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AA; A

LIBRARY
Mint- ’fiikm state E
1 Univ ewfiy E

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This is to certify that the

dissertation entitled

Curriculum of Middle Schooi:
A Descriptive Study of the Teaching of Writing

presented by

June M. Martin

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph. D. degree in Teacher Education

 

    

Ma" r professor

Staniey P. Wronski
Date May 2, 1984

042771

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CURRICULUM OF MIDDLE SCHOOL:
A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF THE TEACHING OF WRITING

by

June M. Martin

A DISSERTATION

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

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Teacher Education

198#

© Copyright by
June M. Martin

1 984

ABSTRACT

CURRICULUM OF MIDDLE SCHOOL:
A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF THE TEACHING OF WRITING

By

June M. Martin

The purpose of this study was to describe and explain the writing
curriculum of one class of entering middle-school students during one school
year. Components studied were the selection and organization, instruction in
and evaluation of writing activities. Four exploratory questions guided the
study: (I) What writing curriculum does the middle school teacher develop and
implement with her students? (2) How does the teacher implement the writing
curriculum? (3) What are the responsibilities of the students for enacting the
writing curriculum? and (It) What relationship does writing have to other
elements of the school curriculum?

Ethnographic methods involved ongoing processes of data collection, and
concurrent analysis of data to validate findings by noting repeated observations
of similar events, and by triangulation, or by comparing results with other types
of evidence. Data sources included field notes, teacher journal entries,
interviews, videotapes, writing samples and other school artifacts. Writing
activities of a sixth-grade teacher of communication arts and social studies and

her students were identified, described and related to one another. The meaning

June M. Martin

of these writing activities was interpreted from the viewpoints of participants,
or insiders, particularly that of the teacher. Findings were also interpreted from
the vieWpoints of outsiders, that is, from perspectives represented by theorists
of curricula, namely, Ralph Tyler, John Dewey, and Paulo Freire.

Findings include the following. The description and explanation of
curricular activities illustrate that the teacher selected and implemented
interrelated, experience-based, creative writing activities of increasing
complexity in view of student needs and interests. She prefigured prerequisite
skill lessons with longer, or more complex and creative writing projects to meet
her goals that each student experience success, expend his or her best efforts,
improve writing skills, and clarify thinking. She shared with her students roles of
evaluating, providing individual assistance, modeling writing processes and
products, decision-making, and listening to and reading the writings of other
students. She also transformed district and school imposed constraints into

opportunities for meeting her curricular goals.

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to extend thanks to everyone who helped me in the various
stages of this study, especially the following:

Members of my doctoral committee, namely, Dr. Stanley Wronski,
Chairman; Dr. William Joyce; Dr. Jack Bain; Dr. Cleo Cherryholmes; and Dr.
Susan Florio-Ruane, Director of this dissertation.

Participants in the Written Literacy Project from which this study is
derived, namely, Drs. ChristOpher M. Clark and Susan Florio—Ruane, Co-Principal
Investigators; Janis I... Elmore, Rhoda J. Maxwell and William Metheny,
researchers; and participating teachers and students (who must remain
anonymous).

My typist, Kelly Kuerbitz, and members of her support system.

My extended support network of family, friends, and the Dominican Sisters

of Grand Rapids, and the Dominican Sisters at Ortonville.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures

CHAPTER I: THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM ------

Purpose of the Study ...................
Guiding Assumptions of the Study --------------
Importance of Exploratory Questions ------------
Three Perspectives on Curriculum --------------

The Reproductive Perspective -------

The Constructive Perspective -------------

The Reconstructive Perspective ------------
Middle School as a Site for Curriculum Research -------
Writing as a Problem Area for Curriculum Development - - ° -

CHAPTER II: METHODS ....................

Background .......................
Rationale ........................
Data Collection and Analysis ................
Overview ......................
Participant Observation - - - - ...........

CHAPTER III: THE CREATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A
WRITING CURRICULUM ooooooooooooo

Introduction and Overview -----------------
Setting of the Study ....................
School Environment .................
Classroom Environment ----------------
Schedule of Activities ----------------
First Section: Selection of Writing Curriculum Goals and Process
Goals ........................
Processes ......................
The Why of the Writing Process ----------
Teacher's Role in the Writing Process -------
Students' Role in the Writing Process --------

Summary of Teacher's Selection of Writing
Curriculum Goals and Processes -------

31

31
33
33
34

35
35
36
36
37
47

52

"‘~-mw -.

iv

Second Section: Accomplishing Curricular Goals ....... 53
First Marking Period ................ 55
Second Marking Period ................ 65
Third Marking Period ................ 72
Fourth Marking Period ................ 79
Summary of Teacher's Means of Accomplishing

Curricular Goals ................. 87

Third Section: Students' Role in Enactment of the Curriculum . 91
Listening and Responding ............... 92
Brainstorming ................... 92
Decision-making .................. 93
Suggesting Ways to Improve Writing Process . . . . . . 95
Evaluating Written Products ............. 96
Sharing Information ................. 99

Summary of Students' Role in Enactment of Curriculum. . 100
Fourth Section: Constraints on the Teaching of Writing and

the Teacher's Responses to Them ............. 100
Insufficient Space .................. 101
Large Numbers of Students .............. 103
Curriculum Content ................. 107
School Schedule ................... 114
Interruptions in the Established Schedule ........ 122
Summary of Constraints on the Teaching of Writing and

the Teacher's Responses to Them .......... 128
Summary of the Creation and Implementation of a Writing
Curriculum ...................... 129

CHAPTER IV: SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS . . 130

Summary and Conclusions ................. 130
Description and Explanation ............. 131
Insiders' Interpretations ............... 131
External Considerations ............... 132

Reproductive Perspective ............ 133
Constructive Perspective ............ 133
Reconstructive Perspective ........... 136
Relationship of the Three Perspectives ...... 138

Significance of Findings and Their Implications for Education . 141

APPENDIX A: Data Samples ................ 148-152
APPENDIX B: Harbin Middle School Schedule .......... 153
APPENDIX C: Samples of Sixth-Grade Objectives ....... 154-155
APPENDIX D: Sixth-Grade Common Writings ........... 156

APPENDIX E: Classroom Maps ............... 157-159

APPENDIX F: Sample Report Items ............. 160-162
APPENDIX G: Writing Samples With Teacher Comments . . . . 153-170
APPENDIX H: Autobiography of Ms. Anderson ........ 171-173
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................... 174-178

FIGURE 1:

FIGURE 2:

FIGURE 3:

vi

LIST OF FIGURES

Writing from Three Curricular Perspectives . . . . . . . 21

Key Writing Events that the Teacher
Developed and Categorized During the Year . ..... 39 . 90

Constraints on the Teaching of Writing
and the Teacher's Responses to Them ......... 102

CHAPTER I

THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM

Purposes of the Study

The general purpose of this ethnographic study is to describe and analyze

the writing curriculum of one class of entering middle-school students during one

school year.

Specific but interrelated purposes include the following:

To identify teacher perceptions and enactions of the "what," "how,"
and "why" of the writing curriculum.

To describe the processes of teacher-student negotiation of the
writing curriculum in use.

To deveIOp one or more models of ways that the teacher develops a
writing curriculum in use—or to show the interrelations of writing
activities and their common elements.

To identify boundaries or constraints teacherIs) and students encounter
as they attempt to suit writing to the middle-school schedule, e.g.,
constraints of time and space allocations.

To analyze how the teacher's theories and practices relate to the
philosophies and practices of the middle school and to various
curricular perspectives that may affect these theories, phil050phies or

practices.

This chapter describes the study's scape. It delineates underlying

assumptions, exploratory questions, curricular perspectives, and conceptions of

middle school and writing.

Guiding Assumptions of the Study

Assumptions (working hypotheses) that guided the study include the
following:

1. Curriculum is concerned with method, the "how" of curriculum, as well

as with content, the "what" of curriculum.

2. Curriculum is concerned with evaluation not only of intended
outcomes (objectives) and unintended outcomes of curriculum in use,
but also of the sources and theoretical bases of content and method
selection, the "why" of curriculum.

3. Curriculum components (e.g., content, method and evaluation systems)
are interdependent, interrelated, and embedded in ongoing
negotiations among participants (i.e., teachers and students).

4. Sources of curricular activity may include organized bodies of subject
matter, needs and interests of learners, and problems of school and
society.

In view of the above assumptions and for the purposes of this investigation,
curriculum will be defined as an evolving program of experiences, negotiated by
participants, in which learning activities are selected and organized,
implemented and evaluated, and are based in varying proportions on
predetermined subject matter, the needs and interests of learners, and the
problems of school and society. This definition is intended to encompass
conceptions of curriculum arising from three curricular or epistemological
perspectives, that is, reproductive (subject-centered, traditional), constructive
(student-centered and experience-based), and reconstructive (focused on social

justice, oriented to social criticism and social action). These perspectives can

serve as conceptual levers used to gain insight into the classroom teacher's (and
other participants') influences on and understandings of purposes and functions of

classroom practices, and possible constraints upon such practices.

Importance of Exploratory Questions

The following exploratory questions guide this study.

I. What writing curriculum does the middle school teacher develop and

implement with her students?

2. How does the teacher implement the writing curriculum?

3. What are the responsibilities of the students for enacting the writing

curriculum?

4. What relationship does writing have to other elements of the school

curriculum?
Questions like these are important for guiding the researcher in the process of
documenting the writing curriculum in use. They are important for identifying
the interrelationships of curricular elements in the social context of the
classroom--the teacher's goals and their connection with what happens in the
classroom—for example, teacher-student interactions, and how the teacher and
students deal with constraints (obstacles) to the teaching of writing.

The four questions about the writing curriculum are of special interest and
significance to society at large as well as to educational theorists and
practitioners.

The first question, "What content is implemented?" is of interest because
much controversy exists over what aspects of writing should be emphasized in
instruction. Back-to-basics advocates, including both technologists and
academicians argue that the best preparation for the job market and for college

is concentration on the teaching of grammar, the mechanics of form, spelling,

and sentence structure (Giroux 1978; McNeil, 1981). On the other hand,
humanists argue for creativity, and they claim that emphasis on personal growth
and provision for opportunities to express thoughts and emotions is more
important (McNeil, I981). Expressing yet another view, social reconstructionists
claim that writing should be taught as an area of support for the creation of
critical awareness of oppressive social conditions, and used as an instrument for
effecting social change (Brameld, 1970). How does the curriculum developer
decide among these alternative emphases? How much of each is a good thing?

The second question, "How does the teacher implement the writing
curriculum?", is of special interest not only to beginning teachers of writing but
also to experienced teachers of writing.

Researchers and educators suggest reasons why teachers refrain from
having students do much writing in school, or have taught writing unsuccessfully.
For example, Giroux, (1978), and Pitt (1982) point out that primary tools in a
predominance of traditionally taught classrooms, that is, textbook guides and
student texts, are often based on outdated theories about the writing process.
Research indicates a general unavailability of courses in writing instruction to
help preservice or inservice teachers evaluate such theories. The results of a
random survey of thirty-six universities revealed that 139 courses were offered
in the teaching of reading, whereas only two courses were offered in the
teaching of writing. (Graves, 1977). Research reports and other resource
materials are also in relatively short supply. Graves has found that research
monies spent for reading as compared to writing are at a lOOO-to-one ratio, and
expenditures for reading materials as compared to writing materials are at a
lOO-to-one ratio.

In addition, environmental conditions limit teachers in at least two ways.

First, teachers tend to use content suited to small time-slots, such as

incremental skills of punctuation and spelling, because the school schedule often
limits time for writing to fifteen-to-twenty minute intervals (Graves, 1977). A
second obstacle to teacher development of a viable writing curriculum is that a
teacher is rarely free during the school day for extended periods of time to
observe teachers who use alternative methods for teaching writing.

Tiedt & Tiedt (1975) point out at least five problems in curriculum
development and in the instruction of writing for writing teachers and other
teachers to consider: I) lack of developmental sequence, 2) failure of teachers
to accept responsibility for writing skills, 3) lack of well-defined aims for
teaching composition, 4) rigorous approaches to evaluation that overwork
teachers and deter students from writing, and 5) the fact that writing is a
complex skill to learn.

For reasons such as these, an analytic description of day-by-day, week-by-
week curricular developments in the classroom life of an experienced teacher
who has a reputation for having her students do a lot of writing can be a realistic
source for the possible selective adaptation by other teachers of writing.

An analytic description can also alert teachers to situations characteristic
of middle school (for example, constraints of time and space or material
resources) that can provide either occasions for creative adaptations, or become
impediments to the development and implementation of a writing curriculum.
Such an analytic description can also alert administrators, who have a
responsibility for providing apprOpriate resources, to the needs of teachers of
writing.

Social theorists too, may want to investigate constraints to curriculum
development and implementation as indicators of wider power conflicts relating
to competing ideologies of the larger social system. Apple (1975), for example,

investigated ways that teachers and textbooks have dealt with conflict in subject

areas of social studies and of science. He suggested that students are
unrealistically oriented toward consensus and order, values supportive of our
status-qua society. He noted that both textbook writers and teachers generally
ignored conflicts, and when they did acknowledge them, treated them as a
negative factor rather than as a possible means of effecting positive outcomes.
Apple (1980-81) also identified several ways that structural constraints and
contradictions dominate people and institutions, such as outside interventions
that limit internal decision-making, or that limit students‘ and teachers' efforts
to control their school environment. Similarly, social scientists may be
interested in what occurrences constrain implementation of writing activities in
the classroom and the possible sources or causes of such occurrences.

The third question, "What are the responsibilities of students for enacting
the writing curriculum?" also has practical and theoretical relevance. The early
adolescent in middle school has "special needs, characteristics, and
developmental tasks that are uniquely different from elementary and high school
age students." (Clark 6: Clark, 1981, p. 142). For example, coming from several
different elementary schools, entering middle-school students also have different
types and amounts of writing experience. It is important that the teacher
provide writing opportunities to accommodate the particular interests and needs
«emotional, physical, social and intellectual-«of her diverse students (Clark at
Clark, 1981).

Educational theorists differ in their views of the Students' role in
curriculum making. For instance, traditionalists (e.g., Doll, 1964; Hirst, 1974;
Johnson, 1967; Phenix, 1964; Tyler, 1949) assume a need for predetermined
subject matter, rather than a plan for student participation in determination of
curricular objectives and activities. Manifestations of traditionalist (i.e.,

essentialist) movements such as the idea of "Back to Basics," and "State—

prescribed performance objectives" exemplify emphasis on subject matter (Corl,
1981, pp. 17,18).

Conversely, Dewey and other pragmatists focus upon the students and upon
their needs and interests. Subject matter then becomes simply a tool to help
students understand and order their experiences. Dewey suggests that students
have active roles in discussing and deciding upon proposed content, exploring it
and evaluating curricular activities. Educators do not have to predetermine
outcomes but can allow them to emerge from students' experiences (Mayhew and
Edwards, 1936; NcNeil, I981; Ozmon 6c Craver, 1981). Although the teacher
involves students in different processes of curriculum development, this
approach can be seen in practice to correspond with a liberal perspective on
education, as a "transmission of modes of thought and conduct which have
standards written into them . . .values derive from principles and standards
implicit in it" (Sarup, 1978, p. 52).

Contrastively, reconstructionists emphasize the need for critical
consciousness of the ills of society and suggest actions to remedy them (e.g.,
Apple, 1979; Bowles 6r Gintis, I977; Brameld, I970; Carnoy, 1974; Freire, 1981;
Habermas, 1979). Although this approach does not focus mainly on students,
their collaborative involvement is integral to effecting social change. Here
again, subject matter, that is, writing, would be a tool for effective action, not
only as a technical skill or linguistic competence, but also as a means to acquire
communicative competence, an ability to promote mutual understanding through
symmetrical and undistorted communications. The role of the teacher would be
to enter into dialogue with students about their concrete life situations and
social problems, show how an ability to write is integral to these situations, and
stimulate students to become agents of their own learning so that they develop

curriculum in collaboration with the teacher (Freire, 1981; Habermas, 1970). For

example, as a result of classroom discussions to stimulate awareness and
suggestions for possible causes and remedies for recurring school-wide
playground conflicts, students and their teacher might decide to write an
announcement to other playground users. Such an announcement could challenge
other students and teachers to become aware of the causes of problems and take
action to remedy them--perhaps to formulate a change in school policy.

During the last fifteen years theorists have begun to focus on a sociology
of curriculum, particularly on questions of who determines or controls knowledge
students receive and of how this knowledge is distributed (e.g., Anyon, 1981;
Apple, 1979; Bernstein, 1967; Eggleston, 1977; Giroux and Penna, 1979; Sharp 6:
Green, 1975; Whitty, 1976; Young, 1973). Bernstein (1975), for example, may
have provided a useful way of examining the role of students in a pedagogical
"frame." (The word _f_ra_me refers to the "degree of control teacher and student
possess over the selection, organization, pacing and timing of knowledge
transmitted and received," (Bernstein, 1975, p. 88), or a way of examining the
degree of control the teacher and her students possess over the transmission or
reception of knowledge. By discovering instances in which students have a
passive, active, or critical role in curriculum making, implicit values, ideologies,
or historical bases for writing practices may be identified.

The last question, "What relationship does the writing curriculum have to
other elements of the middle school curriculum?" may be of special interest to
theorists interested in how school scheduling or other school structures affect
implementation of curriculum in the classroom. Because middle school is a
passageway from elementary school to high school (Vars, 1973), changes are
likely to occur in the transition from the typically more open boundaries between
subjects of elementary schooling, to the typically more closed boundaries

between subjects taught in high school. Also, in this transition student-teacher

interactions might be expected to move from the more personal student-teacher
interactions characteristic of elementary school, to the less personal ones
characteristic of high school (Bernstein, l975).

Bernstein may have developed other useful concepts for investigating
curriculum in terms of such issues. For example, he interpreted the concept of
curriculum as "principles governing the selection of, and relation between,
subjects" (p. 70), and developed a system of classification, which refers to the
degrees of maintaining boundaries between subject areas. Bernstein's
classification system provides a means of describing boundary maintainers that
limit a teacher's power or control over what subject areas they can integrate.

In addition, this last question is of special concern to teachers interested in
integrating writing with other subject matter (e.g., using writing as an
instrument for critical thinking and for developing social values). Giroux (1978)
observed that misleading assumptions have traditionally dominated writing
practices, for example, that instruction in writing must be confined to an English
department. He asserts that the consequence is that writing is taught in an
isolated and fragmented fashion. He contends, rather, that writing is not a mere
technical skill, a drill in the mastery of techniques, divorced from other content
areas and aspects of society that affect students' lives, but rather that writing is
both dialectical and interdisciplinary.

For example, implementation of a curriculum of writing and critical
thinking are dialectically connected, that is, students need to discern the
substance of what they investigate by locating it within frames of reference that
give it meaning. Interdisciplinary writing is not just the accomplishment of a
writing objective and another subject objective concurrently by means of a same,
or related learning activity. Writing is also more than a subject. It is a process

that can be used to teach students another subject. For instance, by allowing

10

students to undertake the same roles as writers who prepare books and other
learning sources in a particular subject, history, for example, students can learn
how to write history rather than merely reproduce it. They can organize
concepts according to writers' viewpoints, and question and analyze unexplained
assumptions, meanings and relationships. (Giroux, 1979)

A documentation of writing processes and interrelationships that take
place in the social context of the classroom may bring both teachers and
administrators to a more accurate understanding of the value of writing as it
relates to the entire school curriculum, and may bring them a heightened
awareness of possible changes in methodology and scheduling that may improve

the implementation of that curriculum.

Three Perspectives on Curriculum

Each of three curriculum perspectives may help to shed light on the

classroom situation studied:

1. a reproductive perspective, because it strongly influences selection of
the "what" and the "how" of curriculum in American schools (Apple,
1979; Corl, 1981);

2. a constructive perspective, because it is supposedly the basis of middle
school practice as well as middle school philosophy (Corl, 1981); and

3. a reconstructive perspective, because many educators (e.g., Apple,
1979; Brameld, I970; Giroux, I980; Cherryholmes, 1981) propose its
application to remedy deficiencies perceived in both the reproductive
and constructive approaches to curriculum in use. (e.g., undue
attention to maintenance of the status quo, failure to reflect on and

criticize norms and structures of educational practice).

II

The Reproductive Perspective

The reproductive approach to curriculum encompasses the traditions in
educational philosophy of both essentialism and perennialism. The two traditions
have in common:

the idea that learning is something which comes about because of the

action of the environment on the learner. Both argue that it is the

task of the teacher to manipulate the conditions of the environment

such that desired outcomes are reached. For both, the planning of

outcomes is a (if not THE) fundamental activity of the curriculum

specialist, and of the teacher. (Corl, 1981, p. 4)

Because "the two themes of Essentialism and Perennialism comprise the
mainstream of educational thought in the western world" (Corl, 1981, p. 4), the
reproductive approach is most likely to affect the practices in American schools'
including the practices at this particular middle-school.

Ralph Tyler (1949), for example, delineated a reproductive (competency-
based, traditional) approach to curriculum theory and practice. He described his
curricular model as a means-ends, linear approach, in the following four-step
sequence in which he conceived of knowledge in an objectives format:

1. selection of objectives (ends),

2. development of means to attain the ends,

3. organization of means, and

4. evaluation of outcomes in term of the objectives.

Tyler suggested a screening process for selecting objectives that are "efficient
and consistent so that the student is not torn by contradictory patterns of
behavior" (p. 33). People who have adapted his rationale to curriculum
development tended to impose a

't0p to bottom' tradition, with those at the top setting the purposes

and functions that narrow the school's objectives; the objectives, in

turn, control classroom instruction. (McNeil, 1981, p. 96)

Although Tyler also took into account different data sources, that is,

learners and social conditions as well as subject-matter specialists, he focused

12

particularly on the subject-matter specialist in his plan for curriculum
development (McNeil, I981; Tanner & Tanner, 1980). Objectives, in practice,
often center on easily measurable cognitive skills. Teachers often devote much
time to testing students for mastery of the skills, or intended outcomes
(Townsend, 1980). Thus, a definition of curriculum appropriate to this approach
is primarily concerned with subject matter (e.g., skills), the "what" of
curriculum, that Johnson defines as a "structured series of intended learning

outcomes." (1967, p. 136)

The Constructive Perspective

 

The constructive approach to curriculum is based on the philosophy of
modern progressivism (pragmatism) that emerged near the end of the nineteenth
century. Because the conception of the middle school is based on progressivism,
and because progressivism has in recent history been strongly affected by
essentialism and perennialism, both reproductive approaches, it appears that
both the constructive and the reproductive theories determine characteristics of
a middle school curriculum in use.

Progressivism flowered in the 1930's in the United States, and then
was stifled as a movement by the majority forces of Essentialism and
Perennialism as the need for specific skills and knowledge to cope
with a world at war became important to those who paid for
American education. Elements of Progressivism, however, such as
the project method of instruction and unit teaching, remain firmly
embedded in our schools, as does, for some, the idea of schools which
exist to capitalize on real experience, to develop meaning, and to
hplp students solve real problems in real settings. (Corl, 1981, pp. 8-
9

It is clear from even a casual perusal of the curriculum literature
that The Middle School Movement is rooted deeply in Progressive
ideology. Any attempt to apply Essentialist or Perennialist doctrine,
or any other for that matter, clouds and confuses the goals, the
programs and the practices of the middle school. (Corl, 1981, p. 26)

John Dewey (1938), for example, proposed a progressive, or constructive

approach to curriculum theory and practice. He perceived knowledge as

l3

constructed through ongoing experiences, or interactions of students with the
teacher and with other resources. Hence, in this case, the teacher acts as a
guide, and centers curriculum on students' interests and their developmental
needs. The constructive approach is concerned with the "how" or methods of
curriculum as well as with outcomes. Rugg defines curriculum according to this
view as:

everything that the students and their teachers do. Thus it is twofold

in nature, being made up of activities, the things done and of the
materials with which they are done. (1936, p. 18)

The Reconstructive Pe'spective

 

The reconstructive approach to curriculum , although it has the same basis
as modern progressivism or the constructive approach, is differently interpreted.
Although progressivism supports continuous change and a forward-looking
approach to people's and society's problems, many progressivists advocate
processes of helping people adjust to society rather than changing it. They
support the idea of dealing with problems within existing frameworks of society-
-whereas many reconstructionists believe that:

while this may be a reasonable approach for some problems, it is

often necessary to get outside the general bounds of the

contemporary value system in order to look at our problems afresh
without traditional restraints. . . Some of the things we consider evil

are really part of the institutions to which we give allegiance, and we

cannot hope to eradicate such evils without chan ing these

institutions fundamentally. (Ozmon & Craver, 1981, p. 124

Paulo Freire (1978), for example, advocates a reconstructive (or
reconceptualist) approach to curricular theory and practice. He sees knowledge
as a liberating tool, as a basis for action to solve problems of society. The
reconstructive perspective (social criticism and action) centers on how persons
(teachers and students, for example) can identify and facilitate replacement of

unjust social structures. (Orimoloye, 1983). Knowledge is not meer a given or

a created social construct. Participant learners question the social constructs,

14

the meaning and nature of knowledge itself. Thus, the reconstructive view of
curriculum is concerned not just with the "what" of knowledge, with the "how" of
acquiring knowledge, but also with the processes used to constitute and
legitimate such knowledge, and with the "why" of knowing. In these contexts:

. . . democratic procedures should be used on every level of schooling.

This means that the student will play an active part in the

formulation of objectives, methods, and curricula used in the

educational process. (Ozmon 6c Craver, 1981, p. 139)
Learners reflect upon the process of thinking itself, and upon how knowledge is
linked to questions of social relationships (Giroux, 1979). They can know only to
the extent that they reflect upon and make problematic the natural, cultural and
historical reality in which they are immersed (Goulet, 1981). For example,
students are immersed in the reality of the school curriculum, which Eggleston
defines as:

a body of learning experiences responding to a societal view of

knowledge that may not always be fully expressed or even fully

accepted by teachers or students. (1977, p. 20)

Specifically, the three perspectives on curriculum can be used as
conceptual tools for discovering, describing and analyzing the teacher's (and
students') perceptions of the writing curriculum, the "what," the "how," and the

"why" of writing as the writing program emerges from one sixth-grade classroom

during a school year.

The Middle School As a Site for Curricular Research
The middle school is an important site for research in curriculum because,
for example, traditional forces dominant at both elementary- and high-school
levels seriously threaten the Middle-School Movement, that is, the reproductive
and constructive approaches seemingly conflict with each other.
The middle school was designed to be a Progressive institution, and
then was gradually co-opted by an increasingly conservative and

conventional society. The concept of traditional subject matter as
basic material to be learned is anathema to the Movement as it was

15

conceived, and as it is promoted by most of its adherents. (Corl,

1981, pp. 17-18)

On the one hand, certain activities characterisitic of elementary and high
school unduly influences the curriculum of the middle school. They include
vocational influences, i.e., undue narrowing of goals set up primarily for older
adolescents, and the indiscriminate application of educational tenets more suited
to needs of very young learners (e.g., teaching of reading skills to the exclusion
of skills necessary to process non-print information). Rather, the middle school
is designed to help students explore the multiple aspects of their world. (Corl,
1981)

On the other hand, certain activities of the elementary and the high school
need to be extended to the middle school. The preadolescent is making a
transition from a concrete operational stage of thinking ("a conceptual stage
where the early adolescent organizes information around categories which are
generalizable from one instance to another") characteristic of elementary age
students to a formal operational stage (characterized by abstract thought, and
use of components of logic and reasoning to make decisions) typical of high
school age students (Piaget, 1970; Thornburg, 1981, p. 135).

Although curricular theoriests have suggested writing activities
incorporating aspects of the reconstructive (social criticism and social action)
approach for high-school students (e.g., Brameld, 1970; Giroux, 1978; Newmann,
1975), middle-school students also, because of their emerging abilities to deal
with abstractions, hypothesize, and make logical deductions, can build upon
concrete experiences of organizing and categorizing information of elementary
school and become involved also in activities of critical thinking and writing as
well.

Middle schools, usually encompassing grades six, seven, and eight, are

based on the assumption that preadolescents (an age range from ten to fourteen

16

years) have specific needs resulting from changes in physical development, social
interactions, and intellectual functioning. Middle schools respond to
preadolescent needs by developing programs focused on the learner rather than
on the structure of a discipline. Middle school programs are designed to build
upon elementary-school learning experiences and to provide a bridge to high
school years. (Clark 6: Clark, 1981; Swaim, 1981)

Characteristics attributed in the literature to middle school are student-
centered (e.g., Georgiady, 1980; Riegle & Romano, 1973; Michigan State
Department of Education, 1980). Characteristics of middle school aim at
meeting developmental needs of students-u-intellectual, social, physical, and
emotional. Two prime examples of these characteristics are l) the flexible
scheduling of classes to encourage freedom of movement and self-directed
learning, and 2) the use of curriculum materials that provide for individual
student needs and interests.

Characteristic curricular activities of the Middle School include the
following: a) organized Opportunities to improve basic skills (e.g., reading,
listening and asking questions), b) student choice of tapic areas for
investigations, and of methods and resources for learning activities, c) creative
experiences that students can direct and develop, d) learning experiences that
gradually move students from concrete to abstract modes of thinking (e.g.,
hypothesizing and decision-making), e) small group interactions through which
students may experience acceptance by peers, become aware of new concepts of
self, and develop social skills, and f) procedures that offer students a personal
and positive evaluation of their products, and that allow for students' own
assessment of their present progress and their planning for future progress.

The researcher can compare typical middle-school characteristics with

typical elements manifested in the writing curriculum that the teacher and

17

entering middle-school students of this study enacted. For example, does the
teacher follow the format of a school-endorsed textbook or program? Insofar as
she follows such a format, does the program or text address the immediate and
ongoing needs and interests of her preadolescent students? Or does she
continuously assess student needs and interests and improvise writing activities,
using alternative resources to meet their emerging needs? In what ways do
district or school policies inhibit or constrain the teacher's efforts to provide for

students' developmental needs and interests?

Writing as a Problem Area for Curriculum Development

Educational theorists and researchers (e.g., Applebee, 1981; Giroux, 1978;
Graves, 1977) point out that writing is a problem area for curriculum
development from viewpoints of both educators and society at large.

According to Graves (1977) society regards writing more as a series of
norms to be met than as a means to communicate. In support of this view he
cites a survey that he made of newspapers and magazines--articles and letters to
the editor--that document a fascination with errors of writing rather than
attention to the substance of writing. He states that interviews with adults also
indicated a societal view that identifies the recent national focus on the "return
to basics," with writing as a punishing aspect of the adults' own memories of
schooling. Interviewees advocated writing (e.g., teaching of grammar,
assignment of written compositions) as an effective means to correct a present
lack of acceptable student conduct in schools.

Schools, especially those using a traditional textbook as curriculum guide,
often treat writing instruction as imparting primarily a series of technical skills
that typically focus on formal rules of grammar, spelling drills and punctuation.
(Applebee, 1978; Brown, 1981; Giroux, 1978; Graves, 1978). Writing instruction

is then often perceived as a skill only marginally connected to the learning of

18

other subjects, e.g., limited to the mechanics of testing, filling in blanks, or
"slotting in" missing information (Applebee, 1981, p. 9).

Transcending these influential perspectives, a presupposition of this study
is that writing instruction is much more than a series of decontextualized or
mechanical skills. Learning to write involves an integration of both form and
content; it is a process of learning how to think, or to make decisions in the
process of discovering and integrating new knowledge. Writing instruction is a
dialogic process--involves exchanges of ideas and opinions—a relationship among
author, subject and audie'tce. (Applebee, 1981; Giroux, 1978; Graves, 1981;
Moffett, 1979; Moffett 6c Wagner, 1983)

To confront problems of identifying and describing different aspects of a
writing curriculum, it is first necessary to ask questions regarding cognitive and
social activities that produce writing, i.e, questions about the curriculum in use--
for example, ensuing research questions based upon the following assumptions
about writing: a) that characteristics of the process of writing can be observed
in social contexts, b) that understanding of writing in its social contexts
presupposes understanding meanings that social contexts and uses of writing have
for participants in the contexts, and c) that curricular theories can shed light on
meanings of patterns (e.g., concepts, purposes for writing) in data gathered as
teacher and students negotiate processes of teaching and learning to write
(Hymes, 1972).

The act of writing, for purposes of observation, is construed as the process
of forming characters, letters, words (and drawings) on paper, acetate,
chalkboard, etc., with pencil, pen or chalk, and the oral language and social
situations that form the contexts for these writings. The meaning of writing,
i.e., the participant's interpretation, can be induced, for example, from the

teacher's stated purposes for and reflections on the teaching of writing, student

19

comments and reactions to the process of learning to write, and concurrence (or
non-concurrence) of teacher and student activities with the teacher's stated
purposes or directives. Curricular theories may illuminate the teacher's
perspectives in relation to middle school philosophy and the purpose of writing in
the curriculum (see Figure 1).

A writing curriculum from a reproductive, or traditional perspective
centers on established subject matter fields or on reproducing our cultural
heritage, for example, summarizing selected literary works. The establishment
of only general objectives, for example, teaching students to think, is considered
scientifically unverifiable. To be preferred is the establishment of specific
objectives derived from available knowledge with emphasis on evaluation of
these objectives by pre- and posttesting (Hirst, 1974; Tyler, 1981). Emphasis is
on a series of efficiently testable skills that include handwriting, spelling,
punctuation, simple to complex sentence structures, and possibly skills of
paraphrasing or summarizing established works (Graves, 1977; Giroux, 1978;
Moffett, 1979).

A writing curriculum from a constructive, or progressive perspective,
centers on students and their needs. A constructive curriculum takes into
account subject matter as created or integrated in present or ongoing
experiences of students, such as feelings and emerging ideas, as they explore and
interact with their environment. A constructive curriculum also introduces
students to teacher guided projects such as story writing and interdisciplinary
research reports that involve using a variety of methods suited to faciliate their
social, emotional, and intellectual growth (Corl, 1981; Dewey, 1916; Graves,
1977; Mayhew & Edwards, 1936; Ozmon 6r Craver, 1981; Uehara, 1978).

A writing curriculum from the reconstructive, or social criticism and social

action perspective, focuses on ways to stimulate student awareness and

20

articulation of possible alternative futures for society, or alternatives to present
oppressive societal practices. A reconstructive curriculum emphasizes writing
as a dialectical process in which participants in the process contextualize events,
see concepts as problematic, and express viewpoints or write critically about
conflicts in and norms and mores of society, for example, issues of injustice, and
whether or not they should, and how they might be changed (for example,
rewrites of history from critical perspectives; series of debates and letters on
issues of school reforms; written discourse about school constraints of scheduling
and space limitations, or frustrating experiences and alternative ways to deal
with them). (Freire, 1981; Giroux, 1978; Newmann, 1975)

The next chapter describes the circumstances and methods of data
collection and analysis in a middle school sixth-grade classroomuhow data were
gathered and analyzed in view of the four exploratory questions, and the
assumptions and the perspectives delineated in the present chapter. The third
chapter describes the setting of the study and writing events in relation to the
four exploratory questions. The last chapter summarizes the study and explains
the significance of findings for educators. For example, the value of an in depth
case study, generalizable to other teaching situations has rarely been done in
middle school—it presents models to show, for instance, that rather than accept
a predetermined curriculum or text, teachers can develop writing curricula based
on ongoing assessments of students in processes and products of writing. Such
curricula need not neglect skills development but integrate teaching of skills
with creative writing activities and interdisciplinary projects. Another
contribution of the study is that it articulates three theoretical perspectives
from which teachers can bring to bear on their own beliefs and practices—~better
articulate their own curricular activities and consider alternatives to improve

their curricula.

21

 

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CHAPTER II
METHODS

Background

This study is derived from a larger research project on the Acquisition of
Written Literacyl based on data collected both in a second grade in an
elementary school and in a sixth grade in a middle school. The data for this
investigation was selected from an enormous amount of data collected only in
the sixth grade, much of which was not dealt with or elaborated on in the larger
study. The author of this presentation was the primary collector of data in the
middle school. This investigation focuses on separate theoretical assumptions as
well as the set of separately developed exploratory questions described in
Chapter I.

This study follows especially one of the directives for further research
suggested in the final report of the larger study (Clark 6r Florio, et. al., 1982),
namely, a more focused descriptive study to illustrate the influence of the

teacher's beliefs about the writing process on her planning and teaching.

Rationale

Ethnography, typically used in anthropology and sociology is a way of
studying social groups. It is particularly suited for the study of curriculum.
1 Written Literacy Study, co-coordinated by Christopher M. Clark and Susan
Florio, with Janis L. Elmore, June M. Martin, Rhoda J. Maxwell, and William
Metheny. Research sponsored in part by the Institute for Research on Teaching,
College of Education, Michigan State University, and supported by the National
Institute for Education (NIE Contract no. 400-81-0014 and NIE Grant No. 90840)

22

23

Curriculum is concerned with questions of content, method and evaluation or
goals (Bernstein, 1975). These elements are not found in isolation but are
interrelated systems that evolve in social contexts of the classroom, school, and
community (Eggleston, 1977). Because writing activities take place in social
contexts, and because writing can be viewed as a dialectic process among
writers, their audience, and the content of the writing (Giroux, 1978), an
approach is needed that is aimed at understanding how settings and perspectives
of participants affect ways that curriculum is enacted.

Curriculum has dimensions that are wide in sc0pe and cannot always be
determined a prior'. For example, Eggleston (1977) described curriculum as "a
body of learning experiences responding to a societal view of knowledge that
may not always be fully expressed or even fully accepted by teachers or
students" (pp. 20-21). Ethnography employs techniques designed to illuminate
such experiences. These techniques include the following: gathering of many
types of data relevant to the meaning structures of the participants; reduction
and analysis of data in accord with questions guiding the reseach; using
information gathered and theories that emerge to direct subsequent data
collection; and refining and testing theories through consideration of both
negative and supporting evidence (Wilson, 1977).

At least three types of interpretation can be used to understand the
teacher's manifested and intended writing curriculum, and the hidden and
unintended curriculum of classroom and school. The types of interpretation
consist of the following: first, an identification and description of activities or
events and the relation of these events to one another; second, the interpretation
of social meanings of events from the viewpoints of participants, or insiders; and
third, the relation of such events to external considerations, e.g., theories from

the social sciences, current trends, historical and philosOphical factors (Bellack,

24

1981; King, 1982; McCutcheon, 1981; Schatzman & Strauss, 1973; Willis, 1977;

Wilson, 1977).

More specifically, in this study the three types of interpretation will focus

on the following:

I.

identification of writing curriculum activities and their common
ingredients and interrelationships;

vieWpoints of the teacher, and peripherally, those of students, on
writing activities; and,

the relation of the writing curriculum to the different curricular
theories presented in Chapter 1, namely, reproductive, constructive

and reconstructive approaches to curriculum making.

Data Collection and Analysis

Overview

Data for this study were collected during an entire school year. Entry was

negotiated and maintained with an experienced teacher of communication arts

and social studies who had a reputation for having her students do a lot of

writing. Data, collected in a mid-Michigan middle school, consisted of the

following types:

a)

b)

c)

d)

field notes, gathered each day during the beginning weeks of the
school year, and approximately two-three days each week during the
remainder of the school year;

videotapes of writing project activities (two days in the Fall and two
days in the Spring), supplemented by audiotapes of small group
interchanges;

weekly teacher journals about plans for and reflections on the writing
curriculum;

weekly teacher interviews; and

25

e) student writing samples, and other school artifacts.
These data are particularly appropriate for investigation of the four questions
proposed in Chapter I (see Appendix A for data samples). For example, the
weekly journal entries and teacher interviews reveal information about teacher
selection of content, and perspectives on how she implemented her plans, topics
addressed by the first two questions. Field notes and videotapes reveal
information about students' interactive roles in curriculum making in the context
of several writing occasions and indicate ways that scheduling and other
elements tend either to isolate writing or integrate it with other curricular
areas, topics addressed by the last two exploratory questions. The different
types of data are also compared (triangulated) with one another to test working
hypotheses (Gorden, 1969; McCutcheon, 1981). And finally, after consideration
of both supporting and possibly disproving evidence, and of alternative

interpretations, propositions are revised and conclusions synthesized.

Participant Observation

 

Questions about the actual process of teaching writing can't be considered
unless extensive time is spent gathering detailed data in the teaching
environment, e.g., the classroom (Graves, 1981). As participant observer, I was
present in the classroom nearly half (78) of 180 required school days. My
activities, as I observed teacher-student involvements during all or part of the
school day, included the following: detailed recording of observations in field
notes, videotaping selected writing events, collecting writing samples and other
school and classroom artifacts and participating in some teacher-student
activities.

Data collection proceeded through three distinct phases. In the first phase
(September 5 — September 28), the first month of the school year, I observed

teacher and student interactions during each school day to discover how the

26

school day was becoming organized, and times when writing was taking place.
These early days of the school year were also times for students, who had come
from at least seven different elementary schools, and for me as well, to become
better acquainted with different aspects of the new school environment. Ms.
Anderson, the focal teacher, introduced me to students as a friend, with whom
all, herself included, would eventually become better acquainted (Field notes,
9/6/79:2). I indeed became better acquainted with the students and the teacher,
despite limits of classroom space that often constrained my mobility and
accessibility to many of the students (see also, Chapter III, e.g., Figure 3, for
further description of space constraints). Samples selected from selected field
notations on space limitations follow.

There is a shortage of chairs. Gordon, (student) moves teacher's

chair to back (south) corner of room for me, near folding door-a

mistake, because Mr. Hathaway (Ms. Anderson's teaching partner)

soon opens folding doors so that the teachers can address both groups

of students regarding the school handbook. I felt that I was in the

way, in students' line of vision, so moved to the now back (North end)

of room near the door (to hallway), stood to observe the proceedings

(Field notes, 9/10/79:3)

I sometimes feel in the way. Room seems crowded. Hardly a place

for me to stand without being in someone's pathway. (Field notes,

9/14/79:5)

Because Ms. Anderson was rarely not interacting with, or responding to the
needs of her students (approximately 30 in each of her classes), I squeezed in
times to confer with her, most often just before or after class sessions or
activities, responded to students' requests for my assistance and to their offers
to be of assistance to me, and played Scrabble with them, also games they had
devised. In addition, I participated with the teacher and students in more

formal, or planned, getting acquainted activities. For example, we each wrote a

This Is My Life booklet that we shared with one another (see Chapter III for an

 

account of this activity).

27

During the first days of school final decisions about scheduling of regular
classes were delayed—initially because of uncertainty regarding final student
enrollment count and the possiblity of adding a third teacher to their team, and
later, because of the necessity of waiting for a series of test results that served
as criteria for grouping students according to ability. Groupings for spelling
classes, for example, were not announced until September 24, and reading classes
not until two days later. I documented the establishmett of separate spelling
and reading classes in field notes:

Ms. Anderson explains to me that next Monday, students will go to a

spelling teacher in one of six rooms, and that student names would be

posted on the doors of the rooms. (Field notes, 9/21/79:9)

Ms. Anderson tells students that on Mondays and Thursdays they will

have reading right after spelling. She reads aloud the names of

students who will be with each of the teachers. (Field notes,

9/26/79:7)

In the midst of processes of testing and solidifying the school schedule, Ms.
Anderson introduced students to a variety of short writing activities which took
one week or less. She began to speak of writing events in relation to one
another, and revealed plans for types of writing assignments that she would
assign throughout the school year on a regular basis, as illustrated in the
following field notes written in September:

Ms. Anderson explains that she requires a research theme at the

semester, and that students have already been preparing for this by

doing their life booklets. Field notes, 9/26/79:8)

Ms. Anderson explains that everyone is to do a book report every nine

weeks . . . must have read one new book by November 1. (Field

notes, 9/11/79:5)

As I examined the date in search of writing activity patterns and deviations
from patterns in ongoing reviews of field notes, I hypothesized that the writing

curriculum would characteristically facilitate written literacy through

predictability of structure and diversity of task (Memo, 10/15/79).

28

In the second phase of data collection (October 2 - December 19) I sought
additional patterns of activity to support my hypothesis. I observed teacher-
student interactions in the more established and regular patterns of a segmented
school schedule of separated spelling, reading, "communication arts," and social
studies classes that Ms. Anderson taught. I also began to extend my observations
to the mathematics and science classes that Mr. Hathaway, her team partner,
taught. As I attempted, by random selection, to cover each of these discrete
subject areas, I noted within the delimited areas of communication arts and
social studies continuous patterns of activity and interrelationships among
frequently occurring writing events. Increasingly, however, I became frustrated
with what I considered an inadequate coverage of writing events. My random
two-to—three days per week observations caught only "pieces" (formal, or teacher
planned segments or parts of writing activities) and "traces" (unplanned or
spontaneous references to formally planned writing activities). I began to
consider how to find a way to observe at least all the "pieces" of a writing
activity. In October field notes I wrote the following:

I am again wondering how best to choose times/days to be at Harbin

Middle School. Many factors could be determining criteria, e.g.,

continuity of lessons, comparision of "one lesson" taught to two

different groups--are they really alike? In that case, would I miss out

on different types of writing across subject areas? Closer

examination and careful coding of notes already acquired may yield

more clues, or suggest other criteria for deciding times for
participant observation. (Field notes, 10/3/79z4)

Despite my dilemma about a suitable observation schedule, I began to
formulate what turned out to be a recurring and basic theme of Ms. Anderson's
curricular planninguthat she would use student performance in earlier writing
activities as a basis for selecting, sequencing, and building later and more
complex writing activities. In November field notes I wrote as follows:

Also, inspired by the type of work students do, Ms. Anderson finds

occasions for one assignment to lead to another. Students'
preference for report writing stimulates Ms. Anderson to

29

opportunities to develop/provide students with skills that they might

choose alternative types of writing-e.g., to write imaginatively

about place, personal characterization and conversation in creative
story writing. (Field notes, ll/28/79:4)

In the third, or last phase of data collection (January 10 - June 9), as a
means to pick up all the "pieces", I met with the teachers during a planning
meeting in early January, and asked them to select, in their respective subject
areas, activities for me to observe. Ms. Anderson made suggestions for projects
she would begin in social studies and communication arts, and Mr. Hathaway
suggested activities he would begin in science and mathematics (Field notes,
1/ 10/80:1). During this phase, then, I observed activities in each of the four
subject areas. I consulted the teacher about beginning times for activities or
projects, and consulted frequently, especially with Ms. Anderson, about the
changes she continued to make in her plans. But because of unexpected last-
minute interruptions the teacher was not always able to predict happenings
accurately and I sometimes missed out on the action. The following February
account illustrates the case:

Called Ms. Anderson to ask her about participant observation times

for the following week. She informs me of no school on Monday

(Presidents' Day), suggests times for Tuesday and Wednesday (two

times each day in which students will do research in the library), and

probably Thursday afte'noon and Friday morning. She wants students

to take most of their notes this week. . . .I also asked Ms. Anderson

about time discrepancies of last week. . . .I told her I'd rather come

early than late . . . says that times for class were different, probably

because of the assemblies. (Memo: 2/17/80; 335)

As I continued my patterns of observation or data gathering I reviewed
field notes and other data sources, particularly to seek out the teacher's
perspective (e.g., Interviews, Journal entries). I charted the flow of writing
activities, common techniques the teacher used to present and implement

writing activities, and different ways that students participated in the events. I

also continued to search for ways that events were interrelated. In addition, I

30

also identified and categorized the constraints that the teacher encountered as
she enacted writing curriculum with her students.
The next chapter describes the setting of the study, and writing events, or

findings in relation to the four exploratory questions.

CHAPTER III
THE CREATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A WRITING CURRICULUM

Introduction and Overview
The primary focus of this presentation of data is the writing curriculum
that a middle school teacher, Ms. Anderson, and her sixth-grade students
enacted.
The four sections of this chapter respond to four corresponding exploratory
questions, namely:

1. What writing curriculum does the middle-school teacher choose to
develop and implement with her students?

2. How does the teacher actually implement the writing curriculum?

3. What are the responsibilities of students for enacting the writing
curriculum?

4. What relationship do elements of the teacher's intended writing
curriculum have to other curricular elements of the school?

An assumption of this study (see Chapter I) is that curriculum is not only
the 1111!: objectives or goals, but also involves the ho_w, processes or methods,
and the \Lhy, answers to questions such as "Who decides the curriculum? For
what purpose?" Another assumption is that the _wh_a_t, the M and the _w_hy of the
curriculum in use are inextricably interrelated. This analysis, however, treats
the 111%, the h_ow_ and the why of curriculum separately as well as in relationship
to larger contexts.

In response to the first exploratory question, the first major chapter
section identifies the teacher's goals or beliefs (e.g., to provide opportunities in

31

32

which each student can feel successful, do his or her best, enjoy writing
activities), and how such beliefs or goals influenced the teacher's plans for
enacting the curriculum of writing (e.g., sequence skills, choose types of
resources, involve students in activities of writing, use models, provide
opportunities for students to share their written products).

In response to the second exploratory question, the second section of this
chapter describes key writing activities of the school year, and how Ms.
Anderson linked these activities in her ongoing efforts to meet her overall
purposes or goals for teaching writing, namely (a) to improve student skills
developmentally, (b) to stimulate student interest in longer term meaningful
writing projects, and (c) to transcend subject area boundaries, i.e., use writing as
an instrument to accomplish social studies objectives or goals.

In response to the third exploratory question the third section of this
chapter elaborates upon specific writing events to show how students
increasingly took responsibility for different aspects of the writing process, for
example, by listening to directions, by revising drafts, and by critiquing written
products of their peers.

And, in reply to the fourth exploratory question, the fourth or last chapter
section elaborates upon specific writing events to show how teacher and students
dealt with potential obstacles to the enactment of writing, namely, those
constraints primarily related to imposed content, large numbers of students, and
time and space limitations. Considered here, for instance, are ways Ms.
Anderson dealt with district or school imposed curricular elements such as the
school spelling program, school schedule (see Appendix B) school stated
objectives for writing (see Appendix C), and accomplishment of Common
Writings (see Appendix D), that appeared to frustrate her intended writing

processes, that is, selected teaching and learning activities.

33

First, as a prologue to the four sections, a description of the setting is
important in order to establish environmental context for subsequent description
and analysis. Schools, and especially classrooms, as contexts of, or environments
for literacy offer both constraints and opportunities that affect the planning and

enactment of the writing curriculum (DeFord dc Harste, 1982; Graves, 1981).

Setting of the Study

School Environment

 

The setting for the study was Harbin Middle School (names of the middle
school site, teachers and students are pseudonyms), which was located in a
midwestern university city inhabited by approximately 47,000 persons. At the
time of the study the school population consisted of 515 sixth-, seventh- and
eighth-grade students. The majority of entering sixth-grade students graduated
from one of seven area elementary schools. A principal and an assistant
principal oversaw school activities. Six team teachers staffed each grade level.
The school also employed 12 special area teachers and 12 supportive personnel
(e.g., reading specialist, librarian, counselor, teacher aides, clerical helpers).

Academic teams of two-to-four teachers were responsible for instruction
in math, science, social studies and communication arts (including reading and
spelling) to two or more groups of approximately thirty students. Special area
subjects (for sixth-grade students) included music—band, strings, or chorus; art;
and physical education.

Sixth-grade students were assigned to one of three teams of two teachers
(team 61, team 62, or team 63). Ms. Anderson taught social studies and
communication arts, and Mr. Hathaway, her team partner, taught math and
science to the same group of sixty students, namely, team 61. Both teachers
taught separate classes of reading and spelling that included students outside

team 61.

34

For all team subjects, except reading and spelling, students were divided
into two heterogeneous groups of equal number. For reading and spelling
students were assigned homogeneously to their respective classes, according to

test results, to one of the six sixth-grade teachers.

Classroom Environment

 

Sixth-grade students and their teachers reported to classrooms located on
the second floor of a three-story building. At the south end of a long hall is the
school library. Next to the library, on the west side of the hall, was Mr.
Hathaway's classroom. Next to Mr. Hathaway's classroom was that of Ms.
Anderson. A folding door divides the two classrooms.

The North (front) wall of Ms. Anderson's classroom contains a (nearly) wall
to wall chalkboard. Toward the front of the room, in the East wall, a door leads
into the hallway. Next to the door and built into the wall, are cupboards
bordered on each side by two small bulletin boards. Directly across from the
door, in the West wall, are three adjoining windows. To the left of the windows
is a large bulletin board. The floor is carpeted. A public address receiver and a
calling button are on the east wall.

A mix of desks, and tables with chairs accommodated student work space.
Classroom maps (see Appendix E) illustrate differences in arrangements of

furnishings for various writing activities during the school year.

Schedule of Activities
The school calendar year, September 6, 1979, through June 13, 1980, was
divided into four "marking periods" of approximately nine weeks (Student
Handbook, p. 19). At the end of each marking period, teachers sent
computerized reports of student progress to parents. (See Appendix F for sample

reports items.) The reports consisted of approximately fifteen-to-twenty brief

35

comments relative to the students' academic progress and social growth. The
school did not send out letter grades or percents. In the fall and spring, the
school scheduled parent-teacher conferences and the teacher sent home a report
of progress the day prior to the scheduled conference.

Formally divided blocks of time-five class periods of fifty-five minutes,
one class period of thirty-six minutes, a twenty—five minute lunch period, and
three minutes between these periods--divided activities of each school day (see
Harbin Middle School Schedule, Appendix B). Team teachers were theoretically
free to negotiate with their teaching partners teaching time for their respective
subject areas within the school assigned daily morning and afternoon team
subjects time blocks. More is said about scheduling and negotiation of teaching
time later in the text.

First Section: Selection of Writing Curriculum
Goals and Processes
_G£al_s

In the context of her subject area domains, that is, communication arts and
social studies, Ms. Anderson, in interaction with her students, developed goals
and implemented means to attain them. Ms. Anderson reported that her
overarching concern, her goal, was that each student experience success. For
example, after a particularly difficult and tedious series of pretests, Ms.
Anderson considered a need for short lessons of more appropriate levels of
challenge to students so that they would feel more positive about their writing
experiences. In a September journal entry she wrote

I want to start with several short lessons or activities where everyone
can feel successful. (Journal, 9/7/79)

And in an October interview Ms. Anderson expressed the need for
introducing skill lessons to facilitate student success experiences in anticipated

larger writing endeavors.

36

Ms. Anderson feels that it is better to teach students a writing skill
than plunge them into an activity where they have to know the skill
to be successful at the activity. (Interview, 10/9/79)
Processes
Ms. Anderson interpreted writing instruction processes as consisting of
three aspects--the teacher's role, the students' role, and the "why of teaching

writing" (Journal, 9/6/79). The following paragraphs give evidence for this

assertion.

The Why of the WritinLProcess

Ms. Anderson identified both a general "why" for the writing process,
namely, to clarify feelings and focus thinking, and differentiated four specific
"whys" to categorize particular writing activities, namely, (a) writing as skills
development; (b) writing as a process-~of drafting, then editing and revising; (c)
writing as a means to achieve social studies goals; and (d) writing as a "filler" for
gaps in the classroom or school program (see Figure 2 for categories of "skills,"
"topics", and "social studies"). The second section of this chapter describes each
of the key writing activities Ms. Anderson classified primarily as "skills"
development lessons, writing activities she classified as "topics" projects that
involved editing and revising of first drafts, and writing activities she classified
as "social studies" or interdisciplinary projects. The fourth section of this
chapter describes writing activities she classified as "fillers."

In Ms. Anderson's view, expressed in an early school year journal entry, the
"why" of teaching writing in general was the conviction that writing helps
students throw light upon their feelings and concentrate upon, clarify, and
develop ideas about a topic or a question:

To me, one of the most important reasons for teaching writing is the

belief that writing forces one to focus on a problem or an idea. It

becomes necessary to make judgments—is this good--bad-or how
could I state myself more clearly. Students often seem to have

strong feelings on topics, but if they can't be stated on paper then the
ideas obviously need clarification. (Journal, 9/6/79)

37

Later in the year she reiterated and elaborated upon her perspective about the
"why" of writing:

Ms. Anderson went on to say, that the reason she thinks writing is so

important is that it helps students focus their thinking. They will

often have ideas and arguments that are not thought out and they are
unaware that their ideas need developing and clarifying. She believes

the writing helps them do this. (Interview, 12/11/79)

Ms. Anderson's "why" of the writing process may be particularly important
to know in relation to one or more of the four curricular areas the questions of
this study address, that is, (a) bases for the teacher's selection of curricular
writing activities, (b) keys to teaching methodology or curriculum
implementationuinterrelating and sequencing of writing activities, (c) guides for
ways in which the teacher negotiated the curriculum with her students, and (d)
clues to ways that outside sources or other curricular elements became

constraints (obstacles) to or opportunities for furthering the teacher's curricular

plans.

Teacher's Role in the Writing Process

The teacher's role in the writing process, as Ms. Anderson explained, is
many-faceted. Part of the teacher's role, or functions that she identified, are
the following:

1. to assess and develop student's writing skills through sequential
building of writing activities,

2. to provide models as guides for student writings,
3. to provide assistance to individual students as needed,

4. to devise individualized skills tasks based on assessment of students'
written products,

5. to evaluate written products, and
6. to share different facets of her role with students.
Ms. Anderson selected writing activities in view of these functions as

illustrated in the succeeding subsections.

38

(l) Assessmett and development of students' writing skills through
sequential building of writing activities. The teacher's role, Ms. Anderson
believed, was to facilitate student success experiences by discovering abilities or
skills of each student, then developing or building additional skills based upon
what the student already knew. In her journal, for example, she wrote in this
regard that:

. . . the teacher's role is to assess the skills of each of the students

and help them develop their writing skills from that point. For that

reason-while I may give the same theme topic to all 60 students--my

expectations will vary with individuals. (Journal, 9/6/79)

By ongoing evaluations of students‘ current writings, Ms. Anderson
determined skills that students needed. She attempted to meet student skill
needs, as well as to stimulate their interests, by enacting various types of
writing activities such as those described in the second section (see especially
Figure 2). The second section describes key writing activities according to the
time Ms. Anderson implemented them, in each of four marking periods of the
school year, and according to three ways in which she categorized them. Ms.
Anderson introduced one category of activity, "skills", to prepare students for
another category of activities, "topics," longer projects that required students to
do original writing of drafts with subsequent editing and revising. She intended
that learnings from both these categories of activity extend to a third category
of writing activities, one that typified writing as means to achieve "social
studies" goals. But writing activities were interrelated across both marking
periods and categories, according to skill emphases, for example. Such skills
included construction and punctuation of sentences, paragraph composition and
paragraph development, notetaking, and outlining (see especially Figure 2--
symbols on the chart indicate common writing emphases of the different writing

activities).

I39

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40

Interrelationships among writing events is even more complex than the
chart indicates. But, Ms. Anderson did not preselect the entire curriculum.
Instead one writing event seemed to suggest another. For instance, Sentence
Writing skills exercises (Al in Figure 2) prepared for or reinforced the Diary Page
and This Is My Life booklet emphasis on sentence writing (BI in Figure 2), and the

writing of Graph Questions (CI in Figure 2) extended emphasis on sentence

 

writing in general to the challenges of writing a particular type of sentence, the
process of writing coherent questions about summarized graph information. A
lesson in Writing Directions (AI) introduced students to the format and processes
for creative theme or paragraph writing, e.g., Something Old (BI), and Me: Now
and Then (BII). The gathering of notes in rough outline form for a speech (Al)
and the outlining prerequisite to the drafting of a theme, My Age, also prepared
students for notetaking and outlining required for the research project and
speech about A City of the World (BIII), and for notetaking and presentations of
social studies activities (CIII), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? The second
section of this chapter further explains the interrelationships or sequential
building of writing events.

Hence, skill lessons (short discrete writing activities), though at time
taught in isolation, or separate from larger writing projects, were yet related to
the projects - typically more complex learning activities that involved more
time, research and planning. The formal writing projects became the primary
foci of the writing curriculum for Ms. Anderson in the sense that she planned for
skill lessons as necessary prerequisites for her sequentially planned larger writing
projects. Ms. Anderson articulated her plan for sequentially building of writing
activities in an interview in the fall. Her comments are paraphrased below:

Ms. Anderson does not like to "wing it" but likes everything well

planned out. She likes lessons to be sequential so that she can refer

back to previous lessons and kind of build on that. (Interview,
10/9/79)

41

(2) Provision of models as guides for student writings.
Another major procedure Ms. Anderson used to accomplish skills development
was that of modeling. She believed that students' experiences with models of
completed assignments or aspects of the writing process give them ideas, and
confidence in writing. She expressed this belief in a journal entry:

Because many students are insecure (to say the least!) about the
writing process, I often do the assignment myself, and post it as a
model so they can see if they have the right ideas. (Journal, 9/6/79)

One example of modeling is the Life Booklets that Ms. Anderson and another
teacher constructed, particularly to show examples of caption sentences and to
show ways that students could organize their own booklets. Field notes indicate
how she shared the Life Booklet models with her students.

Ms. Anderson passes out magazines, specifies that the assignment
must be neat, well organized, and written in complete sentences that
make sense. She asks students to look in the magazines for pictures
that show something about their lives. She shows them a booklet she
has done about her life. There are about two or three pictures per
page and next to each of the pictures is written at least one
sentence. Ms. Anderson reads these sentences to the class. They tell
about her graduation from college, marriage, church, sons, hobbies,
travel, vacations, experience as teacher in grade six. She shows
students another booklet that Ms. Angeli (another teacher) has done.
(Field notes, 9/14/79:8)

Another instance of modeling is Ms. Anderson's drafting of a Following
Directions composition for students to edit and revise, as she subsequently
encouraged students to do for their own compositions.

Ms. Anderson shows the sentences she has written a little at a time

on the overhead projector; e.g., "If you follow my directions carfully.

. . ('carfully' is crossed out and 'carefully' written above it)" Ms.

Anderson asks students to read the next paragraph. Student does so.

A student suggests that Ms. Anderson's cursive 'G' looks more like an

'S'. . . Ms. Anderson asks if there is a better way to say her

paragraph. Students make suggestions. (Field notes, 9/25/79:2)

Yet another instance of modeling is Ms. Anderson's explanation and illustrations
of preparatory notes as well as actual Speech making:

Ms. Anderson asks Peter to time her speech. . . .

42

Jeremy: "Can we bring an animal?" (Ms. Anderson describes the
pitfalls and advantages of bringing one.)

Marston: "Ms. Anderson, I can't talk for two minutes." . . .

Ms. Anderson explains note cards and the first and last sentence of
her speech, which she shows on the overhead projector.

Ms. Anderson: "I don't give speeches very often. . . (Ms. Anderson
gets organized for her speechutells how she got started in
needlepoint, shows small pillow, materials used, counts off stitches to
make design. . . .Ms. Anderson tells the advantages of her hobby.
Students clap. Ms. Anderson smiles. . . . Ms. Anderson asks students
to take a card and, by Friday, write their names on it and the topic
for their speech. (Field notes, 10/10/79:5)

Not only did Ms. Anderson model assignmeits for students to give them a
sense of direction, but also to help her anticipate problems students might have
with their writing:

She always likes to do the assignment first, partly to use it as an

example, but also to see if there are any problems in the actual doing

of the task that she didn't foresee. Ms. Anderson comments that she

thinks she writes like a sixth-grader because of doing all the

assignments. (Interview, 9/17/79)

(3) Provision of assistance to individual students as needed. Ms. Anderson
believed in helping students meet with success not only by sequentially building
lessons based upon her continuing assessment of their competence in writing
skills and by providing models as guides to writing, but also by providing personal
assistance to students whenever possible. During the second and third months of
the school year, she expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of help she was
able to offer students and in her journal indicated ways that she could provide
more help for them, namely, additional work periods, and use of an aide.

This morning there was also a work period where I could help students

with this week's written work (description of a person). I wish I could

find a way to do this more often. (Journal, 10/31/79)

I hope they (students) begin to find the time valuable enough that

they will police each other so 1 can concentrate on being a "helper".

I'm also going to try to get an aide (from the university) for those

afternoons so there will be two of us who can answer questions."
(Journal, 11/29/79)

43

On through the school year Ms. Anderson implemented many student
periods of writing activity and provided the assistance of an aide. For example,
she provided many opportunities for students to explore the library to discover
and use resources relevant to a research theme, A City of the World. Ms.
Anderson and a university student assisted them during their search:

Inez traces map. Martin looks at National Geographic; Gentry pulls
out atlases. Steve pages through book on Greece and other books.
Other students use atlases, encyclopedias, trade books and other
library resources. Ms. Anderson assists various students. Student
aide helps student. (Field notes, 2/21/80: 2)

Ms. Anderson and an aide also assisted students as they all creatively enacted a
variety of roles to draft, revise, edit and evaluate stories in a simulation game
called Right ls Write. (Right Is Write is available from Innovative Ventures, Inc.,
429 Marbleridge Road, North Andover, MA.) The following dialogue illustrates
ways Ms. Anderson offered help and encouragement to individual students:

Ms. Anderson: "Bjorn, did you sell your story?" (Ms. Anderson
explains to him how to give two papers to an agent to sell. She offers
to help him with other assignments if he would not care to start
another story.)

Ms. Anderson: "Who's on their third story, anybody?". . . "Where's
your agent? Oh, you're just to that point, eh?"

Student: "Oh, I mess up on my other one bad. I couldn't change it."
Ms. Anderson: (empathetically) "Oh. are you rewriting it?. . . Would
it be easier to c0py it from this one. . .? though (looks at his paper)
. . . The words are right aren't they?" (Student responds) "You do
what you think is best."

(Ms. Anderson walks over to Tara's table)

Tara: "I'm twisting it (the story) around a little."

Ms. Anderson: "Once There Was?"

Tara: "Yeah, that's my title."

Ms. Anderson: "That's interesting. Once there was what?" . . . "What
do you think?". . . (Ms. Anderson looks at another student) "What do
you)think she's gonna write?" (Videotape commentary, 5/6/80, 1:461-
491

In addition to providing time and opportunities for individual or personal

assistance to students, Ms. Anderson also strived to enable them to work

44

independently and at their own pace on individualized skill assignments-again,
as in sequentially planned group lessons and assignments, based on continued
assessment of their competencies in writing skills.

(4) Determination of individualized skills tasks based on assessment of
students' written products. As Ms. Anderson assessed the competencies of each
student, she also planned writing skills activities on an individualized basis.
Although she expressed the idea that writing activities--lessons and projectsnare
linked based on the building of complex skills, she realized that students had not
attained the same skills. In an interview, she expressed the bases of her plans to
meet her students‘ needs.

Ms. Anderson uses several books and some ditto sheets for the

material to teach different skills to different students. She has never

found a kit of writing skills she likes as the students have too wide a

range of abilities to be able to use one kit. The "Black Book" (the

sixth-grade English text) has very clear examples, but some students

can't handle the vocabulary so Ms. Anderson has to find the right

reading level for each student as well as the skill he or she needs to

work on. To accomplish this, she has keyed all of the available text

books to the various skills and reading levels. When students work on

the skills she assigns book pages and dittos applicable to each

student. (Interview, 12/4/79)

Rather than ask students to seek her direction for a group skills exercise
assignment and respond at a pace she would determine for the group, Ms.
Anderson provided opportunities for students to interact independently with
individualized written materials and to pace themselves.

(5) Evaluation of written products. Ms. Anderson usually commented on
students' writing skills, in what ways their writings were meaningful or creative,
the quantity of their writings, and on the abilities students exhibited in editing
and revising initial drafts. In a journal entry, however, she explained that
because of time constraints she did not require an edited and revised copy of one

beginning of year assignment, she did not comment on errors in writing skills, but

did write a comment on each paper to show that she had read it carefully.

45

Over the weekend I read the diary assignmetts which the students
turned in. I did not "red mark" them (indicate errors) since we had
not discussed sentence structure, punctuation, etc., and they were
not given time to make a second copy. I did make some sort of
comment on each paper, however. Part of my phi1050pm of teaching
writing is that what students write must be read as soon as possible
and there should be some evidence for the student to see that the
assignment was throughtfully read. (Journal, 9/ 18/79)

 

In accord with her goal that each student experience success, Ms. Anderson
accented positive aspects of the students' writing. As she reflected on an
evaluation of another beginning of the year assignment, Ms. Anderson explained
in an interview her criteria for ascertaining student success, that is,
demonstrated skills of sentence construction and penmanship, accomplishment of
the purpose of the writing, and manifested positive attitude or interest in the
written product.

In thinking back over last week's assignments Ms. Anderson said she

was very happy with the This Is My Life booklets. The students did "a

good job." Ms. Anderson wrote her evaluation on a separate sheet of

paper and clipped it in their book. She said something positive for all

of them. She looked for complete sentences, good penmanship and to

see if they did the assignment right—that is, did they get the purpose

right? Students were very enthusiastic about the books and spent a
lot of time looking at each others. (Interview, 9/25/79)

 

Later in the school year, in another interview, Ms. Anderson reflected upon
or evaluated students' progress in view of their previous writing experiences, and
according to the amount and the quality of their writing.

I asked Ms. Anderson what she thought of the story writing in
general. How did they compare with students other years? Had the
writing changed much during the three months we've been in school?
M. responded by saying that she was pleased with the writing. The
stories were a good length and M. saw improvement in the depth of
writing. When the students first came to the middle school they
seemed to have had little experience in writing. The amount of
writing experience varies a lot depending on what school the children
go to and, more importantly, what teacher they have had. Some
students can write good paragraphs and write detailed description.
Others don't know how at all. One teacher, M. said, explained that
she didn't know how to teach writing so she didn't. (Interview,
11/29/79)

 

See Appendix E for writing samples with teacher comments.

46

(6) Sharing aspects of the teacher's role with students. Other facets, in
addition to the control of pacing, and the interpretation of written directions,
that Ms. Anderson shared with her students, included activities of modeling, and
her engagement in the process of editing, revising and evaluating themes, of
others as well as their own. For instance, Ms. Anderson described in an
interview how she involved students in modeling a procedure for note selection
as a way of assisting their peers to prepare a speech:

To help the students get started on their notes, Ms. Anderson asked a
few students, during class, to tell the other students what tOpic they
had chosen. Then she asked the class what they might like to know
about that particular topic. She had five or six students do this.
Then, as students wrote notes for the speech, they could ask
themselves what someone would or might like to know about their
topic. . . . Ms. Anderson has the student give one speech every nine
weeks (a marking period). (Interview, 10/ 16/79)

Ms. Anderson expected students to work with her to assess and build their
own skills. As a part of this effort she frequently had them revise and edit rough
drafts of paragraphs or themes in class. During a skills lesson on common nouns,
for example, Ms. Anderson stimulated questioning the ways students could
improve their own writings by looking at a model paragraph. Field notes report
this process.

Ms. Anderson explains that there is an lot of difference between
proofreading and revision; sneakers and sandals give a more definite
word picture than shoes. . . . Ms. Anderson calls upon Jean to read.
She reads a paragraph that has many more highly descriptive words
than the previous one read. Ms. Anderson asks students which of the
two paragraphs on page 231 is better. She explains how students need
to change their rough drafts in the manner of making changes as was
done in writing the second paragraph. Ms. Anderson asks Tara to
read and compare the different paragraphs sentence by sentence. . .
Ms. Anderson asks students to question her about ways they can make
their rough drafts of themes better, not just to ask if what they have
written is good. (Field notes, 11/13/79:3-4)

In an interview she explained that she intended to continue sharing her role of
editing and assessing needs for revisions:

Ms. Anderson does not want them to simply give her the paper to
proofread for them, but for students to become more aware of what

47

improvemeits could be made. As Ms. Anderson works with students

she hopes to teach them skills in a more natural way--as the problems

come up. (Interview, 12/4/79)

She also initiated a discussion with students about how she would provide
opportunities for them to critique and revise their own drafts. Ms. Anderson
wrote in her journal:

Discussed with the students the possibility/desirability of having a

regular period set aside each week especially for the purpose of

working on rough drafts/revisions. . . It is my goal that all the
students will become aware of ways in which to improve their

original writing. (Journal, 11/29/79)

Ms. Anderson thus did not surrender her attributed or assumed role
responsibilities but gradually attempted to negotiate and share role
responsibilities with her students.

The teacher's role, then, included the sequential building of common
individualized writing assignments based on ongoing assessments of skill needs,
the provision of models and individual assistance to guide writing processes, the
evaluation of written products, and the sharing of different aspects of her role
with students.

The following paragraphs elaborate upon the teacher's conception of the
students' role in the writing process. (The third section of this chapter further

details roles students actually took as the teacher negotiated the writing

curriculum with them.)

Student's Role in the Writing Process

From Ms. Anderson's perspective, the students' role was that they expend
their best efforts in each of their frequent writing opportunities. Students often
engaged in writing by composing and revising a theme nearly every week of the
school year, by participating in many shorter term writing activities such as the
Diary Page and quarterly Book Summaries, and by longer term writings such as

an Original Magazine, and a research project, A City of the World (see Figure 2

 

48

for listing of these and other writing activities). She selected such writing
activities in view of her perception of the students' role. She stated her
expectation of their role in her journal at the beginning of the school year.

I usually tell the students that their responsibility is to always do

their bests-and that as they practice writin often they will grow in

writing and it will become easier for them. Journal, 9/6/79)

Ms. Anderson challenged students in a variety of ways, as they engaged in
these activities, to do their best. For example, she encouraged one student to
experiment with writing and to verify information by means of a library visit
before writing the final draft of a Book Summary. Field notes describe her
suggestions to the student.

Ms. Anderson suggests to a student who is having difficulty with

spelling a word that she write it first on scrap paper. . . In addition,

because the title of the book the student is trying to spell is
unfamiliar to Ms. Anderson, she suggests that the student go to the
library to search for the information she needs. (Field notes,
9/11/79:4-6)
She not only expressed her own expectation about student efforts to do their
best, but also invited students to evaluate their own efforts also. For instance,
she asked students to reexamine Book Summary cards they had written, and
pocket cards they had decorated and tacked to a bulletin board display. Field
notes document her directives.

Ms. Anderson: "I will repeat for those who listen, but not for those

who don't." . . . "Go back and look at yours (pocket and card on

bulletin board) between now and Friday. . . . Leave it if you're

pleased with it. Some people put forth a lot of effort and some
didn't." Ms. Anderson suggests that if students are not satisfied with

what they did, they can do the assignment over before Friday when

she will collect and look at them. She explains that everyone is to do

a book report every nine weeks. . . . You must have read one new

book by November 1. (Field notes, 9/12/79:12)

Ms. Anderson encouraged students' best efforts not only in her perceived
role of providing success experiences through activities such as her ongoing

assessment of students' skill needs and encouragement of student self-

assessment, and by providing individualized skill building materials, sequential

49

lessons, and techniques for modeling as earlier described, but in other ways as
well. For example, she aimed to motivate students by providing multiple
opportunities for sharing in the writing process and communicating the written
product to various audiences. She explained her perspective in a journal entry:

I believe that students take their writing more seriously when they

are going to share it in some way with their peers than when they

write just for teacher evaluation. (Journal, 9/26/79)

The following activities exemplify other student opportunities for sharing.
Note that student roles of collaborating in the writing process and of sharing the
written product are linked to Ms. Anderson's use of students models previously
described. Student roles and teacher roles are interactive, have implications for
each other. For example, students learned from undertaking roles commonly
attributed to the teacher; the teacher learned from undertaking roles commonly
attributed to students.

(1) Reading Life Booklets completed by their peers. In their first longer
assignment students found pictures that illustrated events in their lives and
dreams for their futures. They glued pictures on paper, wrote captions for the
pictures and compiled these as pages of a booklet (similar to models Ms.
Anderson had shown them) that they displayed on a classroom table for others to
read (Journal, 9/23/79). Field note excerpts describe student as well as teacher
interest in the booklets.

Ms. Anderson asks students about their life booklets; encourages

those who haven't handed them in to do so, and to share by placing

them on the front table after she corrects them. She says that Mr.

Hathaway, 1 and some other students would be interested in seeing

them. (Field notes, 9/25/79:1)

Students chose to read written products of other students when they had a work-

study option.

Ms. Anderson: "You have ten minutes to work on somethings". . .
1:05 .m. Several students read Life Booklets. (Field notes,
9725779:1)

50

Students' completed Life Booklets on display, in turn serving as models,
stimulated students who had not yet done so to complete their own booklets.

Ms. Anderson also mewtions that the day after she collected the life
Booklets, no more booklets were turned in. Then the next day when
students displayed them at the front table and students began to look
at them, those who had not turned in booklets began to finish theirs.
One student made two booklets. (Field notes, 9/25/79:2)

(2) Oral sharing of individual themes about "Something Old". Ms. Anderson
announced to students two days in advance that they would have an opportunity
to share themes they had written about something belonging to the family that
was at least as old as as they were (Journal, 10/1/79). But she did not offer
detailed direction about how to prepare for their oral presentation of Something
Qfl except that they might bring the "something old" as a visual aid. Field notes
describe the plan she shared with students.

Ms. Anderson explains that students will have one large classroom

meeting this week on Wednesday, that they would divide into small

groups and share their stories or themes if possible. They would have
about 10 minutes to share. . . (Field notes, lO/8/79:1)
A student did not appear ready to meet her expectation, so Ms. Anderson
instructed all students about what she wanted to hear from them. She pointed
out the need for students to select and prepare what they would share. Field
notes also describe what happened at the time of theme sharing. Excerpts
follow.

Ms. Anderson tells students that they will tell about something old.

She rearranges chairs, and asks students to sit in a large circle. Ms.

Anderson asks if any students brought something old. . . . Erin has a

German coin that he received from a friend: "I don't know what to

say about it." He tells students that it is a 1952 coin worth 50 cents

with a picture of Adolph Hitler on the back. Ms. Anderson tells

students that it is important to prepare what is to be shared. . . . Ms.

Anderson tells students to take turns talking about something old, tell

why the item is important to them, and where it came from. Ms.

Anderson: "Who'd like to start? Melissa talks about her Indianhead

pennies (1864-1909) which she is afraid to lose, and so did not bring
them. . . (Field notes, 10/10/79:6)

51

(3) Sharing of ideas and collaboration in small groups to write a persuasive
letter. In the process of writing letters, students investigated, discussed, and
wrote about advantages and disadvantages of introducing their own culture's

values to people of another culture, (i.e., Tasaday Letters). Field note excerpts

 

indicate plans for and activities of sharing in small groups.

Ms. Anderson asks students why people might visit the Tasaday . . . .
Linda suggests that they might bring in clothing, show them how to
make their own clothes. Ms. Anderson suggests that this might be
called the Human Comforts Commission. She asks for students' ideas
about the advantages and disadvantages of doing this. She writes
their ideas on the overhead projector. . . . She also writes on the
overhead projector, a form as a model for the letter students will
write. . . . She suggests that students take turns being recorders at
each stage of their project (i.e., writing advantages and
disadvantages, writing rough draft of letter, writing final draft).
Students gather into their assigned groups. . . . Carol asks member of
her group: "Why are we doing this? . . . Group discusses possible
advantages and disadvantages of a group coming in to assist the
Tasaday. . . . Karen: "Come on, guys, think of some things." Paula
and then Karen write on the advantages—disadvantages sheet. (Field
notes, 12/7/79:6-7)

(4) Sharing of the processes and products of writinLin a simulation game,
Right ls Write. In Right Is Write students interacted in different roles-was
writers, agents, editors and publishers. Writers wrote stories with the help of
agents. Editors and publishers read and critiqued final drafts of stories.
Excerpts from videotape commentary document Ms. Anderson's interpretation of
these student roles.

Ms. Anderson: "After a writer has had a card and written a story as

you usually would. . .then the writer shares that with their agent. All

during the time you're writing, agents are supposed to be helping the

writers. For instance,. . . if you want an idea, say, if you don't know

how to end it." (Videotape commentary, 5/2/80, 5: 340-350)

Ms. Anderson suggests that because it is the responsibility of editors

and publishers to read every paper, they should begin to look over

writers' shoulders as they write so that it won't be completely new

later on. (Videotape commettary, 5/6/80:1:450-460)

Ms. Anderson also believed that students become more enthusiastic-more

highly motivated-«if the teacher is enthusiastic, and if students take active roles

52

in different processes of writing, e.g., search Reader's Guide for magazine
articles in a variety of interest areas as means to gain skill in gathering
information for their research paper, A City of the World. She explained these
perspectives in an interview and a journal entry, for example:

Ms. Anderson said if assignments are new for her, she believes that

she is more enthusiastic. Students sense that the teacher believes it

is a good idea and pick up some of the excitement. (Interview,

3/27/80)

Wednesday's lesson on using the Reader's Guide went very well. I'm

so aware that many (not all!) students function better and seem to

learn much more in an activity-oriented lesson that I often feel

frustrated when I can't seem to find ways to present material in that

fashion more often. (Journal, 2/1/80)

So, to motivate students to perform their role -- to do their best, Ms.
Anderson suggested the following elements: teacher enthusiasm, active student
involvement in different aspects of the writing process, and student sharing of

the written product with an audience of peers.

Summary of Teacher's Selection of Writing Curriculum Goals and Processes

In sum, Ms. Anderson's goal was that each student experience success in
the process and products of their writing, particularly as they gained confidence
in the area of skills development, in editing and revising of topical writing
projects, and in interdisciplinary or social-studies writing activities. She
believed that attention to the processes as well as the products of writing was
important because procedures of editing and revising, for example, helped
students to clarify their thoughts and feelings, helped students to "think." Her
role for facilitating processes of learning to write included the following:
sequencing activities, providing models of both writing processes and writing
products, assisting students individually, making available a variety of material
resources, and sharing aspects of her role, (for example, by offering
opportunities for students to sequence and pace their own activities, by modeling

processes of generating ideas, by providing models of finished products, and by

53

making suggestions for revising and editing other students' themes). Ms.
Anderson believed that the students' role was to expend their best efforts, and,
that to promote this expenditure of effort, teachers must be enthusiastic about
writing activities, encourage collaboration in the writing process, and provide

opportunities to share written products.

Second Section: Accomplishing Curricular Goals

Ms. Anderson worked within constraints to build complexity--for example,
by introducing to students an increasing number of skills both within and across a
proliferation of writing activities. This complexity included involvement of
students in (A) shorter lessons that helped students develop "skills" required to
complete (B) longer projects or "topics" activities that included revising as well
as drafting of rough cOpy. Students, using writing as as tool or instrument,
applied their writing skills to achieve (C) "strictly social studies" objectives (see
Figure 2 for listing of writing activities in categories A, B and C). During the
school year Ms. Anderson identified these three categories for writing events
and sorted writing events accordingly. (Interview, 2/13/80) (The fourth section
of this chapter treats yet another category of writings that Ms. Anderson
identified, "fillers," a means that she used to cepe with constraints of an
inflexible schedule. "Fillers" are short writing activities that Ms. Anderson used
to close unexpected time gaps.)

This second section describes key writing activities, or events, that the
teacher categorized, and locates them in one of four-school determined "marking
periods" of the year (Student Handbook, p. 19). A chart (see Figure 2) identifies
key writing events according to the marking period in which they happened, as
well as according to the way Ms. Anderson categorized them. For example, Ms.
Anderson classified the Book Summary activity in the first marking period as

"skills" lessons; Something Old, in the first marking period, and Me: Now and

 

54

Ih_en, in the third marking period as "topics" (projects that students developed
through processes of editing and revising); and the Tasaday Letters in the second
marking period as "social studies" (an interdisciplinary writing activity).

The four marking periods, as listed in the student handbook, also
demarcated the boundaries of writing projects, or units, that Ms. Anderson
enacted. In an interview, for example, Ms. Anderson stated that she worked to
achieve congruity between planned activities and the mandated marking periods
of the year.

Ms. Anderson reported that she tried to have units end just before a

marking period so she can put statements down for the unit. She also

makes sure she teaches and evaluates stated objectives so parents

won't complain. (Interview, 1/9/80)

Rather than report to parents at the natural culmination of writing projects, Ms.
Anderson felt compelled to abbreviate her curricular plans for writing to fit
within predetermined divisions of time for reporting student progress. (The
fourth section of this chapter treats of this and other time constraints, and how
Ms. Anderson dealt with these constraints.)

This section identifies common threads of skills development emphases in
writing events upon which Ms. Anderson built complexity that transcends both
categories and marking periods (see Figure 2). For example, Ms. Anderson early
emphasized sentence composition and spelling in shorter, "skills" category
activities in the first marking period such as Sentence Writing; and in "tapics"
category activities, such as Diary Page; and in a longer "topics" project, M
My Life booklet also in the first marking period. She next challenged students to
move from sentence composition to paragraph composition—introduced them to
the longer and more complex projects of the first marking period. Such projects
included Following Direction, a "skills" category activity in which Ms. Anderson
explained mechanics of a paragraph format and involved students in processes of

drafting, editing and revising; and Something Old, a "topics" category activity in

55

which she stimulated students' interest in selecting valued family objects about
which they would write themes. And in the second marking period Ms. Anderson
built upon students' sentence and paragraph composition experiences of the first
marking period by introducing specialized sentence and paragraph "skills" of

Writing Conversation. She next instructed students to incorporate their skills in

 

writing a theme and a conversation in story compositions for their Original
Magazines.

Ms. Anderson thus built complexity into her curricular plans in view of
student needs and the interests that she stimulated. She assessed student
abilities and interests on bases of both observations of students in the processes
of writing and evaluations of their written products. Founded on the results of
such assessments she introduced writing activities deveIOpmentally, with an
increasing complexity or degree of difficulty.

A description of key writing activities and some ways in which they are
interrelated follows for each of the four marking periods of the school year (see

also Figure 2).

First Marking Pe’iod

 

First marking period writing events (see Figure 2) included, in
developmental sequence, an activity focused on spelling and the general
appearance of written products (Book Summary), four activities centered upon

sentence writing skills (Sentence Writim exercise, Diary Page, My Life Booklet,

 

and Graph Questions), two on paragraph writing, editing, and revising of drafts-

(Following Directions, and theme on Something Old), and one on outlining for a

 

speech (Notes for Speech).
These writing events, which Ms. Anderson initiated in accord with her own
values and views of student needs, transcended the goal of simply meeting

district and school requirements. From her perspective, student needs,

56

especially student needs for experiencing success, were paramount. As she
devised ways to meet student needs for success experiences she became an
independent curriculum maker. The following paragraphs indicate the
developmental complexity, and commonalities, or linkages of the writing
activities she developed with students.

After what Ms. Anderson considered a lengthy and tedious task, and for
some students, a difficult one-at the beginning of the school year, she
administered a required spelling pretest-she resolved to introduce them to
several shorter and more enjoyable activities in which they would feel
successful. In this regard she wrote in her journal,

After watching some of the students experience difficulty in writing

words that should have meaning for them, also noting the difficulty

many had in taking a test of 240 basic spelling words, I decided I'd

better start with something that wouldn't overpower the slower

students. . . . I want to start with several short lessons or activities

where everyone can feel successful. (Journal, 9/7/79)

Already on the first full day of school Ms. Anderson's values and perceptions of
student needs came to the fore. For example, she perceived the students' need
for non-tedious and less difficult activities in contrast to the long and difficult
spelling pretest they had just experienced, and planned shorter writing activities
in which students could foresee and realize the accomplishment of assignments
she proposed. These initial shorter activities included individual writings of a
Book Summary, Diary Page, and skill exercises in Sentence Writing. A

description of each of these activities follows.

Ms. Anderson introduced the Book Summary activity in two separate

 

lessons. The first lesson she hinted at immediately after the spelling pretest.
She asked students to "prepare a written list of three books read last year that
you liked" (Field notes, 9/7/79zl4). Early the following week, and after an
introduction to books and their location in the school library, Ms. Anderson

embarked upon an introduction to book reporting. She offered an account of her

57

introduction to reporting on a book, also of the purpose of the activity in her

journal.

I asked the students to write (or print) the list of titles on a 3x5 card
and insert it in a library card pocket which they had decorated-these
they posted in a bulletin board display. . .This first card they have
done should begin to give me some idea of a student‘s handwriting
skills, spelling, neatness, and willingness to put some effort into an
assignment. Because of the brevity of the assignment, the last point
is perhaps most important to me as it gives me an idea of attitudes
toward assignments. I can see already that some kids need the "I
expect you to do your Est" pep talkll (Journal, 9/11/79)

As part of this Book Summary lesson Ms. Anderson foreshadowed later

 

assignments that involved skills of outlining (see Figure 2, bottom of page, for
key to these assignments) by suggesting that students who could do so categorize
and sub-categorize books they had read. She thereby challenged students, who
were presently able to do more than the minimum she required of all, to
categorize books as fiction, or non-fiction, them to sub-categorize books under
fiction, for example, as science fiction, fantasy or adventure, and to
subcategorize books under non-fiction, for example, as biography, sports, history
and poetry (Field notes, 9/11/79:4).

One week later, in a follow-up lesson, Ms. Anderson used Book Summary
reports to teach students also how to write "meaningful sentences" as well as
how to write concisely. In her journal she wrote:

Yesterday I spent considerable time explaining how book reports will

be done this year. . .A 3x5 card is to be filled out for each book and

placed in the student's individual book pocket on the bulletin board

(the students earlier decorated the pockets and they also put names

on them). Each card should contain the following information-mtitle,

author, copyright, category, and synopsis. One objective is to get

students to condense the information they want to share into two-to-

three meaningful sentences. (Journal, 9/ 18/79)

Again Ms. Anderson prefigured the process of editing and revising original
drafts of themes as in later assignments (see Figure 2, key to skills emphases) by

explaining to students how and why she wrote a first, and then a final draft of

her synopsis. Field notes describe this prefiguring:

58

Ms. Anderson explains her synopsis of the book report, "what the book
is about". . ."Here's a synopsis of a book that I've read." . . .(She
explains that students' synopses should be about three sentences in
length). "I wrote it first on another piece of paper" (she asks students
why she does this). Student explains that she gets mixed up when she
writes. Ms. Anderson: "I have trouble condensing what I have to say."
(Field notes, 9/17/79:5)

In another short writing activity, a Diary Page, Ms. Anderson asked
students to write about their feelings during the first four days of school. Field
note excerpts and a teacher journal entry describe the event.

Ms. Anderson: "Think over these last four days. What are some

feelings you've had in the four days of school?" Students suggest

words. Ms. Anderson writes them on the overhead projector: tired,
bored, sick, small, lost, rotten, content, happy, lost, glad, mad,

scared, nervous, frustrated, mixed up, out of place, full of energy.

Ms. Anderson: "Some of you are letting everybody else do your
thinking."

Students: "Forgetful". . ."not nervous". . .

Ms. Anderson: "I want everyone in here to think, really hard now, to
think of three words that describe how you felt that aren't up there."

Student: "Mine are all up there."
Ms. Anderson: "Think of three more. . . .

Students: "Confused, terrorized, lazy, groovy, droopy, hot, excited
. . ." (Ms. Anderson continues to write words on the overhead)

Ms. Anderson: "I'm running out of room."
Students: "Interested, important, weird, . . ."

Ms. Anderson: "Okay, we're through. I think that's enough to get
started. . . 1 want you to keep a diary. Write down your impressions
of Harbin School, your feelings, . . .your impressions of Harbin
School, not just in one place. . . . How did you feel in the cafeteria? .
. . " (she announces to students that they will hand paper in
tomorrow). . . . the less you do in school the more homework you
have. . . . Who already has a first sentence?"

Student: "The first day of school I felt. . ."
(Ms. Anderson offers additional examples of possible first sentences.

She explains that the assignme1t is to have at least one column of the
paper she has given them pretty well filled out)

59

Student: "How do you s 11 'explaining'?" (Ms. Anderson spells the

word.) (Field notes, 9/ 12 79:1-2)

Note that Ms. Anderson introduced brainstorming to stimulate students'
participation and interest, and focused on sentence composition and spelling.

In a journal entry Ms. Anderson summarized procedures she followed to
introduce the Diary Page assignment.

I asked students what kind of "feelings" they had experienced since

school beganuand as they brainstormed, I wrote the words on the

overhead. Each class came up with about 25 words (i.e., excited,
nervous, anxious, happy). Then each student was given a ditto sheet

that resembled a page from a diary and I asked them to write how

they felt about these first days at Harbin. . . .(Journal, 9/13/79)

As she examined completed assignments, Ms. Anderson observed that many
students used "sentence fragments" and concluded that they needed to learn the
skills of writing complete sentences (Interview, 9/17/79). For example, one
student wrote only the following on his Diary Pag :

Sike

Scared

Lose

(Others, however, wrote much more. See Appendix F.)

In a third short writing activity, Ms. Anderson concentrated on teaching

students in a skills lesson in Sentence Writing to recognize two- and three word

 

sentences, then to expand them by use of descriptive words. She described the
lesson in her journal:

On Monday afternoon we discussed the question "What is a sentence?"
and students came up with two— and three- word sentences. Each
class was given a two word sentence. . .with instructions for
homework-~to add detail to the base sentence in at least three new
sentences. . . . On the same paper they were also asked to write their
spelling words in complete sentences. . . .(Journal, 9/ 18/79)

In the process of rewriting and expanding sentences, students again

foreshadowed (as in the Book Summary lesson)--and practiced in microcosm--

60

what they later would do in the processes of drafting and revising themes. Field
notes explain this foreshadowing activity.

Ms. Anderson: "All a sentence has to do is convey a complete

thought. . . . Can you write a two word sentence that will make sense

all alone?. . . . Give me an example. . ." (Ms. Anderson writes on the

overhead projector: "Jack ran" . . . She asks students to write a two

word sentence on scrap paper. . . . She assigns as homework for that

night that students write on scrap paper, to share in class, not turn

in, that students write: "Jack ran", then rewrite it three times, each

time making it, more interesting, e.g., "Jack ran a mile.") (Field

notes, 9/17/79:5-6)

In addition to linking or developing a Sentence Writing lesson on the bases
of Diary Page results, i.e., challenging students to make meaning by moving from
sentence fragment writing to whole sentence writing, Ms. Anderson also built a
second Sentence Writing skills lesson on bases of SpellimL Program lists. She
challenged students to make meaning from lists of spelling words by
incorporating them in original sentences (Field notes, 9/ 18/ 19:4).

In their first longer writing project, a This Is My Life booklet, Ms.
Anderson also attended to student needs--both academic and emotional-—that
spelling pretests and other pretests revealed, and lack of skills that student
performance in earlier short writing activities uncovered (e.g., Book Summary,
DiarLPage). Note that Ms. Anderson did not ignore results of school imposed
testing, e.g., a spelling test, but took them into account in her own plans. See
also fourth section of this chapter for elaboration of ways the school imposed

spelling program influenced Ms. Anderson's curricular plans. She explained her

purposes for the This Is My Life booklets in a journal entry:

 

I chose to have the students make "This Is My Life" booklets because
I think it will not threaten the students who are low in spelling and
writing skills and it will be a meaningful activity for those with more
ability. Also, the students usually have fun making them and after all
the testing and listening to me they've had to put up with, I decided
they needed a break! (Journal, 9/ 18/79)

Field notes describe directives she gave for the activity. An excerpt follows.

61

Ms. Anderson passes out magazines, specifies that the assignment
must be neat, well organized, and written in complete sentences that
make sense. She asks students to look in the magazines for ictures
that show something about their lives. (Field notes, 9/14/79:8

Students wrote caption sentences for magazine illustrations they arranged
chronologically to represent past, present, and anticipated future happenings in
their lives and in the lives of their families. In a journal entry Ms. Anderson
summarized how students proceeded toward completion of their booklets.

This activity involves each student finding pictures that represent

events in his or her life-and possibly his or her dreams for the

future. The students glue the pictures on paper and write captions (l

stressed using complete sentences again--actually that is the "why"

for yesterday's homework assignment, skills assignmett, p. 12) for

them-~then they enclose the pages in a construction paper cover.

(Journal, 9/ 18/79)

The This Is My Life activity, i.e., the ordering of life events, as well as the

 

Book Summary activity, i.e., categorizing the books read, foreshadowed ordering

 

and classifying information by means of formal outlines that students would
develop at greater length in later projects, for example, My Age and A City of
the World. See also Figure 2, examples of common skills emphases key.

Ms. Anderson explains that she requires a research theme at the
semester, that students have already been preparing for this by doing their
life booklets. (Field Notes, 9/26/79:8)

Having provided students with many opportunities to improve their
sentence writing-e.g., Book Summary, Diary Page, This Is My Life booklets,
Sentence Writing skills exercises--Ms. Anderson next showed them how to relate
sentence development to paragraph or theme assignments. She explained how
she initiated this activity in an interview.

Students will write a rough draft, then revise it. It is due Thursday.

When explaining the assignment Ms. Anderson will remind them to

write in complete sentences, to think about what they could use as a

title, and to remember to use margins and put their name in the

proper place. (Interview, 9/25/79)

Field note excerpts reiterate her emphases on the processes of editing and

revising rough drafts as well as on the mechanics of theme writing format.

62

Ms. Anderson: "This week, this is our topic." (She writes on overhead
projector)
DIRECTIONS:

Think about the topic.

Narrow down.

Write a rough draft.
(Ms. Anderson: "What do you do with a rough draft?"-four or five
stud)ents answer quickly--no hands raised. Ms. Anderson again writes

Revise and correct rough draft.

Write final copy.
(Ms. Anderson asks students about the next step. Several students
raise their hands. . . .)

Proofread.

Staple final draft to rough draft.

Turn in to basket.
(. . .Artie ask Ms. Anderson if he has to rewrite his first draft. Ms.
Anderson explains that Steinbeck, a famous author, rewrote his first
draft at least three times, and said to Artie that it was most likely he
would need to rewrite his at least once) (Field notes, 9/24/79:4-5)

Ms. Anderson: "Put your books aside. . . . I told you I would do the
assignment." (She shows title on screen above the overhead
projector: WATCH YOUR STEP). . . She tells students they are to
center their title; also its a good idea to double space on their first
drafts. . . . She explains that she needs an introductory sentence; that
students may consider that they are writing directions for a stranger.
Students raise hands to offer corrections . . . . Joan suggests that the

title be underlined. . . . (Field notes, 9/25/79:2)

In a journal entry Ms. Anderson expressed satisfaction that students had
actually revised their first drafts.

I read over the directions papers that the students wrote last week

. . .I was pleased to note that most students seem to be using their

rough draft to make revisions and not just corrections. (Journal,

10/ 1/79)

The week following her introduction of the Writing Directions activity Ms.
Anderson proceeded to introduce a new theme topic. She explained in an
interview how she modified her original idea for the topic to suit student
experiences of their home environments and in view of home resources
limitations. So, for this first of weekly "creative" theme writings, Ms. Anderson

asked students to write about Something Old, that is, select and trace the history

of an object—something as old as they are or older than they, chosen from their

63

homes. One student, for example wrote about an Indianhead penny. In fieldnotes
we read:

Don B. comments with delight about Ms. Anderson's comment on his

story of the Indianhead penny. Ms. Anderson says on his paper, which

Don B. reads aloud: "I could almost _s_e£ the penny!" (Field notes,

10/8/79)

She commented, however, in both interview and journal entry, that the greatest
weakness in student themes was lack of detail:
One student . . . handed one in today about a crib, but Ms.

Anderson handed it back to her as it did not have enough detail. . . .

She asks students: "Who was the original owner? Have you always

had it? . . . "(Interview, 10/3/79)

The themes 1 read this week were quite nicely done. I shall ask some

students (volunteers) to read theirs orally to the rest of the class next

week. The greatest weakness seems to be a lack of detail in many

papers. (Journal, 10/7/79)

Remaining weekly assignments during the first marking period included
themes on any topic of students' choosing, and additional descriptive themes
focused, in turn, upon descriptions of person, places, and events. Ms. Anderson
intended that the descriptive theme writing prepare students for descriptive
story-writing, a required part of their larger project of the second marking
period, an Original Magazine. Ms. Anderson outlined her plans for descriptive
theme writing in an interview.

For future writing assignments Ms. Anderson is going to eventually

have the students write a short story that will be several pages long.

First, she will give them a series of writing tasks that will give them

skill in the areas needed for the longer writing. They will start

writing descriptions: first, of a place; second, of a person; and third,

of an event. The story will not actually be based on these

descriptions, but they will use the techniques they have learned in

each of the lessons. (Interview, 10/ 16/79)

In place of one weekly theme assignment, Ms. Anderson introduced
students to speechmaking -- writing Notes for Speeches. She showed them how

to order notes as an informal outline and how to write initial and concluding

64

sentences as supports for their speeches. Excerpts from field notes describe
ways Ms. Anderson acquainted students with these procedures.

Ms. Anderson tells students not to memorize or read their speeches .
. . . She tells students that when she makes a speech, she writes down
her first sentence and her last sentence. . . . Ms. Anderson tells
students that on their cards they should write their first and last
sentences. She begins her speech. . . . After the conclusion of her
speech she shows students the 3x5 cards she used, and shows her first
and last sentences on a transparency on the overhead projector. . . .
She shows students her outline on the overhead projector, tells
students that their audience won't know if they missed something
because they won't see the outline. (Field notes, 10/10/79:4)

Ms. Anderson tells Dan that he may want to condense after he tells

her that he already has five or more (index) cards. Ms. Anderson

walks to her desk, pulls out a transparency from a folder that she

used last week for her speech, shows it on the overhead projector and

tells students it is not a formal outline. . .(Field notes, 10/15/79:5)

In process of developing informal outlines for speeches, students again
foreshadowed formal or more developed outlines they would write in future
writing assignments, such as outlines for theme, My Age and research project

theme, A City of the World (See Figure 2, Marking Period 111). Also, in process

 

of condensing their outlines/notes, and writing summary sentences, as they did
for their Book Summaries students became acquainted with procedures for
writing synopses that they would continue to use in future writings, e.g., §r_a_Lh
Questions, Synopsis of a Myth (See Figure 2, Marking Periods I and IV).

In a Graph Question activity Ms. Anderson extended writing beyond the
field of communication arts to the field of social studies. For example, she
taught the skills of writing questions and emphasized writing for conciseness.
Students then wrote original questions about graphs drawn from information on
surveys they had undertaken, (and later from readings in their social studies
textbooks). (Journal, 10/3/79 and 10/31/79) Interview notes describe Ms.
Anderson's perspective on the activity.

Today Ms. Anderson and Mr. Hathaway are following through with the

question-writing they wanted to teach the students. We talked of the
correlation between English and Social Studies writing--the question

65

writing is a good example. Question-writing would not be considered

the weekly (theme) writing, but writing the students would do beyond

that. In evaluating the ability of students to write questions, Ms.

Anderson looks for concise, precise information. The question must

contain enough elemeits to make it obvious to the reader what

exactly is being asked. (Interview, 10/30/79)

Hence, in writing social-studies Graph Questions, students not only
developed skills of sentence writing emphasized in earlier short writing lessons,
and skills of writing concisely as also described in Notes for Speech paragraphs
above, but also had an opportunity to experience that such writing skills have

applications that transcend boundaries of formal communication arts, or writing

classes.

Second Marking Period

 

Key writing events in the second marking period (see also Figure 2)

included the following: Original Magazines, booklets for which students wrote a

 

table of contents, a story, a feature article and an interview; Writing

Conversation, skills lessons determined by anticipated and actual student

 

performance in the Original Magazine project; Tasaday Letters, letters
composed by small groups of students who, in a simulation activity, acted as
commissions to determine and write about ways people of one culture should

interact with people of another culture; and, Me: Now and Then, an activity in

 

which students followed an outline for writing themes to compare aspects of
their present and anticipated future lives.

Again, as in the first marking period activities, Ms. Anderson aimed to
sequence second marking period writing activities so that students would
experience success. For example, Ms. Anderson introduced skill activities in

Writing Conversation with students so that they could feel confident in writing

 

stories for their Original Magazines. Ms. Anderson explained her aim, that

 

66

students experience success, and the process of introducing writing conversation
to them in a journal entry.

We talked about eleme1ts I wanted them to incorporate into their
stories-describe a place, describe the characters, and have the
characters involved in conversation. To prepare for the latter
element we did some skill work on writing conversation correctly.
Since I have found it helpful to students--because many can begin to
experience success as the lesson develops-ml had written a number of
direct quotes, minus the punctuation, on a transparency sheet. After
they copied the quotes on their own papers, (adding the necessary
punctuation, of course), various students went to the overhead--added
the correct markings. . . . Following the marking of each sentence,
we discussed what had been done. (Journal, ll/7/79)

She also encouraged students to do their part, to do their best. She

expressed this emphasis in her journal as she described the Original Magazine

 

project, for example.

Today was the last time a period will be offered in class for kids to

work on the magazine project. I've been stressing that they are now

past one third of the year and that their work should be

representative of their BEST efforts at this time. I am very pleased

with the way most of them have approached the task. (Journal,

12/21/79)

The following paragraphs briefly describe key writing events of the second
marking period and the way Ms. Anderson sequenced and developed skills that
linked different writing events across both marking periods and categories (see
also Figure 2 for the way Ms. Anderson categorized events of the second marking
period and for the key to common skills emphases that link different writing
events). Again, she based her selection of writing events on students' skill
performance, interest, and abilities through processes of ongoing assessment.

For example, Ms. Anderson described how students would write Original
Magazines according to their abilities and interests. In an interview she
explained her plan.

The writing assignment that Ms. Anderson will have the students

working on next is one she hasn't used for a couple of years. Students

will create their own magazines which will include a story, an

interview, table of contents and a cover. Other writing and fillers
are optional. In the past, students have really enjoyed making the

67

magazines; it has been "kind of fun" for them. Ms. Anderson
especially likes it because it is good for all abilities and everyone
produces one they are pleased with. First, students will look at
different kinds of magazines to see the variety of formats and
subjects. Students must do their own, but it is okay if they choose to
do the same type of magazine. (Interview, 10/30/79)

Ms. Anderson and her students together constructed an outline of required
and optional magazine entries, a table of contents. She noted this process in her
journal.

Again, Thursday p.m. was used as a time for students to work on

compiling their magazines. I also distributed copies of the outline

that I had originally written on the overhead as they generated ideas.

Items which were required for the project were starred. (Journal,

12/ 14/79)

The group generated outline for the Original Magazines followed prefigured
teacher-modeled outlines for the Book Summary, namely, listing of fiction and

non-fiction categories, and their respective sub-categories; and informal outlines

of Notes for Speech, namely, outlines characterized by a beginning sentence,

 

some rough outline notes and an ending sentence format. The Original
Magazines outlines, or tables of contents, in turn, foreshadowed more formal, or
detailed outlines students later used, or developed, for Mei Now and Then, and
My Age themes, and A Cit; of the World research project (see also Figure 2,
bottom, examples of common emphases).

The Original Magazines also followed the booklet format of the This Is My
Lif_e project, but the Original Magazines were longer and more detailed in
structure. Students completed the This Is My Life booklets in about one week;
they organized suggested entries for their booklets loosely, in an implicitly
suggested chronological order according to the teacher's written models.
Students completed the Original Magazines in about seven weeks; and they

organized entries for their magazines in an explicitly prescribed order.

68

One required entry for Original Magazines, short stories, evolved from
previously written descriptive themes. An interview report and field notes
explain this evolvement.

Ms. Anderson is going to eventually have the students write a short
story, which will be several pages long. First she will give them a
series of writing tasks that will give them skill in the areas needed
for the longer writing. They will start writing descriptions, first; of a
place, second; a person, and third; an event. The story will not
actually be based on these descriptions, but they will use the
techniques they have learned in each of the lessons. (Interview,
10/ 16/79)

Ms. Anderson explains the assignmewt. She expects them to have a
first draft for her by Thursday, final draft one week from Thursday --
a story incorporating what students have learned about writing about
places, person, and conversations. (Field notes, ll/5/79:3)

Later, in the fourth marking period, students easily entered into short story
requirements for a simulation game, Right Is Write on bases of skills developed
for Original Magazine story entries (see also Figure 2, common skills emphases).

For example, to prepare for the Original Magazines story requirement that
students include dialogue, Ms. Anderson introduced skills or techniques of
Writing Conversation (again, see Figure 2, common skills emphases). Journal and
field notes describe how she introduced these skills:

Yesterday afternoon I talked with the classes about the magazines I
was going to ask them to "publish". This week's writing assignment is
to begin the rough draft of a story that they will eventually
incorporate into their individual magazines. For this reason, they had
to decide what types of magazines they wanted to make. . .We talked
about the elements I wanted them to incorporate into their stories-
describe a place, describe the characters, and have the characters
involved in conversation. To prepare for the latter elemett we did
some skill work on writing conversation correctly. (Journal, 11/7/79)

12:57 Ms. Anderson writes on the overhead projector:
Describe a place.
Describe a person.
Characters-Speak "Conversation."
Again, on overhead projector (for students to punctuate):
Jane said will you help me
Not now said Ann
(Students make corrections at the overhead projector. . . .) (Field
notes, ll/6/79:l)

69

In a follow up of Writing Conversation skills she developed for Original
Magazine story writing, Ms. Anderson devised and administered a pretest in
order to help her more accurately match skills exercises with individual student
needs. She noted the pretest activity and plans for applying results of the
pretest in a journal entry.

On Monday 1 gave the students a pretest on punctuating conversation

correctly. I shall use the results as a basis for forming working

groups after the holidays. (Journal, 12/12/79)

Next, Ms. Anderson individualized skills lessons--she provided materials

that enabled students to work independently and at different rates. As students

gained competence in Writing Conversation skills she guided them into other

 

areas in which they lacked writing skills. Ms. Anderson described these
curricular activities in a subsequent journal entry.

On Tuesday and Wednesday the kids started working on skills
that the pretest over quotation marks indicated a need for them to
work on-which means that students have been assigned lessons based
on their needs. Some are working on basic punctuation of
conversation, others on paragraphing, and some on other uses of
quotation marks. We spent two class periods on these assignments
and they went very well. The texts that I use for this activity have
very good examples and clear directions so the students can work
quite independently. There will be one or two such periods each week
for the next several weeks. As some students master the uses of
quotation marks, I will move them into other areas, re—underlining,
using possessives, and identifying topic sentences. (Journal, 1/9/80)

So, as in the first marking period, second marking period writing activities
evolved one from another-~Ms. Anderson built skills of writing stories for

Original Magazines from Writing Conversation skills activities. Student skill

 

 

performance in writing stories in turn became the basis for pretesting and
subsequent individualized skills activities.

After completing the longer writing project, i.e., QLIginal Magazines, Ms.
Anderson continued to introduce students to weekly theme topics, for example,

Me: Now and Then, in which students would write about their present lives, then

 

70

describes what they imagined their lives would be like ten years later. In an
interview she described how she decided upon the topic.

The assignment, Me: Now app Then, is a new one for Ms. Anderson
that she hasn't used before. She got the idea when she was watching
television while on Christmas vacation. There were many programs
discussing the new decade and Ms. Anderson got to thinking about
how old her students would be the next decade, 1990. Would things
be very different for them? What would the world be like then? She
decided to use the questions for the students in this assignment.
What are things like for me now? and what will they be like ten
years from now? (Interview, 1/23/80)

 

In preparation for Me: Now and Then, Ms. Anderson introduced students to
a formal outline. She recorded this outline in her journal.

When the assignment was given we discussed what types of
information they might include. I had made an outline of how I would
approach the topic and I shared this with them via the overhead. My
outline was very simple-ex:
I. Where I live
A. City, State
B. Address
11. Whom I live with
A. Parent(s)
B. Brothers/Sisters
C. Others
111. How I make money
A. Jobs
B. Investments
etc. (Journal, 1/12/80)

Again, see Figure 2 for other examples of writing activities that emphasize
outlining (and notetaking). See also the text of this chapter for descriptions of
these writing activities in the different marking periods of the school year.

In the social studies simulation, Tasaday Letters, small groups of students
collaborated as commissions to write letters of acceptance or rejection in
response to offers of help to the Tasaday people. Ms. Anderson explained that
the Tasaday are "a primitive tribe found in 1971 living in the rain forest of the
Phillipines" (Journal, 12/7/79). (Before beginning the simulation she had shown
students two twenty-five minute filmstrip/tape presentations describing the

recent discovery of the Tasady tribe in the Phillipines.) Field note excerpts

71

indicate procedures Ms. Anderson followed to introduce the Tasaday Letters
activity and how she assigned tasks for the commissions to complete.

Ms. Anderson asks students why people might visit the Tasaday. . .
.Lisa suggests that they might bring in clothing, show them how to
make their own clothes. Ms. Anderson suggest that this might be
called the Human Comforts Commission. Ms. Anderson asks for
students' ideas about the advantages and disadvantages of doing this.
She writes their ideas on the overhead projector. . .

 

 

Disadvantages Advantages
-change their lifestyle -keep them warmer
-they'd lose their culture -give protection

-might be uncomfortable

Ms. Anderson writes on the overhead projector a form for the letters
students will write-She tells them that they are to write a rough
draft, then rewrite it. She assigns each group to a different
committee. . .She asks groups of students to staple together the
following: 1) Slip of paper listing name of committee, 2) their list
of advantages and disadvantages, 3) rough draft of letter, 4) final
copy of letter. Ms. Anderson suggests that students take turns being
recorders at each stage of their project (i.e., writing advantages and
disadvantages, rough draft, and final draft). She dismisses groups to
library and hallway to work (Field notes, 12/7/79:5-6).

Ms. Anderson also explained the different responsibilities of the Tasaday
Letters project commissions in her journal.

1 assigned groups of students to commissions (i.e., religious
commission, education commission, media commission, etc.), which
were responsible for insuring that the Tasaday's lives were not
interfered with unnecessarily—or unfairly. Outside groups or
individuals made requests of the commissions (I had these typed on
paper) and the commissions had to decide whether or not to grant the
requests.

The procedure I had the students use was 1) List advantages and
disadvantages to the Tasaday if the request should be granted. 2)
Based on the advantages/disadvantages decide whether or not to
grant the request. 3) Draft a letter informing the group or individual
what decision was reached. If the decision is 'no', explain why; if the
decision is 'yes', list restrictions if there are any. 4) Write a final
draft of the letter (I also gave a brief explanation of how to set up a
busivess) letter and asked the students to use this form.) (Journal,
12 7 79

In the Tasaday Letters project, as in theme writing, Ms. Anderson expected
students to submit both rough and final drafts of their compositions. In theme
writing, however, students developed topics individually, whereas for the letter

writing activity collaborated in small groups and divided up their tasks.

72

Third Marking Period
The third marking period encompassed four key writing activities: a
theme, My Age: a social-studies project, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?: skills

activities, Library Research: and, a research project and speech, A City of the

 

World (see Figure 2). The following paragraphs describe these writing occasions,
and in particular, instances of linkages, or ways, that one activity devolved from
another.

In preparation for student writing of the theme, My Age, Ms. Anderson
read to them a story, "Thirteen", in which a boy described the advantages and
disadvantages of being his chronological age. She read "Thirteen" as an "idea
starter" for personal narrative themes that students would write about the
advantages and disadvantages of their own ages (Journal, 1/19/80). She
recounted how she introduced the assignment in her journal.

I read the story "Thirteen" aloud to my class and they found it

fun to hear-~many chuckles as I read. After I told them that their

next theme topic would be to write about advantages/disadvantages

of being their own ages, I showed them how an outline might help

them get ready to make a rough draft. They are to turn in their

outlines along with the rough/final drafts on Jan. 31. The base
outline was like this:

My Age

1. Advantages
A. (Staying up later) Possible
B. (Go to town w/friends) sub-tOpics
c.

11. Disadvantages
A. (Can't drive yet) Possible
B. (Can't see R movies) sub-topics

C.
(Journal, 1/19/80)

For the earlier theme assignment, Me: Now and Then, students followed an
outline that Ms. Anderson developed; whereas for the My Age theme, students
followed outlines for which Ms. Anderson developed a "base outline", and

students devised "sub—topics", or sub-categories.

73

Students enacted a social-studies simulation, Guess Who's Coming to
Dinner? in a series of five weekly classroom meetings. Ms. Anderson commented
on her purposes for the Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? project in her journal.

The written part of this activity will not be evaluated as most of it

will never go beyond the rough draft stage. I consider this primarily

a social—studies activity. My primary interests are in observing the

interactions of students and helping those who have difficulty

functioning in a group activity. (Journal, 1/ 18/80)

The simulation was a "team activity," which means that all sixty students and
both teachers were involved in the simulation at the same time. The folding
doors that divided the two rooms were opened and the teachers circulated
through the enlarged rooms.

Students, in small groups, took notes and prepared visual materials for oral
presentations to other students on plans for a special dinner. They decided on a
guest list, seating arrangements, menu, and entertainment. They also prepared
an explanation for their choices. Several field note excerpts describe how Ms.
Anderson, and her teaching partner, Mr. Hathaway, jointly oversaw these
activities. They alternately gave directions. Excerpts from field notes follow.

Mr. Hathaway tells students that they must put their seating charts

on the overhead projector acetate. . . . Their next step is to draw up

a menu to suit a once in a lifetime opportunity. . . . Next week the

teachers will ask the students to explain what they do at the dinner

party, and to explain also the people chosen, seating chart, menus,

and the whys of their choices. (Field notes, 1/30/80:7)

Whereas students individually prepared Notes for Speeches (first marking
period) and made oral presentations from them, students in small groups as well
as individually prepared notes for their Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
presentations, as well as shared responsibility for making oral presentations.
Excerpts from field notes describe both collaborative plans and joint
presentations.

Collaborative student planning (notetaking)--

2:39 Ms. Anderson reappears. Karen runs from Mr. Hathaway's room,
again announces to girls at the overhead projector: "We hafta plan a

74

menu." The group moves to a table (NE corner of room).

§4_0 Ms. Anderson joins the group (Martha, Marie, and Marna), tells
them that now it is time to move to another step, transfer their
sketch (dia ram of seating arrangement) to a piece of acetate. (Field
notes, 1/23 80:5)

Joint student presentations--

Mr. Hathaway tells students that they should divide up the
responsibilities of the group, that everyone should explain something.
Mr. Hathaway and Ms. Anderson tell students that there should be
some reasoning for the decisions. Mr. Hathaway: "Any questions? "
He tells students that by 2:15 they should be ready to present to the
larger group, explains that a couple of groups have already told him
that they are ready, that they can be first, get charts, etc. ready for
presentation. (Field notes, 2/6/80:3)

2:28 Mr. Hathaway and Ms. Anderson call for attention of boys.

Four girls begin their report (take turns presenting), show a diagram

on the overhead rojector. . .Students clap at end of the presentation

(Field notes, 2/6 80:3).

Student notetaking in the Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? simulation thus
facilitated small group interactions, as well as oral communication with a larger
group of students. See again Figure 2 for other key writing activities that
emphasized skills of notetaking.

Ms. Anderson provided opportunities for students to acquire needed Library
Research Skills just previous to her introduction of the research project, A Ci y

of the World. Ms. Anderson outlined her plans to provide opportunities for

 

students and acquire research skills in a journal entry.

This week I have been getting materials together so they can
start on their research papers soon. I plan to start with some
orientations to the library, especially the card catalogue and the
Reader's Guide -- and the writing of a bibliography. (Journal,
1715/80)

She did not assume that just because she and the librarian had introduced
students to library resources at the beginning of the school year that they had
acquired the necessary research skills. Field notes reveal her perception of
student needs for additional skills.

Ms. Anderson tells me after class that students, she realized, know
something about the card catalogue and use of the library, but that

some students are missing skills very likely, thus this lesson, so that
she wouldn't have to be answering many questions tomorrow when

75

students use the library for the task she would give them. (Field

notes, l/22/80:1)
She provided opportunities for students to acquire additional Library Research
SE13 for two and one-half weeks. Students learned to locate and record
information from different types of library resources. The teacher, librarian,
and guide sheets helped students to use the card catalogue to locate and record
information about books, filmstrips, vertical file materials, and audiotapes (Field
notes, 1/23/80:l-2); to use the Reader's Guide to locate and record information
needed for retrieval of appropriate periodicals and articles relevant to a topic
under investigation (Field notes, l/30/80:1-2); and to make bibliographic entries
for books, magazines and other types of resources (Field notes, 2/5/80:l-3)

After students completed the Library Research Skills activities, they
researched, wrote about, and shared reports on A City of the World. They used
organizing skills and procedures they had practiced in earlier writing projects,

such as This Is My Life booklets, and Original Magazines (see also Figure 2,

 

 

common skills emphases), as well as skills in locating and recording information
from library resources gained from the more recently experienced Library

Research Skills activities.

 

Students developed booklets on their chosen cities as Ms. Anderson guided
them for three and onehalf weeks through successive stages of brainstorming
for topics, generating an outline, exploring library resources and gathering notes,
writing rough and final drafts, listing bibliographies, and completing maps and
tables of contents.

She referred, for example, in three different journal entries, to her
procedures for guiding students through detailed processes of outlining and
notetaking. In the first entry she explained how she and the students developed

an outline.

76

. . .In the afternoon the kids generated an outline with me at the
overhead--of major points which could/should be covered in a
research paper on a city. I plan to have the results put on a ditto so
all can have a copy. (Journal, 2/8/80)

Ms. Anderson introduced the outline that a first group of students had
begun to a second group of students. Major topics included history, religion,
government and sociology. Students in the second group continued to develop
the outline by making suggestions for subtopics under a sociology heading. Ms.
Anderson listed them on the overhead projector.

In her follow up of this lesson she considered some modifications in her
planning, that is, ways to facilitate notetaking. In subsequent journal entries she
explained these modifications.

Over the weekend, as I thought about putting the students'
outline on a ditto, I had another idea that might make that outline
more meaningful for them. I will have the secretary triple space the
outline and then students can use that paper for the recording of
their notes. Pe'haps this will also cut down on the copying of
sentences word for word and encourage "notes". Another plus might
be that it could help student organize their own papers into
paragraphs or sections. I've never provided such a structured guide
b7forl'e )so it will be interesting to see what happens. (Journal
2 ll 80

On the way to school this a.m. l was rethinking about the outline
the secretary was going to type when it hit me that an extra sheet
stapled on with the label "Bibliography Information" might help the
kids remember to jot down that information as they finished using
each source. In other years a common problem has been that kids
would lose - or never write down in the first place - information on
the sources they used. And, so often, they couldn't relocate the
materials to get the information. I also have decided to have them
turn in their outlines - or at least present them in class - several
times during the course of the projects so I can keep tabs on their
note taking. (Journal, 2/12/80)

Excerpts from field notes also show that students used their outlines as
they located information in a variety of resource materials, and that Ms.
Anderson continued to assist student to improve their notetaking skills.

1:30 (Library) Students are located mostly in the central section of

the library. They have outline c0pies with them and are using

atlases, encyclopedias, the card catalog, geography books about one
country. . .

77

1:55 (Classroom). . . Ms. Anderson tells students that now that she
has observed them working, she has suggestions that would be helpful.
She tells them not to go to an article with a closed mind, that is, with
the sole aim of finding the population first. She explains that they
may not find the population for two weeks . . .not ever. Ms.
Anderson suggests that students read a couple of paragraphs, then
make notes about what they find. . .(Field notes, 2/12/80:1)

In her journal Ms. Anderson noted that although use of outlines hindered
some students in their search for information, overall, they were helpful, and
stimulated student to locate independently a variety of library materials. On a
Tuesday, Ms. Anderson expressed her perceptions of both the usefulness and the
dysfunctions of outlines.

The outlines seemed to be a big help to many kids, but a
hindrance to others. For instance, since "Population" was I.A. (first
subtopic in outline), some thought they had to find that information
before they could find out about housing,_(Vl.B), government (111) or
any other thing. Then there were those who'd get confused because
they'd look under "France" to find information on "Paris" and write
down the population of the country rather than the city. I am really
disappointed we couldn't have had the two longer time periods to get
things off to a smoother start today. (Journal, 2/12/80)

But by the following Friday she expressed general satisfaction with the students'
use of outlines.

I did manage on Wednesday, and Friday to squeeze in some time in

the library to work on the research projects. Most of the students

are finding a nice variety of materials with a minimal amount of

assistance from myself and/or the librarian. It appears that the

outline has been helpful and is eliminating some of the copying I've

seen other years. (Journal, 2/15/80)

Before students began to draft their research reports, namely, for A Ci y
of the World booklets, Ms. Anderson distributed a guidesheet entitled "Writing a
Good Report," and explained the sections describing requirements for their
booklets. Field notes document Ms. Anderson's explanation of requirements for
the booklet.

9:26 Ms. Anderson tells students she will review what is on the sheet,

and explains how she will evaluate the booklets. Ms. Anderson shows

on the overhead projector: 1. COVER -- TITLE. She tells students

they can have a design on their covers, and asks them: "Does the
title have to be the name of the city?" Ms. Anderson gives examples

78

of descriptions that might fit a city and asks the students if these
would be acceptable. . .Ms Anderson illustrates on the overhead
projector: scribbles 'Berlin' inside a rectangle (representing a book
cover). She tells students they can go to the library and ask for
stencils- 'at least it shows more effort,‘ or they can cut out letters
from magazines. She suggests that they think about designing the
cover, and maybe draw a map. . .

9. _3_0 On the overhead projector Ms. Anderson writes: 11. T1tle page
She asks students what information the title page has to have on it.
Three different student respond with 'title', "author , and 'date',
respectively. On the overhead projector next to Title page, Ms.
Anderson writes: title, author, and date. She tells students that they
can write on the papers she gave them. She shows students the cover
and title page of a library book, and illustrates on the overhead
projector ways of drawing their covers and title pages.

$14 Ms. Anderson: "Take out your outline, the one you've been
taking notes on in the library." Noise level rises as students take out
their outlines.

9: _3_5 On the overhead projector Ms. Anderson draws table of contents
page. She then explains what she has written. She uses a social-
studies book to illustrate the captions and sections of the table.

9_: 40 Ms. Anderson writes on the overhead projector: Ill. Table of
C—ontents—sections, page no. bibliography page. Ms. Anderson asks
students to look at the very last page of their outlines. She cautions
them that they won't be able to fill out some of the outline sections.

 

9: 44 Ms. Anderson tells students that the body of the report will be
like the themes they have written and writes on the overhead
projector: IV. Body of Report.

9: 45 Ms. Anderson then adds more to the outline: V. Bibliography
She turns off the overhead projector. (Field notes, 2/19 9780 l- 2)

 

In addition to their written reports, students also prepared visual materials,
for example, maps, to help them present their findings orally. After one week of
preparing visual materials and practicing for their presentations, students made
formal speeches to their classmates and teacher about their findings. The
following field note excerpt, for instance, illustrates procedures teacher and
students used to facilitate sharing of reports about chosen cities, both orally and
visually.

1932_4 Ms. Anderson "Today is speech dayl. . ." She explains and

demonstrates to students how they can use the overhead projector,

e.g., locate and operate the switch for the light and fan. . . . She
demonstrates how students are to stand next to the overhead

79

projector, and how they can focus it and adjust it to the desired

height. . . and use the pen as a pointer. Janie locates Monaco on the

wall map and on a transparency. She also shows her audience the flag

of Monaco on a transparency as she reads her report. . . . Randy

starts his speech. He shows a transparency map of three Canadian

provinces on the overhead projector. He points out Montreal. . . .

The students clap. (Field notes, 3/7/80:2,3)

Fourth Marking Pe'iod

The fourth marking period encompassed the following key writing activities
(see also Figure 2): Writing a Synopsis, an activity in which students each wrote
summaries, or abridgments, of four myths they had read; Right Is Write, a
simulation game during which students, enacting roles of writers, agents, editors
and publishers, wrote, edited, and selected stories for publication; Debate Notes,
an activity in which students prepared notes for debating the pros and cons of an
issue, for example, whether or not they should have a student representative on
the Board of Education; and an Archaeological Dig, a simulation activity in
which students created, coded, and decoded messages about a culture different
from their own.

As in writing events that occurred in the first three marking periods of the
school year, writing events of the fourth marking period continue to indicate how
Ms. Anderson developed writing skills and activities, one devolving from
another, in view of ongoing assessments of students' needs and abilities, and of
their interests.

In the first, second, and third marking periods, Ms. Anderson introduced
opportunities for students to practice writing skills separately -- previous to
incorporating them in more complex writing tasks and activities. For example,
in the first marking period, practice in simply Writing Sentences preceded the
more complex activity of writing sentences in a topical context of paragraph

writing, for example, Writing Directions themes; in the second marking period,

practice in Writing Conversation preceded its incorporation in story writing for

80

Original Magazines; in the third marking period, introduction and practice in

various Library Research Skills preceded their application in extensive research

 

theme activities to complete A City of the World reports. Contrastively, in the

 

fourth marking period, key incidents were relatively discrete and culminatory.
Preparatory skills and topics activities took place, however, in earlier marking
periods as illustrated in following paragraphs.

In an end-of-year activity, Writing a Synopsis, students followed procedures
similar but more extensive than those followed for writing Book Summaries
completed as a beginning-of-year activity in the first marking period. For Book
Summaries, students each wrote one summary report on a 3x5 card for any
category of book of their choosing; but for Writing a Synopsis, students expanded
their summaries as they wrote four summary reports on 5x8 cards for a special
category of book, namely, myths.

Ms. Anderson described the Writing a Synopsis activity in a journal entry.
She explained her perception that students needed additional opportunities to
improve their abilities to summarize, detailed the myth synopsis assignment,
described resources she had made available for the activity, and explained the
myth synopsis assignment in relation to the Book Summa_ry activity.

This week I had the librarian pull all our mythology books (as well as

borrow some at lower reading levels from the elementary schools).

She put those on a cart which 1 have placed in my room-and l have

added about 40 trade books (reading texts from the communication

arts storeroom) which contain myths. During the next week, each

student is to read at least four myths and-on a 5x8 card—write the

title, list the major characters, and write a synopsis. Writing a

synopsis is a skill which is difficult for many children so I like to give

them occasional exercises which help develOp this skill. (This is also

the purpose of the "card" book reports which they have done each

marking period.) (Journal, 4/ 18/80).

In another journal entry, Ms. Anderson noted the improvement she had observed

in students' abilities to condense what they had read, and described a follow-

81

through activity in which she would ask students to write original myths as
contributions to a literary magazine they would develop as a group.

Yesterday was the deadline for students to submit their four
synopses of the myths they had read. A few still tried to retell the
whole story—-but the 5x8 cards helped to curtail that. Most are able
to condense main ideas much better now. . .Next week each student
will be asked to write an original myth—and we'll have those all typed
up into a class "literary magazine" so each student can have a c0py.
(Journal, 4/25/80)

Hence, the Book Summary activity prepared students for the activity of

 

Writing Synopses. Interests generated by students' reading of classic type myths
and by writing synopses of these myths led to Ms. Anderson's idea that she would
ask students to write original myths. Her ideas that students also contribute
their original myths to a group-produced liteary magazine is remindful of an
earlier (second marking period) format development, that students write stories
for their Original Magazines.

In a simulation game, Right Is Write, which also required story writing,

 

students enacted roles of writers, agents, editors and publishers. Writers drafted
and redrafted short stories using ideas and vocabulary words listed on "story
starter" cards. Agents assisted writers with processes of editing and revising,
evaluated writers' stories and sold them to editors. Editors read and evaluated
stories and sold them to publishers. A Board of Editors later reevaluated stories
that publishes had read and purchased, and selected outstanding stories for
publication.

In her journal, Ms. Anderson explained the purpose of the story writing,
that is, to produce a written resource that younger students could use to improve
their reading skills.

The objective for the game was to write one or more selections which

might be used in fourth-or fifth-grade for the purpose of teaching

reading. Writes were given "story starter" ideas and suggested
vocabulary words to use in their selections. (Journal, 5/2/80)

82

Excerpts from a videotaped commentary captures Ms. Anderson's

explanation of purpose to her students.

Ms. Anderson: The objective is to write something that a publisher
will buy for a specific audience. The audience. . .does anyone
remember?. . . something that would be appropriate to use in a
fourth-or fifth-grade classroom—for what purpose? . . .for reading . .
.writing for kids who are fourth or fifth graders. But at the same
time you have to sorta think, well, a teacher would use this. And it's
going to be a short description that a teacher could use to develop
vocabulary. And you've all done so many exercises like that I don't
think you'll have any trouble with it. (Videotape commentary,
5/2/80:l:385)

She suggested diffeent formats that writes could use, and described how they
could best use the story starters:

Ms. Anderson: If the story starters are returned afte use, writes

can pick out a second one. They can be non-fiction, an article, a

make-believe story, an explanation, et cetea. . .Writers don't have to

stick to all the suggested ideas of the story starters. . .about one

page in length. . .You can make up your own title. . .Use as many

vocabulary words as you can. (Videotape commentary, 5/2/80:l-620)

In stories students wrote earlie for Original Magazines, Ms. Anderson
expected them to individually draft, edit, revise, evaluate and publish their
stories with little help from peers; in stories written for Right Is Write, she
expected students to give and accept help, and to negotiate with peers during the
writing process. Students as a group enacted writing processes to complete
stories for Right Is Write. They organized divisions of labor, and collaborated
and competed to produce group selected story publications. In Right ls Write Ms.
Anderson expected students to practice "people" skills, or oral communication
skills, as well as written communication skills. She expressed this expectation,
for example, in an interview and a journal entry.

Ms. Anderson is going to assign tasks because she believes it will

work much better if she does. The agent is the key person and has to

know punctuation, etc, very well and be an excellent write. Editors
evaluate the writing so they have to be reasonably competent in

catching mistakes in others' writing, even if they don't write very
well themselves. . .Publishers need to be students whom others trust

83

and get along well with. Good leadership quality is important, Ms.

Anderson said. They have to be able to refuse work tactfully and not

make people mad. (Interview, “28/80)

I preassigned roles for the students to play because some of the roles

demand students with special skills (writing skills as well as "peOple"

skills). Each game requires 2 publishers, # editors, l banker (teacher

aide) and agents with 3-4 writes in their "care". (I ended up with 5

agents - or 5 "writing groups"). (Journal, 5/2/80)

Videotape commentary excerpts offer examples of how students both
cOllaborated and competed as they enacted role assignments.

An instance of collaboration, or peer assistance--

Writer: It doesn't have to be neat because this is just a rough draft.

Kiean (Agent) reads writer's paper aloud then says: Cross out 'kind',

put a period here and capitalize this. It makes a shorter sentence.

(Videotape commentary, 5/2/80:5:900)

An indicator of competition--

Kiean tells Garvin that he was offeed $100 for Garvin's story but is

not going to sell it because he may be offered more somewhere else.

(Videotape commeitary, 5/2/80, 6:602)

Hence, students moved from having written self-revised and self-edited
stories, which were self-selected for publication in their self-published Original
Magazines for self-choosen audiences, to processes of involving othes in their
writing productions. Students proceeded to incorporate editing and revising
suggestions from peer critics for stories that were selected by a group of peers,

for a peer-teacher Right Is Write publication, for a teacher-chosen audience.

In another key writing activity, Debate Notes, students wrote about ideas

 

they would use to argue sides of school related issues, for example, lengthening
of the school day, and changes in the intramural program. Ms. Anderson
described in journal entries procedures students followed for debates of two
school related issues.

For debate activities related to the issue of lengthening the school day, Ms.

Anderson wrote the following account.

84

Another activity this week involved writing for only a few
students--those students who volunteered to be part of a
panel/debate. However, it turned out to be such a successful activity
that we are going to continue doing it each week-«and, as a result, it
will ultimately involve more. It all started when, during a discussion
of democracy in ancient Greece and Rome, one students asked why--
since they are citizens—students aren't allowed to vote on issues
which involve them. (The issue of immediate concern was the
lengthening of the middle school day by #0 minutes--to be effective
next fall.) Every student appeared to have an opinion on the subject
(and many points were well taken) so I asked if they'd like to have a
panel/debate session in two days--naturally, they all did. I chose four
students—two to present ideas for and two to present againstuand
told them to talk with their parents and others to get ideas before
they wrote down three-four ideas for their 'side'. I gave each one a
sheet of paper for notetaking with a typed heading:

Middle school representation on the Board of Education:
Should students have a voice in those decisions which
affect them and their school day or should they not have a
voice?

On Thursday the panelists sat at a table in the front of the room.
I established guidelines--the panel members would each present a
statement on the question without audience interuption. When they
finished, the audience would be allowed to direct questions to panel
members. Finally, everyone would vote secretly on the issue. The
whole thing went so well (vote was #6—4 that students have a voice on
the board) and the kids were really excited about it. One girl
suggested that we do it every week since we are no longer having Tic
Tac Toe (a current events game we played weekly with the other two
sixth grades). The class liked the ideas so they generated a list of
possible topics—presidential elections and candidates, hostage
situation, energy, inflation, Olympic boycott, etc. On Monday I will
appoint a new panel to prepare for a panel/debate on Friday. Once
again a "spur of the moment" idea has worked out and I believe that
the reason such ideas often work is because the teacher and the
students get the ideas and plans going simultaneously. It's a new idea
to everyone and the excitement of planning is contagious. (Journal,
4 18 80

Ms. Anderson also wrote an account of debate activities about the issue of
changing the intramural program. She noted in accounts of this debate issue as
well as for the earlie one, how she and her students decided on follow up
activities.

This week the students had another panel/debate session. . . The
topic of this week's discussion was our intramural programnwhether

it is better to continue it as is or if changes should be made. One
class voted 24.5 for the suggested changes; the other class voted 25-0

85

for the changes. I suggested that the panelists take their suggestions

for change to the Ph sical Education department for their

consideration. (Journal, 4: 25/80)

Earlier practice in skills of identifying and categorizing reasons for
deciding for or against a particular action, as in the Tasaday Letters activity,

prepared students for Debate Note writing. As preparatory steps for writing the

 

Tasaday Letters, a group of students, as members of a Human Comforts

 

Commission, for example, listed advantages and disadvantages of assisting the
Tasaday people, and prepared reasons to persuade a group of people of their own
culture of the value of providing for what they perceived as basic human needs
for the Tasaday. (Field notes, 12/7/79:5-6).

Similar to proceedings for the Tasaday Letters activity, for the Refit;
Egt_es_ activity students also listed advantages and disadvantages of taking action
based on their conviction or opinion about a given issue. For Debate Notes,
however, students used notes as immediate bases for oral arguments directed at
an immediate, or live audience, rather than, as in the Tasaday Lette project,
use notes as bases for formal written statements directed to a remote or
imagined audience.

An end of year social studies activity that involved writing was an
Archaeological Dig in which, as Ms. Anderson explained in an interview, students
used their writing skills to create futuristic laws, or codes, for people of an
imagined culture.

Ms. Anderson talked about the project "Dig", which is a social studies

unit that they will do in May . . . she remembered that students have

to write a description of the law or code of the future. She said they

would have "put their writing to use." (Interview, “IS/80)

One week in advance of the activity, in videotaped commentary, Ms. Andeson
offered an overview of how she anticipated that students would enact the "Dig".

Ms. Anderson: "Oh, I love simulation games, but they're so hard to

find, good ones. . .We're going to do a simulation archaeological game
starting next Friday that will run the rest of the year where they

86

develop their own culture, then they make artifacts to represent that
culture, then they bury them and the other class has to dig them up
and put them back together again and tell them what their value
system was. That's a fun. . .(Videotape commentary, 5/2/80, 6:8145)

Field notes document Archaeological Dig activity—tell how groups of
students encoded in writing artifacts of their imagined culture for another group
of students to discover and interpret.

Students were engaged in an archaeological "dig". . . Each group had
a section of park where they hid items of another culture which they
had created, e.g., "Rosetta stone" made from clay; messages on
"papyrus" that had to be pieced together and deciphered with help
from the rosetta stone. . . Ms. Anderson announced to students that
they would share their artifacts. Students were to tell about the
artifact they acquired from the othe class and tell other students in
their own class what the artifact tells about the culture from which
it originated. Ms. Anderson asks for volunteers. . . Donald shows
what he calls a tombstone, says that this particular culture believes
in life afte death. Jeannette suggest that the culture buries its
people. Darrell suggests that they believe in reincarnation. Ms.
Anderson asks students if they know what incarnation means. Darrell
explains. Ms. Anderson suggests that Donald add new information to
his sheet for sharing with the other class. (Field notes, 5/29/80:l-2)

Ms. Anderson also wrote an account of the "Dig" in her journal. She
described how the project fit within other activities of the curriculum-~the "Dig"
as a culminating activity of social studies--, and how she terminated weekly
theme writing so that students would have sufficient time to complete the "Dig"
project, not only to create a culture different from their own, but also to
develop a language and artifacts for that culture.

We started our final social studies unit-~DIG-—-in mid-May and at that
point the weekly themes also ceased. DIG is a simulation game--
dealing with archaeology. For the past 5-6 years I've used this as a
culmination activity to our year-long study of various cultures. Mr.
Hathaway and I divide our students into two groups (or teams) and
each team then "creates a culture"-past, present, or future but
within the earth and/or its atmosphere. Each team decides how their
people lived-housing, education, religion, economics, art, language,
number systems, recreation-etc.--and then they make "artifacts"
which such a culture would probably leave. Each culture develops its
own coded language-and a "rosetta stone" to help the other team
break the code. All writings must be done in the code. (Journal,
5/30/80).

87

Further, Ms. Anderson explained how she adapted plans of the original
Archaeological Dig game to suit abilities of her students and how she assisted
students by offeing them suggestions for making and encoding diffeent kinds of
artifacts. She also noted that the process of decoding the written messages of
other students brought them to a deeper realization of the meaningfulness of
sentence composition and mechanics of writing, both of which received special
emphasis in first marking period activities.

DIG is a great hands-on activity that keeps most kids involved
and interested during these last hot days of school! I found the game
in a catalog out of California-«actually it is just an explanatory
manual. It was designed for a high school/college class in
archaeology and is much more complex than the version I have
developed to use with sixth-graders.

I spent quite a bit of space detailing this game because it has a
lot of writing involved in it. The hardest thing for the kids is to make
an artifact (with or without writing) which r resents something from
the culture. For instance, a student may write his7her idea for the
culture--i.e., "thee, people have six wives and each wife lives on a
different floor of a six story house" -- but have difficulty making
something to represent the _i_d_e_§. For such ideas as this I might
suggest several types of artifacts, i.e., an announcement on the
society page written in the style of today's social news; an
advertisement in the real estate section of a paper for housing,
possibly with a picture; a drawing of a weddinguwith five othe wives
present; a diary page, etc.

Students become very indignant when their found artifacts have
incorrectly spelled words or carelessly made code symbols because it
makes translation so much more difficult. (Journal, 5/30/80).

Summary of Teacher's Means of Accomplishing Curricular Goals
Toward the goal that each student experience success, Ms. Anderson
introduced simple skill activities, then built from them more complex writing
activities, in view of students' abilities, needs and interests. For example, in her
first short assignment, a Book Summary, she instructed students to write lists of
books read during the summer, and to categorize and sub-categorize them by use
of simple phrases or words. In a subsequent short assignment, a Diary Page, Ms.

Anderson directed students to write more than phrases. She asked them to

write sentences about feelings recently experienced at school. Although she

88

commended all students for their efforts in this assignment, she discovered that
one or more students wrote only phrases, so, in a third assignment, a Sentence
Writing exercise, Ms. Anderson explained and elicited examples of two-word
sentences, the expansion of these sentences by the use of descriptive words, and
then challenged each student to write three original descriptive sentences. In
another assignment, a follow-up of the Book Summary lesson, she asked students
to also write a book report in three summary sentences.

Concurrent with these shorter writing activities, in a longer assignment, a

This Is My Life booklet, Ms. Anderson expected students to compose and to order

 

caption sentences, not only about current experiences, as in the Diary Page
assignment, but also about past, and possible future, experiences as well. In yet
another sentence writing assignment, Graph Questions, students wrote a specific
type of sentence, namely, questions, as part of a social-studies activity; Ms.
Anderson asked students to challenge reader comprehension of their graphs by
writing concise questions about them.

As the school year progressed, Ms. Anderson introduced students to more
complex writing activities. She focused on skills of paragraph writing, outlining,
notetaking, and writing conversation, for example, as students continued to
practice and improve their sentence writing skills. Near the end of the school
year, however, in the Archaeological Dig simulation, students refocused on basic
sentence writing skills in a new way. As they became frustrated in the process
of decoding messages from people of an imagined culture (which othe students
had written) they reached a heightened awareness of the need for accuracy in
mechanics of spelling and letter formation.

Writing activities that focused on common writing skills, for example,
sentence writing, (see Figure 2a) transcended the school imposed marking

periods, as well as the teacher's categories, or purposes for writing.

89

Students progressed from expressing their thoughts in phrases and
sentences, to expanding their thoughts by means of paragraph writing. Ms.
Anderson introduced, and particularly emphasized paragraph writing in theme
assignments, such as Following Directions, Something Old, and Me: Now and
31133; and in a letter writing assignment namely, the Tasaday Letters. For these
activities students wrote several interrelated sentences focused on conveying
meaning, e.g., descriptions and perspectives, to both real and imagined
audiences. (see also Figure 2b)

Writing activities became even more complex as students gradually began
to develop organizing, notetaking, and outlining skills. They began with simple
categorizing and sub-categorizing, (Book Summary); listing of ideas (Notes for
§gee_c_h), and a loose chronology of events (Diary Page), and progressed to the
organizing of magazine entries according to a table of contents (Original
Magazines). Ms. Anderson then led students to develop themes from a formal
outline she had devised (Me: Now and Then), to a development of their own
outlines for a theme they would write (My Age), to extensive and orderly note
taking (Library Research Skills), and to generation of an outline and note
gathering under outline headings in preparation for writing a research report (A

City of the World). Students also applied their classifying and notetaking skills

 

to social-studies projects (Tasaday Letters, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? and

 

Debate Notes). (See also Figure 2c, which illustrates again how emphasis on
~ outlining and notetaking skills transcends both categories and marking periods.)
So, although writing activities can be neatly categorized according to the
teacher's expressed purposes (i.e., "skills", "topics" and "social studies"), and
according to predetemined time spans, other factors within the social context
of the classroom, such as the (deve10pment of skills and writing activities

according to student needs, abilities, and interests, are more intricately

90

FleureZa.&ey Hrtttng Events that the leacher Oevelooed
and Categortzed Ourtng the Year.

TNE PM Milli; PERIODS OF THE SCHOOL YEAR
I (916-1119) 11 (11112-115) {III (1128413) IV (417-5113)

A a. at: Sung I j
b. at!!!“ Hrtttng 2

 

 

 

 

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'TWICS'

 

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(SImIaEIon)

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STUDIES“

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Table 2a: Sentence cmttton. spelltng: a.h.e.f.h,t

figure 23. Key Hrtttng Events that the Teacher Develooed
and Categorized Ourthg the Year.

71‘ PG"! ”KING "3st OF THE SCHOOL YEAR

 

I (916-1119) II (11112-115) III (1128-413) IV (417-6113) 1

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figure - kley Irtttng (vents flat the Teacher ”loved
and Cataprtaed term the tear.

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I (915-1119) I (11112-115) III (1128-413) IV (#174113)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Table 2:. Outltntne. netet‘ktne: a.d.f.J.h.l.e.n.e.e.s 0! I!

91

intertwined and less easily identified and charted. Such tracings of writing
activities are valuable, however, because they indicate how a teacher can and
does create a writing curriculum attuned to individual student needs--how the
teacher responds to student behavior. The next section focuses upon the student
role in creating the writing curriculum--how the student responds to teacher

behavior in curriculum making.

Third Section: Student Role in Enactment of the Curriculum

Students gradually became more involved in different aspects of
curriculum enactment. This involvement followed from Ms. Anderson's beliefs
that her role as teacher was to facilitate student experiences of success and
that, reciprocally, the role of students was to "do their best." (See also Chapte
III, Section I, for the teacher's perception of the student role.) Ms. Anderson
believed that students learned more insofar as they were actively involved in
writing activities. Her introduction of an exploratory activity that involved

students in using the Reader's Guide (in preparation for A City of the World

 

research project) is an example that supports this belief. In he journal she
wrote:

Wednesday's lesson on using the Reader's Guide went very well. I'm

so aware that many (not all!) students function better and seem to

learn much more in an activity-oriented lesson that I often feel

frustrated when I can't seem to find ways to present material in that

fashion more often. (Journal, 2/1/80)

Ms. Anderson found many ways to actively involve students in writing
processes. In the following ways, for example, Ms. Anderson fostered student's
involvement in several key writing incidents during the school year: listening to
the teacher's explanations and directives and asking clarifying questions;

generating ideas for writing, especially through brainstorming; sharing in

decision making processes; suggesting ways to improve writing activities;

92

evaluating written products; and sharing information, or guiding others to new

means of learning.

Listenmg and Responding

As she administered the beginning of year spelling pretest, Ms. Anderson
expected students to listen carefully, remember, and write with correct spellings
the words she dictated. She repeated each word three times, and would not
make exception to this pattern. One student, for example, challenged this test
taking rule but Ms. Anderson affirmed it. In field notes we read:

Afte Ms. Anderson had dictated a group of words, Andrew asked her

to repeat a word. Ms. Anderson: "I thought we weren't going to play

that game?" (Field notes, 9/7/79:5)

In a beginning-of-year Book Report assignment, Ms. Anderson asked
students to listen and to repeat what she had just told them, and asked them to
respond "yes" or "no" to a survey question. She also allowed students to ask
questions for clarification. For example, in field note excerpts we read:

Ms. Anderson asks students what they need to remember about titles.

Students respond that they need to capitalize and underline words in

a title. . . Ms. Anderson asks students how many of them liked

various books she mentioned by title as examples of the various

categories. . . explains the differences between historical fiction

(relating to past events) and realistic fiction (happening in the now)

. . . Student: "Are we going to see who can get the most cards in

there?" Ms. Anderson: "No. It's no race." Joelle: "Can we put

more than three titles on paper?" Ms. Anderson: "Yes, if it's legible

and large enough to read easily." (Field notes, 9/ l//79:5)

Brainstorming
At different times throughout the year, in preparation for various writing

activities, Ms. Anderson challenged students to generate, or brainstorm, for

ideas. For example, early in the year, when she introduced the Diary Page

 

assignment, she invited students to think about their feelings during the first
four days of school. She expected them to all participate-spontaneously share

words that expressed diffeent feelings they had experienced (Field notes,

93

9/12/79:l-2; Journal, 9/13/79: see excerpts quoted in previous section, first
marking period).

Late in the school year Ms. Anderson challenged students to brainstorm --
think of at least three cities outside the United States that they would like to

research for A City of the World project. In interview comments we read:

 

Friday, Ms. Anderson will have the students brainstorm for topics for

their projects. Everyone must choose a city and Ms. Anderson wants

to help them think of a wide variety of possibilities. She is going to

be checking with the librarian about the books available for the

students. (Interview, 2/6/80)

Afte checking with the librarian to see that sufficient media resource
information was available in the school library to research chosen cities, Ms.

Anderson made the final selections from each student's three choices of t0pic.

Decision Making

 

In addition to inviting students to share in topic selection for the research
project, Ms. Anderson further shared her decision making options with students
on many other writing occasions. Such occasions included the following: choice
of weekly theme tOpics four times during the year (Journal, 10/7/79), choice of
type of magazine to produce (Journal, 10/7/79), choice of magazine entries
(Interview, 10/30/79; Field notes, 12/18/79:2), choice of media resources for _A
City of the World research project (Field notes, 2/20/80:l-2), choice of
production rate for Individualized Skills activities (Journal, l/9/ 80) and for Right
Is Write stories (Field notes, 512/805), and choices of break time and work time
for Right Is Write activities (Field notes, 5/2/80:l,6)

For example, in her journal Ms. Anderson wrote about her plans for sharing
theme topic choices during the year.

The writing assignment next week will be to write on "any topic".

About every third or fourth writing assignment, I like to provide this

option for those who can't think of a t0pic, I have printed lists of
possible titles available. (Journal, lO/7I79)

94

As another example, in her journal she also described how the type of
magazines students chose for the Original Magazines project would help them
choose types of stories they would write for inclusion in their magazines.

Yesterday afternoon I talked with the classes about the magazines I

was going to ask them to "publish". This week's writing assignment is

to begin the rough draft of a story which they will eventually

incorporate into their individual magazines. For this reason, they had

to decide what types of magazines they wanted to make-general

interest, sport, beauty, comic, etc--so they would write a story which

avmc be apprOpriate to include in it. (Journal, 11/7/79)

Not only did Ms. Anderson share her decision-making options and assist
students in making individual decisions, but she also provided them with
opportunities to arrive at consensus, or participate in small group decisions. One
example of small group decision making took place in the Tasaday Letter
simulation. Students, in groups of three or four, decided upon a division of labor,
that is, who would record ideas of the group, who would write a rough draft, and
who would write a final draft of a letter. They also decided upon the contents of
the letter, written in reply to a request of an outside group for assistance to the
Tasaday people. In field notes, we read:

Ms. Anderson tells students that they are to write a rough draft of

the letter then rewrite it, . . .She assigns the groups to the library,

tells them they will need three sheets of paper. . .suggests that

students take turns being recorders at each stage of their project

(i.e., writing advantages and disadvantages, writing rough draft, and

writing final draft) (Field notes, 12/7/79:6)

Several other instances of small group decision making took place as
students enacted a series of tasks as part of a Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
simulation. Students separately decided upon lists of ten possible dinner guests,
then, in groups of four, shared their total lists of forty names. In group
processes of decision making each group of four then finalized a list of ten
dinner guests (Field notes, l/l6/80:5). In a second meeting, a week later, each

group of students decided upon and drew up a diagram of a seating chart,

according to which they and their guests would be seated (Field notes,

95
l/23/80:lt). In a third session, held during the following week, the student groups
discussed and decided upon menu items and a program of entertainment for the
event (Field notes, l/30/80:7). Finally, in a fourth session, held one week later,
the small groups of students decided upon who would present what part of their
plans to the class at large (Field notes, 2/6/80:2). (Journal, 1/15/80).

Excerpts from field notes illustrate decision making processes. For
example, one group of students explored its reasons for guest selection.

Don explains his list. After a short discussion with other members he

places pluses and question marks afte names on his list. Colin reads

his list after Gene reads and discusses at least one name on his paper.

(Field notes, l/l6/80:5)

In another example, Mr. Hathaway, who teamed with Ms. Andeson to
direct Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? simulation activities, explained to the
students a possible criterion they might use to decide seating arrangements, and
listened to criteria students suggested.

Mr. Hathaway tells students that they must draw a table and seating

chart, explain their reasoning for it. For example, that in politics

one wouldn't seat the representative from Russia next to the

representative from Afghanistan. . .Members of group make various

suggestions: one student suggests alphabetical order, another that

they draw stars to represent people. . . (Field notes, l/23/80:l&)

SuggestingWays to Improve Writing Processes

Ms. Anderson often accepted from students ideas for improving presently
experienced, or future anticipated writing activities. Examples of their
suggestions are the following.

-In the Following Directions activity a student suggested that othe
students not only read, but also literally follow directions their peers had written
for reaching an unnamed location in the school building. Ms. Anderson described
this activity in her journal.

W. S. schools have a list of "common writings" to be taught to each

grade level. One of those for 6th-grade is to write clear directions--

so I used this as a basis for this week's theme. Each student is to
write the directions on how to get to a special area classroom from

96

our communication arts room--but the name of the room to which the
directions lead is not to be mentioned. My original plan was to let
the kids read these directions orally to see if the rest of the class
could tell where they led. Naturally, the kids wanted to _d_o_ it (find
the classroom), but I explained it would mean too many people
wandering in the halls during classes. Then one girl suggested that )‘2
the class go at a time-and that seemed more practical (Why didn't I
think of thatl)--so that's the plan now. (Journal, 9/26/79)

In October, Ms. Anderson accepted a student's suggestion that she turn out
the lights as she read a scary passage as part of an introduction to writing
descriptive themes. Ms. Anderson described this happening in her journal.

Friday afternoon's introduction to this week's theme went very well.
I read two short descriptive paragraphs to them--one describing a
room, the other describing a shipyard at night-and then the kids told
the details they had heard that made the paragraphs seem "real". I
was amazed at some of the details that they were able to recall. It
was a perfect day to discuss an eerie setting-odark and rainy. When I
suggested my idea to the first class about shutting their eyes and
saying a word, phrase, or sentence appropriate to use in a spooky
story, one of the kids suggested turning off the lights and pulling the
blinds to add to the dark atmosphere. I nearly killed myself bumping
into things as I went about the room tapping those who had their
hands raised for sharing. But it was worth it--some neat ideas.
(Journal, 10/21/79)

-—Near the end of the school year, during enactment of the simulation

game, Right Is Write, students orally suggested changes in the game in the event

 

that they could play it again. As a follow up procedure Ms. Anderson devised and
distributed a questionnaire in which she also solicited suggestions from students
in writing. Questions she asked included the following:

List, in order, the three things you would most like to do if we do
Right Is Write again.

What did you like BEST about Right Is Write?
What did you like LEAST about Right 15 Write?

Evaluating Written Products
Frequently during the school year, students corrected and evaluated their
own writings, writings of other students, and writings of Ms. Anderson.

Examples of their activities follow.

97

--In the Book Summary activity, Ms. Anderson invited students to assess
the quality of the work that they had displayed on the bulletin board. In field

notes we read:

Ms. Anderson:. . ."go back and look at yours (pocket and card on
bulletin board) between now and Friday. . .Leave it if you're pleased
with it. Some peOple put forth a lot of effort and some didn't." Ms.
Anderson suggests that if students are not satisfied with what they
did, they can do the assignment over before Friday when she will
collect and look at them. She explains that everyone is to do a book
report every nine weeks. . .must have read one new book by
November 1. (Field notes, 9/11/79:5)

-As Ms. Anderson listed suggested words in preparation for the Diary Page
assignment on an overhead projector, she misspelled a word. Field notes
document how a student identified and corrected the misspelling.

Ms. Anderson: "Kerwin?"

Kewin: "You spelled 'forgetful' wrong." (Ms. Anderson corrects it
on the overhead, inserts an 'r').

Students: "Confused, terrorized, lazy, groovy, droopy, hot, excited,
stupid, cold, interested. . ." (Ms. Anderson continues to write words
on the overhead).

Ms. Anderson: "I'm running out of room. . .I want you to keep a diary.
Write down your impressions of Harbin School. . . " (Field notes,
9/12/79:2)

”Students corrected Tasaday Lettes that groups of their classmates had
composed. Ms. Anderson described her plans for this activity in her journal.

Another day I want to use the letters from this activity as models. .

and let the students as a group make corrections. (Since the letters

were composed by groups of students this should be less threatening

than if the work had been done by an individual. (Journal, 12/7/79)

Students evaluated their Original Magazines for quartely progress reports
to parents by using criteria the teacher specified. Ms. Anderson described at
length procedures of student (and teacher) evaluation in journal and inteviews.
Excerpts from each of the two data sources follow.

Afte explaining my evaluation process, I asked each student to-on

paper-evaluate his own work using the same procedure. Many found

it very frustrating to have to analyze their work in this manner; but

they took it quite seriously. I am not going to look at their

evaluations of their own work until afte I've made my own
evaluation; then I will also staple theirs in the back of the magazine.

98

I plan to use the comments as the basis for individual conferences--
especially if the student and I disagree about the quality of the work
being done. (Journal, 12/21/79)

The students were handing in their magazines they had written and
put together which Ms. Anderson planned on evaluating ove
vacation. She shared with the students the method she would use for
evaluation. Since middle school report cards are a series of narrative
statements, in evaluating the magazines these could be transfered to
the report cards. . . Ms. Andeson asked the students to evaluate
their own work. . .after she explained her own criteia for judging
what was excellent, satisfactory, etc. (Interview, l/9/80)

-Students evaluated Ms. Anderson's version of how 221 to give a report for
A City of the World. As a guideline for critiquing her speech, they used an
evaluation sheet that she had given them. In field note excerpts we read:

1:52 Ms. Anderson explains that anyone who will give a report on
Friday will have their written report returned to them tomorrow, so
that they can look them over. . .Jackie proposes the possibility of
giving the speech from note cards. Ms. Anderson says this is okay. . .
Ms. Anderson explains the new evaluation sheet. . .

2: 07 Ms. Anderson tells students that she didn't have time to prepare
how to give a speech because of interruptions in her planning period
this morning. She says that she will tell us today about Dublin.

2: _0_9 Ms. Anderson begins her speech. She pulls map of Europe down
from its roller above the chalkboard, then, without comment, pulls it
back up. Students laugh, mark their evaluation sheets. Ms. Anderson
turns on the overhead projector, shows a map of Ireland, shows where
Dublin is located, then quickly turns off the overhead projector. She
shows students a small map of Ireland, reads to the class without
looking up except for a glance toward the door. She reads very
quickly, in somewhat of a monotone.

_2__: 12 Ms. Anderson asks students what points they gave to her for her
report. . .She obtains several opinions of the scores she should
receive. Ms. Anderson then turns the overhead projector
transparency to where students had evaluated her, and next to these
scores writes number evaluations of how she would score herself.
(Field notes, 3/‘1/80:lt,5,6)

-Students also evaluated stories written by other students, for example, in

the simulation game, Right Is Write. In excerpts from videotape commentary we

 

read about how students, in their roles as publishers and editors, evaluated a
writer's story and negotiated a purchase price:
Publisher: "I mean, it's good and all, but it's just--"

Editor: "But it keeps the reader, well, interested. . . .anything would
happen . . .would make someone want to read it."

99

Publisher: "I'd be willing. Sixty-five!"
Editor: "Eightyl". . .(Audiotape commentary, 5/2/80)
Sharing Information

Ms. Anderson provided opportunities for students to share what they were
learning with audiences other than herself. For example, to illustrate results of
extensive surveys they had conducted, students wrote, for other students to
answer, comprehension questions about graphs they had constructed. Ms.
Anderson described the Graph Questions social-studies activity in her journal.

Today I assigned them the task of making a graph of their own

showing the results of a survey of 100 people. . .When the graph has

been completed, each student is to write four questions that other

students could answer by reading the graph. (Journal, 10/3/79)

As another example, student shared with an audience of other students and
with their teacher information they had gathered and organized for research
reports on A City of the World. Field notes reveal Ms. Anderson's
acknowledgement that she had learned from their reports.

Waite shows students his map of Italy, tells about Rome. Students

clap after Walter ends his speech.

Ms. Anderson: "Okay." She tells students that. . . this is the first

time she had students give a speech where they read reports—feel

that she learned more because she heard so many facts. (Field notes,

3/7/80:3)

The simulation game, Right Is Write, provided yet another opportunity for
student sharing. Ms. Anderson offered students an opportunity to develop
curricular mateials for younger learners. She explained that the objective of
the game was to write a quality product that teachers would use to teach both
comprehension skills and vocabulary skills to fourth or fifth graders. Videotape
commentary excerpts document he explanation of this objective.

The objective is to write something that a publisher will buy for a

specific audience. The audience that were thinking of - I think I

mentioned that yesterday. Does anyone remember? Who are you

writing for? Bob? . . .You are writing something that would be

apprOpriate to use in a fourth or fifth grade classroom. For what
purpose? . . .for reading. . . but at the same time you have to sorta

100

think. Well, a teacher would use this. And it's going to be a short

description that a teacher would ask questions about, a short article

that a teacher could use to develop vocabulary. (Videotape

commentary, 5/2/80, 1:372-385)

And, as a final example, each of two groups of students shared with their
peers artifacts they prepared for the Archaeolojical Dig project. The artifacts
became part of a problem-solving task for the other group of students to work
out. Each of the two groups of students constructed an alphabet, coded
messages, and created artifacts representing another culture. The other group
of students decoded the messages, and hypothesized about possible meanings or
uses of the artifacts. Field notes describe this activity.

2:00 (Ms. Anderson explained to us that students from each class

made up their own alphabet and that the other class had to decipher

it.) Ms. Anderson announced to students that they would share their

artifacts. Students were to tell about the artifacts they acquired

from the other class and tell other students in their own class what

the artifact tells about the culture from which it originated. (Field

notes, 5/29/80:l)

Summary of Student Role in Enactment of the Curriculum

In sum, the teacher was not the single source of information for students.
They listened and responded to directives and questions, but this was only one
aspect of the students' role. Students brainstormed and made decisions. They
made acceptable suggestions for curriculum improvement and implemented
them. They also evaluated written products, shared their learnings, and even
created curricular resources to guide learning of othe students. In several ways,
then, students became not only receives and interactors in the learning process,
but also constructive critics and collaborators in curriculum making.

Fourth Section: Constraints on the Teaching of Writing
and the Teacher's Responses to Them

Ms. Anderson confronted factors that influenced what she selected and how

she implemented writing curriculum--factors that appeared to frustrate her aim

101

to facilitate students' success expeiences, and he methods to achieve this aim
by developing their writing skills, and by building one lesson or activity upon
another. She articulated her beliefs in an interview. Hee are her paraphrased
comments:
Ms. Anderson does not like to "wing it" but likes everything well
planned out. She likes lessons to be sequential so that she can refer
back to previous lessons and kind of build on that. (Inteview,
10/9/79)
The factors or elements Ms. Andeson confronted as imposed constraints, or
potential obstacles to her curricular goals, included the following: insufficient
space, large number of students, district and school mandated curricular content,
the school schedule, and frequent interruptions in the established schedule. This

section (see especially Figure 3 for overview) focuses on these constraints and on

how Ms. Anderson responded to them.

Insufficient Space

Both Ms. Anderson, and Mr. Hathaway, he teaching partner, expressed
early in the study and in the school year a need for diffeent types of space for
the large number of students in their care. This was reported in field notes from
the first week of school.

Mr. Hathaway enters room. Talks about need for psychological and

physical space (first referred to in grievance procedure by Paula).

(Field notes, 9/6/79: 1-2)

Although Ms. Anderson and othe teachers complained about overcrowded
classrooms by signing a grievance report, Ms. Anderson continued to work in the
limited space with the number of students to whom she was initially assigned--
sixty students, thirty in each of two class groups. (Field notes, 9/6/79:l-2)

In her already crowded classroom she perceived a need to add even more

furnishings to accommodate her students. In a September journal entry,

102

Figure 3

Constraints on the Teaching of Writing
and the Teacher's Response to Them

TYPE OF CONSTRAINT EXAMPLE OF TEACHER'S RESPONSE
CONSTRAINT
1. Insufficient Small classroom, large Obtained needed worktable
SPACE number of tables in for classroom from
classroom; lack cafeteria; used library,
of "psychological space" hall, park for writing
activities
2. Large number Teacher perceived help Used university student
of STUDENTS to individuals during aides, peer aides, parent
writing process as aides; designated study
inadequate, and evalu- periods; omitted and
ation of written products substituted for weekly theme
as burdensome assignments
3. CURRICULUM Mandated administration Perceived spelling test as
CONTENT of tests, and teaching particularly difficult
(District 61 of predetemined and tedious;
school mandated) Common Writings and modified plans
Objectives
l1. SCHOOL Break times, classroom Provided "fillers"; trans-
SCHEDULE meetings, intramural cended time allotments

meetings, current events for writing activities
games; spelling 61
reading classes

5. INTERRUPTIONS PA announcements, Extended projects,
in the established assemblies, fire drill, rescheduled activities,
schedule broken wate main, film developed additional

showing, teacher illness "structure", suggested that
student write about
interuptions

103

she wrote:
Another frustration was somewhat eased today--I finally got another

table (an ugly old green thing from the cafeteria!) and now at least
everyone has a table to sit at so they can write with some degree of

comfort. I really still need one more to make things equal for all. I
heard someone recently refer to "psychological space"—-well, my
students don't have any! (Journal, 9/13/79: 8)

Despite the addition of a table, she encountered work space as an ongoing
problem for implementation of her writing curriculum, e.g., to provide
Opportunities for students to enact the role she envisioned for them, or as an
incentive for them to expend their best efforts, and to share the processes and
products of writing with their peers. As reported in an October interview we

read:

Ms. Andeson wishes she had more room so that students could share
more writing with their peers. (Interview, 10/9/79)

Intenal problems of space, theefore, Ms. Andeson only partly resolved.
She provided additional work space within the classroom, and often extended
writing activities to areas outside the classroom, such as hallways (Following
Directions theme), library (A City of the World research project, Right Is Write
simulation), and local park (Archaeological Dig social studies simulation). Still,
the problem of finding adequate work space for within classroom writing

activities remained.

Large Numbers of Students
Related to the constraint of insufficient space, and to the external
constraints of scheduled time allotments, Ms. Andeson confronted the problem
of attending to learning needs of students in different ability ranges. In journal
entries she wrote:

I often find it frustrating trying to meet the needs of 60 kids in a
broken-up day in a too-small room! (Journal, 10/7/79)

I really feel my better students get the short end of the stick in my
regular classesuand I guess that's my own management problem! I've

104

tried many approaches in dealing with it, but it's a problem that nags

at me constantly. Maybe if the class load was smaller--say 21 or 22--

I wouldn't feel so strongly about that because I might be better able

to deal with the problem then. (I know when I had 23-26 fifth graders

for the entire day, I felt more in control of the situation. Of coursel

also had a larger room and had the students more hours of the day

and I know that helped.) (Journal, 2/8/80)

Because of the large number of students assigned to her, Ms. Anderson
experienced difficulties both in providing sufficient individual assistance in
processes of writing, and in taking time to evaluate written products. She
eXperienced frustration when trying to attend to needs of students in the process
of writing, for instance, when they worked on rough drafts of stories:

My biggest frustration during a period such as this is that there are so

many of them and only one of me--and most of the students seem to

want and appreciate the one-to-one approach. (Journal, 11/ l 1/79)

Ms. Anderson also experienced as a demanding task the evaluation of written
products, for example, weekly student themes, and other writing projects such as
students' Orijinal Magazines. As reported in an interview we read:

Ms. Anderson will spend part of he vacation reading and evaluating

all of the magazines. She spends a lot of time at home either

preparing for writing or evaluating students' papers. Because it takes

up so much of her life, she is thinking about quitting at the end of

this year. She has taught 20 years and she wants to have the time to

do something else. One of the things she is considering is writing.

(Interview, 12/9/79)

Nevertheless, Ms. Anderson found diffeent means to alleviate the
burdensome task of evaluating writing products. They included engagement of
parent aides, omission of a weekly theme assignment, and replacement of a
weekly theme assignment with a longer writing project.

During a September meeting with parents, Ms. Andeson explained how
volunteer aides could help her evaluate student themes. Both field notes and
inteview notes describe this process:

8:30-9:05 pm OPEN HOUSE NIGHT

. . . Ms. Andeson explains spelling program, groupings for reading,
themes and book reports she requires for Communication Arts, and

105

the "intertwining" of themes each week-4‘1 of papers she would
correct; and, she hoped, two volunteers would correct the othe half,
each correcting fifteen of them. Ms. Andeson would alternate each
week, so that every two weeks she would be correcting carefully at
least one paper each child had written. (Field notes, 9/26/79: 8)

Ms. Anderson has a parent evaluating themes for her. They each take

half each week and then the next week, switch groups. Ms. Anderson

had her come in and showed her papers she had done-what symbols

Ms. Anderson used, for instance. Ms. Andeson underlines misspelled

words. And she always writes something positive on the papers. Ms.

Anderson was very pleased with the way the parent evaluated them .

. . . Next week there will be no writing assignment because of

homecoming. Ms. Andeson always has a big party that weekend and

doesn't have time to grade themes. Sometimes when she wants a

week off from grading themes she will assign a longer writing

project, like a magazine so that it takes students two weeks to write

it. (Inteview, 10/9/79)

She also found help to meet individual needs of students in processes of
writing from different sources, for example, by arranging for help from teacher
aides (from area university school of education), and by providing opportunities
for students to help their peers. For example, the teacher aide relieved Ms.
Anderson of administrative and supervisory duties so that she could assist
individual students. In the simulation game, Right is Write, the aide distributed
materials and oversaw activities of students who chose to play outdoors, thus
freeing the teache to remain in the classroom and assist students who chose to
continue with the drafting and revising of their stories. In videotape
commentaries we read:

Ms. Anderson: "I have another job for you, Carol. You can give

everyone pins so they can put their name tags on. All right . . . We

have a lot to do today." (Videotape commentary, 5/2/80, I: 220)

Ms. Anderson asks Carol (teacher aide) to go out with those who want
to go out.

Tammy (agent): "Me, I need a break." (Other students opt to stay in
. . . Several students leave with Carol.)

Student (frustrated): "When it's the second time!" Ms. Andeson
empathizes with him. (Videotape commentary, 512/80, 3: 295)

In addition, the teacher aide assisted students individually.

106

Students move about the room. Some students are writing. Ms.
Anderson passes out envelopes. Both the teacher aide and Ms.
Anderson assist students. Ms. Andeson confers with the teacher
aide, asks if she can help this afternoon also. Aide responds: 'It's
fun!" (Videotape commentary, 5/2/80: ‘1: 135)

In this game also, students, particularly in their roles as agents, assisted
other students, in their roles as writes, to draft, edit and revise their stories.
Videotape commentary illustrates these interactions, for example:

Bob asks agent for spelling of 'soldie'.

Agent: "Let me look it up to make sure . . . . You guys, remember,
don't make 'em too long . . . . capital, see, on 'Tom' . . . and write two
quotation marks . . . and, there, no, there, on three o'clock . . ."

Jim: "How do you spell 'ease'?"
Agent: "Erase? 'e-r-a-s-e' . . . "

Gary asks for the spelling of 'inventor.' Two or three writes discuss
whether it ends in -or or ~ior.

Agent: "Wait a minute. I have to do Bob's then Gary's, then yours."
Agent (to Bob): "Put a period after lacking."

Agent (reads): "'Afte the soldies were fallen to the ground, help
arrived.‘ That's not a very good ending. Okay, look! What you
should do, say, 'The calvary came', or something . . . Don't just
say 'Help arrived', say what kind of help arrived. Okay? . . . I'll
tell you what to do afte that." (Agent moves on to help another
writer) (Videotape commentary, 5/2/80, 5: 888)

But even agents, charged with assisting four writes at most, could have used
more assistance in meeting needs of their peers. Writers must wait their turns
for help.
Student: "I'm finished."
Agent: "Wait. I've got to do Martin's, then Sammy's, then yours." (He
directs students in process of writing) . . . "You've gotta do the
final copy next." (Agent tells writes to be quiet, to wait. One
writer tells him that he can't)
Agent: (afte further demands on his time, help). "I've got to sit down

for awhile. . . . Oh, God, this is getting monotonous" (Videotape
commentary, 5/2/80, 5: 949)

107

Curriculum Content

For better or for worse, Ms. Anderson was not the sole planner of writing
content. The teacher experienced he own frustration and that of her students
as they encountered constraints of mandated curriculum content. This content
included meeting requirements of stated objectives for writing, completing a set
of Common Writings, and administering spelling, reading, mathematics and vision
tests.

The school district imposed a list of objectives requirements and a list of
Common Writings requirements that teaches must introduce to students during
the school year (see Appendix D). The school district did not have an adopted
text for student use. The school expected teachers to examine available
materials and various texts (available in quantities of one to fifty) and then
create their own curricula as they incorporated the required objectives and the
Common Writings. Although a group of district area teachers, Ms. Andeson
included, collaborated to draw up the lists of Common Writings, for kindergarten
through twelfth-grade levels, Ms. Andeson was not particularly keen about
finding ways to meet the Common Writings requirements for her students at
sixth-grade level. She considered the Common Writing requirements, plus
objectives requirements, as difficult to integrate, or as hindrances to he own
curricular plans. She articulated her perspective during an inteview, for
example,

Ms. Anderson began by talking about the Common Writings. She said

they were a bother, an intrusion on her own plans for writing.

(Inteview, 1/23/80)

Common Writings assigned to grade six include the following:
The students will write clear directions as specified by the teacher.
The students will write a short story or myth.

Prepare outline as preliminary skill for report writing.

108

Use bibliography form.

The students will write a summary paragraph of a reading assignment
from social studies or science text material.

The student will choose a possible school change and persuade the
principal, the teacher, their classmates that it should be made.

The students will focus on the sense of sight to create a mood
through a written description of a setting.

(The Common Writings K-6, pp. 3-4)

Ms. Anderson met most of these Common Writings requirements in writing
incidents described in the second section of this chapter and categorized in
Figure 2, namely, Following Directions themes, story entries in Original

Magazines, Debate Notes, and research reports on A City of the World.

 

Rathe than treat Common Writings as isolated learnings, she incorporated
them in the context of her plans for sequencing writing activities and building
complexity. For example, she wrote in her journal the following explanation of
her plan:

5. L. Schools have a list of "common writings" to be taught at each

grade level. One of those for 6th grade is to write clear directions--

so I used this as a basis for this week's theme. Each student is to

write the directions on how to get to a special area classroom from

our C.A. room--but the name of the room to which the directions

lead is not to be mentioned. (Journal, 9/26/79)

Hence, although she classified Writing Directions, an assignment deived
from one of the Common Writings, as a non-creative skills lesson (Interview,
2/13/80), she transformed it into a prototype for creative theme writing-—an
introduction to a format and procedures for creative themes students would
write in succeeding weeks. For the Writing Directions assignment, Ms. Andeson
asked students to use their classrooms as a starting place, write directions to
somewhere else in the school, then exchange papers and see if another student

could follow the directions (Interview, 9/25/79). She introduced the assignment

by explaining an item on an assignment sheet she had just distributed to students

109

that read: "Thursday, Theme due" (Assignment sheet, week of September 24,
1979). Hee, excerpted from field notes, is a brief taste of what she did to
achieve this transformation in class.

Ms. Anderson explains the assignment sheet. . ."Raise your hands if

you have questions". . . .

Ms. Anderson: "Think about where all your special areas are . . .

Without naming the place, using complete sentences, write directions

on how to get from this room to that place. . . . It may not be the

most direct route. . . . I can't give room numbers. . . Don't tell

anybody." Arnie asks Ms. Anderson a question about how to give

directions. Ms. Anderson replies: . . ."do not want people to be lost .

. .want directions to be precise." (Writes example on overhead

projector) (Field notes, 9/24/79:3-5)

Ms. Anderson expected students not simply to improve their skills for
writing clear directions in order to fulfill the Common Writings requirement, but
concomitantly to draft their writing and revise it according to a format and
procedures she would call upon them to use in subsequent writing activities, for
example, in creative weekly themes, and in the longer and more complex writing

of stories and reporting of research (field notes, 9/24/79:3-5; see also quoted

field note_ excerpts on Writing Directions in the second section of this chapter).

 

Requirements for the Spelling Program Ms. Anderson was less able to
incorporate as means to achieve he curricular goals for writing. Previous to the
first day of classes, the communication arts coordinator, Ms. Heath, conducted a
meeting in which she outlined the requirements of the spelling program. For
example, Ms. Heath explained that the spelling program should be followed
exactly--only one lesson per week--and that enrichment should be given outside
of the program, e.g., word lists for science, mathematics. Ms. Anderson asked
aloud (but did not direct her question to Ms. Heath), "What does this program
have to do with writing?" Neither Ms. Heath nor the other teachers addressed
this question, left it unanswered. Ms. Heath concluded the meeting by asking
teachers to complete administration of the 240 word pretest within the next two

days (the first one and one-half days of school) and follow up with administration

110

of five sequential spelling placement tests of twenty words each. (Field notes,
9/7/79: 2) Administration of the spelling pretest and placement tests thus
became activities of priority during the first seveal (615) days of the school year.

The pretest, however, appeared to conflict with Ms. Andeson's plans, also
with her views on writing. Even before administration of the pretest, Ms.
Anderson called it "a pain in the neck" (Field notes, 9/7/79: 1). The procedure
promised to be tiresome, or boring, to both teacher and students. Ms. Anderson
showed students how numberings on each side of their three notebook size papers
"must be done in a very special way." They must write "Basic Spelling List" at
the top of the first paper, write their names clearly because "papers go to Ms.
Heath and to mothersnfor correcting-—and must return to the right people," and
make three columns of numbers on each page. (Field notes, 9/7/79)

After students had listed numbers one to ninety-four, Ms. Anderson
reminded students, "I told you this was a tedious task, didn't 1?" (Field notes,
9/7/79:1) and continued the numbering process with her students. The process of
having students prepare the format for their pretest (list numbers from one to
240) took nearly an hour. Ms. Anderson empathized with her students: "You
know, that constant writing, it's hard on the fingers." (Field notes, 9/7/79: 2)

The relatively short notice for testing caused inconvenience not only in
time but also resulted in space or crowded classroom accommodation. Ms.
Anderson, told students, the school principal, Mr. Arthur, and her teaching
partner, Mr. Hathaway, in turn, that if she were called to administer the pretest
again, she would use a dittoed format, and would have done so for this pretest if
she had more planning time. (Field notes, 9/ 7/79: 2)

Before lunch time Ms. Anderson and Mr. Hathaway called the school office
to request use of the auditorium for administration of the spelling pretest. An

eighth-grade group had already reserved it, however, so Ms. Anderson reminded

111

Mr. Hathaway that they had no choice but to administer the test that same
aftenoon. Hence, immediately afte lunch time students assembled in Ms.
Anderson's and Mr. Hathaway's rooms (a folding door dividing the two rooms was
folded back, to make one room only). Although Mr. Hathaway pronounced six
students absent, the room was crowded--and warm. (Field notes, 9/ 7/79: 5)

With possible exception of three students, class members were not
particularly enthusiastic about the testing process.

At the mid-aftenoon break, Ms. Andeson asked: Who are all the

people who liked spellin ?" Terry (student who had mixed up her

numberings that morning§: "It's fun! It's fun!" Two othe students

responded by raising their hands. (Field notes, 9/7/79: 5)

Thus, teachers experienced their own frustrations and those of students as
they arranged for and executed the spelling pretest within space and time
restrictions. In addition, Ms. Andeson reflected that the spelling pretest was a
deterrent to her goal that each student experience success. In field notes we
read:

Ms. Anderson says she likes students to feel "really successful" about

what they do the first two days. There was a girl from Pinedell who

had gone to that school for three years and did not know what lette

Pinedell began with. Ms. Anderson felt the spelling test must have

been really discouraging to her. The spelling test was given too soon

(he department chair had insisted on it) and it was given to too large

a group (Mr. Hathaway had wanted to do the test in this fashion).

She said she would not do that to students again. (Interview, 9/10/79)

Mr. Hathaway: "How, when you have sixty kids in the classroom--

how give them the attention they want. Then have to relate to them

on the basis of authority . . . Tedious, tedious" (refering again to

spelling test).

Ms. Andeson: "Just couldn't do it." (refes to numbering for test) .
. . 'continued to get numbers mixed up.‘

Ms. Anderson: 'Lori . . . "Couldn't spell 'Pinedell,‘ the school she went
to last year." (Field notes, 9/ 7/79: 4)

Besides the spelling pretest, other beginning of year school imposed tests,
e.g., math tests, reading tests, spelling placement tests, vision tests, also caused

Ms. Andeson to delay and othewise alte her curricular plans. The force of the

112

following remarks, for example, and their sheer frequency early in the year are

noteworthy. In her journal she wrote:
Yesterday was the best day of the school year to date-I was
beginning to feel in charge of my own destiny again. Then-WHAMO-
-today I'm back in that rut--math test--ICRT tests--spelling tests--
and 10 minutes left for me--just time to pick up a paper I assigned
yesterday!

Even the paper (diary page) I assigned yesteday was done more

hurriedly than I would have liked . . . (Journal, 9/11/79)

And in inteviews we read:
Reflecting on last week, Ms. Andeson said she lost control of the
situation on Wednesday. Because of ICRT testing she did not have
enou h time to get to the assignments she had planned. (Inteview,
9/17 79)

and, again

This past week they had vision testing and it was horrible. She feels
flexible, but . . . "I can't deal with that." (Interview, 10/9/79)

Vision testing also interfeed with student performance in a sentence
writing activity. In field notes we read:

Ms. Anderson explains that she reviews these sentences only because

of errors in the last class assignment, particularly in their last two

sentences or so, says she suspects this is because of anxiety over

vision testing. (Field notes, 10/5/79:2)

The school imposed spelling pretest, however, Ms. Andeson perceived as
an opportunity as well as a constraint for learning or teaching. On the one hand,
Ms. Andeson felt the pretest imposed constraints on he previously planned
activities. Requirements that students devote most of the class time allotted to
the first full day of school to a process of writing extensive lists of unrelated
words, for example, inhibited, restricted and postponed the teacher's
implementation of her plans for introducing students to writing about their
personal experiences.

Ms. Anderson mentions that she is behind schedule because she and

he students are spending much time on the spelling program. She

thinks that much of the testing is a result of the back to basics
movement. (Field notes, 9/13/79: 4)

113

On the other hand, Ms. Andeson used the occasion of pretesting as an
opportunity to informally assess student abilities. She modified he plans
according to students' performance in pretesting to meet student skills needs as
well as their social, physical and psychological needs. She planned and
implemented a variety of short experience-based writing activities planned so
that all students could experience success. On the day of the spelling pretest,
Ms. Anderson wrote in her journal:

I have changed some of my plans for next week's writing assignments.

. . . Afte watching some of the students experience difficulty in

writing words that should have meaning for them--some of last year's

schools, hobbies, etc. that students listed during a get-acquainted

game—and also noting the difficulty many had in taking a test of 240

basic spelling words (I neve will subject kids to that type of thing the

first full day of school again!!), I decided I'd better start with

something that wouldn't overpower the slower students . . . . I want

to start with several short lessons or activities where everyone can

feel successful. (Journal, 9/7/79)

For example, in an interview she explained that in response to the spelling
pretest she modified her plans for the Diary Page activity:

In response to my question of what she planned for writing for this

week, Ms. Anderson said she usually has the students write a paper

about how they feel and about their perceptions of the first couple

days of school. She changed it this year after seeing how the

students did on the spelling test. (Inteview, 9/10/79)

Because the 240 word spelling pretest preempted Ms. Anderson's plans for
introducing the Diary Page assignment on the second day of school; because
subsequent testing postponed her plans for three additional days; and because
results of the spelling test indicated that a shorte and less demanding
assignment would better match student needs or abilities, she changed her plans.
What would have been a week long process of keeping a daily journal--several
Diary Pages--became an overnight assignment of reflecting back upon and

writing about feelings experienced since the new school year began--one Diary

Page. In her journal Ms. Anderson wrote:

114

When I first planned to do the diary assignmett, (in August) I had

decided to present it the second day of school and to ask the kids to

keep it up for one week--providing them a little time for writing each

day. For obvious reasons, I couldn't do that so I decided to just make

it a one shot deal. It should give me quite a bit of information as to

skill levels. (Journal, 9/13/79)
Field note excerpts describe he introduction to the revised assignment and her
announcement of the length of time students would have to complete it.

Ms. Anderson: "Well, how many days have you been in school? . . .
How did you feel?"

Students: "Happy" . . . "tired" . . . "excited" . . . "curious" . . .
"sick" . . . "nervous" . . .(Ms. Anderson writes responses on overhead
projector in column fashion)

Ms. Andeson: "I'm going to give you a piece of paper. . . . bring back

tomorrow, finished. Finished means at least one column . . . . I don't

want a list." (Ms. Andeson gives some examples for ways of

starting.) (Field notes, 9/12/79: 3)

The implemeitation of the spelling program had thus interfeed with the
writing curriculum Ms. Anderson had planned to introduce. She, as well as her
teaching partner, experienced the spelling pretest as tedious to themselves and
their students. In addition, the pretest served to postpone implementation of
curricular activities Ms. Andeson consideed more appropriate to achievement
of her goal--that each student experience success. Nonetheless, she did use
student performance in the spelling pretest as a criteion for modifying he
curricular plans, such as shortening writing assignments, so that each student
could experience "success." (Ms. Andeson's conceptions of success maybe

inferred from data; e.g., avoid boredom, gain skill competence, enjoy writing

activities.)

School Schedule
Because the school reporting system required that teaches report to
parents at scheduled intevals, that is, at the end of each of four marking

periods, it constrained the flow of writing activities Ms. Anderson had

115

implemented. (At the end of each marking period Ms. Andeson selected
appropriate items from he data bank of I69 communication arts and 180 social
studies entries she had made for students' computerized report cards. See
Appendix D for sample data bank entries.) In an inteview she explained how she
attempted to complete projects before the end of a marking period so that she
could bette report student progress to parents.

I Evaluation is very hard for Ms. Anderson to do and she doesn't enjoy

it at all. . .Students and parents take the grades "so to heart." The

written report card dictates to Ms. Andeson's teaching. A teacher

has to have statements to put down or it looks to the parents as if

you didn't do anything. She tries to have units end just before a

marking period so she can put statements down for the unit. She also

makes sure she teaches and evaluates stated objectives so parents

won't complain. (Inteview, 1/9/80)

The school schedule also constricted formally planned writing activities to
small segments of the school day.

Ms. Anderson was alloted instructional time for meetings with each of two
groups of students to teach subjects of communication arts and social studies.
(While she met with one group, he team partne, Mr. Hathaway, met with the
other group for science or mathematics classes). The allotted time consisted of
one morning time block of approximately 115 hours Mondays through Thursdays

and 215 hours Mondays through Fridays. (See Appendix A, Middle school schedule

for Team 61, Team Stgects time blocks)

 

Exceptions to this initial arrangement, however, became the rule. For
example, regularly scheduled events, such as "breaks" two times daily, and
classroom meetings, intramural meetings and current events quiz games weekly,
fragmented, or restricted, length of time blocks originally allotted to Ms.
Anderson. In addition, reading and spelling wee separated from the other
communication arts, furthe reducing possibilities for longe writing projects.
Following paragraphs elaborate on these incursions into the initial school

schedules.

116

"Breaks" occurred within the originally allotted time blocks as the two

teachers allowed students a daily five—to-twenty minute recess at class exchange

times in the mornings and/or in the aftenoons. Field notes record regular
instances of these breaks, as in the following examples.

Ms. Anderson responds to student question, tells he that she can
write more than one tall tale. Jay and Ivan read aloud as they write
their tales, begin to count their words. 9:30 a.m. Ms. Andeson
announces a twenty minute break. (Field notes, 9728779: 4)

Ms. Andeson tells students that they need paper and pencil for their
classroom meeting, announces ten minute break, and suggests that
students take their books to their lockers. 1:59 .m. Marta reads
Ellen Tobbits as she walks to the door. (Field notes, 10717179: 7)

 

In addition, series of social studies classroom meetings, usually lasting
thirty-to-fifty minutes, occurred weekly. Ms. Anderson and Mr. Hathaway joined
forces to plan and carry out these meetings together with their two groups that
totaled sixty students. Field notes reveal the following schedule for one
aftenoon. It incorporated both a "break" of twenty minutes and a classroom
meeting of thirty-five minutes. This left forty-five minute time slots for
communication arts/social studies during which time Ms. Andeson could possibly
sandwich writing activities.

12:25 p.m.

On chalkboard:

12:26 - 1:10 Pete's Pests (name one group of thirty students
selected for themselves)

1:10 - 1:55 Wastings (other group of thirty students)

1:55 - 2:15 M

2:15 - 2:50 Classroom meetings

(Field notes, 11/7/79):l)

Often, however, Ms. Anderson managed to incorporate writing activity as part of
the classroom meeting. In one meeting, for example, students shared orally what

they had written in themes about Something Old. Field notes report how she

explained this assignment to he students:

117

Ms. Anderson passes out assignment sheets . . . reviews assignment

sheets with students . . . She explains that students will have one

large classroom meeting on Wednesday, divide into small groups and

31571;; t9heii') stories or themes about Something Old . . . (Field notes,
7 :

Sixth—grade students at large, from six classrooms, regrouped and met for a
series of weekly intramural meetings in which they planned for extracurricular
sports activities, (twenty minutes each week). These meetings seved to furthe
abbreviate time frames for which Ms. Anderson could plan writing activities with
her homeroom groups. Excerpts from field notes exemplify scheduled plans for
such meetings as well as for "break" times.

12:25 p.m. (Ms. Anderson brings to my attention that she has written
a schedule for the afternoon on the chalkboard):

12:30 - 1:10 Pete's Pests
1:10 - 1:50 Wastings
1:50 - 2:00 Break
2:00 - 2:30 Quiet study
2:30 - 2:50 Intramural meetings

(I note the addition of two student desks that weren't in the
classroom when I made a second classroom map). (Field notes,
10/2/79: I)

(10:00 - 12g; Set up videotaping equipment . . . )

On the chalkboard, Ms. Andeson has posted a schedule for the

aftenoon:

12:26 Pete's Pets

1:20 Break

1:40 Wastings

2:30 Intramural meeting (Field notes, 11/6/79: 1)

Yet another restriction on time flexibility, or team subject autonomy was a
quiz game on current events, Tic Tac Toe. Teams, made up from sixth-grade
students at large, competed with one another for about sixty minutes each week
within team subjects time blocks to orally answer questions concerning contents
of the local newspaper. Beginning of marking period field notes indicate Ms.

Anderson's introduction of the activity to students:

Ms. Anderson announces a practice Tic Tac Toe game until 1:20 p.m.
She estimates that they could play three games within one hour . . .

118

she explains that all sixth-grade groups are doing this game now.

(Field notes, 9/ 14/79: 5)

End of marking period field notes indicate a Tic Tac Toe assembly as a special
culminating activity:

12:27 Don J. tells me about the all-star Tic Tac Toe assembly on

Friday next, that six students from each team with highest scores are

chosen to participate . . . that six tOp people from teams 61, 62, and

63 will compete. (Field notes, 11/5/79: 2)

Regularly scheduled events, then, such as "breaks", classroom meetings,
intramural meetings, and current events quiz games fragmented length, and
restricted flexibility of the time blocks originally alloted to Ms. Andeson for
the teaching of Team Subjects, that is, communication arts and social studies.

Even within the specific communication arts curriculum--writing, spelling,
speaking, reading and listening-—fragmentation occurred. Pretests determined
ability levels of students in reading as well as in spelling. Pretest results seved
as the criterion for dividing students into ability groups, and consequently to
diffeent sixth-grade teachers in each of the two fragmented subject areas.
Hence reading and spelling classes, in this way separated from the formal
communication arts class, met twice each week, taking up the entire morning
time blocks each Monday and Thursday.

Already, by the second day of school, scheduling of spelling classes
threatened to divide or compartmentalize communication arts. In field notes we
read:

On the chalkboard a schedule is written:

8:25 - 9:10 Group B
9:10 - 9:20 Break
9:20 - 9:59 Group A

Ms. Anderson: "I want to show you the things in this room" . . . any

questions about school in general?‘ She explains that she is doing

today what she wanted to do last week. Ms. Andeson explains what

boxes next to filing cabinets are used for (Spelling Program, grades 6

-8). She further explains that students will be mixed up according to
placement tests, which will be given soon. Students will have spelling

119

for 1’: hour twice per week, on Monday and Thursday mornings. (Field
notes, 9/10/79: 1)

Afte students experienced more than a week of placement testing, they met

with teachers assigned to their ability grouping for departmentalized spelling

classes.

Ms. Anderson explains that on Monday morning at 8:26, students will
go to one of six sixth-grade teachers for spelling. Names will be
posted so that students will know whee to go. Ms. Anderson says
that at first these classes will last about forty-five minutes, later
about thirty minutes. (Field notes, 9/ 21/79: 5)

Interpositioning of reading classes (in the sixth-grade schedule) compart-
mentalized the communication arts still further.

Ms. Anderson tells students that on Mondays and Thursdays they will

have reading right afte spelling. She reads aloud names of students

who will be with each of the teachers . . . Ms. Anderson ex lains that

groups will be readjusted every nine weeks. (Field notes, 9 26/79: 7)

Consequently, Ms. Anderson developed her writing curriculum within many
more time constraints than the official school schedule indicated. Writing
lessons became constricted to small segments of originally alloted time blocks.
In an informal meeting with the participant obsever, Ms. Andeson also
described her fragmented schedule.

At 2:00 p.m. Ms. Andeson and l have agreed to meet outdoors (break

time) as she said that her schedule was beginning to solidify and that

she would like to share it with me. She shows me he schedule and

explains that spelling and reading would take place on Monday and

Thursday mornings, spelling from 8:25 -9:00, and reading from 9:00 to

10:00. Also, . . . that classroom meetings would be on Wednesdays

(2:15 to 2:45, or early on Thursdays); break on Tuesday and

Wednesday from 2:00 - 2:15, and Current Events game from 12:30 to

1:30. Ms. Andeson said that reading classes would involve

vocabulary mostly, did not think it would have much to do with

writing. (Field notes, 9/26/79: 7)

The separate scheduling of reading and spelling classes apart from othe
communication arts activities, in a regrouping of students including students
othe than those in team 61, reduced flexibility of planning time and possibilities

of teaching writing within the communication arts, in an intradisciplinary mode.

120

The actual schedule of regularly predetermined time allottments determined
greatly when writing activities would take place; the extent of writing activities,
contrastively, rarely affected the predetermined schedule.

The teache more easily integrated writing with a subject area outside
communication arts, social studies-~in an interdisciplinary mode-than with
curricular elements within communication arts, that is, spelling and reading--in
an intradisciplinary mode. For example, both departmentalization of content
and the reconstruction of groups of students for spelling and reading seved to
constrain an intradisciplinary, or integrated curricular approach to communica-
tion arts.

One way Ms. Anderson responded to a consequence of an inflexible imposed
schedule, namely, unexpected time gaps, was to introduce a writing activity that
she classified as a "fille" (Inteview, 2/13/80). These unexpected time gaps
typically occurred earlier in the school year when planned writing activities were
shorte, and thus, more likely to be completed before the end of an alloted time
period.

The three "filles" described in following paragraphs, for example,
completed time gaps of eight-to-twenty minutes. Each of them Ms. Anderson
introduced during the first 316 months of the school year.

The first "filler", a Tall Tale, in which students wrote in twenty-five words
or less why they did not turn in assignments on time, Ms. Andeson initiated to
complete eight remaining minutes of one class period. Field note excerpts
outline this happening.

Ms. Anderson explains that she has outside activities that may

interfee with her plans for doing work, that at times students may

have them also, and should report when they cannot complete

homework as planned . . . She asks students why they sometimes do

not turn in homework. They respond that they forget, lose inteest,

think teache might forget to ask, etc. Ms. Anderson asks them to

write a tall tale excuse in 25 words or less. She offes students an
example . . . (Field notes, 9/ 28/79: 4)

121

Also, Ms. Anderson explained the tall tale activity in her journal.

Friday a.m. I went over the list of unfinished work--which only
involves a few students at this point. Then we talked about excuses--
both valid and invalid—that a student might have for unfinished work.
I gave them an example of a tall-tale excuse a student might give-"I
flew to Florida with my dad last night and when we were flying back
the plane crashed--after we'd bailed out safelyuand my homework
burned up in the crash!" Thee wee about eight minutes left in the
class and the students were told to write a tall tale excuse in 25
words or less and to bring it to class for sharing in the p.m. Some
were frustrated by the 25 words or less part of the task, but most
managed to do it. (Journal, 9/28/79)

The second "fille", Weird Writing, in which groups of four students, in
turn, initiated and completed short stories, Ms. Anderson introduced to complete
twenty remaining minutes of anothe class period. She explained procedures for

Weird Writing in her journal.

 

Friday's writing exercise consisted of "Weird Writing". (One student
starts a story-after three minutes papers are exchanged and another
student writes for two-three minutes—-then anothe exchange--and
finally a fourth exchange) . . . Unfortunately there was only time for
two or three of the papers to be read aloud by the students who had
initiated the stories. (Journal, 10/ 14/79)

Field notes also describe Weird Writing.

Ms. Anderson asks students to have paper and pencil only on the tables, put
all else away. She tells them that they will do "weird writing", . . . "You
may want to write a Halloween story." . . . She explains procedures for
switching papers afte 2 or 3 minutes of writing each time. Ms. Andeson
tells students they have only about 20 minutes until the end of the class
period, that their stories could be made up, or taken from themes they
have already written . . . (Field notes, 10/12/79: 4)

A third "fille", or "quickie" that Ms. Anderson listed was Why I Deserve a
Trip. In this occasion for writing, students wrote in twenty-five words or less
why they deserved a vacation trip to Disney World. Ms. Andeson summarized
this activity in her journal.

One of the students in my class won a trip to Disney World and is

there this week. As a "quickie" when the class had been discussing

Bob's good fortune, I had the students write-in 25 words or less--why

they each deserved such a trip. Then they had fun sharing the results
orally. (Journal, 12/7/79)

122

In contrast to unpredictable availability of time that sometimes occurred
within time slots for writing during the first half of the school year,
unpredictable constrictions of time slots often occurred during the second half of
the school year. These constrictions, or interruptions, repeatedly frustrated Ms.

Andeson's plans for enacting longer writing projects.

Interuptions in the Established Schedule

Frequent interuptions, due to various causes such as public address
announcements, assemblies, and fire drills, restricted small segments of time
remaining for formal writing activities.

Ms. Anderson's curricular plans, based upon developmental needs of
students, evolved from short, one or two day beginning-of—year writing
activities, e.g., Diary Page, to an ongoing series of week-long theme
assignments, e.g., Something Old, to end-of-year activities that took several
weeks to complete, e.g., A Cltj of the World research project. Both the
"solidified schedule" Ms. Anderson announced and the many and varied
interuptions to the "solidified schedule" she identified or acknowledged,
especially constrained the planning and carrying out of longer and more complex
end-of-year writing projects.

As Ms. Anderson and students attempted to complete A City of the World

research project, for example, and preparatory Library Research Skills

 

activities, tasks that took several weeks to complete, they experienced a variety
of interruptions that prompted continued postponements and modifications of
their plans (Field notes, 1/22/80 - 3/12/80).

In he journal Ms. Anderson reported the diffeent types of interuptions as
she attempted to schedule library time for students to research their topics.
Interuptions during one week included the dismissal of students for a day

because of a broken watemain, school assemblies, and a film showing.

123

Awakened this a.m. to find that all-W.S. schools wee closed due to a
broken watemain . . . When I ot to school I found more things had
happened since last Thursday when Mr. Hathaway and I set this
week's schedule) that will affect the amount of time the students will
have for working on research. Last Thursday my schedule for blocks
of time in the library this week looked like this--

Tues. a.m. - 45 min. p.m. - 60 min.
Wed. a.m. - 45 min. p.m. - 45 min.
Fri. a.m. - 45 min.

TOTAL -- 4 hours

Now with school being canceled today and finding that two
assemblies and a movie have been scheduled, our library time looks
like this--

Tues. a.m. - 0 min. p.m. - 30 min.
Wed. a.m. - 30 min. p.m. - 45 min.
Fri. a.m. - 30 min.

TOTAL -- 2 hours, 15 minutes

 

Unfortunately, such short blocks of time give the students very little
time to actually work after they have found the material they can
use. I don't know who gets the most frustrated at such times--them
or me! (Journal, 2/11/80)

In a taped inteview during which the participant obsever asked Ms.
Anderson to describe different occasions when she changed her plans, Ms.
Andeson explained in detail interuptions cited in her journal.

Interviewer: I know you mentioned different times when you have
had to change your plan. Could you elaborate on some of those things
that have happened, or what that does to your lesson?

Ms. Anderson: Today, not having school, we wee going to start the
research paper, and today I was going to give them topics--so that
tomorrow, when they came into class the first thing in the morning,
we were going to zoom right to the library. Because they have had
all the introduction they need about using the card catalogue and
Reades' Guide, I was also going to give them a sheet today that was
an outline of the various things that they should search for on their
topic, so I thought we would rush right in there tomorrow, and then
we would also go tomorrow aftenoon. So that would give them 45
minutes tomorrow morning, and an hour tomorrow afternoon to work
on it. Well, now, thee's no school today. So that means tomorrow
morning I will have to do what I was going to do this afternoon. But
that class is 15 minutes shorte tomorrow morning than today's would
have been. So that means that either I'm not going to finish and have
to delay some 'til the aftenoon, or I am going to squeeze it togethe
and not do as good a job at it. Then I found out that thee's also

 

124

going to be an assembly tomorrow afternoon, which wasn't on the
schedule when we called and asked, as we made our plans into the
future of this week. So that means that tomorrow afternoon they
won't have the len th of time in the library I had planned to have, so
it looks like what 15 going to happen now is that tomorrow morning I
will do what I would have done today, and tomorrow afternoon they
will get a smattering--they will hardly have time to locate any
information. I try not to let them check out more than one item or
two at the most because some of the things that they will want to
check out will have information on the things that somebody else will
use, and we just don't have that kind of material, and this is
frustrating for them. They find things and they want to take it.
Wednesday, they can go twice, but Thursday we won't be able to go at
all. Friday I just found out I won't be able to go at all because the
movie, Miss Jane Pittman, is hee. J likes the kids to see it. I
thought they had seen it in the fall. ‘I'Fey assure me they haven't. So
since it's going to be on-it's a two hour filmuFriday is the only time
we can do it. Instead of having about 3 hours during the week that I
planned, they're going to end up with 1 hour and 20 minutes. So these
things I have no control over--I could say we wouldn't see the movie
on Friday. But it ties into so well with what we studied in the fall.
We wee studying the different races, how people are alike and
diffeent. (Inteview-taped, 2/11/80)

 

Even though Ms. Andeson perceived that she had no control over the
interuptions, she coped with lost time by planning, with regret, to omit final
oral reading and discussion of the completed assignment papers (A City of the
M booklets) in orde to finish the project by the end of the third marking
period. She shared her revised plan in an inteview with the participant
observe:

Inteviewer: To condense what you've done, what are you going to
take out, or are you just going to take everything and . . .

Ms. Andeson (Teache): That's my frustration. Probably one of the
first things that are going to be left out is the opportunity for the
kids to read orally what they've . . . as I think about that it's one
thing obviously . . . one thing that can wait. The papers that are
returned to them will be in their folde for the nine weeks, or seven.
So those could be just set aside. I think it's more appropriate to do it
when you return the assignment and the kids are still excited about
the assignment. Though thee are several othe papes that are being
returned we probably won't have time to discuss. What it comes

down to is setting priorities . . . . (Transcript of taped interview,
2/11/80)

125

Another way Ms. Anderson coped with interuptions was to structure
writing activities, and to communicate that structure to he students. She
reported these strategies also in the taped inteview.

Interviewer: . . . How do the children affect what you plan to do?

- Ms. Andeson (Teache): I have to be much more organized and much
more structured than I would like to be. I feel that if I'm not
structured about it, that because thee are disruptions that go on,
thee has to be structures so that those kids that are listening have
an outline in their head at least of what's happening. And if I don't
have an outline in my head with disruptions and all, I com letely
forget what I'm doing. . . . (Transcript of taped inteview, 2/11 80)

In particular, when Ms. Andeson anticipated her own absence as a
potential interruption to he plans, she communicated its structure, an outline of
her plans, to students, and expected them to carry on nonetheless. Field note
excerpts describe how she outlined he plans to them.

9:18 a.m. Ms. Anderson: "Will you sit down, please?" (Students seat
themselves, are quiet)

9:19 a.m. (Low level of talking) Ms. Andeson explains to students

that she picked up their outlines yesterday (Ms. Anderson informed

me that she was absent yesterday with her cold-allergy).

9:20 a.m. Todd, in SW corner, is reading. Ms. Anderson tells students

that her husband was furious that she is hee at school at all today.

She tells them that she will give them a schedule of what will be

happening in case she is out of school again, and that they are

responsible for adhering to it whethe she's here or not. . . . (Field

notes, 2/26/80)

Interuptions not only frustrated or constricted Ms. Andeson's plans for
enacting longe projects, such as the research theme, which had an end of
marking period deadline, but also seved to extend an initially shorte end-of-
year project, the simulation game called Right Is Write. As students engaged in
professional roles of writes, agents, editors and publishes, and collaborated to
complete stories for publication, they encountered various types of interruptions,
for example, a fire drill, public address announcements, assemblies, teache

illness and year-end placement tests. Right Is Write, designed to be explained

and enacted within one period of three hours, actually took about a month to

126

complete. Ms. Anderson originally planned to have students enact the game
during the fourth marking period of the school year, within one time block of 216
hours and another time block of one hour. She had to fit her plans within the
limitations of the school schedule and make special arrangements with her
teammate for the longer time blocks. A journal entry and field notes describe
her thoughts, or plans for the activity.

I first discovered this game 7 or 8 years ago when I saw it reviewed in

Learning Magazine - and I had our department chair order it. I used

it for two or three years and then it disappeared - but was finally

found again this year . . . To do the game successfully I feel it is best

to have a long block of time (2-3 hours) on the day it is started. Then

it usually takes at least one more 1 hour class period to finish it up.
(Journal, 5/2/80)

 

Ms. Anderson says that this simulation activity should take place
every 9 weeks. She feels that it is asking much of a teammate to
give up the flexibility of being able to change classes in the middle of
the morning or afternoon, because she needs at least one half day for
the activity. (Field notes, 5/2/80: 9:50 a.m.)

Because the time she had planned for introducing the game the day before
its actual enactment was cut short, she took time from the two and one-half
hour time block she had arranged for enacting the game to complete her
explanations. In a videotaped commentary we read:

Ms. Anderson: "I'm up here. It 153 time to start. I had hoped that
yesterday I would have time to give you further instructions, but as it
was, we only had about 5 minutes, so that means we're going to take
about 15-20 minutes this morning to go over exactly what is to be
done, and then the whole rest of the morning you'll be doing
something. Originally I had planned that we would do this activity
and finish it this morning, but now that we're getting a late start, I'm
not sure whether we'll be able to do that." (Videotape commentary,
5/2/80: 1-229)

During the second one hour time block, Ms. Anderson and her students
experienced interruptions of a fire drill and PA announcements. Ms. Anderson
noted them in her journal.

Today an hour had been set aside for each class in order to complete

the Right Is Write simulation. About 20 minutes was lost for the first

group when we all had to leave the building because someone pulled
the fire alarm! Even after we got back into the room and tried to

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start working, thee wee several more interuptions over the PA
system. (Journal, 5/6 [80)

Ms. Andeson realized these several interuptions not only as constraints,

but also as opportunities for stimulating student writing. Videotape commentary

illustrates one of the interuptions and a consequent inteaction between teache

and student:

P.A.: "Attention, please. There will be no assembly for the eight
grade. You go on to your classes." (Announcement is repeated)

Agent: "1 want to write a story. None of my writes are gonna let
me sell anything."

Ms. Andeson: "Write a story about all of our interuptions."
Agent: "Thank mp!" (Videotape commentary, 5/6/80: 1-370)

Constrained by illness and the press of othe activities, Ms. Andeson did not

complete the Right Is Write project, however, until four weeks afte its

inception. Journal entries explain some of these end of year constraints. For

example, Ms. Andeson accommodated writing activities into the schedule; the

schedule did not accommodate writing activities.

Also,

The last six-seven weeks of school always seem so rushed. All the
things that needed to be done and haven't been touched have to be
worked into the schedule. At the same time all the things I wanted
to do and didn't get to yet I'm trying to work into the remaining time
span. One of the things I most wanted to do we did do Friday--that
is], 70 do a simulation publishing game called Right Is Write. (Journal,
5 2 80

teache illness delayed for two weeks feedback for Rfllt Is Write stories.

 

Developed one of my Spring "allegy-type" colds--so that has put me
behind in everything else. The kids have been bugging me for the
results of Right Is Write-and I think I finally have it all set now so
that the winning work can be put on ditto for distributing by mid-
week. (Journal, 5/ 16/80)

 

Again, more assemblies and, as in the beginning of the year, the‘imposition of

reading and spelling tests caused Ms. Andeson and Mr. Hathaway to change their

plans.

Now that the end of the year is fast approaching thee are more
frequent assemblies--or kids being pulled out by performing groups to

128

visit othe schools. Also thee are year-end placement tests in
spelling, ICRT in reading, etc. And June 3 we leave for four days of
campin --and that by itself keeps us busy planning periods! (Journal,
5/ 16/80
Finally, afte two more weeks of interuptions, Ms. Andeson shared results of
Right Is Write:
This week I gave the students dittoed copies of the "winning works"
from the Right Is Write game. They wee delighted! My own
pesonal feeling is that those writings wee good consideing the
amount of time spent on them--but the quality does not begin to

measure up to the quality of writings which they worked on for
several days (i.e., weekly themes.) (Journal, 5/30/80).

Summary of Constraints on the Teachinflf Writing and the Teache's Responses
to Them

Constraints of space and students Ms. Andeson only partially alleviated.
She relieved crowded writing workspace in the classroom by providing tables, and
made available additional space outside the classroom for exploring resources
and for evaluating the writing of othes (e.g., the library, A City of the World for
research report activities; and school hallways, for Following Directions
activities). Problems that numbers of students presented, that is, lack of
sufficient individualized attention to both processes and products of writing, Ms.
Andeson reduced by providing teache aides, opportunities for pee assistance,
and parent aides.

Constraints of imposed lesson content, class schedules and interuptions in
established schedules she perceived, for the most part, as beyond he control.
She replanned her writing activities, however, not only to flexibly accommodate
imposed content, scheduling constraints and sudden schedule changes or
interuptions, but also to transcend them. Despite formidable barries she
creatively developed writing curricula in accord with ongoing student needs and
inteesst to ensure that each student experienced success. See Figure 3 also for

summary of constraints and the teache's response to them.

129

Summary of the Creation and Implementation of a Writing Curriculum

In sum, this chapte describes one teache's aims and methods for creating
and implementing a writing curriculum, how she involved students in diffeent
aspects of the emeging curriculum, and how she responded to diffeent types of
constraints to curriculum enactment that she etcountered during the school
year. The next chapter draws togethe various key findings; explains their
significance; and suggests directions for educators to take as they create writing
curricula, and questions for researches to investigate, particularly in multiple

middle school situations.

CHAPTER IV
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Summary and Conclusions

In my introduction for this study I identified its purpose as that of
describing and explaining the writing curriculum of a class of enteing middle
school students during one school year.

As guides to achieve the purpose of the study, I identified the following:
curricular components that would be included in the study's explanation and
description, namely, "selection and organization, instruction in and evaluation of
writing activities"; a working definition of curriculum, namely,

curriculum is an evolving program of learning opportunities based in

varying proportions on predetemined educational goals/academic

content, the needs and inteests of the learne, and values and
problems of school and of society.
and four exploratory questions listed in Chapter I, and reiteated in Chapte 111.

As methods to achieve this purposed of describing and explaining the
writing curriculum I expressed my intent to use two, or possibly three
intepretations aimed toward an understanding of "both the offical or formal
writing curriculum, and the hidden or informal curriculum of the classroom and
school", that is,

first, an identification and description of curricular activities or

events and the relation of these events to one another; second, the

intepretation of social meanings of events from the viewpoints of
participants, or insiders, and third, relation of such events to external

consideations, e.g., theories from the social sciences, current trends,
historical and philosophical factors.

130

131

Description and Egplanation
The four exploratory questions were explicitly addressed, and each set of
findings summarized in Chapte III. Tables 2, 2a, 2b, and 2c in Chapte III, and
explanations of these tables help to sum up the first type of interpretation--
identification and description of writing events, and the relation of these events

to one another.

Insiders' Intepretations

 

Insider's interpretations, particularly those of the teacher, can be found
eSpecially in journal and interview excerpts throughout the four sections of
Chapter 111 (see also autobiography of Ms. Anderson, Appendix H).

As insider, the teacher expected students to experience success in their
writing endeavors. She used many strategies to ensure success experiences for
each student. These strategies include the following: ongoing monitoring of
student performance (evaluation); ongoing revisions and adaptations of her plans
in view of student performance, as well as extenal constraints that impinged
upon her plans (selection and organization); presenting he own models, not for
mee imitation, but as stimuli for student ideas for content development, and as
guides for student formating and processing of their own writing activities
(instruction). The strategies demonstrate ways that she structured curricular
components-evaluation, selection and organization, and instruction, as integral
parts of an evolving program of learning opportunities.

Another curricular success strategy was that of providing opportunities for
action-oriented activities. Ms. Anderson facilitated students' involvement in
writing activities by allowing them to explore library resources and other
resources of their choosing—print, pe0ple, media, and hands-on resources; by
affording student opportunities to share written products visually and aurally,

and to address diffeent audiences, for example, self, teacher, peers, parents and

132

target interest groups, both imaginary and real, proximate and remote; and by
arranging for diffeent person resources to evaluate writing activities, for
example, students' evaluation of their own writings; parent, teacher and peer
evaluation of and students' writings; students' evaluation of teacher writings.

As insides, students expressed a range of responses to the writing
activities Ms. Anderson introduced to them. They included boredom and fatigue
(e.g., spelling pretest), and occasional frustration (e.g., Right Is Write,
Archaeological Dig), but more often experienced a sense of enjoyment, fun and
excitement (e.g., Original Magazine, MgAge, Right Is Write, Debate Notes and
Archaeological Dig activities). In general, students were receptive to directives
from the teacher (e.g. Following Directions, Sentence Writing activities),
expended efforts to work cooperatively in small groups (e.g. Tasaday Lettes,

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, Library Research Skills activities), and

 

welcomed Opportunities to serve as an audience for their own writings as well as

for writings of their peers. (e.g., Book Summarj, This Is My Life booklet,

 

Original Magazines, Guess Who's Comirg to Dinner? presentations from notes
and drawings).

Because what educators profess, e.g., beliefs, policies, procedures followed
as bases for action do not always correspond to what they practice, or, because
goals stated and goals pursued are not always congruent, and because pr0posed
alternative goals often suggest changes in pedagogy, it is helpful to examine
relations of theory to practice. Questions such as, "What are the teacher's
beliefs? the school's policies? and, "How do these beliefs and policies interelate

with school and classroom practices?" are important to curricular inquiry.

Extenal Considerations
From the third type of interpretation, the relating of events to external

consideations, the teacher's views, and school and classroom practices are

133

examined from the viewpoints of the three curricular theories described in

Chapte 1, namely, reproductive, constructive, and reconstructive.

Reproductive Pespective

The reproductive perspective centers on "top down" or predetemined
subject matte and predictable outcomes. The district and school imposed
testing programs and lists of Common Writings, and Objectives characteize this
perspective. Implementation of the Spelling Program, for example, required an
initial 240 word dictation that the school expected students to list in written
form. Afte several subsequent dictations of twenty words or placement tests,
students, placed in ability groupings for spelling classes, studied spelling words in
a spelling class separate from that of communication arts. Neither teache nor
students had a voice in selection of spelling lists, which students studied in
isolation from the contexts of sentences or compositions.

Ms. Anderson taught skills lessons from required lists of Common Writings,
and writing objectives, often in isolation from, or separate from, large creative
or experience-based projects for which she consideed certain skill acquisitions a

prerequisite.

Constructive Pespective

 

The constructive perspective centes on students and their needs and
inteests, with the teache serving as a guide. Ms. Anderson provided students
with exploratory learning-by-doing experiences particularly in "topics" writing
activities (see Figure 2). Ms. Anderson selected "topics" or themes, and longer
writing projects based upon students' ongoing needs for success experiences,
(experiences that would foster their development or growth, not only
intellectual, but also physical, social and emotional). She provided opportunities

for them to experience success based on their current abilities and skills, and

134
based in the interests she stimulated. For example, the Diary Page assignment
helped students become aware of the feelings or emotions they experienced
during the first few days of exploring the environment of a school new to them;

the This Is My Life booklets offeed students opportunities to fulfill social needs

 

to share important aspects of their lives and to become better acquainted with,
and to express appreciation for, the writing of othes; and themes, Something
9E and My Age, for instance, with emphases on revising and editing, became
means to help students order and revise, or clarify their thinking about a topic or
an idea.

Ms. Anderson not only pre-selected activities, but also continued to
organize writing activities throughout the school year with students' developing
needs and inteests in view. She sequenced and built one writing activity upon
another. She provided opportunities for students to apply writing skills
introduced in separate lessons to activities of longer projects based in a wider
scope of student experiences. For example, Ms. Anderson asked students to
apply separately taught Sentence Writing skills to processes of creating caption
sentences for their illustrated This Is My Life booklets; students applied skills of
Writing Conversation and descriptive theme writing to processes of writing
stories included in their Original Magazines; and students applied Library

Research Skills to processes of researching A City of the World.

 

Acting as guide, or facilitator, Ms. Anderson gave directives to students,
fielded questions, reviewed her expectations, set due dates, and explained
criteia for evaluating written products. Acting as a model, she shared with
them her experiences in processes of writing as well as in what she wrote.

Ms. Anderson provided opportunities for students to explore teacher as well
as learner roles. As "teachers", students demonstrated for one another skills of
brainstorming. They generated lists of feelings they had recently experienced

(Diary Page); displayed skills of editing a draft that Ms. Anderson had written

135

(Following Directions); and exhibited early completed projects (This Is My Life
booklets) that seved as models and as incentives for other students to complete
their own projects.

As "learners", students engaged in diffeent types of exploratory activities,
such as touring the school building (Following Directions activity), searching
magazines for pictures about which they would write caption sentences (M
My Life booklets); clarifying ideas evolving from small group discussions in the

school library about peOple of another culture (Tasaday Lettes simulation);

 

uncovering written resources and artifacts hidden in a local park (Archaeological

 

Ilg simulation); searching for "something old" at home (Something Old theme);

investigating library, print and media resources (A City of the World research

 

project); and visiting "offices" of "editors" and "publishers" (Right Is Write

 

simulation).

As Ms. Anderson evaluated or assessed student performance in writing
activities she considered individual needs. She centered her attention on
students, on their abilities and inteests. She did not expect totally predictable
or fixed outcomes. She predetermined, or predicted formats students would use,
for example, booklet, outline or table of contents, theme, lette, and short story,
but within boundaries of format students freely generated their own ideas, and
developed their ideas in creative or imaginative writing on tOpics and/or
subtopics of their choosing.

Ms. Andeson used a skills lesson, or extant subject matte as a tool. She
taught skills lessons, but in the context of projects in which she found students
lacking in writing skills. For key incidents of these "skills" lessons or activities,
see Figure 2. For example, school objectives required that students achieve
skills in punctuating dialogue. Ms. Anderson introduced to students skills in

conversation writing to prepare them for creating dialogue for short storied they

136

wrote and incorporated in their Original Magazines. She also followed up her
evaluation of the Original Magazines with a pretest in writing conversation. She
used student performance in both short stories and pretest as a basis for
assigning students to appropriate mateials for helping them acquire the skills
they lacked. So, as in the Magazine project, Ms. Anderson related skills or
imposed content to larger writing activities introduced in the contexts of
students' experiences.

Consequently, Ms. Anderson's writing curriculum, in contrast to the fixed
outcomes emphasis, or the reproductive perspective of Ralph Tyler, closely
matched curriculum expressed in the experience—based emphasis, or constructive
perspective of John Dewey and of middle school. The Deweyan, or constructive
approach, is based in the inteests and experiences of students, and is designed to
foster students' emotional, social and intellectual growth. Dewey and the middle
school advocated, and Ms. Anderson employed, exploratory experiences, use of
skills and subject matter content as tools for writing; and use of a variety of
material resources. Ms. Anderson also discussed with students and invited them
to participate in deciding both the processes of writing, and the content of their
writings. She involved students in decision-making, in "learning by doing" and in
intedisciplinary projects. She also acted as guide and worked with students
according to their individual needs. The curriculum evolved according to
students' emerging growth patterns as students discussed, wrote about, and

shared their feelings and ideas (Corl, 1981; Ozmon dc Craver, 1981).

Reconstructive Perspective

 

The reconstructive perspective centes on critical reflection and discourse,
and action aimed at transforming oppressive or unjust societal practices.
Teachers, for example, would manifest this perspective in the following ways:

they would explain the arguments for critical discourse and their commitment to

137

it; they would model skills of discourse; they would stimulate students to be
aware of diffeent ideological points of view; and in ongoing discussions, they
would encourage them to be active participators, to question assumptions and to
evaluate arguments. (Cherryholmes, 1982)

Although the writing curriculum of Ms. Anderson manifested some
characteristics of the reconstructive perspective, inteactions in the sixth-grade
classroom did not manifest one or more of its essential elements, for example,
evidence of an ongoing dialectical process dealing with issues of social justice,
and evidence that Ms. Anderson consciously expressed her commitment to the
reconstructive approach. Ms. Anderson did, however, create one or more
conditions conductive to the social criticism and social action approach, that is,
toward meeting requirements for classroom discourse (Cherryholmes, 1978). For
example, she promoted non-authoritarian, or symmetrical small group discussions
about social issues, particularly in social-studies writing activities--in the

Tasaday Letters and Debate Notes activities, for instance.

 

In the Tasaday Letters simulation students engaged in small group

 

discussions to dialogue and write about the advantages and disadvantages of
introducing "aid" to members of a culture different from their own, the latent
consequences of proposed aid—of whether or not the social reality of the other
culture should be changed, that is, question of valuing the mores of their own
society over that of another. Students acted for or against proposed changes by
letter writing, albeit, simulated.

On the basis of their Debate Notes students dialogued about a proposed
scheduling change, lengthening the school day. They also proposed changes in
the intramural program. Ms. Andeson suggested that they take action—bring
their ideas for change to the Physical Education Department. Students also

proposed additional debates weekly, dealing with issues of wide social inteest,

138

for example, inflation, energy, presidential election issues/candidates (Journal,
4/ 18/80 61 4/25/80). Debate Notes and othe social studies writing activities at
least initiated opportunities for ongoing discussion, and social action for

transforming unjust social structure.

Relationships of the Three Perspectives

Although this study analyzed Ms. Anderson's curriculum from each of three
separate perspectives, curriculum components are "interdependent, interelated,
and embedded in ongoing negotiations among participants." (see Chapte 1)
Consequently, an attempt here is made to describe or summarize the
relationships of the three perspectives.

"Topics" writing activities, particularly the longer Original Magazine

 

project, which focused on student interests; the A City of the World research
project, which focused on exploratory action- oriented activities; and thijgpt
Is Write simulation game, which fostered small group inteactions, were typically
constructive. Students, with teacher guidance, selected topics for these
projects, discussed, wrote about and revised their ideas. The extended nature of
the projects was suitable to large time blocks, so as not to interupt individual
explorations and collaborative activities of students. As they became involved in
"topics" writing activities, frustrations that teacher and students experienced
when confronted with small time slots pointed out the need for longer time
blocks more appropriate for the constructive approach to curriculum making.
Although Ms. Anderson's writing curriculum can be typified as
constructive, a case can be made that it also has vestiges of reproductive and
reconstructive characteistics. For instance, although Ms. Anderson integrated
"skills" activities (e.g., sentence construction and punctuation) with "topics"

activities (see again, Figure 2), she often first separated them out, or isolated

139

them from "topics" activities. "Skills" activities, however, served as bases for
he entire curriculum. He curricular goal, that each student experience
success, was predicated on student familiarity with "skills" or skills objectives
needed to complete larger projects, or "topics" activities. If obsevers analyzed
only skills lessons, or if whole contexts of writing activities were not examined,
they might judge the writing curriculum as merely reproductive.

Although evidence of reconstructive characteristics was mostly lacking,
constructive activities suggested opportunities for social criticism/action. For
example, in open-ended themes on any topic, in interviews and stories for

Original Magazines, and in stories for mht Is Write, students had opportunities

 

 

to dialogue and to write about issues of concern to them, or about conflicts in
their life experiences. These activities could easily lead them to write about and
critique mores of their culture and take action to effect social change. For
example, when Ms. Anderson suggested that a student write about the several
interruptions that had caused frustration to both he and he students, in oral and
written discourse they could togethe have explored possible reasons for the
interruptions, critiqued these reasons orally and in writing, and possibly taken
action to minimize the interruptions, if the interuptions wee not justified.
Because social-studies projects focused on values, small group discussions
and decision-making about social issues affecting large numbers of persons,
"social studies" projects more so than "topics" projects tended to reflect
characteistics of the reconstructive perspective (Banks, 1974, 1981). Because
social-studies projects stimulated thinking, social studies became a particularly
appropriate discipline in which to integrate writing, that is, writing that Moffett
(1979, p. 278) defined as a "revision of inne speech," or "thinking, manifested in

a verbal way."

140

In the intedisciplinary writing projects that Ms. Anderson introduced to
her students, they had Opportunity to "work in the gap between thought and
speech" (Moffett, 1979, p. 278)-to practice in both speech and writing many of
the decision-making skills Banks identified in his model Of the decision-making
process for social studies and multiethnic education activities (1974, p. 497;
1981, p. 111). In the process of making decisions students had opportunities to
think dialectically, or criticallyuto examine information through diffeent
frames of reference, to acknowledge relations between theory and "facts", or "to
make problematic what has hitherto been treated as given." (Giroux, 1978, p.
299). Opportunities for decision-making and for examining assumed norms from
diffeent frames of refeence appeared in social-studies writing activities Ms.
Anderson introduced. They included the following: in the Graph Questions
activity students collected opinions on a topic of their choosing from one
hundred persons, and stimulated reflection on results of their surveys through
question writing; in the Tasaday Lettes project students studied altenative life
styles, values and norms, consideed consequences of living them out as
compared to living out their own, thus looked at their assumed way of living
from a different frame of reference; in the Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
project, students set priorities, made individual decision, resolved conflicts in
the process of making group decisions, and shared results of their planning with
an audieice of peers; in the Debate Notes activity, students compared
alternative positions on controversial issues and argued rationales for their
positions, and Ms. Anderson prOposed that they take action to further their
value perspectives; and, in the Archaeological Dig activity, students described
altenative cultures and ways of living, including the invention of an alphabet

and a language, and stimulated peer inquiry or dialogue about their proposed

141

alternative way of life and its consequences by creating artifacts of the
altenative cultures.

This study raises questions of methodology as well as of content. Three
separately developed methologies may best capture manifestations of the three
curricular approaches. For example, comparisons of pre— and post-tests
measuring achievement of predetemined skills may best aid in discoveing a
reproductive approach; methods of participant obsevation, as in that of the
present study, may best identify the constructive approach; and a combination of
methods yet to be conceived, for example, analyses of discourse, oral and
written (e.g., lettes suggesting school reforms), as well as ethnographic
methods, may best capture elements of the reconstructive approach.

Because researchers have not done direct studies to identify the
reconstructive (social criticism and action) approach in the classroom
(Orimoloye, 1983), they might begin by seeking out and studying teachers who
explicitly use this approach to discover apprOpriate methodologies and to
indicate better what the practices Of this approach look like, before doing
additional studies on teachers from multiple theoretical perspectives.
Otherwise, as possible in the case Of this study, the method used may be more
appropriate for identifying elements of one perspective rathe than anothe. For
example, we do not know if the teache actually did not explicitly commit
heself to the reconstructive approach, or if the methods used failed to pick up

evidence of such a commitment.

Significance of Findings and Their Implications for Education
This description and analysis of curriculum development in writing has
significance and implications for educationufor teaches, administrators and

researchers. Findings, in response to the four exploratory questions, point out,

142

for example, alternative models for the 1113 and the [13w of teaching writing,
and identify likely constraints to curriculum development, and ways teaches and
administrators might deal with these constraints as they develop their own
curricula and school policies.

Findings concerning the 311—31 of the writing curriculum, show that the
teache selected writing activities according to he primary aim, that each
student experience success. Although she primarly focused on students'
developmental growth by introducing experiential-based activities, she did not
neglect the technical aspects of writing, or writing skills, but incorporated them
as prerequisites for success in experiential-based "topics" projects and in
intedisciplinary "social studies" projects.

The teache did not entirely predetemine outcomes of the projects she
selected--she allowed for unexpected outcomes or creative responses. She
encouraged students' involvement in multiple aspects of curriculum development;
she encouraged them to confidently express their opinions and feelings in both
processes and products of writing. Because of this, although he primary goal
was not to stimulate awareness of social injustices and action to transform
unjust social structures, she did set up conditions potentially conducive to a
reconstructive approach to curriculum developmentuempowered students to
reflect and act upon their environmeit, rathe than be meely passive recipients
of knowledge.

Descriptions of the DEV. of the writing curriculum, not only illustratepgw
the teache implemented he curriculum, but also that she related the my to the
flat of curriculum, that is, as she devised ways to meet student needs for
success experiences she became an independent implemente Of curricular

activities as well as an independent curriculum developer. The description of

143

Ms. Anderson's writing curriculum illustrates how she dealt effectively with five
curricular problems that Tiedt 61 Tiedt (1975) pointed out for teachers to
consider (see Chapter I for listing of problems). First, she developed a sequence
of activities based ongoing assessment of students' needs and inteests; second,
she integrated writing skills within the total writing curriculum; third, she
explained her goals or reasons for teaching composition; fourth, she used positive
and manageable approaches to evaluation that encouraged students to continue
improving their writing and simplified evaluation work for her as a teacher; and
last, although writing is admittedly a complex skill to learn, Ms. Anderson
allowed the researcher to examine and describe, and in realistic tems, how she
developed and implemented her writing curriculum, thus making possible an
altenative model for other teachers to consider for developing their curricula.

This description of the 1L0! teaching writing responds to a need that Graves
(1981) proposed for the present decade, that researchers focus on the actual
process of teaching writing. He noted that in the past researchers have focused
mainly on experimental designs, studies of the correct stimuli for writing,
evaluations of written products, exercises to develop sentence complexity, and
on students and their development as writes, but neglected study of the
teaching process.

Graves also prOposed questions for the researcher to which this study
responds, namely, how the teacher helps students to help their peers with
writing; how she organizes the classroom so that students can take more
responsibility for their writing, an identification of types of writing that the
teacher introduces, or models; and a tracing Of the patterns of time that the
teacher provides for writing. ‘

Thornburg (1982) suggests that researchers must describe educational

practices in terms of behavioral needs of early adolescents if research is to be of

144

value to middle school educators. Then educators may have better access to
information for deciding what organizational structures are best for early
adolescents, and for identifying characteristics that make middle-school
programs work. This study describes, particularly from the teacher's viewpoint,
the characteristics that make he writing program work, how the behavior of her
early adolescent students provides the continuous feedback she uses to decide
writing projects and to develop the organizational stuctures that best suit their
needs and interests.

Moffett (1979) describes, or defines writing according to ascending levels
of meaning, according to the amount of authoring that occurs. The "lower"
definitions -— letteing, spelling and punctuation, copying, paraphrasing, and
constructing good sentences and paragraphs -- emphasize form ove content.
The "highest" definition, which constitutes authentic authoring,--an expression of
students' original ideas, which they have synthesized for themselves, revised
their inner speech, - emphasizes students' evolving ideas, or content over
imposed forms. Moffett assets that writing consists of all of his levels of
definition, and that all definitions apply at once to all stages of growth. On the
one hand, he stated that too Often the highest level of activity is lopped off, that
teachers emphasized language forms to the exclusion of thought, or expressions
of original ideas. On the other hand, Uehara (1978) noted that when she
advocates a "language experience" approach, one that emphasizes evolvement of
student thinking and creativity, teaches respond that they need programs more
definitive in skills development, or in language forms.

This study's description of the M of teaching writing traces how the
teacher emphasized "thinking, manifested in a verbal way" (Moffett, 1979, p.

178) (e.g., drafting and revising creative themes and stories, as in, Something Old

 

and Me: Now and Then themes; Diary Page about feelings and other "topics" and

145

"social studies" writing activities) throughout the school year, without sacrificing
"skills" emphases, (e.g., book reports, sentence writing, spelling tests). She then
extended learnings to intedisciplinary, or social-studies activities. Ms.
Andeson emphasized and intewove both opportunities to express original ideas
and to develop "mechanical" skills throughout the curricular areas for which she
accepted responsibility.

An investigation of the students' role, indicates that, in geneal, insofar as
students moved from passive to active roles, became more actively involved in
diffeent aspects of curriculum developmeit, and wee invited by the teacher to
share diffeent aspects of he role with them, they expended effort, enjoyed and
learned from processes of writing, from modeling, and from sharing their
writings with their pees as well as with their teacher. In othe words, students
expeienced success in writing as they took more active roles in the writing
process, or in curriculum development.

An investigation of the obstacles Ms. Andeson and he students
encounteed as they enacted the writing curriculum reveals that Ms. Andeson at
least partially transcended the constraints the school and the school district
imposed on he plans, or transformed them into Opportunities for reaching her
primary goalsuthat students experience success and expend their best efforts.
They reached toward these goals particularly by developing their skills in
writing; by thinking and writing, by rethinking and revising writing creatively;
and by applying what they learned to anothe discipline, that is, social studies.

DeFord and Harste (1982) point out that classrooms Offe constraints as

well as potentials that affect writing curricula. This study identifies such

constraints, which both beginning and experiences teaches must take into‘

account as they plan and enact their curricula. Ms. Andeson's actions show that

teaches needn't be poweless, that is, passively accept imposed curricular

146

elements. Administrators need to identify or reexamine teacher-school conflicts
as a way to check if school policies or philOSOphies correspond with school
practices, or if altenatives should be consideed.

For teachers, this descriptive study provides, or demonstrates the
following: ways they can freely structure (sequence and build) writing curricula
to meet ongoing student needs and inteests; identifications of constraint sources
and ways that teachers can transcend or deal with the constraints to their
curricular plans; ways that writing skills can be meaningfully integrated into the
larger contexts of tOpical writing projects and the intedisciplinary activities of
social studies; and identification of salient aspects of teacher and student roles
in curriculum making. In addition, the study provides, especially to the beginning
middleschool teacher, an introduction to the types of decisions writing teachers
make regarding selection, organization, instruction in and evaluation of
processes and products of writing. And to both teachers and administrators, it
also provides stimuli to dialogue about occurring conflicts as possible indicators
of discrepancies between stated philosophy and teacher beliefs, and actual
policies and practices of school and classroom.

The outsiders' view, represented by the three curricular pespectives,
indicates altenative (but not necessarily exclusive) approaches to education that
can be considered for both philosophy and practice in school and classroom.
Presentation of the three curricular perspectives on the teacher's curriculum is
of value because it offers to teachers, who tend not to articulate their own
philosOphies, ways to describe theory in practice. It also Offes altenative
theories and corresponding practices as models from which teachers can select.

For the researcher, this study points out the value of articulating

significant aspects of the manifest or intended writing curriculum (e.g., key

147

writing activities and their interrelationships as well as unintended and
sometimes unanticipated aspects of writing activities (e.g., constraints to its
enactment). This investigation also raises questions for the researcher about
how common diffeent types of constraints are in middle schools, and their
significance, and Of how teacher strategies of writing used by other middle-
school teachers are related to stated curricular goals or the philosophy of middle
school and that of the middle school teache.

Because of the lack of studies similar to this one, researchers need to do
additional in depth case studies of writing curricula in primary, elementary and
hig schools as well as in middle school, in orde to provide altenative models
that teachers can reinvent or reconstruct in view of their own curricular needs.
In addition, because little or no descriptive data has been gathered to identify
reconstructive approaches to curriculum development, researchers need to ask
questions that address elements of this approach, namely,

1. Ways that teachers describe their perspective on teaching and their

commitment to it to students.

2. Existing situations that teachers bring to the attention and awareness

of the students as problematic.

3. How social criticism and social action evolve through processes of

oral and written discourse.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

DATA SAMPLES

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1:l5

150

FIELD NOTES f-SAM PLE PAL; E-

HMS: FN: Week #22 Day 57 Tuesday 2/12/80 jm

(Classroom-1:,
orientatiomg

to

Q:

resources in
library

note-taking

M
class each time.
S's leave room.

M tells s's to
return to
procedures
‘Announcements
on PA.

reminds S's to
bring their
outlines to

encyclopedias
room, put

S's use
variety of
Most s's
using

books away.
M instructs
s's about

 

— -

MN:

ON:

ON:

ON:

ON:

1:J0 1:4; 1:40 1:54 1:48

1:30 I arrived at the time suggested by M. Room is empty. S's are in
the library. M seemed dubious about inviting me to come this morning,
said she was only going to distribute assigned names of cities to 3'3 and

the outline she would develop for s's.

Library: S's are mostly in central section of library. S's have outline
copy. S's are using atlases , encyclopedias, card catalog, library
geography books about one country.

Since I seemed to have missed the beginning of the class session, I asked
Tanya what had happened before I arrived. She told me that s's had
assembled in the classroom for only about five minutes then had come to the
library, and had been in the library about ten minutes. (Apparently the
class had started about 1:15) I felt disappointed that I missed the
directives M must have given s's. I had forgotten about the interview

I had with M yesterday in which she said that today would be rather hectic
and had probably not realized that she had given me a time different from
when she then planned to start this class.

1:45 Noise level is low. Most of s's are using encyclopedias.

T____ tells me that she is doing her project on Moscow, can get other
information at home, says she can use the home Almanac to find population,

and home dictionary table for money equivalents. She tells me that it is

only a few minutes until assembly time. VYThere are few s's from other classes
also in the library). T. 1 lists her reference in the bibliography
information section of her outline.

 

 

 

1:50 M tells s's to return to the room. S's put books away.

Two vertical file drawers are sitting on round table just to the right as one
enters the library.

1:54 In the classroom, M hands me an outline, says she will tell me her
philosophy later.

1:54 Noise level is med-hi. S's mostly seated, some standing, talking,

holding books.

1:55 M asks s's to be seated. M tells s's that now that she has observed

them working, she has suggestion that would be helpful. She tells s's not to

go to an article with a closed mind, e.g., to find the population first;

M tells s's that they may not find the population for two weeks. . . not

ever. M tells s's to read a couple of paragraphs, make notes about what they find,

151
INTERVIEW: SAMPLE WRITE-HF

December 4, 1979 Interview with M.
Rhoda Maxwell

M. began talking about the plan she and w. had for giving the students time
in school to do their writing. They used to have study hall time, but
eliminated it because so few students were actually working. It was decided
to have the writing period he an hour long because M. can't get around to all
of the students in 45 minutes. M. thinks that if students could plan on
writing in class, especially the final copy, that they might write the rough
draft on Monday and then come to the writing sesgign with questions and M.
could help them more with the process s'Bfflproofreading. She does not want
them to simply give her the paper to proofread for them, but for students to

 

become¢mpre_aware of what improvements‘could4b§wmade. As M. works with ififu‘{7 0

students sh§_hopes to teach them skills inna more naturgl way -- as the problems *’

come 'J 0 13A
‘4“ p . cm

In responding to my question of how work was progressing on the magazines,/ejaeuo/_
M. said that student interest in the project has stayed high. The students T;§5
that choose a specific theme rather than have a general interest magazine
seem t9 enjoy it more’becausentheymhave a topic they are very interested in. 7. .
0” act" 1’41 C.

I asked M. if she were emphasizing writing about the same amount as last ’q'me”“°
year. She thinks she is teaching about the same, but is much more aware of
the writing now because of the Study. She didn' t think of all the preliminar.
writing as "writing" before -- thought only of the finished products as actual
writing. 1'

 

 

Thinking ahead in her planning, M. explained how she would be teaching
individual skills soon. She stresses punctuati n of written conversation
as that is anfipbjective)designated for sixth grade and, also, she wants

 

students to include dialogue in their stories. M. 'will use a rates; to {upj ,
decide if which students need review in this particular skill, Later she‘ ' kbij
will be teaching students how to write a bibliography. f i”

I asked M. to explain more about the teaching of individual skills. M. Sk/~¢5

uses several books and some ditto sheets for the material to teaCE different

skills to different students. She has never found a kit of writing skills Siduo
she likes as the students have too wide a range of abil.ities to be able to »——a
use one kit. The "Black Book" (the sixth grade English text) has very clear *9jwj
examples but some students can't handlem the vocabulary so M. has to find” the ' '
right needing level for each student as well as the skill he or she need§__
to _work on. To accomplish this, she has keyed all of the avgilable text
books to the various skills and readingilevels. When students work on the

skills she assigns book pages and dittos applicable to each student.

 

 

 

 

152

SAMPLE OF VIDEOTAPE COMMENTARI
From writing activity. Right ;5 Write, 5/2/80, P.M.. Tape #5

847 - Writer: ”How do you Spell "two"?

Ken (Agent): "T-w-o.” (Ken spells "turned" for writer.
Second writer asks Ken for spelling of "soldiera")

Ken: ”Let me look it up to make sure...Forget about
Orban. Just write.”...

First writer: ”How do you spell 'arrived' ?"

Second writer: "I know.”

Second and third writer (in unison): ”A-r-r-i-v-e-d."

Ken: "You guys, remember, Don't make 'em too long."...
"Capital, see. on 'Tom'."..and write two ouotation

marks, and there. no, there. on 'three o clock'.”

Ken: (to another writer): "Did you use some of those
words?"

Writer: "Yes."

888- Ken: ”Underline the words that you used.... I'll go get
a drink while you're doing that.”

Writer: ”How do you spell 'erase'?"
Second writer: ”He went to get a drink."

First writer: (repeats) ”How do you spell 'erase'?" (Ken
returns)

Ken: ”Erase? eér-a-s-e (repeats spelling)

A third writer asks for the spelling of "inventor." Two
or three students discuss wthther it ends in -or or -ior.

Writer:'It doesn't have to be neat because this is just
a rough draft."

Ken: (reads writer's paper aloud. then says) ..."Cross
out 'and'. put a period here, and capitalize 'This'.
It makes a shorter sentence."...

APPENDIX B

HARBIN MIDDLE SCHOOL SCHEDULE

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APPENDIX C

SAMPLES OF SIXTH—GRADE OBJECTIVES

1154

was or sum: ems oaaecnvss '

HRITIIS SKI LLS

II.

IV.

VI.

VII.

Punctuation
E. hyphens
2. huerals-Ccmound
Iihen writing cowpound mnerals up to ninety-nine. the student
will separate then with hyphens.

F. Quotation Marks

3. Split Quotations

The student will use comes to separate direct quotations
. frow the rest of the sentence.

5. Identation in Dialogue
The student will use indentation to denote a change pf"
speaker in a dialogue.

6. Chapters. Articles, Short Stories. etc.
The student will use quotation aarizs to indicate titles
offichaptersparticles. short stories. poems, songs. and
parts 'of books and periodicals

6. Underlining
1. Titles

Handwriting
Students should be expected to use cursive legibly.

lord Usage
l. Pronouns
The student will use the correct personal pronoun in a sentence.

0. Double Negatives
The student will avoid double negatives in sentences.

Types of writing
A. Prose

Description
c. The student will. when given a sensory stiwulus. write
. a detailed description of his/her perceptions.
3. Exposition
a. The student will discrininate between fact and opinion.
b. The student will be given many opportunities in writing
to practice the skill of cowering and contrasing

liriting Fomte
B. Paragraphs
4. The student will state a min idea using supporting sentences to
expand it into a paragraph
6. The student will write a two or three paragraph composition
using transitional words and phrases as needed.

C. Organization
1. Suarizing
2. Bibliography
The student will use a siaple bibliography fora in his/her writings.

3.

4.

155

Outlining

The student will identify the nain topics and related subordinated

ideas and write them in an outline fora.

ibtetaking

a. The student will use key words and/or phrases in a dictated
passage for notetaking

b. The student will use key words and/or phrases in a written
passage for notetaking.

c. The student will take notes in an organized wanner from
specified aaterial.

VIII . Literary Devices

C.

Personification

l. The student will recognize personification in written passages.
2. The student will use personification in own writing.

Siwile

The student will identify and use similar. in writing.
Alliteration' '

The student will identify and use alliterative words in writings.

X. Proofreading
The student will consistently proofread and correct own writings.

(Canonication Arts Riddle School Curricula: Guide. 1979)

APPENDIX D

SIXTH-GRADE COMMON WRITINGS

156

The Common Nritingg_

GRADE 6

FOLDER The students will focus on the sense of sight to create a mood
through a written description of a setting. A good example to use would
be the opening of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher.“

The students will choose a possible school change and persuade the
principal, the teacher, their classmates that it should be made.

The students will write a summary paragraph of a reading assignment from
social studies or science text material.

The students will write a paragraph Varying sentence beginnings.

The students will refine outlining .skills to include subheadings used“
textbook reading assignments.

Prepare outline as preliminary skill for report writing.

Use bibliography form.

Write a report using only one source. Stress introduction, body.
conclusion.

The students will write a short story or myth.

The students will write clear directions as specified by the teacher;
eg. ., relate the assignment to a camping or social studies activity.

The students will write a business letter to obtain information or to
make a consumer complaint or compliment.

APPENDIX E

CLASSROOM MAPS

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APPENDIX F

SAMPLE REPORT ITEMS

160

Sample Report Items

Databank entries - Communication Arts

014
015
016
017
018
019
020
021
022
023
024
025

028
029
030
031
032
033
034
035
036
037
038
039
040
041
042
043
044
045
046
047
048
049
050
051
052
053

In the area of Spelling, your child:

Has completed the basic 240 world list and is now on level C
Frequently overlooks errors when correcting own pre-tests
Has scored 100% on all final tests

Generally scores 80% or higher on final tests

Often scores less than 8096 correct on final tests

Needs to study spelling at home

Shows outstanding improvement from pretest to post test
Shows little or no improvement from pretest to post test
Generally spells words correctly on spelling test

Often misspells words on spelling tests

Has scores on weekly spelling tests which are inconsistent.

Is improving in spelling words in written work

Confuses homonyms

In the area of writing, your child:

Compiled an excellent magazine of original writings

Compiled a satisfactory magazine of original writings

Compiled a magazine of original writings which was below standard
Did not complete a magazine or original writings

Has difficulty punctuating written work effectively

Punctuates conversation correctly

Punctuates and paragraphs conversation correctly

Is improving skills in writing conversation correctly

Punctuates conversation correctly but has difficulty paragraphing
Has difficulty punctuating conversation correctly

Needs to add detail to make writing more interesting/clear

Has difficulty writing complete sentences

Frequently writes sentence fragments

Has difficulty with mechanics of writing

Has good ideas for compositions

Generally organizes ideas in a logical manner

Often does not submit the rough draft with the final copy of work
Generally groof-reads and revises own work

Seldom proof-reads or revises own work

Needs to become more aware of the value of revising own work

Is becoming more aware of the value of revising own work
Generally enjoys writing

Generally resists writing

 

054
055
056

126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
I34
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145

161

Is improving in ability to communicate effectively in writing
Has shown some improvement in skills during this evaluation period
Is showing improvement in the ability to write legibly

 

 

Frequently uses unnecessary commas

Generally uses capital letters appropriately

Has difficulty using capital letters apprOpriately
Generally uses varied and apprOpriate sentence structures
Has difficulty using a variety of sentence structures

Is improving in ability to use a variety of sentence structures
Generally writes complete sentences

Often omits punctuation between sentences

Has difficulty expressing ideas

Often omits word endings

Does work that is interesting but is often too brief
Generally communicates effectively in writing

Has difficulty communicating in writing

Is able to compile a satisfactory research paper

Has difficulty compiling a satisfactory research paper
Can compile simple bibliographies

Has difficulty compiling a simple bibliography

Generally writes legibly

Often writes illegibly

Is improving in handwriting skills

 

Data Bank Entries - Social Studies

003
004
005
006
007
008
009
010
01 l
012
013

101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109

Academic Achievement in social studies

Your child has met all of the objectives set for him or her for this
Your child has met almost all of the objectives set for him or her
Your child has met a satisfactory portion of the objectives set for
Your child has not met a significant portion of the objectives set
Your child has been enrolled in this class too short a time to

Your child will not be evaluated this reporting period due to

In addition to achieveing all of the objectives, your child
Although your child did not achieve a significant portion of the

In addition to achieveing all of the objectives your child has

Work for this nine weeks is incomplete

Cannot use many of the vocabulary words presented in this unit
In the unit on the middle ages your child

Shows an understanding of the ways in which society had to
Lacks an understanding of the ways in which society had to
Can use most of the vocabulary words presented in this unit
Cannot use many of the vocabulary words presented in this unit
Concerning the research paper done for this unit, your child:
Was able to take notes and to organize them

Had difficulty taking notes

110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125

129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
I38
I39
I40
141
I42

162

Had difficulty organizing material

Had a final report which contained accurate information

Had a final report which contained inaccurate information

Had no/few spelling and punctuation errors in the final paper
Made spelling/punctuation errors in the final paper too frequently
Had a final paper in which the overall neatness and attractiveness
Had a final paper in which the overall neatness and attractiveness
Had a final paper in which the overall neatness and attractiveness
Was able to write a bibliography using the correct form

Had difficulty writing a bibliography using the correct form
Submitted 2: final report which was very well written

Submitted a final report which was satisfactory

Submitted a final report which was below expectations

Did not complete the research paper project

Gave an excellent oral presentation

Gave a satisfactory oral presentation

On the Dig unit, your student:

Completed a project meaningful to culture developed

Did not complete a project meaningful to culture developed
Displayed an awareness of the techniques of field archaeology
Failed to display an awareness of the techniques of field
Completed assignments by due dates

Failed to complete assignments by due dates

Submit three written questions and answers when

Has done excellent work with map skills assignments

Has done satisfactory work with map skills assignments

Has had difficulty with map skills assignments

Has not done satisfactory work with map skills assignments
Is attentive during class discussions

Makes meaningful contributions to class discussions

APPENDIX C

WRITING SAMPLES WITH TEACHER COMMENTS

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APPENDIX H

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MS. ANDERSON

171

Selections from Autobiography of Ms. Anderson (April, 1984)

Two things happened to me in 1969 that changed my methods of teaching

writing:

I)

2)

After teaching fourth- and fifth- grades for nine years, using
traditional textbooks and teaching methods, I was assigned to a two-
teacher, team-teaching sixth-grade position in a new middle school.
Communication arts and social studies were my responsiblities and,
although there were minimal skill-based objectives stated for each
class, there were no required textbooks.
As I researched educational journals, etc. for suggestions on the best
approach to the task of building, in effect, my own curriculum, I
discovered the following words by Carl Lefevre:
Adults, hoping to influence the child's developing language
skills intelligently, humanely, and on sound linguistic
principles will view themselves as models rather than as
policemen of languag .

These words became an important element in my personal beliefs

about the teaching of writing.

The building blocks of my curriculum were, of course, the grade-level

course objectives, which had been stated by a committee of teachers and

 

*Carl Lefevre, "Language and Self: Fulfillment or Trauma?" (Part II),
Elementary English, vol, #3, March 1966, p. 284.

172

approved by the administration. (Several years later, a list of specific writing
experiences-Common Writingsuwere added as additional district-mandated
objectives.) Keeping the required objectives in mind, I began to read the
available literature, talk with other professionals, and search my own
imagination for ideas that would help me create a meaningful writing program
for sixth graders. After much research and thought, I formulated seven
principles, based on students' needs, which guided me in my planning:

-- Students need frequent opportunities to write and to share their
writing.

- Students need to write about things which have relevance to them
either through experience or interest.

-- Students need to do various types of writing.
-- Students need to learn how to revise what they write.
- Students need to observe good models for writing.

-- Students need to have their writing evaluated for its value as a whole
as well as for its lack of mechanical errors.

-- Students need to experience successes in writing.
************

It was difficult to break away from planning short skill-based lessons, until
I became aware that as I allowed myself to excercise this new freedom of
designing activities/projects appropriate for that particular group of students,
more writing was being accomplished, and the students were also experiencing
greater success. Positive student response, with praise from parents and staff,
provided additional motivation to keep me searching for, and developing,
meaningful writing experiences.

As sixth graders seem to thrive on variety, I provided as many different

types of writing activities as possible. The ideas seemed to come from

173

everywhere: teacher magazines and journals, other teachers, the media, the
students. When it seemed appropriate, students became involved in large parts
of the planning process, but I reserved the right to design the final formats. It
was my responsibility to ensure that activities/projects were designed in such a
way that they could meet the needs of all students and provide each with an
opportunity to achieve success as a result of his/her effort. It was essential that
the activities/projects also incorporate stated objectives.

Remembering Lefevre's words, models became an important element in my
planning. Most frequently, I created my own models, but I also provided models
written by former students and current students, as well as from published
writers. Models were particularly effective when students attempted a new type
of writing, or when a new format was being introduced.

In an effort to make writing have greater relevance, I integrated writing
activities with social-studies units as much as was reasonably possible. I also
planned that one assignment would build on, or lead into, another assignment.
Short skill-based lessons still were necessary, but they were individualized as
much as possible and were used only when they served a purpose within a larger
context.

************

After eleven years at the middle school I chose to move to a fifth grade
classroom where a half-time, job-sharing position was available. My teaching
responsibility was language arts. A few of the projects I used there were similar
to some that were developed for use at the middle school, but many were totally
different. The ideas, however, continued to come from the same kinds of
sources, and the seven principles based on students' needs that I had formulated

in 1969 continued to guide me in planning for writing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

174

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