do we all agree with
that? Majority rules." They look at each other and nod their
heads.

Ardema comments after Brad's elaboration on the ﬁrst part
of the paper, "You could write more. Make it a new paragraph."
They agree.

Jin struggles to read with her broken chinese accent. She
reads word for word but there is a lot of information. The other
children in the group all stare at Jin. At the end of her soft
reading Ashley says, "OK that's good."

"Okay, Brad you're up again." Ashley leads.

Brad reading from his card, "Corn, coal, beef and soy
beans are four of the most important farm products in Illinois."

30

40

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Ardema cocks her head back and looks at Brad, "Four of
the farm products?"

Ashley interjects grimacing and looking at Brad, "No,
products, products. Coal is not a farm product."

"I changed farm. Now we just have products." Brad adds.
" O.K. corn, coal, beef and beans, or soy beans are four of the
most important products In Illinois. Oil is found in southern states,
mostly found in southern states. But it's also found in the great
lakes states. Or would you rather have great lakes region."

"I'd rather have not even a thing, anything about the
southern states." Ardema answers. We're not talking about the
southern states.

Brad shook his head and grimaced...(long discussion here)

Ashley looked around, "OK. let's vote." All the students
raise their hands except Brad to vote to take out southern.
"Majority wins."

Brad rereads his sentence without southern, "Oil is
found...oil is also found in the great lakes region."

Ashley encourages, "Okay, now are you adding more to
that?" (Vignette from ﬁeldnotes and audiotape recorded, 212194)

The sense of ownership the students have for the group writing and

signs of empowerment are evident In different places In this vignette. Each

group member has done research and written some comments that they share

with the group. The students are discussing as a group how to clarify and edit

each student's writing so the text makes sense when they put it all together

ﬁnally on the computer later. It is signiﬁcant that each member Is asked to

contribute. Although Jin does not participate in the editing sections much, she
receives a topic sentence to elaborate on just as the other students do and she

is expected to present her writing for group criticism.

One of the signs of empowerment that is evident in this passage is the

way the group self-regulates. For example, both Ardema and Ashley do not

174

think Brad has written enough and so they ask him to write more (lines 16).
This encouragement by his group magniﬁes and repeats for the writer what the
teacher is saying to the writer. A student can dismiss a teacher comment if the
student and the teacher do not have a good relationship. However, when a
student's peer group encourages a student to continue, the effect on the
student may be more pronounced.

The group also shows self-regulation when they perceive that Brad could
improve his writing much more than Jin who was struggling just to be able to
read the words. The group shows how they can regulate Ieaming, being
sensitive to the cognitive burden that both Brad and Jin are experiencing. They
are capable of sensing these variables, whereas a computer-management
programmed software would not be able to sense those same variables. In this
way they empower each other to do the best they can do for the group.

A third way the group self-regulates appears in the procedures in which
they negotiate their differences to come to a group resolution. Katie has told
the groups that majority rules when there is a dispute. However, she does not
attempt to mediate the discussion in the group nor do the students seek her
out. More than any one, Ashley’seems to have taken the lead to move the
events along, act as a pollster, and sergeant at arms informing Brad that
"Majority rulesl"

Part of the reason that the self-regulation Is so successful is that there

seems to be a strong sense of group among the members and an agreement

175

on the procedures for resolving differences. Perhaps this strong sense of group
comes as a result of the procedures that were established with the guidance of
the teacher. Although most have opinions that differ from the majority opinion,
the students are more dedicated to coming to a group decision based on
negotiation and voting as fair ways to resolve their differences. Agreement on
procedures among the group occurs when students accept the counsel of
others without a vote. When Ardema and Ashley suggest that "coal" Is not a
"farm product" (line 26) he quickly agrees and changes "farm products" to just
"products."

At one point, Ashley insisted that there be a vote. Students in the group
voted by "nodding" their heads (line 13). As they nodded their heads, they
looked around. In this way they could verify that a majority gave their consent.
This procedure was much more Informal compared to the section where
students disagreed whether to leave any mention of the southern states In the
report or not (line 31-34). In this more formal section, Ashley calls a vote and
students actually raise their hands. To conﬁrm the process he calls out,
"Majority winsl" (line 40) just as he had earlier in line 10. All these different
methods of agreement and commitment to a group process promote self-
regulation of the group. This self regulation allows students to be thinking and
investing in the content area in a much different way that if they were listening

to a teacher In a lecture setting.

176

Although revision is rarely found in typical content area Instruction, this
group also works together to revise each other's writing. The group points out
to Brad that he has mistakenly Included oil as one of his farm products. Brad
also makes comments about the amount of oil in southern states. After a long
discussion the group forces Brad to delete his comment about the south with a
vote.

In this context, Brad is also ﬁnds ways to correct his own writing. As he
is reading he decides that Great Lake region ﬁts his purposes better than Great
Lake states. He also adds the word "also" to "Oil is also found in the Great
Lakes region. Perhaps with the group evaluating his writing closely he was
also trying to improve on this writing. In any case, this context encouraged
Brad to correct himself.

This practice allows students to feel invested in the decisions that are
made. Students also get an opportunity to examine how other students revise
and what they add to their papers. As students discuss their strategies for
writing, they are making their metacognitive strategies visible. Students can
Ieam different writing strategies from each other. Students also experience an
opportunity to work with others collaboratively. This setting gives students the
opportunity to see how and when others compromise and convince each other.

In this section on the character of revision in small groups and pairs
there is evidence of students take control of their writing. Students self-regulate

their own Ieaming and metacognitive processes. There is also evidence that

177

they act as secondary authorities to coerce other students to join with the team.
They act as proofreaders, elaborators, motivators, and relief to the other
students In the group. This sort of language including self-regulation,
ownership, and empowerment has come to sound like slogans In the ﬁeld of
written literacy instruction. What I have attempted to do In this study is to
provide examples of what these terms and principles look like in real
classrooms and to describe It in Its complexity.

Katie's vision of computer use and student control contrasts greatly with
the types of instructional management programs and drill-and-practice programs
that are often used In classrooms. As mentioned in the literature review, most
Instructional management programs require very little teacher involvement or
management since the computer gives the tutorial, the exercises, and the
assessment at the end. In such programs, the processes and strategies for
Ieaming are controlled by the computer. The students are dependent on the
computer to provide them with knowledge. There Is no opportunity to construct
or revise the knowledge they Ieam in the computer tutorial. Students merely
copy the knowledge In the computer. Whereas In the Instructional management
and drill-and-practice software the correctness and assessment is determined
by the computer, In Katie's classroom students manipulate the subtleties of

knowledge and language and develop their own criteria for success.

178
W

One obstacle for using the computer effectively In the schools Is the lack
of teacher and student knowledge about Its usefulness (Yeaman 1993).
Another context where students and teachers Ieamed to use the computer as a
tool for revising knowledge was the mini-lesson. I deﬁne a mini-lesson In a
broad way to mean a ﬁve to 10 minute lesson (Routman, 1991) usually
modeling a strategy and eliciting responses from students. Normally, students
are gathered closely around the computer as the teacher performs the tasks
sitting at the side of the computer. Designated computer experts are requested
to sit in front so that if others have questions, the experts know the answers.
Not everybody teams in this setting. However, since students can ask the class
experts and their group partners when they need to, enough students Ieam the
lesson so eventually all Ieam the lesson.

In this section, I will review examples from three types of mini-lessons
used for revision of knowledge using the computer to give the reader a ﬂavor
for the diversity and depth of mini-lessons used. The ﬁrst set of mini-lessons
was given for the purpose of teaching writing revision, the second recorded the
revising of graphics, and the third described revising teacher's and students'
knowledge about the processes involved In using the computer as a tool.

I often modeled mini-lessons for teachers so that the teachers could
Ieam to teach using the mini-lesson tool and because teachers did not know

how to work the computer. In the following example, before the lesson started,

179

I gathered students around the computer on the carpet and enlarged the print
of the computer so all students could see the writing on the screen. In this
passage I model for the teacher a mini-lesson that helps the students add
personal knowledge to the writing template on the topic of the ocean. I give an
example of revision and provide opportunity for students to come up with their
own example.

Glenn: Our job today is to make this a personal document,

something that contains some of the information from your head

about the ocean as well as information from Mrs. Katie. Has

anyone in here seen the ocean...in person or on TV? Raise your

hand if you have. (Everybody raises their hands) Everybody...The

ﬁrst sentence doesn't have to say, '"'If you look at the ocean from

the shore from a boat, it looks like a huge mass of salty, blue

water. You can say, "I've been to the ocean and it looked like

nothing was there"... Let me read, "A few feet below the surface,

the ocean is a sunlit place...How could you make that more

personal?... Have you been in a lake or an ocean?

T.J.: A lake... We sorta went scuba diving and we dove down in

the water and we looked up at the sailboat and it seemed like

there was light going out of the sailboat. Things would like reﬂect
light.(Audiotape 11l2/93)

In the ﬁrst few sentences I give the objective of the mini-lesson,
which was to add personal knowledge about the ocean to the template.
I attempted to help the students recall their prior knowledge about
oceans by asking them to raise their hands if they had seen an ocean in

person or on television. i gave the students an example of how I would

make a personal response to the template sentence describing the

180

appearance of the ocean. I added, ”I've looked at the ocean and it looked like
nothing was there."

Later in the text, I read a sentence describing the sunlit section of the
ocean and elicit some personal examples from students in the group. T.J. tells
the class about an experience he had scuba diving and seeing the bottom of a
sailboat reﬂecting light. In these mini-lessons students had the opportunity to
observe models to revise knowledge. In this passage, I gave the model of my
own personal thoughts as l surveyed the ocean and saw "nothing."

Secondly, students had the opportunity to try their own revision with
teacher guidance such as TJ did with his example of the light In the ocean. Of
course other students observed and Ieamed from TJ's example. During mini-
Iessons teachers allowed time to present teacher and student examples of
revision.

The content of the lesson is also noteworthy. Again, there is an
emphasis on integrating the student's personal experience with the subject
matter. By making personal knowledge the focus of the lesson and raising the
status of the students experiences, I intended to encourage students to use
their prior knowledge about the ocean in their writing. Most students had seen
an ocean in person and other students had seen pictures of the ocean on
television.

It Is also signiﬁcant that as a staff developer, l was able to explore my

vision of the integration of the mini-lesson as a context for teaching

181

revision along with my vision for what the goals of the lesson were for
examination by the teacher. The integration of the concepts of personal
knowledge with the tool of the mini-lesson provides an integrated
example which is so important for staff development (Brennan 1991). It
was important for the teachers and me to examine a concrete example
to the kind of teaching the district was trying to promote. This type of
concrete example that is then discussed before and after the
experimental mini-lesson is an example of Guided Practice (Feiman-
Nemser & Rosaen, 1992) that I used to foster staff development among
the teachers.

At times, when teachers did not know how to use the software,
they gave mini-lessons on revision by modeling Ieaming strategies for
the class. Expert students gave these teachers lessons in front of the
students. Teachers then acted as models for students in the Ieaming
process. Maria, who appeared unsure of herself in her ﬁrst mini-lesson
(Fieldnote, 9/29/93) sat down with Ian in front of the class to give
students a lesson on revising using the computer. Students gathered
close to the monitor and smiled while lan taught Maria how to use
Kidpix. We view the conversation just as Maria has Ieamed to stamp
pictures on the screen that form a pattern in preparation for their patterns
practice in math. Maria has just ﬁnished writing "this is a pattern" on the

screen with the help of Ian.

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Maria: Okay. And then I'm going to put a period. Ooooopl Look
what I just didl I messed up. A sentence that begins with what?
Tell me out loud.

Kids: Capital Ietterl..

Maria: I've got to go back. It's not backspacing.

Ian: Now you hafta do it, erase this.

Maria: Where's the eraser? Right here? (She points in the
wrong place with big eyes and open mouth.)

Ian: Right here. (Ian smiles) Just erase the t.

Maria: I'm erasing the t. I like the eraser because it makes a little

sound. Now what do I do? (Audiotaped mini-lesson, 1216/93 and

Fieldnotes, 1216/93)

An important part of revision in ﬁrst-grade is the ability to recognize that
as a Ieamer and a writer you make mistakes. We all know that other people
make mistakes but ﬁrst-graders sometimes have trouble recognizing they have
made a mistake and that they can revise their mistake. In the section above
Maria models that it is alright to make a mistake, to ﬁx the mistake, and to get
help from others.

Maria modelled this think aloud revision with the Kidpix program for her
children. The students were entertained by Maria's expressiveness and
perhaps by the role reversal. Maria was playing the part of the Ieamer and Ian
was the teacher. At the beginning of the passage, Maria recognizes that she

has forgotten a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence and admits to the

mistake by telling the group she "messed up." There is no apparent shame in

183

words or actions. Maria treats the realization that she has not placed a capital
at the beginning of the sentence as an impetus for revision. She asks Ian
where the eraser is and then erases the lower case t so she can put a capital T
in its place.

Kari conducts a similar mini-lesson with her expert next to her to help her
when she has difﬁculty. At one point during a lesson she asks, ”How do I
change this to get something else?" Steve points to the eraser and leads her
to the ﬁrecracker which explodes the current screen and leaves a blank screen.
Again in this example, Kari asks a child for help, therefore modeling her need
for assistance.

These last two examples of teachers getting help from students mark
another dramatic change in the relationships between students and teachers in
the classroom. Ringstaff, Sandholtz, and Dwyer (1993) call this abandoning the
”sage on the stage" model of education. Here students and teachers work
together as genuine Ieamers In the same community. Past studies have shown
experts evolving from classrooms even when they were not planned (Newman.
1990). In this study, teachers use experts as a tool to model revision and an
unashamed attitude toward getting help and revising their work.

Some mini-lessons were structured more like a reminder. The teacher
would describe a few points she wanted the class to remember. These quick
reminders were typical after we had studied a certain type of revising for a

number of lessons. In the following passage, Katie reminds the students about

184

adding information even after three months of revising templates in Katie's
class for personal knowledge, punctuation, and adding multiple resources using
the phone, friends and resources on CD and in books at the library. Students
have already edited this passage twice and Katie asks the students to revise for
a ﬁnal time. After Katie's quick reminder there Is a short period of interaction
with a few students before the students get started on their writing.

Katie: (speaking to the class who are sitting at their seats) The

ﬁrst sentence says, "The Great Lakes include ..." The ﬁrst decision

they need to make is how can we elaborate in that sentence.

How can we put more information in it or put It into your own

words. The second thing they can do with that statement is make

corrections, do we need capital letters? Do we need periods? Do

we need commas? Are there spaces that need to be deleted?

The third thing we need to do with that statement is can we add

any other factual information. Can we use our resource list (a

chart in the class that lists all the different resources for

information including themselves, other human resources, the CDs

and books in the media center) and come up with more

information of these states, or more information necessary

(Audiotaped class session, 1126/94).

Katie is modeling her thoughts about revision here for the whole group.
She quickly takes a sample sentence of some student writing and then
examines that sentence to see how it can be revised. She reminds the
students of a few different types of revisions they should make on the
templates. First, Katie reviews revisions by urging the students to elaborate
using their own words. Second, she emphasizes the need for proper
punctuation and asks a number of speciﬁc questions concerning the need for

”capitals," "periods," and "commas." Third, Katie's third request concerns

185

adding more information from the different resources that we had worked with
at length In the class.

In the above section, I have examined a number of examples of teachers
using the mini-lesson as a tool for revising content and punctuation in writing. I
also provided a brief example of the use of experimental staff development
models that provide for the integration of teaching methods (mini-lesson) and
important curricular goals (integrating personal knowledge with content are
studies). All of the above examples were limited to revision in writing.

The ﬁrst of the next two sections will brieﬂy describe the use of the mini-
lesson to teach revision of graphics on the computer. The last section of
discussion about mini-lessons pertains to the revising of knowledge concemlng
the function of the hardware and software. The purpose of providing these
examples in different areas is to provide the reader with depth and breadth of
the use of the mini-lesson to teach revision of knowledge.

Mini-lessons: Revising Graphics

Teachers also provided mini-lessons to teach the revision of graphics.
Occasionally, teachers would teach a new tool on the computer and Include a
part of the lesson about revising. In one event, Patti gave a mini-lesson on
using graphics to elaborate text by cutting graphics from a clip art library and
pasting them into text cards in hypercard stacks (Fieldnotes, 7/26/93). Patti's
strategy was to gather students in a group on the rug in front of the computer

and to model the process for the students. As students watched and Ieamed

186

the procedures, students were called up to perform the procedure for the class
with varying degrees of scaffolding from Patti, depending on the need.

I provided another example using mini-lessons as a tool for revising
knowledge when the class was Ieaming to use the video camera to digitize
pictures of themselves and print them out (Fieldnotes, 4i23/93). I and students
who were using the camera digitized pictures of students and redigitized the
pictures until eventually the camera operator digitized a picture that was
acceptable. Later, we added text to the images and printed them out.

This type of revision contrasts with previous deﬁnitions of revision in the
sense that a new image replaces an old image completely. The revision was
performed by the camera operator and the subject or objects of the picture. On
these pictures the subject of the picture stood with their backs to the window.
The result was that the face of the subject came out dark and the background
was overexposed. The camera operator and subject of the picture work
together to put the subject in a setting so that the subject is in focus and the
correct shade of gray. Sometimes the camera operator revised the picture by
changing to use a telephoto lens to make sure the subject is larger in the
picture. Although these revisions are expressed by the camera operator on a
camera and not with a pencil on a paper, I consider the changes a camera
operator makes to be a revision because they are changing features on the
camera or moving to improve the Image. Likewise, a subject that is to be

digitized by changing a pose or altering a background to improve the picture.

187
Mini-lessons: Revising Technical Procedures

Frequently, teachers decided to use the mini-lesson as a tool to quickly
revise the students' understanding of the procedure for using the software and
hardware. In some oases, teachers would notice a misunderstanding about a
procedure using the computer. Instead of telling everyone in the group
individually, the teacher called all the students together and gave a mini-lesson
to revise student's thoughts about the procedure required for the lesson. These
are often quick impromptu lessons.

Katie circulates going from group to group talking to each group.

Part of the way into the lesson, I saw a group start to type from

the beginning their information instead of just editing their previous

ﬁle. She called the class over around the computer and asked

them to look at it. She showed how to recall the ﬁle and then

change it. She talked about how that would be so much easier.

"Got it?" (Fieldnotes, 212/94)

Katie revised the students' understandings of the procedure needed to complete
the task successfully. This quick mini-lesson helped students understand how
to revise their writing more efﬁciently.

Sometimes teachers choose to start or end a day's work with a short
mini-lesson to review some the problems students had that day. These mini-
lessons allow students to increase their technical knowledge and continue to
focus on teacher goals even when they work most of the time in small groups.
In the following passage, students in Yu's group (see quotation in the section of

this chapter on experts) had trouble during their lesson setting the cursor down,

pushing CTRL ”A" to use the keyboard, and being nice to each other.

188

We had to stop the writing to do a whole group session before the

students were to go out for recess. I explained problems that

students had (1) setting the cursor down, (2) CTRL "A" to use the

keyboard, (3) Being sweet in your comments to the learners

(Fieldnotes, 614/93).

Since students had trouble with these skills during their work period on
the computer, the mini-lesson addressed those very problems. This style of
teaching responds to the need of the whole group to Ieam basic technological
skills important for completing the task. Rather than teach such lessons to
each person individually, the teacher can very efﬁciently teach the whole class.
Since students work in pairs, small groups, and with student experts, it is not
necessary to expect mastery Ieaming in the mini-lesson context. Students who
do not Ieam the entire basic technical procedures during the mini-lesson will be
able to co-construct the procedures with their partners and call on the expertise
of other students.

Who Revises Knowledge?

Traditional classrooms in the past and now are places where students
have Ieamed from "the book" and the teacher. Students listen to lectures the
teachers give In the classroom and read the book for other Information. These
two sources were the primary source of content students were compelled to
use (Cuban, 1984). On tests, students are judged by how well they can copy
the textbook information. Whenwe limit students to this type of information we

devalue their own personal information. We want students to accept the

Institutional power that the teacher and the textbook have over them (Scollon,

189

1989). During the course of this study teachers Ieamed to use different social
arrangements to provide opportunities and motivation for students to revise the
content of the lessons to include some personal element. These social
contexts allow for students to share the power and negotiate decisions about
what information is important enough to study in school. In these contexts
students may ﬁnd it possible to express their own thoughts in a style that suits
them and yet is also conventional in that it makes sense to other readers and
writers.

In this chapter, we viewed social contexts which promoted the role of
students as the main editors in their school work. The students play the role of
authority. They are empowered because their thoughts makes a difference in
their education. Students become authorities in areas such as spelling, ﬂow of
the sentence, rhetoric, layout, as well as technical expertise. Students also
demonstrate their understanding of the assignment and what they believe to be
correct in the revisions they ask students to make.

The fact that students have become authorities in writing marks a
signiﬁcant shift in the nature of schooling. Whereas teachers have typically
played the role of arbiter of the truth, in these classes students have begun to
take over the standard of correctness and level of creativity and thought by
making comments on revision in schools.

Inasmuch as students have been inhibited by the social context because

there were few opportunities for students to speak, in the style of education

190

demonstrated In this study, a student's absence of "voice" Is a deﬁcit. In this
chapter, we saw how groups with experts, paired Ieaming groups, and small
groups increase conversation opportunities for students to make schooling more
meaningful by expressing their personal experiences and voice.

In the next chapter, I will examine the revision of knowledge to add
personal voice and personal experiences by viewing the nature of the revisions.
By examining the character of the students' revisions, we see that students can
integrate personal knowledge, and personal voice, and revise the appearance

of text and graphics ﬁles to suit their personal interests.

191

CHAPTER 5: PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE IN REVISION OF STUDENT TEXTS

This chapter concerns the content of the changes students made when
they revised their writing. It is important to note that revision of student writing
is not monolithic. In fact there are many different kinds of revision including
revision for conventions such as spelling, punctuation, or word use. Revisions
that are meaning driven examine writings as a whole to see if they achieve their
purpose or they just examine word choice. This study focuses on the content
of the revisions that express personal voice or personal knowledge.

In Chapter 3, new classroom routines and procedures were examined
that allowed students some choice and control in their Ieaming. In Chapter 4,
emerging participant structures were examined. Teachers and students' roles
shifted as students took on many of the roles traditionally reserved for teachers.
The focus of classrooms shifted from whole group lecture style to discussions
with Individuals and in small groups. In these chapters students were able to
express their ideas in unique and personal ways. In this chapter, revisions are
examined as personal voice or personal knowledge and the relationship to
school knowledge.

in the ﬁrst section below, two of the principle reasons to promote the

integration of personal knowledge and preference with school knowledge are

192

considered. The ﬁrst reason examines knowledge as a political and cultural
act. The second reason pertains to the understanding that meaningful Ieaming
requires that students do more than just to reproduce school knowledge.

For many school children the implicit authority for information rests with
how the teacher interprets the book. What counts as acceptable information to
share in class is limited to textbook sources that come from outside of the
students‘ immediate community where the textbooks were written and to
particular ways of teaching and responding to those texts. This Is a very forced
situation where there is little opportunity for students to deﬁne their own
situation. Traditional forms of teaching are very forced because the teacher
deﬁnes the time, size of group, and limit on feedback (Scollon, 1988). Even the
teacher often considers the book to be a more authoritative version of the truth
than the learning community of the classroom. in one instance, students in
Katie's class worked on a social studies lesson about living in the Soviet Union,
even though the Soviet Union had broken up over two years previously
(Fieldnotes, 11119193).

Students often do not use the personal knowledge they have concemlng
topics they study. Students and teacher often "count-onIy-what-Is-taught" as
knowledge appropriate for school use (Smith, 1983). Students often have
abilities that are not "counted" as Ieaming because they do not ﬁt the narrow
school deﬁnition (Heath, 1982). Schools sort students out according to this

deﬁnition school knowledge and criteria. Schools label students as successes

193

or failures according to the degree by which they conform to the school
standard of knowledge.

In many cases, however, what students know does not conform to the
way the schools deﬁnition of knowledge. In fact students often Ieam
information that allows them to be successful in their own local cultures
(Delgado-Gaitan, 1983; Heath, 1983; Jordan & Au, 1986; Ogbu, 1981; Phillips,
1979). in effect, by denying and even not inviting the use of local and
personal knowledge, the teacher is setting up a priority list and asking the
students to choose the school culture and, at least as long as they are in
school, to temporarily dismiss their home culture. Many students perceive
themselves facing the difﬁcult choice of either accepting the school's artiﬁcial
standard of knowledge and rejecting their own community or rejecting the
school culture and accepting their home culture (Ogbu 1981).

Prior knowledge has been an important part of schooling that teachers
must help students access so that the new knowledge is Integrated with the
child's existing knowledge. According to this theory, many researchers feel that
unless the child integrates curricular knowledge with the child's existing
knowledge, the child will form schemes of information unconnected to their own
personal knowledge about that area. As a result, the child reproduces the
teacher's and book's knowledge for school purposes. They Ieam the curriculum

to pass the test or write the report but the students do not internalize the

information. In similar ways, Putnam, Roehler, and Duffy (1987) describe

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teacher Ieaming. They refer to memorized knowledge as that knowledge which

does not belong to the Ieamer or come from the Ieamer. The Ieamer feels no
sense of caring about the knowledge. When one restructures, however,
helshe must Intemalize the information and feel a sense of ownership for It.
The Ieaming is internalized because the leamer‘s old structure is replaced by a
new one which becomes ﬁrmly established in the learner's head through
repeated practice experiences. Similarly, ownership is developed because the
Ieamer does not just take someone else's idea, helshe also takes some
thoughts of his/her own (background knowledge) and arranges them in a form
that makes sense to him/herself. Since the knowledge Is co-constructed, the
Ieamer feels a sense of ownership and caring about the knowledge because It
is part of him/her. These qualities greatly enhance the potential use of the
knowledge.

This disconnectedness between the child's personal knowledge and the
curricular knowledge of the school has been a reported cause of school failure
for children. in some cases, students simply do not access the prior knowledge
necessary to understand the new information being presented. In other cases,
the presentation style of the teacher does not match the style of communication
the child Is accustomed to at home (Delgado-Gaitan, 1983; Heath, 1982;
Jordan 8. Au, 1986; Ogbu, 1981; Phillips, 1979). Students who work in groups
on the computer may ﬁnd that they can use the communication style they are

most familiar with. During the use of the computer in small groups students

195

may use a communication style that is common In their community even
though that unique style of communication is not typical at school. A greater
degree of student control has been seen in small groups and allows for a
context in which students' voice exists.

In the previous chapter, we have observed how students found the social
context of small groups more conducive to their style of learning. In this
chapter, we examine the types of revisions students make and how those
revisions reﬂect the child's personal style and preferences. Allowing the student
to make choices in the content and process of learning denotes a shift in the
role of revision of writing.

I have divided the chapter into ﬁve sections that display the use of
personal background knowledge, personal voice, and personal preference.
These revisions of personal knowledge are evidence of a link between school
knowledge and personal knowledge that teachers seek to connect so that
students actually integrate school ideas with personal knowledge into one
schema. By integrating these two groups of information, school knowledge may
become more useful to students in their daily lives.

Integrating Personal Knowledge with School Subjects

Given opportunities, students express their personal voice concerning
Issues surrounding the teaching units. During the study of life in the ocean,
Julio was frustrated about the lesson. Since his native language was Spanish

and the books and instruction were offered only in English, he did not

196

understand much of the content or discussion. Julio was isolated, since In
Katie's class, none of the other students spoke Spanish. I advised Julio in
Spanish that he could just delete the English text he did not understand and
write what he knew about oceans.

Julio had fewer resources to draw on for content. I explained much of
the page-long template about the ocean to him in Spanish, but he could not
read it in English later. Even given his smaller group of resources in this
English speaking school, Julio's writing contains a great deal of voice. In the
next section, you will observe a great deal of personal knowledge that is not
present to the same extent for students who had more access to the facts in
the ocean template (see Appendix B)

Life in the Ocean
by Julio Gutierrez

(translated from Spanish) The ocean is blue. In the ocean there
are animals and plants. In the ocean, it's very cold. I swam in
the ocean. When i tested the water it seemed salty. l passed
over the ocean when i came to the United States from Venezuela.
The ocean is beautiful, very beautiful. Hopefully they will stop
contaminating it. It's possible but i think you have to do
everything possible [to keep it from becoming contaminated]. You
see, it's the people that don't have respect for anything and they
don't care about anything. They just think about themselves.
Some don't even care about their family. We must make sure this
[contamination] doesn't happen any more.

Julio starts by discussing physical attributes of the ocean including the
facts that the ocean is "very cold," "blue," and there are both "animals and

plants" In the ocean. These statements are written as if they are undisputable

197
facts. Although the fact that the water is very cold or blue is dependent upon
where you see the ocean from. In some cases the ocean is warm and has a
greenish or even a black look. Julio lists them ﬁrst in three short isolated
sentences.

It is Interesting to note that he never gives another fact. I got the
Impression from reading Julio's "Life in the Ocean" that these were sentences
he knew would be appropriate in school. Often, since written papers are
evaluated based on the number of facts presented, this makes sense. From
the context of the situation, we also know that Julio did not have a fund of
information available to him to draw on. There were no Spanish books or
Spanish-speaking persons beside myself who could provide him with more facts
outside. It is possible that if he had more facts that he would have ﬁlled up his
paper with facts.

Although Julio had appeared to start his science writing by establishing
these consistent, static truths, in a very real way, these facts he records are
dynamic In nature. Several authors talk about this ever-changing state of
knowledge. Schwab (1978) refers to the evolution of scientiﬁc knowledge when
he writes:

No knowledge structure is an ultimate or true picture of a static world

but the forms serve us well, in the present state of knowledge, as

means for pursuing more knowledge. In consequence, the forms will
change. As they succeed, they change the state of our knowledge.

New forms become necessary as the potential of the old ones is

exhausted. So science, like practical knowledge, ﬂuid,
dynamic.(p.177)

198

Dewey (1956), in speaking about a child's world, said, "the universe is
ﬂuid and ﬂuent; its contents dissolve and re-fonn" (p.6). So even though
Julio wanted to express consistent truths, he was actually expressing his
voice and exposing his experience with the ocean by giving these facts.
These slices of information and the intention with which they are
communicated give the teacher information about the prior experience and
sophistication of the writer.

it is not clear from the text whether he has personally experienced the
plants or animals or any of the other physical attributes in the ocean or
whether he knows those facts from books, stories from others, or television.
He does, however, tell about another personal experience when he refers to
having passed over the ocean on his trip to the United States. These two
personal experiences add to his credibility because he has some personal
experience and is not merely repeating the knowledge other people have
about the ocean.

From personal experience swimming In the ocean, the ocean "seemed
salty" to him. By the word "seemed" he was able to give the appearance of
some doubt about whether it was salty or not. This is the ﬁrst statement
where a shade of doubt is expressed. From the wording of the sentence,
Julio does not seem sure of the verity of this fact. This statement contrasts
with earlier assertions concerning the ocean being "blue" and "very cold"

which he expressed with certainty.

199

Next, Julio makes an aesthetic response by remarking that "the ocean
is beautiful very beautiful." Julio does not just say the "ocean is beautiful,"
once. He repeats the word adding very to it to voice a more intense feeling.
it appears that his thought is not a ﬂeeting, cursory reﬂection, but rather
something felt deeply. implicit in such a statement is a sense of awe and
love. In this composition, this phrase seems to be a turning point. In the ﬁrst
section, he expresses facts and his hands on experience. Then he I
expresses his afﬁnity with the ocean and acts as an advocate for preserving
it in its beauty.

At this point, Julio attacks those who contaminate the ocean, saying”
they do not respect or care about anything except themselves. "Some don't
even care about their family." He expresses his interest and strong position
about the "people" who contaminate the ocean. From a writing perspective,
Julio has found his voice in a meaningful context. Julio shows a sense of
caring and ownership about the topic. From an assessment perspective, we
Ieam that Julio appears to have a sense of family and group loyalty that has
been noticed in other studies of Hispanics (Delgado-Gaitan, 1983) and a
disdain for those that "just think about themselves."

In total, he voices his concern about contamination in three sentences.
He expresses an extreme environmentalist point of view and presents his

argument as an advocate for the ocean. He states that they "must" make

200

sure this does not happen any more and "you have to do everything possible"
to make sure the oceans are not contaminated.

As we examine Julio's writing asa whole, we discover his revisions
about the template on oceans express advocacy, anger, and expression of
beautiful. This is especially true in the second half of his writing. Given his
lack of ability to review the teacher written template and his strong beliefs, he
introduces new topics that express a range of emotion. These are among
the expressions that give meaning and purpose to science study. Sadly, they
are also feelings and expressions that many educational experts have found
lacking in the school (Cohen 1988; Freire, 1985; Goodlad, 1984).

More a as ne rati eso aIK ed e

In the next few paragraphs, l brieﬂy review several more examples of
personal voice that give the reader a sense of the depth and breadth of the
revisions that expressed voice during the study. Throughout the study most
of the demonstrations of voice and personal knowledge in school writing
occurred in the ﬁrst draft and not in the revision. Before any writing took
place, teachers encouraged the students to include their own thoughts and
their own selves in the stories and the content area writing. Since the scope
of this study is limited to student revisions, these examples are not analyzed
in this document.

Most of the revisions that integrate voice or personal knowledge into

literacy lessons and content area lessons take place as students are revising

201

the teacher's template (see Chapter 3). In many of the expressions of voice,
the authors express advocacy by putting themselves directly into the text by
placing the composition into the ﬁrst person. So, for example, the sentence
"Matter is anything that takes up space" on the teacher template becomes, "I
believe that matter is anything that takes up space" (Missy, 1219193).
Students also placed themselves as the main subject of the sentence by
using, "I say..." and "I noticed" (Amos, 1 111 1193).

Many times younger students did revise their writing, but they did not
often Include voice or personal knowledge as a revision except when they
were revising a teacher‘s template. While learning about how to tell time In
Maria's ﬁrst-grade class, students often revised the clock face by drawing
hands and then writing a sentence that told what the child did during that
particular time. Next to the clock faces, students wrote phrases such as, "I
go to school," "i go to violin class," "i eat dinner," and "We have gym."
These students are allowed to write about what is important to them and at
the same time they practice telling time.

Another very common occurrence of integrating personal voice or
personal knowledge into school subjects took place when students gave
examples of related events they have actually experienced and wove those
into the discussion about the subject matter. For example one student wrote
about what she saw, "I have looked at the ocean and believe me, it looks like

a huge mass of blue water“ (Karen,11l16). Other students describe what

202
they tasted, "l have been to the Paciﬁc Ocean. It is very salty." Jeff

(11117193) tried to relate the concept of the different temperatures in the
ocean to an experience he had scuba diving, "i have been to the Gulf of
Mexico. As I went deeper, it got colder."

Students also commonly described experienms they encountered .
vicariously through a friend, the television, or books citing the source.
Ardema and Jeff (11117193) note, "We have looked at the ocean on TV
before..." The fact that students can cite the source of their experience
provides for the reader a way to measure the verity of the statement and
decide for themselves whether it was true under the circumstances described
by the author. Many students read from the science or social studies texts or
trade books and, using their own words, revised the teacher template to use
those ideas.

Finally, students used imagined situations to express their emotions as
If they were personal experiences. Anna imagines what might happen when
she Is at the ocean, "When I touch the water, I think something is going to
jump up and pull me under the water." Martina writes a similar section about
the study of the rain forest, "Animals that have sharp teeth and can sneak up
on you." In these two examples, we gain a glimpse of the fears and
fantasies of children. These two students perhaps have background
experiences about the ocean that lead them to believe that the ocean in a

dangerous place because of "animals" or things that may jump out at them.

203
Since it is unlikely that anything like that has actually ever happened to them

or anyone else, one has to assume the girls experienced this event by way of
television. I ﬁnd it interesting, as an elementary school teacher, so many
experiences children have are a result of their watching television. In fact,
television and movies a major source for students ideas for writing during
process writing time (DeVoogd, 1989). The fact that students gather so
much information from television could be important assessment data for the
teacher and could impacton teaching methods.

in addition to personal voice and personal knowledge, students were
encouraged to express their personal preferences by changing the
appearance of the text and graphical images. The next sections explore
many ways students personalized school work by changing the appearances
of the document.

Revising the Appearance of Text and Graphics

Changing the Font Size

Students made many changes In the text to suit their personal
preferences. These revisions make the appearance of the text unique to the
individual. The computer affords many options for the child to leave his\her
personal mark that handwriting does not. One of the most common changes
in the appearance of the text was with the size of the text. Students seemed
to change the size of the font to create the Illusion that they had written a

great deal more than they actually had. This was the case when Ardema

204

was trying to impress her friends.

Ardema looked at her friend on the next computer and told her,
"it's fun when you write in big letters. It looks like you wrote a lot.
Then when I print it out, I'm going to make it small so it doesn't
take up so much paper.

Dixie nodded her head in agreement, "OK. i want mine big
too." i showed her how to change the font size on her writing. I
put on the ruler which contains a button allowing the user to
change the font size. She changed the font size to 48 which
makes the letters about a half an inch tall. Then i showed Dixie
how to make the font size 80 and I left. Although Ardema was
sitting right next to Dixie and when l showed Dixie how to change
the font size to 80, she hadn't been watching very closely. Dixie
wouldn't tell Ardema how to change the font to 80 and so Ardema
proceeded to follow me around the room while I helped others
asking me many times in a whiny voice to teach her how to
change the font size to 80. (Fieldnotes, 115/94)

Ardema seemed to enjoy the sense of accomplishment one gets from
writing a long passages without writing a lot. She could simply write a little and
then increase the font size to write a long paper. Ardema expresses her joy by
saying that writing with "big letters" is "fun." She follows that up with, "It looks
like you wrote a lot." For Ardema writing "a lot" seems to be a fun activity she
strives to achieve. Of course she is also concerned that she not waste paper
and so she reduces her font size to small type in order not to use too much
paper before she prints it out.

Dixie, hearing her explanation, appears attracted to this easy way of
increasing the size of her paper. She Ieams how to make 48-point text and
then also 80-point text. In her competition for the appearance of having the high

status of writing the longer paper, Ardema asks Dixie how to make the 80-polnt

205

font. Feeling the competition, Dixie does not give away her secret knowledge
of changing the font to 80-point size.

Ardema is not satisﬁed. She then goes around the room following me to
ﬁnd out how to make the text into 80 point font size. Finally, Ardema Is willing
to resort to asking me how to make 80 point font over and over in a "whiny
voice." Ardema is willing to risk the humility of begging to obtain the high
status of long paper.

This short example is an indication of the desire and excitement students
have to manipulate the text for their own purposes. The competition between
the two girls is an indication of the strong desire to change the appearance of
the text. These girls appear to want a long paper and relish the opportunity to
make It longer without writing more. These students are happy to revise by
changing the appearance of the text to suit their personal interests to make a
longer paper.

Changing the font size was common throughout the study. On one
occasion Katie reports to me in an interview that students in a group of three
used very large font and did not bring the font size back to normal size before
printing. Their text was nine pages and they had to print out 5 copies for a total
of 45 pages! (interview, 214194) Again the students demonstrate the ability to
manipulate the appearance of the text to Suit their own purposes.

Students do not always increase the size of the font just to make a

longer text. In the next two paragraphs evidence is cited to help the reader

206
recognize the breadth and the depth of changing the size of the font for other

purposes. For example, in a passage already cited in the chapter on
Processes of Revising Writing, Katie, pointed out to the whole class when Brad,
enlarged the font so that all the students In the group of four could read the text
even though they were not all able to sit close to the monitor (Fieldnotes,
1125/94).

in another class (Fieldnotes, 4193), students were creating a travel ﬁier in
three cooperative groups in the class. The students' goal was to write
Interesting and eyecatching facts with a graphic in a page. This seemed like a
real-life application since most ﬂiers are only one-page long. Students found
that after they had written their text and selected their picture, they had to
adjust the size of the font in order to make the text no more than a page.

They discovered however, that the ﬂier did not look appropriate when the
text was too short. Most of the groups manipulated the size of the graphic and
the text size so that the ﬂier was exactly one page long. Students editing a
report-style text about the state of Hawaii decided to increase their graphic size
so the text would end at the end of the page. Also, they wanted their graphic
to ﬁll up the page In order to make good use of the whole page instead of
leaving a space at the bottom of the page (see "Hawaii" on the next page).
Again, students manipulated the size of the font and also the graphic to suit

their personal needs.

207
hani t eFo t

Changing the font was just as common with students who knew how to
change the font, but there were few obvious reasons to change the font style.
Usually, any software that allows the user to utilize text such as a word
processor, paint program, or hypercard, will also allow the user to change the
font style. There is a default font style for users who do not want to change the
style.

With the limited styles of font available for use with these programs,
there was little reason to change the font styles except for aesthetic reasons.
One font was as good as another for practical reasons. All fonts gave the
same message. However, to certain individuals some fonts were more
attractive or readable than other fonts. In any case, font selection was another
way in which students could manipulate the appearance of the text to make it
reﬂect the individual or group desires.

in Maria's ﬁrst-grade class, students were required to draw a picture (or
create a graphic) that related to something they were studying and then write a
sentence about the picture. In the following passage, Maria tells of an instance
in which students chose a font that was very hard to read and then decided to
change it back to a more readable font. Note that the ability to read the text
was a priority over the choice of the fancy text. Isaiah was the expert in this
instance and was offering Yen different choices. One the choices Yen had to

decide was the font he was to use for writing.

208

Maria: Today I let them try. Isaiah was with Yen and he said,

well, what kind of lettering would you like? And he said this one.

So they tried It and it was....you could hardly read it. And they

said well, what is this, Ms Maria? I said, "i think that was Old

English." And I said, "Well, what do you think about that?"

(Yen and Isaiah responded.) "We're having a hard time
reading it."

"Well what should you do..."

"I think we should go back to the old text." (Interview,

1217193)

At ﬁrst Yen and Isaiah had chosen a fancy Old English/Gothic font to
type with. This font is very ornate with extra lines and curls. This type of print
is not very commonly seen for ﬁrst-graders. They discovered, however, that
they could not read the text very easily. So for reasons of ease of readability,
the students chose to change the font. The most important aspect was that the
text communicate and only secondarily that the text be aesthetically pleasing.

diti a hi

To most readers, the quickest and most obvious cue to the meaning of
the story is the pictures that accompany the text. Sometimes students write
their story and then think about pictures and graphics they want to add to
writing. They can look in ﬁles on the computer where graphics are stored and
may be copied from that ﬁle and pasted on the user‘s text document. A
graphics library is the generic term for the place In the computer‘s memory
where the graphics are stored. Unfortunately, computer graphics are at a
relatively primitive stage of development. One handicap is a relatively small

number of graphics available for children to use when illustrating their stories.

Most of the images are of a very general nature or oriented toward business.

209

Graphics for children often do not represent an acceptable image for the
meaning the child Is trying to create.

As a result of these small and inappropriate graphics libraries, there is a
great need for students to edit the images available to them to ﬁt their own
purposes. However, even editing graphical images on computer can be
awkward with today's computer tools. Students are forced to use a bulky
mouse which is a rather cumbersome instrument compared to a sharp pencil.
Yet even given these awkward tools, most children are drawn quickly to
pictures on the computer. They enjoy the color and instantaneous recognition
of a situation. In the same way, child writers enjoy using pictures in their
writing to extend and elaborate beyond the meaning of the text.

The most common editing took the form of erasing and drawing.
Students were able to choose a number of widths and shapes of eraser as well
as erase the entire picture or ﬁle. Sometimes instead of erasing the child
simply drew a larger picture over a smaller one (Fieldnotes, 515/93). Another
favorite form of erasing was undo. Children discovered they could erase only
that which they had just drawn by using the undo button (interview Maria
616193). In cases In which photographs were digitized or drawn and pasted into
word processing soﬂware, students spent a great deal of time changing the size
of their graphic (Fieldnotes, 7128193).

When students used graphics with which to elaborate texts, I observed

two practices. One practice was that students elaborated text with graphics

210

they used as simple decoration. Especially at the younger ages, students just
found graphics they liked and could not resist placing them in their writing even
though the graphics do not contribute any meaning to the story.

in the picture included in Figure 14 below, the child writes, "I love the
minicomputer because I can do aiit of thing with it, like adding and minus" The
sentence the boy writes is a personal expression written in ﬁrst-grade for the
school subject of writing in Maria's class. Following that message, the child
stamped many graphics images that do not appear to have any relation to
addition or subtraction, including teddy bears, the moon, stars, and women
walking very big dogs. Below that is a tool they use in this math program

called a minicomputer.

 

1 1qu my, numwmpLiter mamas i can
do alot of thing with Mike ciddir‘gS and

“ﬁé i if arrow

   
   

99

 

 

 

Figure 14. Minicomputer.

211

The teddy bears, stars, moons, dogs, and people all come from the
graphics library that the child stamped on the paper. They are not meaningful
except as a decoration around the text. The squares below that the child
actually drew with the aid of the computer and the number 99 represent an
elaboration on his thought about the minicomputer. These graphics represent
a kind of revision called elaboration that the child uses to give additional
personal expression to his work. On a very simple level, this child has
elaborated on his sentence by adding this graphic decoration and the
minicomputer.

Another example of using graphics occurs when children add fancy
background or other kinds of decorations to their papers. in another picture the
child writes the time of day he goes to karate class. Joe, the student, is asked
to access a computer ﬁle where a clock face without the hands drawn comes
on the screen. The students are then able to revise this template (the clock
face), putting on the hands where they belong to show the time of something
important in their lives. Below, Joe revises the blank clock face and places the
clock hands to indicate that at 4 o'clock he will "go to karate class" (Figure 15).
Then students are asked to write a sentence. Joe goes far beyond the
teacher‘s suggestion to explore with his artistic talent using letters and designs.
in the picture below, notice all the ways Joe personalizes his writing.

it was common for students to want to use a background such as Joe

uses here in this picture. On the computer screen that background of a shiny

212
ball pattern Is usually a color other than black. However, color printers and

ribbons, being expensive as they are, are not very common in the schools.

 

Figure 15. Joe goes to karate.

Joe's colorful picture was printed on a black ink printer. Eventually,
printing with background was even discouraged because It used up too much of
the expensive ink cartridges. On top of the pattern, Joe has drawn a line of

black and white balls, a pacman, a tree, circles (bottom right) and a series of

increasingly smaller ﬁll circles (bottom left). Although Maria's goal in

suggesting this assignment to the students was to promote growth in math, it
appears that this ﬁrst-grader has explored also in the areas of writing and art.

All of these elaborations on the clock stress the individual and unique character

of this boy.

213

The second and more common purpose of elaborating texts with
graphics was to use pictures to add to the meaning of the text. Children often
draw their own pictures to elaborate on the meaning of the text such as above,
where Joe draws a picture of the minicomputer to help the reader understand
the meaning of the text. Below Alejo and Matteus warn all about the danger of
selling drugs on four screens (pages) of the hypercard program. "Drugs can kill
you and Destroy your life. If you sell them to people." After writing the entire
program the students took a look through the clip art to see if there were any
images that would be appropriate for their topic. When they saw the skeleton
on the clip art their eyes lit up and Alejo said, "Yeaaaaaaaaahhl Let's use the
skeleton" (Fieldnotes, 7119193). In fact they liked the skeleton so much as a
symbol of death and danger that they cut and pasted a plain skeleton next to

the text on three of the four pages of their hypercard program (Figure 16.).

 

Drugs canhkili you and .-
Destroy your Iiie. if you
sell them to people. .

 

 

 

Figure 16. Drugs can kill you.

214

On the fourth page the students drew straight lines around the skeleton
to make it appear that the skeleton was in jail. Alejo and Matteus used a
graphic as a symbol to dramatize their point. The skeleton was drawn in a
fashion they would not have been able to do on their own with a mouse or a
pencil. The skeleton provides the reader with a sense of mortal fear that is
common to most people. The skeleton is not the message, but it lends an
intensity to the message that would have been impossible if the students had
attempted to draw a skeleton themselves.

Students often times insist on revising to preserve the meaning of the
event that they remember and want to write as a story. The tension occurs
when the child wants to Illustrate a story, but the graphics library does not have
acceptable graphics to illustrate the story. Sometimes that story is a true story
and misrepresenting the story with inaccurate Illustrations would violate the
integrity of the story in the child's eyes. Other times the story is not true and
the child is unwilling to alter some of the facts of the story to ﬁt the images in
the graphics. Since graphics libraries are very limited and difﬁcult to revise, this
happens quite often. In fact, many students do not like to use the
prepackaged library graphics without revising the graphic Itself In some way.

In Kari's ﬁrst-grade class, students were making books with many pages

using Kidpix. Each page had text and a drawing that students created all with
the computer. Part of the way through the summer, we had the problem of

students taking too long on the computer to draw each page of the story and as

215

a result they were not ﬁnishing and were losing Interest In their story. In order
to resolve that problem and move children through their stories more quickly,
Kari and I decided to ask the students to use the same graphic for each frame
making only minor or no revisions to the pictures.

Frazier wrote a story about his whole family going tubing down a river
together. At one point In the story, Frazier writes, "My dad ﬂipped over."
However, on the picture that he was asked to keep the same, his dad was still
on the Inner tube. The picture did not show him ﬂipped over. Frazier objected
to the picture, saying that it was wrong. As he was telling me, he began to
erase the entire picture and text with his eraser (he had selected with his
mouse). I told him that it did not matter that much that the picture did not
reﬂect the text, but he continued to protest and we edited the picture of
Frazier‘s father so that it looked like Frazier's father had ﬂipped over
(Fieldnotes, 7128193).

For Frazier, revising the graphic was an issue of being true to the story
line. He wanted the text and the picture to be consistent on the page where his
dad ﬂipped over while using the innertube. If the text and pictures did not make
sense to him then he was willing to take out the complete frame by erasing it
all. Frazier was compelled to revise the graphic to ﬁt the text. In this instance,
the purpose of revision was not to improve upon or elaborate with added
Information. For Frasier, there was a standard of correctness below which he

was not willing to go.

216

A similar event in Kari's class occurred when Neva wrote a story in many
pages on Kidpix about going on a walk with her mother. The ﬁrst frame (page)
of the story, showed Neva and her mother leaving a house to walk on the
street. The next frame showed the same scene but Neva and her mother were
walking further down the street away from the house. The text read that she
walking down Michigan Avenue which was not near her home. Neva insisted
on erasing her house in the picture because her house was not near Michigan
Avenue (Fieldnotes, 7126193). Again, in this event, Neva saw the text did not
match the picture and so she revised the picture to reﬂect the situation she
knew to be true.

Often, the clip art graphic itself had to be modiﬁed to make it acceptable
looking to the children. Rafael and Marco were writing a reenactment of a
basketball game between their sports heros Michael Jordan and Charles
Barkley. The clip art that resembled these players best of all was a
businessman in a suit with a hat, briefcase in one hand, and newspaper in the
other. Marco and Rafael erased the briefcase and replaced it with a basketball.
They also erased the man's hat and gave him a bald head and dark skin.

Throughout the course of this study I have been reminded of the
importance of the personal nature of writing when considering student's rights
and needs to revise their pictures. The works children create and attach their
names to are very much a reﬂection of their own character, background, way of

life.

217

 

 

 

 

Page I

 

When Jordan glided from the freethow
line. Jordan jumped over Barkley.

 

 

 

Figure 17. Jordan jumps.

218

CHAPTER 6: WONDERING ALOUD ABOUT TECHNOLOGY, TEACHER
EDUCATION, AND LITERACY

The roles and routines of teachers and students have remained
relatively static for the past 150 years since the rise of the common schools
(Cuban, 1984). Students sit in desks facing the teacher, deriving knowledge ‘
from the teacher or from books. The teacher's traditional role among many has
been to provide information and check to see that the student is receiving the
information. The students' role, simply put, was to receive the information and

repeat as much information as possible back to the teacher.

Some think computers could be a catalyst for reform in education, but
many challenges still exist. While the schools in this study have proposed the
goals of using the computer as a tool for accessing, managing, and
constructing ideas, in reality a wide disparity exists between the goals and the
practice of technology in classrooms. Among those challenges, most
researchers agree that effective staff development is the most signiﬁcant factor
determining what role computers will take in the classroom (Brennan, 1991;
Bulkeley, 1988; Schlug, 1988; Yeoman, 1993). The mere existence of
computers will not reform the classroom. it is the teacher's use of the

computers that creates change (Michaels, 1990).

219

The teachers In this study and I accepted the challenge to formulate
ideas about how to help students use technology to construct knowledge in the
classroom. Instead of being a staff development project where l, as an expert,
Implemented one speciﬁc method of teaching, we worked together discussing,
planning, experimenting, and reﬁning classroom roles and routines. I was not
sure of what new classroom roles or routines would develop, but I wanted to
bring my knowledge about classroom teaching and social constructivist theories
to the teachers in planning and debrieﬁng meetings. Teachers, In turn, brought
their knowledge of the students, knowledge of the curriculum, their own
technical and professional knowledge about teaching to our planning and
debrieﬁng meetings. Together we thought about how to change the classroom
to make it a place where students could construct personal and content area
knowledge using the computer.

Over the course of the study, the teachers and I constantly reorganized
the classroom routines shifting from a whole group telling style of teaching to a
style where small-group work and mini-lessons were used. In this new context,
we noticed the development of participant structures that indicated a major shift
in roles for teachers and students. The teachers and I also developed the role
of student as computer expert in the classroom to assist the teacher. The
expert related to other students in a manner we had not seen in the classroom
previously. We noticed students in small groups and pairs of students

assuming roles in the classroom that had been previously assigned to teachers.

220

There was also a shift in the way the teachers participated In teaching, Ieaming,
and organizing the classroom.

In the following pages, I outline the shifting roles and routines in the
student revision of writing that occurred in the classroom and the signiﬁcance of
these changes for educational reform. In later sections I discuss implications of
this study of student revision of writing. A large part of that discussion focuses
on why computers can be an important tool in Ieaming revision in writing and
education in general.

Teachers Shift Roles and Routines to Improve Revision

Teachers designed new roles and routines in order to use the computers
as tools for revising writing. After the teachers devised the new routines, they
had to develop new participant structures to meet the needs of students who
were working more in small-group settings and relying on their peers to help
them perform their Ieaming tasks. Students and teachers learned a different
way of schooling as they took on these new roles in the classroom.

New Routines as Scaffolds for Writing Revision

The teachers wanted to use the computer In a fashion that would
capitalize on the unique strengths of the machine. At some point in the study,
all teachers decided to use the computer to teach writing revision. However,
revision was a difﬁcult task for most students and it took a great deal of time.
So teachers provided scaffolds for students' revisions of writing by furnishing

templates that consisted of information from the textbook that students were

221

expected to revise. Since students only had to revise the texts and not
reconstruct them, they were able to focus more time and attention to higher
level cognitive tasks such as integrating personal knowledge and voice within
the text. When students were using templates, they did not have to use their
cognitive capacity to think of general content and style of writing. instead, they
were able to focus exclusively on revisions to the text. This particular technique
allowed the student to spend their short computer time Ieaming revising
strategies which are more difﬁcult to learn using paper and pencil.

In other attempts to encourage students to focus on revisions, the
teacher organized class procedures so students had to print out the text they
had keyed into the computer. Later, each small-group met together with their
printed out text to revise it on paper. Examples of these revision activities at
the keyboard and on paper are described in Chapter 3.

In the states writing assignment students wrote a tourist ﬂier about
Hawaii, printed out a draﬂ, and then, with the printout in hand away from the
computer, considered how they could make Hawaii appear more attractive by
making revisions. Again, when the students' only task was to revise, they were

able to generate the necessary revisions. in all of these examples, teachers
Ieamed to change the routines and procedures of the classroom to teach

writing revision using technology.

222

Small Groups and Pairs of Students

Perhaps the most signiﬁcant shift in role and routines happened as the
classroom shifted from a place where the teacher directed the entire class to
times when students worked in pairs, small groups, with experts, and
sometimes in whole groups as mini-lessons. These changes in routines and
procedures provided a context that enabled all classroom participants to relate
to each other in ways that changed the character and the tone of Ieaming.

As the teacher changed the classroom context to small groups and pairs
of students, participation of the students in the classroom changed also.
Students acted as proofreaders, motivators, elaborators, and provided relief for
the writer at the keyboard. These roles are quite different from the roles
students normally perform in the traditional classroom (See Table 6). in
traditional classrooms, teachers often see it as their role to help the student by
proofreading texts, motivating, and elaborating. In this case, when students
have the job of editing their partner's writing, they often take on the traditional
role of the teacher.

The data also suggest that students in pairs or groups are sharing the
heavy cognitive burden of tasks an individual writer usually has to bear when
they write. According to cognitive theory, young authors often have trouble
remembering the content and style of their writing since they use up so much of

their attention on thinking how to spell the words and form the letters (Flower

and Hayes, 1981). When a pair of students is working together and the

223

Table 6.

Shiﬁ in Roles From Traditional Group to Small Groups Using Technology

  

Traditional Lecture Style
Group

   

 

Small Groups Using
Technology

 

  

Grouping!

-Whole group, individual

-Small groups, pairs, individual

 

 

 

Control work work, and whole groups

-Teacher control -Teacher and students share
control

Dialogue -Teacher initiation of -Many styles including

style question, Student conversations similar to those
Response, and Teacher outside of school from different
Evaluation (IRE) cultures and linguistic groups
-Lots of teacher talk -Mostly student talk

Teacher -Telling -Teacher is a learner

role Management of group -"Meeting with" groups,
of goals and content ﬂoating, checking,
-Teacher scaffolds conferencing

-One standard assessment

-Asking questions

-Teacher observes 8. listens
-Assigns students to groups
-Mini-lesson based on
students' needs

 

  

Student role

-Duplication of teacher and
textbook knowledge
-Obey teacher

-Construction of knowledge
-Self-management

-Students and teacher are
experts, elaborators,
motivators, proofreaders, co-
authors

-Scaffold Ieaming for others

 

   

Social skills

-Student interacts with
teacher seldom

-lnteractions between teacher
& student and between
students

 

     
 

Knowledge
used

 

-Textbook deﬁnes
knowledge that counts
-Teacher elaborates on the

textbook
h:

 

-Student must use personal
knowledge

-Multiple sources including
teacher and textbook

 

 

224

typist Is unable to do all the writing tasks at once, the partner can pay attention
to elements of the writing the writer is not able to address. This is evidenced
when partners alternately play the role of proofreader, co-author, and
elaborator.

More experienced writers who work together can borrow from and build
on each other's thoughts as they jointly fulﬁll writing tasks such as thinking
about what to say, how to say it, spelling, and punctuation improvements.
Nicole and Brandy in the section The Role of Partner in Pairs (see page 156)
experienced an interweaving of ideas in which their joint interaction seems to
spur them on to a synthesis of Ideas that may not have been possible without
both students writing. In one case Brandy does not type what Nicole suggests
but types something akin to what Nicole suggests. Thus each child also plays
the role of audience-censor deciding whether to accept the phrase proposed by
their partner.

The Role f rts

The role of expert provided some of the same scaffolding that pairs and
small groups were able to provide. In part, the expert's purpose as a
knowledgeable other was to assist performance by providing a scaffold that
allowed the author to achieve a level of writing they would have been unable to
achieve on their own (Vygotsky, 1978). In the section The Role of Students as
Experts (page 143), while Andrea was thinking about the words she wanted to

write and was typing them in on the keyboard, Yu, the expert, was able to focus

225

her attention on the writing appearing on the computer monitor. In this ﬁrst
grade classroom, Yu provided a scaffold by pointing out that Andrea had to
place capital letters at the beginning of the sentence and by teaching Andrea
how to sound out "went" and "hospital." The expert shared the cognitive
burden with the student she was working with by proofreading and supporting
sounding out strategies while the writer was focusing on immediate concerns of
what words to write and keyboarding the words in the computer. Experts
performed other roles that in traditional classrooms are reserved for the teacher
alone. The expert role was not anticipated but arose serendipitously as we
planned the computer activities.

in fact, the original need for creating an expert was simply to provide
technical assistance to students since the teacher could not always be available
to help students experiencing technical difﬁculty. For the teacher who is just
starting to use technology, these frequent interruptions of students with
computer problems can be particularly frustrating. The well-trained expert
eases that frustration by assisting students so the teacher can work with other
students in the classroom. However, the expert role quickly became more
powerful than we originally intended. Experts were also empowered by the
teacher to provide a secondary authority. in some cases, students were
fulﬁlling some roles the teacher had previously performed. But in other cases,

students ﬁlled roles such as technical assistance, usually performed by school

staff OUtSIdS the GIBSSI'OOITI.

226

Since experts are performing tasks that had been reserved for teachers,
there is a great deal they have to Ieam to be effective in that teaching role.
One of the areas we have discussed brieﬂy in this text Is what i call expert
etiquette. Student experts were asked to allow the writer to sit in front of the
keyboard and be the only one to touch the keyboard in most cases. These
guidelines were developed after we noticed that the experts would almost
always rather do the writing and editing for the writer than to assist. Experts
were also trained in the social skills of politeness and patience.

Teacher Role

With so many changes in classroom routine and student roles, teachers
have to consider their new role in the classroom very carefully. Teachers who
want to control the class will not be able to use many of these procedures
easily. Teachers have to be willing to give up some control and educate
students in strategies that would allow the students to make good use of their
Ieaming time. As the teacher was teaching short lessons in social skills,
cooperative Ieaming, and technical computer skills students gradually took over
more control for their own Ieaming.

The most common teacher role was to provide short mini-lessons on a
topic that ﬁt the immediate needs of the students. At the beginning of the year,
the teacher had to give a mini-lesson teaching students how to turn on the
machine and Ieam the basics of the software to be used. At ﬁrst i taught some

mini-lessons to model for the teachers. After they had seen me teach a few

227

times, teachers started to co-teach a mini-lesson with me and eventually they
taught a lesson themselves. At times, teachers also provided times for
students to teach the class a particular feature of the software.

The mini-lesson was not a regularly scheduled event. It took place when
the teacher noticed a need based on reﬂections after class. For example,
Maria noticed Yu, a computer expert, being impatient with students she was
helping. So, over the course of about 7 minutes, Maria gathered the students
around the computer and without mentioning Yu, she fabricated some scenarios
of students working on the computer when the expert was impatient. Then she
gave examples of appropriate words to say instead of being impatient. By
teaching this mini-lesson, Maria was scaffolding for experts by modeling
appropriate language to use in a group. The lesson was purposeful and timely
since it took place close to the time and with students who needed that mini-
lesson.

One of the teachers' ﬁrst role was to decide on a management system
that helped students know when it was their turn on the computer. Maria
designed a chart with the students names on it to hang from the wall. A
ciothespin was afﬁxed next to the name of the student whose turn it was.
When the child was ﬁnished the ciothespin was moved to the next name down.
The other teachers formed pairs of student groups and rotated the groups when
necessary or by the half hour.

Along with shifts toward differentparticipant structures, the character of

228

the classroom Instruction began to change. During group-work times, Katie had
"meetings with" a group of students. This term "meeting with" students had a
much different tone and looked very different from "teaching." Since students
had some choice about topics to write about, the teacher had to listen to the
student or read their work to understand what the individual or group was
doing. Certainly, this is a dramatic shift in role from the traditional teaching
where the teacher did most of the talking and the students did most of the
listening (See Table 6). As the teacher was listening, they had the opportunity
to come to understand the individual student's Ideas as the student constructed
them.

Patti "ﬂoated" around the room helping students complete their task for
the day. "Floating" to Patti meant having little conferences with students when
she would read their work and then comment on the writing. Maria also moved
around the room to "check" students work and comment on it. Kari
conferenced with each writer talking about the story and asking questions.
These teacher roles contrast greatly from the traditional teacher roles.

In Table 6 notice the shift in from traditional style group to small-group as
observed in this study. In large groups, teachers have more of a tendency to
dominate, and control Ieaming. In the small groups teachers have a tendency
to ask, check, and understand, what the student is doing. Students in the
traditional role take the textbook and teacher as the only sources of knowledge

whereas in small computer groups, students get information from personal

229

knowledge, the textbook, the teacher, and other sources.

Part of the signiﬁcance of the new type of work the teacher performed
was that the image of teachers changed from that of a source of knowledge in
whole groups to that of a Ieamer in small groups where the authority to deﬁne
worthy information is shared.

Because so many teachers have so little experience with technology,
perhaps it will prove to be an area where teachers ﬁnd it easy to be a Ieamer
from other staff and students. For example, in Katie's class, Brad gives a mini-
lesson on using the CD ROM encyclopedia in the library as Katie learns with
the rest of the students. Maria Ieamers how to use Kidpix by asking Ian to
teach her and the rest of the class new aspects of the program. If teachers
accept personal knowledge as well as other sources knowledge as they
become available with computers, teachers will have to become comfortable as
master Ieamers.

The Engaged Learner

Central to changes that were recorded in the study is the engaged
Ieamer. Students began to take a more active role constructing and revising
knowledge in the context of pairs and small groups. Whereas traditional
sources of knowledge in the classroom Included the teacher and the textbook,
in these classrooms student experts, personal knowledge, student voice, and
other sources were common. During the times when students revised teacher

templates, they were asked to revise the teachers' or the textbooks' ideas.

230

This activity pressed the students to read actively, raise their own prior
knowledge, and revise the content. The use of technology offered a different
context and medium that changed not only who was expressing themselves in
the classroom (the student), but also who was able to make decisions to revise
the content of the work in which they were involved. These changes allowed
the student to become more empowered and engaged as a unique person.

A Pemnal Machine

At one time people were afraid that the advent of technology meant that
life would appear less personal and more detached from human interaction. in
fact, the opposite Is true in the classes described in this text. One of the
beneﬁts of a classroom where students are thinking about what they know and
expressing themselves is that the teacher becomes more familiar with the child
as a unique person who lives in a culture other than school. As the teachers
come to understand the students' experiences and prior knowledge better, they
can ﬁt the unit to meet the needs of the student. The shift in the teacher's
purpose to think about individual student knowledge instead of ﬁlling the
student's head with the teacher's knowledge would indicate a signiﬁcant change
in the role of the teacher in schools.

As a new source and creator of credible knowledge, students' range of
possible types of revisions to social studies and science texts were expanded.
Some students began to integrate their personal experiences with school

knowledge from the content areas. Other times students would express their

231

voice about the particular topic of study. Students also used the computer to
personalize their writings using computer-aided pictures and different font styles
and sizes of text.

Since students were required to communicate with each other to perform
tasks in pairs and small groups, many of the students' interactions were with
other students instead of the teacher. Students were allowed to talk more,
constructing their own ideas and comparing them with their partners. Again,
these shifts toward using the computers in small groups allowed for a more

personal, active part for the learner.

Addressing Cultural Diversity

Often students who come from backgrounds not matching the teacher's
cultural heritage can become alienated from schools because of the stark
cultural differences between the home culture and the school. As described
Chapter 1, some researchers argue that school practices should be more
congruent with the community they serve to avoid alienating students with a
different culture than that of the teacher (Heath, 1983;Singer, 1988).
Contrasting views claim the purpose of school is not to become congruent with
home (Zeuli & Floden, 1987). These scholars argue that the purpose of
schooling is to teach a particular set of knowledge (Bloom, 1986;Hirsch, 1987)
not necessarily shared by all. The basic assumption is that a teacher would
have to choose which curriculum and style of education to pursue in a

classroom.

232

These arguments of cultural congruity or discongruity are less relevant In
the contexts described in this study. Because students work more In groups
and pairs, it is possible that different groups of students could study in their own
style and Ieam different content all in the same classroom. In effect, these
ﬁndings transcend earlier arguments by claiming that all can study what they
choose in a style that is effective for themselves.

Cultural Information that is often expressed in participant structures
differing from traditional school participant structures can be easily expressed in
classrooms that break up into groups using technology. For example, students
whose style of speech resembles the talk-story of Hawaiian students, in which
students tell a story with many contributing voices (Au 8. Kawikami, 1986),
would have more freedom to use that form of conversation and construction of
story in the pairs and small groups. Conversational participant structures of
different cultures (Delgado-Gaitan, 1987; Heath, 1982; Phillips, 1972) could
even be accommodated in the same room (See Table 6) if students were
meeting in small groups.

In addition to providing a context where diverse cultural styles of ieaming
can be practiced, student linguistic style could also be accommodated. In fact,
students are encouraged to use their own words in the text. An example of this
phenomena occurred when Lamar and Lisa used similes to describe the

appearance of the ocean at different depths. At the computer, students have

233

more freedom to control the style of Interaction with one another and the
linguistic style.

New routines and procedures mentioned In this study allow students to
express personal ideas and cultural norms which the teacher may not be aware
of. This cultural exchange of information could also beneﬁt the school by
revealing minority cultures for students who have a prejudiced or incomplete
understanding of other cultures.

The beneﬁt of individual student expression could result when student
integrate their background experiences and voice into school lessons by
revising writing using the computer. This integration of ideas could help
students understand the value and relationship of school to their personal lives
and the people of their culture.

Using technology teachers have shifted from traditional whole—group
practices and have Ieamed to develop new roles and routines that have made
education appear very different in these classrooms. In the small-group
technology model, Ieaming is deﬁned by both the student and the teacher.
Opportunities for accessing many sources and accepting student sources of
knowledge allow the teacher to give up the image of the "Sage on the Stage"
(Dwyer et al. 1991). In this model, students have choices about what is
considered valid Ieaming in the classroom. For in the end, Ieamers must

OOHStl'UCt their own Ieaming and ROI rely on the teacher's kﬂOWIOng.

234
Obstacles for TGSCHGI' DSVGIOQI‘I‘ISM

Of course there still are many pressures that will motivate teachers to
continue teaching with traditional roles and routines. The way knowledge Is
deﬁned in schools is important in how educators think of their profession.
Teachers may feel that they can teach the type of static, isolated facts students
have to know to pass standardized tests by teaching in large groups and by
limiting their comments to the facts that are being tested. If teacher
effectiveness is evaluated by the students' performance on the tests, the
teacher will feel pressure to teach In a way that will allow students to achieve
high scores. School districts may also require teachers to follow curriculum
guides written in ways that reﬂect a belief that knowledge is static and isolated.
The teachers' perceptions about schools and schooling may also color their
understanding of the curriculum in a way that cuts off creative thinking about
how to achieve the objectives in ways other than using Isolated lessons and a
whole-group information lecture.

In these previous sections the shifts of roles and routines in classrooms
where the computer is used to revise writing has been examined. The
signiﬁcance and implications of those changes has also been considered. In
the next sections, speciﬁc contributions of this project to the study of writing

revision using the computer are reviewed.

235
What Can This Study Say About Writing Instruction?

Much of what I have Ieamed about writing instruction has been
interwoven into discussions in the preceding and the following pages. We have
drawn heavily from the writer‘s workshop tools such as mini-lessons, some
student choice in writing, students helping each other, and an emphasis on
revision. The signiﬁcance of a writer's personal knowledge and voice are also
important concepts of the writer's workshop that are integrated into subject
matter teaching.

9 a ' e ' I e

Although a portion of this study took place in the context of reading
classes, a large portion took place during math, social studies, and science
classes. The integrative processes and contexts could be informative to those
seeking ways to integrate content area studies with literacy studies. The
sections entitled New Routines Editing with Templates and Revising on Paper
and on Keyboard comprise a group of classroom routines teachers could use to
meet the needs of students who have to revise their writing more in the content
areas.

lie ' iti rde

The most noteworthy of the ﬁndings are the deﬁnitions of the roles
students play as partners and experts to improve the revision of student writing.
As we know, young students have a difﬁcult time juggling all of the burdens of a

writer. As a result, students' writing never reaches a very complex level

236

because the cognitive load is too heavy for students who try consciously to do
to many things at once. When two or more students work in pairs and groups,
students can play different roles In the writing process for one text. if partners
could share the cognitive burden (scaffold) then perhaps students could write at
a higher level than they could If they were working alone.

Perhaps one of the experiments writing teachers could try would be to
encourage students to perform different roles in the writing as they work on the
writing together. Other contributions to the ﬁeld of writing are discussed In the
next section concerning the use of technology for writing revision.

Revising Writing With Computers

While it is true that some of the study of revision and content could be
performed without the computer, I will argue that using a computer Is more
attractive and advantageous for the author.

Let me start out by conceding that most of the work done In this study
can also be performed without a computer. it is possible to revise writing and
pictures on paper without using a computer just as it is possible to walk to the
store or to bake your own bread. Sometimes there are even good reasons to
use paper instead of computers. However, for a number of reasons, it is not
efﬁcient. In the next paragraphs I explain principles that detail the advantages
of using computers for revising writing.

The ﬁrst principle is the convenience principle. it is not so signiﬁcant that

without the computer you can or you ca not do a particular task. One chooses

237

to use the computer as a function of convenience. if Katie wants to write a
template for students to edit, it is more convenient for her to write it on
computer and save it on disk for students to access and revise on the
computer. It is more convenient than it Is to write it by hand, or type It and use
whiteout to make make minor changes in the text. If you change your mind
and want to make some major changes in the document you are writing by
hand, rewriting the text is very inconvenient. After the handwritten copy Is
ﬁnished, you have to leave the classroom and take it to be photocopied.

This activity is of course impossible if you have students in the room or
some just staying in from recess because they have a cold for example. Since
there is usually only one photocopier per building you may have to wait in line.
After the students edit the text, they may have to recopy the text to make the
revisions understandable or reduce the revisions they make to surface changes.
Certainly students who are adding paragraphs and moving around sections of
text will have to recopy. Most students do not consider it convenient to recopy
the text and so they become satisﬁed with making small revisions. In this case,
it is much more convenient to use the computer than to use paper.

Likewise in Patti's class, Marco and Rafael wanted to put a picture of
Michael Jordan in their basketball story. They could have brought a picture of
Michael Jordan from home or gotten pennisslon to go to the library (open on
Mondays only during the summer) where there may have been some pictures

of Jordan or someone who looks like Jordan. Then they would have had to go

238

to the ofﬁce and get copies made and sized to cut out and paste in their book.
Instead, without closing their ﬁle, they just accessed the clip art graphics library
on their computer and made a few changes to make the businessman in the
clip art ﬁle to look acceptably like Michael Jordan (Figure 17). They also made
other changes in the picture of Jordan to make him look like he was dunking
the basketball or blocking a shot on the computer. It was more convenient for
the boys to use the computer than to obtain and edit another picture.

Of course Marco and Rafael could have just drawn a picture of Michael
Jordan on every page of the book. instead, they used the drawing they made
of Michael Jordan and the basketball backstop and hoop one time. Then they
cut and pasted parts and put them on the next pages editing slightly to illustrate
the next part of the story. in the editing graphics section of this study (Chapters
4 and 5), there are many examples of students editing graphics they or others
have already created to make a new graphic.

A related principle obvious to people who use the computer is the ease
of revision principle. in the examples cited above, teachers and students who
wanted to make changes in their writing or drawing were able to do so without
fear that the paper would rip or be discolored because of erasures. This Is
particularly true with color drawings. It is difﬁcult to impossible to revise a
picture drawn with color markers on paper. On computer, text can be changed
repeatedly without fear of ruining the paper. Most people fear destroying the

paper if they have to erase more than once.

239

Using the computer to revise is also easier since you are easily able to
see how your new wording works in the text. When Brandy and Nicole were
writing their adventure story in Chapter 4, they revised and reread the text
constantly to improve the quality of the story. The ease of revision encouraged
them to make multiple revisions. It is somewhat more cumbersome to read
through the revision and cross parts of that revision out to replace it with other
revisions. The limitations of revising became evident on one of the draﬂs of the
Hawaii tourist ﬂier. Students did not have much paper left to write on after
they had made some comments in the margins of the paper.

Some scholars, teachers, and students who are adept In language do
not ﬁnd these advantages particularly convincing. However, for students who
ﬁnd putting together words in an understandable way a challenging task, the
computer advantage is signiﬁcant. Students who struggle in writing have the
capability, through multiple revisions, to make their writing as ﬂuent and creative
as the proﬁcient writer. As an instrument of writing and revision, the computer
allows students of diverse abilities in writing to approach the skill of capable
writers.

Many believe that writing is an excellent tool for thinking (Calkins, 1991).
The construction and the revision of writing help form, change, and sharpen our
thinking. If this is true, by promoting the use of revision, we are promoting

improvements in students' thinking. The ease of revision, as students

240

experience it on the computer, may allow students to become more articulate
and to be sharper thinkers. -

One advantage of the computer is that the text, once written can be
changed to suit another purpose. The transformation principle describes the
ease by which information can be altered to ﬁt a different style of presentation.
In Patti's class students wrote text in a word processing software which is more
ﬂexible for writers. That same text was then cut and pasted into hypercard
format so that the different parts of the text could be accessed in a nonlinear
fashion. In other words the class created an Introductory screen with a lot of
buttons for topics of possible interest to the reader. instead of going page by
page to get to the text the child wanted to read, the child simply pressed the
topic button and the computer moved the child to that text.

These same students were also required to publish books. To meet that
goal, they simply altered some of the pages slightly and printed them out to be
colored and stapled for publication. The same group of tables could also have
been printed on overhead transparencies for viewing in a large-group setting.
The ease of transforming the text was evident also when Brad increased the
size of the text on the screen for his whole group to see easily. Without the
computer this change in form is impossible.

Of course information is not often presented to students in a manner
than makes the ideas easy to revise. Students typically see information in a

textbook where text seems static and unchangeable. lnfonnation in this form Is

241

not open to revision or elaboration. Students are highly discouraged from
writing personal perspectives or crossing out information In textbooks. In
contrast, students become more empowered when the same information Is
presented on the computer screen. With computers, students can join in an
Intellectual discussion with the author providing information freely without
penalty. Again, because the computer is so malleable, students In these
classrooms are much more likely to revise in these classrooms than in
traditional classrooms.

The writer's fear of ripping or smudging paper inhibits the writer from
making changes on the paper. It is unattractive to have stray marks, rips, or
smudges on papers and so writers avoid revision when they are using paper.
The desire to have the writing look neat and appealing is called the
Attractiveness Principle. The print that comes out of the printer is most often
more attractive for most school functions than students' ability to write with
paper and pencil at this age. Likewise pictures that get printed out often have a
more ﬁnished quality than a drawing a student at this age could draw.

Finally, text can be put Into different fonts and sizes as indicated in
Chapter 5 in the Revising the Appearance of Text and Graphics section. The
layout and organization of any text and graphic can be revision to make it more
attractive. Gaining this degree of attractiveness and individual preference is

impossible to do in the classroom with paper.

242

The appearance of the writing and revisions also raise the status of the
writing in what I refer to as the status/credibility principle. Children's writing
often does not enjoy the same status as printed or published writing simply
because the print looks more professional. Many feel, if only subconsciously,
that printed text has more credibility than that which is written by a child. When
students in Katie's class integrated their personal comments in the ocean text,
the students and teachers/textbook ideas appeared to have the same credibility.
When a beaming Ferris showed his storyboard video to the class, complete
with the sound of him reading the text and moving pictures, the story of his trip
about going tubing with his family gained the status of a video show.

Some authors sometimes mourn the passing of paper and pen as writing
tools. They talk about their pleasant memories of the look and feel of the
paper. These sensory experiences are enjoyable for them. Although the
senses are different, with computers students are actually stimulated with even
more of a multisensory experience. Using Kidpix, students view a brightly
colored screen, feel the keyboard, and hear the clicks of the keys and the funny
sounds the computer makes when letters and graphics are placed or edited on
the screen.

In the section entitled The Role of Experts in Chapter 4, Maria talks
about the computer as a "hands-on" experience. In that same section Susie
responds when Yashee neglicts to click on the mouse by jumping up and

saying, "Click." Ian follows up by saying "click" himself. Students who were

243

hearing impaired and developmentally behind other students In Maria's class
became highly stimulated by the computer. During one mini-lesson, a hearing
Impaired girl named Teri who had never spoken in group, suddenly stood up
from where she was sitting in the middle of the group and pointing at the
screen and let out a stream of comments. This desire humans have to
experience their senses and the computer's ability to deliver them is called the
multisensory principle.

Even if none of the preceding principles existed, the sheer fact that
students will have to be ﬂuent in their understanding of this machine to obtain
further education or a job is reason enough to encourage teachers to allow
children use the computer as much as possible. Currently however, many
students are restricted to using the tools of the past for writing. Denying
students the advantage of using the tool of the future limits student growth.
This is called the future principle.

Perhaps the most interesting ﬁnding to come out of this study is the way
in which using the computer in these classes created a context that forced the
use of small groups. The way students participated in these groups changed
the tone and character of the teaching and Ieaming of the classroom. But of
course, paired students and small-group work can and has occurred without the
computer for many years. The advantage the computer writing has over paper-
and-pencil writing is the public screen that allows the group to see the text

(Daiute, 1985;Reilly, 1992).

244

in contrast to handwritten text, the information on the screen can more
easily belong to a group rather than an individual. The writing on the screen
bears none of the distinctive handwriting particular to individuals. When writing
is displayed on the screen it could just as easily be the handwriting of any
number of students. When students take turns writing with pencil and paper in
a paired or a group project there Is a sense as indicated by the different styles
of handwriting, the ideas come from unique individuals. The fact that the font is
the same from one person to the next washes out some of the individualism
and provides a sense of common group ownership.

Throughout the text there is evidence of this group principle as students
work together viewing the computer screen. From Katie's classroom when Brad
increased the size of the font so that the group of four could all participate to
computer experts elaborating and proofreading the text on the screen to Brandy
and Nicole in Patti's class where these coauthors switched back and forth In
their keyboarding and motivating roles.

Writing is truly one of the most difﬁcult and important tasks that students
are required to perform in schools. During writing, students have to think about
the movement of their ﬁngers, spoiling, the content of the writing, the
organization of ideas, and the style to present those ideas (the rhetorical
problem). This is such a cognitive burden for novice writers that they can not
possible think of all those elements at the same time. Working in a group

allows students share that cognitive and physical burden of writing. When one

245

student focuses on the actual keying in of information, other students can
concern themselves with proofreading and elaborating the text. While one
student is writing the text another student is free to reread the text and examine
the way the ideas are organized on the page. When one student gets tired of
working on the keyboard, another can step in. In many ways, novice writers
share the cognitive and physical burden of writing because the public display of
the writing allows each student to participate.

The Future of Research and Schools

Part of the uniqueness of this study lies in way in which the text
contributes to the different ﬁelds of writing revision, technology, and staff
development in an integrated fashion. Some future writing for different
audiences could focus on any one ﬁeld of writing revision, technology, or staff
development. These studies might Include ideas In a particular area that
extends beyond the limitations of this study.

Students working in pairs and small groups are more in control of their
own Ieaming than students in classrooms where the teacher feeds Information
to the whole group. For the teacher, this is a pedagogical problem and an
opportunity. In this context, to be successful, students need to develop a
metacognitive awareness and strategies. Students will need to ask themselves
how they Ieam and under what conditions can they Ieam the best. in order for

teachers to develop these lifelong Ieamers, they should deﬁne procedures

246

and roles that would guide their behavior to develop a metacognitive awareness
In students.

Future research might also address questions teachers have in terms of
addressing diverse Ieamers in the classroom. How does a teacher group
students of different abilities so each child Ieams and helps each other? Is it
wise to group capable readers with students who have ready difﬁculties?

Also, although I have deﬁned a number of roles for experts and pairs,
there needs to be further deﬁnition and articulation of these roles in the
classroom. Since these classrooms relied so heavily on students working in
their roles, future research should also cultivate teaching practices that help
teachers support students search for ieaming. What are the different ways
teachers can guide experts and group partners in expert etiquette?

Future studies might also examine classrooms with experienced pairs of
students, students working in small groups, student experts, and teachers
giving mini-lessons for longer periods of time to examine the evolution of the
groups. The roles students played may be examined in more detail and with
more examples than I was able to achieve In this study. It would be interesting
to explore how the role of the expert shifts from person to person, depending
on the need of the students. The social status the expert may have, apart from
working on the computer, may also play a role in the authority or ability to sway

other students to revise their writings.

247

As technology becomes an increasingly more important medium of
communication and literacy Ieaming, the classroom will become fundamentally
different. There will be more opportunities for revision of knowledge than there
would have been without computers. Written communication will certainly
include more graphics and the ability to emphasize or deemphasize text with
size, font, color, audio capabilities (such as music or speech), and underlining.

As the computer becomes more capable of recognizing and converting
children's speech to print, revision of that converted speech will become the
‘ central task of the writer. Students will ﬁnd revision easier to perform on a
mechanical level but perhaps more demanding from a rhetorical perspective.

For the future, with the aid of technologies such as computers and
telecommunications, teachers may be able to provide a curriculum where
students can be even more actively engaged in grappling with the excitement of
ideas. Students could link their ideas with the ideas of social scientists, artists,
and mathematicians both in and outside of the classroom. Learners could
compare their knowledge with others or simply express their voice or
sometimes just listen. An important aspect in the use of technology supported
in this work is the inclusion of the leamers' personal thoughts and opinions of
the activities. In all these instances, the Ieamer becomes active, constructing
thoughts and revising ideas.

Other possibilities for the use of computers exist also. Computer

technology, like television, could become the ultimate provider of speciﬁc

248

knowledge for students in schools. Students and teachers could become so
engrossed with the fast-moving slick images, sophisticated technology, and
well- placed words that they ﬁnd themselves unable to think on a critical level
about the knowledge or story presented.

For educators, the danger is that software writers could take control of
the curriculum. In the same way that teachers follow the teacher guidebooks
for the basal readers, teachers of the future could accept the role of manager
for computer-managed software. Just as the teachers of the past were
deskilled because of their adherence to sanctioned practice of the basals,
teachers of tomorrow could unthinkingly follow the paths of the software
programmer without considering the needs of their students.

The danger is that we, as a society, with the sheer volume of Information
circulating, might become immersed in knowing as much as possible and not
expressing or constructing our own ideas. We could deaden students natural
instincts to express themselves by feeding students information and then asking
them to repeat it back to us. Like Gargantua, we could gorge ourselves on the
mass of information available without reﬂecting or constructing our own ideas.

With the coming inundation of Information in our society, teachers will
have to help students Ieam to take the time to select, evaluate, and revise their
own Information and information from other sources. All educators will have to
work together to develop teaching methods, teaching contexts, and conceptual

insight so technology becomes a tool that beneﬁts education.

249

Much has been said about how technology will change the classroom.
Most people are amazed at the emergence of developing technology and the
role technology is playing in modern life. However, educators have been slow
to use technology in schools. Technology should become increasingly easy to
use. Most signs indicate that software and hardware developers will construct
forthcoming technology to be more user-friendly. However, even though the
technical aspect of technology should become better to use, educators will also
have to invest their energy on professional knowledge so that technology can
be used as an effective tool for improving education for the future and not just a
tool for reﬂecting the educational values of the past.

The ﬁnal witness to improvement in education with and from computers
will lie with their use by educators as tools for implementing a curriculum that

empowers students to become higher quality ieamers.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

250

verview of iassroom Technolo Too s
eneva Eiementa choois

Ereface

The purpose of this document Is meant to enhance our curriculum and
not to determine curriculum. Therefore, you won't see any computer programs
related specially to math, social studies, science, etc. The tools we recommend
in this document can be used across the curriculum. These programs are tools
to enhance and support all teaching and Ieaming. The selection of instructional
materials, on computer software, is not the responsibility of the District
Technology Advisory Committee. This does not mean that software like Math
Blaster, Carmen SanDiego, and Oregon Trail is not appropriate. The decision
to purchase these types of programs should be made by individual teachers
and curriculum committees. Funds to purchase such instructional supplies
should come from building Instructional supply accounts.

At the present time we are unable to fulﬁll the goals of this document
because all the equipment will not be in place until the last phase of the bond.
However, we have decided that it is important to look toward the future and
have some vision for what could be. It is also our hope that as the district
develops curriculum that technology can play a part In student assessment.

BELIEF STATEMENT

ADOPTED SPRING 1991
Provide for accessibility for instructors and students.
Use technology to support the district curricula.
View technology as a tool rather than an end In itself.
Provide for measurement of effectiveness through deﬁned outcomes.
Provide for inservice of staff.
Assign responsibility for monitoring and directing the plan.
Determine present needs, plan and budget for maintenance, upgrading and
future replacement.
H. Consider function, service, price, warranty, ease of use, and basic
compatibility in selecting hardware and software.
I. Comply with licensing and copyright laws.

OUTCOMES
ADOPTED SPRING 1991

1. Be an author using technology.
2. Be aware of and adhere to copyright laws when using technology In different
media.
3. Be able to access and manipulate information from several technological
sources.
4. Be a responsible, conﬁdent user of technology.
5. Learn how to adapt to changes in technology.

PmmPPP>

251

6. Enhance Ieaming by acquiring and applying technical skills.

Outcomes for Technology

at the elementary level
515192

Kindergartners & First-graders

CUTCQME #1 Be author using technology

A. Use a mouse appropriately including the click and double click.

B. Students will become familiar with a graphics interface environment using
programs such as Playroom, Treehouse, Kid Pix programs.

C. The children will experiment making pictures with letters (words, sentences
depending on the level of the student) using Kidpix.

CUTCCME #2 & #4 Ethics - Responsibility and Copyrights

A. Students will write their names on work they do.

B. Students will ieam that If a student copies another's work, they must put the
other's name on it.

C. Students will Ieam to use the computers in appropriate ways.

CCTCOME #3 Accessing and Manipulating information

A. Students will Ieam how to turn on/off the machines. The student will Ieam what
to do if the computer freezes.

B. Exit programs

C. Use icons to launch a program

D. Will be able to identify parts of the computenmonitor, disc drive, cpu,
keyboard,mouse, return key, shift key, space bar, all letters and numbers.

E. Students will be able to follow teacher instructions to access reading and math
readiness activities on the computer.

Fourth-grade

CUTCCME #1 Be an author

Multimedia (perhaps Storyboard, Linkway, or other software)

A. Students will Ieam to digitize pictures taken with the camera

B. Students will use camera, CD, and VHS tapes to record a multimedia
presentation (if they are using Storyboard)

C. Students will save, edit, retrieve, and print these images within multimedia
reports.

D. Students will create and publish multimedia reports related to math, language
arts, science, or social studies

E. Students will be able to make multiple copies of multimedia reports using
videotape and other types of storage.

F. Students will save and access information from A and C drives.

G. Students will use reference materials on CD-ROM and Laser Disc to complete
their research reports without teacher assistance

252

Word Processing
H. Students will begin to use the editing features of a word processing program

such as margins, use of the ruler, and fonts

I. Students will write a class newsletter combining text and graphics

J. Students will complete their common writing assignments with a word processing
program.

Keyboarding
K. Students will reﬁne their keyboarding skills with regular practice. Students will

change a ribbon or cartridge in the printer

M. Students will load paper into printer

N. Students will format blank disks

0. Students will utilize all memory storage capabilities (for example they will be
able to save on A and C drives)

CCTCCME #3 Access and Manipulate information

A. Students will Ieam the procedure for multi-tasking (switching from program to
program wlo exiting).

C. Students will access and manipulate graphics from camcorders, scanners, and
graphics libraries.

Telecommunications

A. The concept of telecommunications using a modem will be Introduced in fourth-
grade. Students will become members of bulletin boards and will have pen pals
with other schools

D. Students will take part in distance Ieaming projects through telecommunications
E. Students will use ITV to enhance ieaming in the areas of science, social
studies, language arts, and math

F. Students will use video as an Information delivery system (99. Math Talk by
Tom Snyder Productions)

OUTCQMES #2 & #4 Ethics

A. Students will give credit to audio, graphic, and textual sources.

APPENDIX B

253

Handbook for the Fruitland Migrant Program
A Federal Program under Chapter] July I. 1993
W

G
The classroom program will last from July 6 to August 13. If you are sick call for a sub as soon as
you know that you will be absent. As always you are responsible for leaving sub plans. Teachers
are asked not to plan vacation activities during school time, however exceptlons that we know about
at the beginning of the summer will be accommodated when possible. Home study guidelines are
noted In a separate manual. Classroom teachers will work 4.0 hours per day from 8:15 to 12:15
Classes will be formed by age. We will try our best to get appropriate classroom fumlture for
students. Typically, older students get the eight foot folding tables with chairs. Fumlture that Is
clearly marked can be moved Into other classes with the knowledge of the coordinator. At the end
of the summer the teacher Is responsible for returning the furniture and notifying the coordinator.

Teachers must have written long range and daily plans for all subjects. The written parts don't need
to be extensive or have any particular form. However, teachers should have extensive mm
about how to Implement them.

Youth Corps students must type, print out, and give to our secretary to photocopy an “introduction
letter" to parents on the ﬁrst day of school. Please hand write a quick hello, Introduction, and
restate what areas you are teaching. Also, mention swimming which will take place August 2-13.
Also, 6 A. ute : v: ‘ am no 0- .; T880- : at: 1‘2” 210 1: 2. i::i 6pm.:
W. You should tell them what to write by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. This
Is a big deal for the Youth Corps because we post all the letters In the hall. We give out awards for
letters that are attractive and well formed. Please allow the computer experts to be the experts In
the classroom. Call on the computer experts for help whenever possible. We want our computer
experts to gain an identity as a person who "knows about technology and writing." Whenever
possible and It seems appropriate, the "computer experts" should be working with students at the

computer.
W

We value literacy no matter what language It occurs In. However, we also realze that access
to jobs, entertainment, and schooling ls Imlted for those who only speak Spanish. Therefore, we have
to promote the use of Englsh among our students to prepare them for success In society.

One of the very simple ways students can learn English, Is for the teacher to speak Engﬁsh all
the time. To the Spanish speaking child this presents comprehension problems. Spanish speaking
students don't understand all they hear In Englsh. Therefore students instruction should be modiﬁed
so that they do understand.

There are a number of ways to modify Instruction. One way to modify instruction is to provide
a context that will give away the meaning of the text or the language teachers use. EMILE give the
most obvious clues about what the language of the story is about. The best books to teach Inited
Engﬂsh speakers are books where the pictures add to the meaning of the text. Make sure and point
out to students the Important features of pictures and how they relate to the stories.

Books and stories are given context when a teacher describes the m of historical ﬁction or
the setting of a story told about Africa. Any kind of prior knowledge that allows students to understand
stories adds to the context of the story.

Another way to modify Instruction Is to be more fully gm about what you say. If you want
students to discover what it Is that causes suspense In mysteries or spooky stories, don't just tell the
students with words, M an example of suspense. Be very sensitive of which vocabulary words

254

student may not understand and give synonyms or explanations.

A fourth way one can provide context Is by e . .
WW. For example, while students are reading 0119 Beverly Cleary book
during reading time you may want to read another Beverly Cleary book during your read aloud time.
One book lends context and builds background so the student can understand the other book.

As much as you can use audio-visuals, books with pictures, give explanations, act out situations,
use props and manipulative to help students of limited experience in Englsh understand your
instruction.

 

Students will choose their own topics.

Students will write rough drafts and edit their papers.

Students will meet In large groups to discuss their writing and to ask for more Ideas
for writing.

Students will have their writing publshed (most commonly done In book form)

The teacher will model their own writing In order to Improve student writing.
Student will write for meaninng purposes. Students can write to entertain, Inform,
scare, or to excite people.

Teachers will engage with children by MW dimming
vocabulary and higher level ideas about the text (If you pick a 200 page book, plan on

reading it for a month).

Books the teacher reads aloud will be viewed as models of writing that student can
borrow from to do their own writing.

Students will read excellent literature.

Teachers will Instruct student on reading strategies for better decoding and
comprehension

You must do an Individual Informal assessment using a graded reading passage (If you
don't have a passage the director will ﬁnd one for you.) You should have the general
reading level, strengths, and areas of needed Improvement. You may also include a
short attitude survey (Make It up yourself.)

9' P.“ N ﬁg 99'? PPR-"E

Every day student must do a number of activities that are manual to academic growth.
mmmm every day. Select very Interesting books for this time. If you select boring
books, tell the kids the book doesn't Interest you and set It down. DURING THIS TIME MODEL THE
SKILL YOU WANT THE STUDENTS TO USE IN THEIR OWN READING.

Student will BEE every day. This does not mean they will cover material or be In a group that
reads. The individual child must read. To do this the child must have material that Is appropriate to
their level. It can be created by you or the tutor or they can read It out of a book. The mediocre
teacher will see that they read. The excellent teacher will provide that they read a great deal.

Chapter I, of which the migrant program is a division. Is paying to keep the library open for the
summer at school from 10 to 12 for the community and migrant school use. The Ibrarian will tell you
what ls available. Please plan the week far enough In advance so that you can take advantage of the
Hbrary when It is open.

W

Computers will be used in classrooms to construct knowledge with reading, writing, pictures,
hypercard, etc. You may use programs Ike Ecology Time If you happen to be studying ecology and
not when you are not studying ecology.

APPENDIX C

255

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256

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