TEACHING THE WRITERS’ CRAFT THROUGH INTERACTIVE WRITING:
A CASE STUDY OF TWO FIRST GRADE TEACHERS
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
The Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the
Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
S. Paige Furgerson, B.S., M.Ed.
*****
The Ohio State University
2004
Dissertation Committee:
Dr. Gay Su Pinnell
Dr. Janet Hickman
Dr. Rebecca Kantor
Approved by
_____________________________
Advisor
College of Education
Copyright
2004
S. Paige Furgerson
ABSTRACT
Interactive writing is an instructional context where the students and teacher
share the pen as they collaboratively compose a text. As an unscripted literacy
event, interactive writing allows educators to use understandings that they have
about their students’ abilities as writers and their own knowledge of the writing
process to model and discuss elements of writing that they want students to employ
as they write independently. Educators have seen value in using interactive writing
as a tool for helping children learn about letters, sounds, words and concepts about
print. Currently, a few studies exist describing interactive writing as a support for
children’s development of strategies for constructing a text; however, no published
study focuses on the ways teachers use it as pedagogy for helping children develop
strategies associated with the craft of writing.
The purpose of this study was to describe how two experienced first grade
teachers used interactive writing as an explicit teaching technique for teaching the
writers’ craft and to identify the specific elements associated with the craft of writing
that emerged as they assisted children in the negotiation of text.
I observed and videotaped ten interactive writing lessons in each classroom
over a six week time period at the end of the first grade year. I also conducted
ii
pre-observation and debriefing conferences with each teacher to find out what they
considered in regards to planning for a lesson and to allow them to reflect on their
teaching actions and assumptions following the lessons.
The findings suggest that the teachers addressed the craft of writing during
the interactive writing sessions through demonstration and by actively involving
students in making decisions about the text before and while writing. Both teachers
planned for writing, involved the children in planning for writing, and addressed the
elements of sentence variation, audience, revision, and evaluation of the writing as
each related to the craft. The findings of this study also underscore the fact that
teaching is highly individual. Rich descriptions of the lessons provide authentic
scripts that can assist teachers and researchers in identifying possibilities for
variations in the teaching of interactive writing.
iii
This work is dedicated
To my grandmother
Louise Van Horn
A truly great inspiration and educator
and
To my parents
Buddy and Beth Furgerson
Who taught me:
All things are possible with a little perseverance
iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Getting a Ph.D. would be unattainable without the support and help of many
individuals. Through the continued guidance, support, encouragement, questioning,
and gentle prodding of the following people, I have been able to expand my
knowledge of literacy and education as well as my knowledge of the world. To each
of them I owe a great many thanks.
To Katie Button, a mentor and friend and the one who started this crazy
cycle, I am appreciative. She re-ignited the love of learning in a person who had no
intentions of ever getting a Master’s degree, much less a Doctorate. She saw
potential in me that I did not recognize in myself and through conversations around a
small dining table, on bookstore floors, on airplanes and in hotel rooms she
motivated me to continue to pursue my questions. Her constant support throughout
the process has been invaluable.
To “The Wearers of the Crown”, Denise Morgan, Lauren McClanahan,
Todd Kenreich, Mark Letcher and Krista Stonerock, I am thankful. Through both
the ups and downs of the graduate school experience, this group stood by my side
and offered academic and emotional support. We took trips, wrote awful poetry,
stood in line for parking passes, studied, learned to be Buckeyes, read each other’s
v
papers, cried on each other’s shoulders, celebrated marriage and birth, mourned
death and had lots of philosophically stimulating conversations and fun times
together. Without this group, and especially Denise who took a chance and called a
stranger, I would never have completed my degree. We all had big dreams when we
began the journey together eight years ago in 901 and each of us has remained true to
our goals. I thank them each for sharing themselves and their families. Together we
have learned to make a “P”.
To my grandmother, an inspiring lady who helped me realize that being
strong and knowledgeable is a virtue. Although, she did not live to see me to the end
of the process, she has been with me in spirit. I know that she is proud of my
accomplishments and I appreciate all that she did to allow me to continue my
education.
To the two teachers who opened up their classrooms and through whom I
learned how to be a researcher, I am very grateful. Ida and Kate shared a bit of
themselves and their students. I have grown in my knowledge about teaching and
learning as a result of their commitment to my project. I hope I have told their
stories in a way that would make them proud.
To my Literacy Collaborative colleagues: Andrea McCarrier, Mary Fried,
Peg Gwyther, Pat Scharer, Tina Henry, Joan Wiley, Robin Griffith and Jan Bogard, I
am beholden. They provided encouragement and took up the slack when I had to
study, go to class, or write. They loaned me materials and talked with me about their
own experiences. These ladies acted as sounding boards and gave me great advice
vi
even when we did not see eye to eye. They are each committed to the education of
all children and strive to help even the hardest to teach learn how to read and write. I
truly appreciate their thought provoking questions and their willingness to disagree.
To Dr. Diane DeFord, whose wisdom goes well beyond the walls of
academia. She has provided guidance in areas far greater than education. She did a
great deal of steering from the backseat. She truly knows what it means to be a
teacher and I can never thank her enough for believing in me and providing me with
encouragement, writing advice, and friendship.
To the members of my committee, Janet Hickman and Rebecca Kantor, I am
grateful. They have encouraged me to excel and have given me feedback and advice
that has motivated me to ponder and ask further questions. They have been patient
throughout this long process. They have given me the tools to soar. I hope that one
day I can be half the professor and researcher that they are.
To my advisor, Gay Su Pinnell I am indebted. Gay has advised with a style
that has encouraged me to be independent and self-motivated. I appreciate her
willingness to give me time to get adjusted to new jobs while at the same time
writing a dissertation. She has offered intellectual support as well as a collegial
relationship. I am in awe of her accomplishments and feel honored to have had the
opportunity to work with her. I know that there have probably been times that she
has wondered why she agreed to serve as my advisor, but I cannot thank her enough
for seeing me through until the end of the process. She is truly an inspiration to the
field of education and to me.
vii
And last, but not least to my family. My parents Buddy and Beth have
always been supportive of the adventures on which I embark. As I have worked
through this process, they have provided shoulders to cry on, ears to hear my cries of
jubilation and my woes, and money to pay for the often not so little incidentals.
They have encouraged me to strive for excellence in everything I do. Even when I
had doubts, they had faith. Cindy, my sister and Joe my brother-in-law asked for
frequent updates and put off a vacation to Ohio on multiple occasions when I did not
meet my personally set goals for graduation. They kept me grounded and helped me
acknowledge that even the little things are important in life. Cindy sent pictures of
the children, called just to see how I was doing and came to visit me in Columbus
when I was really homesick. While I was away learning, she became a true advocate
and spokesperson for quality early literacy instruction. I am really proud of her and
am honored to have her as a sister. Jackson and Kinley were in my thoughts
throughout the study. Kinley, only six weeks old when I left to begin my journey,
grew up while I was away at school. I missed her first step and her first word, but it
took no time to establish a wonderful relationship with her when I arrived back in
Lubbock. She is courageous and independent. I feel certain that with a little
encouragement, she will go far in life. Jackson is my “bestest guy”. Every time I
came home for a visit, he greeted me at the airport with a great big Jackson hug and
would not let me leave to return to school without giving me lots of kisses and hugs
to hold me until the next time I saw him. He has provided me with rich anecdotes
viii
and lots of stories about a young child emerging into literacy. He continually
measured my writing progress by checking to see just how many pages I had written.
Without all of these individuals, I would not be the person that I am today.
To each of them, I can say, “Finally, I’m finished!”
ix
VITA
November 30, 1962 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Born – Dallas Texas
1985 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B.S. (Ed.) The University of Texas
Austin, Texas
1985 – 1996 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kindergarten and Elementary
Classroom Teacher
Lubbock Independent School
District
1996 – 1997 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Early Literacy Teacher Coach
Click Project
Lubbock Independent School
District
1996 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M.Ed (Language and Literacy)
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, Texas
1997 – 1998 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Graduate Assistant
AmeriCorps for Math and Literacy
College of Education
The Ohio State University
1998 – 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Graduate Assistant and Trainer
The Literacy Collaborative®
The Ohio State University
2000 – 2002 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Assistant Director and Trainer
The Literacy Collaborative®
Texas Tech University
2002 – Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elementary Classroom Teacher
Lubbock Independent School
District
x
PUBLICATIONS
Swafford, J., Maltsberger, A., Button, K., & Furgerson, P. (1997).
Facilitating effective literacy instruction through peer coaching. National Reading
Conference Yearbook.
Button, K., Johnson, M.J., & Furgerson, P. (1996). Interactive writing in a
primary classroom. The Reading Teacher, 49. 446-454.
Ponticell, J.A., Button, K., Johnson, M.J., Cates, P. & Furgerson, P. (1995).
School-university collaborative research: Lessons learned in two professional
development schools. In S.L. Knight & N.J. DeLeon (Eds.), The Texas School
University Research Collaborative. (pp. 1-6). College Station, TX: Texas A&M
University, Center for the Study and Implementation of Collaborative Learning
Communities.
FIELDS OF STUDY
Major Field: Education
Teaching and Learning
(Language, Literacy and Culture)
Studies in Literacy
Dr. Gay Su Pinnell
Studies in Children’s Literature
Dr. Janet Hickman
Studies in Early Childhood Education
Dr. Rebecca Kantor
xi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ………………………………………………………………………… ii
Dedication ……………………………………………………………………… iv
Acknowledgments …………………………………………………………….. v
Vita ……………………………………………………………………………... x
List of Figures ………………………………………………………………….. xvi
Chapters:
1. Introduction ………………………………………………………………….
1
Helping Young Children become Writers ……………………….……..….
Interactive Writing: A Context for Learning …………………………..….
Statement of the Problem …………………………………………….…….
Approach to the Study ………………………………………………….…..
Definition of Terms …………………………………………………….…..
Scope and Limitations of the Study …………………………………….….
Summary ………………………………………………………………..….
4
6
9
10
11
16
17
2. Review of Related Literature ………………………………………………..
19
Research on Beginning Writers and Their Writing …………………………
Research Related to the Writing Process …………………………………...
Research Related to the Craft of Writing ……………………………….…..
Research Related to Interactive Writing ……………………………………
Research Related to Instruction as Collaboration and Assisted
Learning ………………………………………………………………...
Research Related to the Role of the Teacher as Reflective
Practitioner ..…………………………………………………………….
Summary ………………………………………………………………..…..
19
22
27
32
3. Methodology ………………………………………………………………...
48
Participants and Site Selection Process ……………………………………...
Demographic Data ……………………………………………….………
48
49
xii
36
39
46
Participant Selection ……………………………………………..……..
Research Design ………………………………………………………...…...
Case Study Research ………………………………………………………...
The Constructivist Research Paradigm ………………………………....…...
Data Collection ……………………………………………………………...
Researcher’s Role ………………………………………………..……..
Data Collection Procedures ……………………………………………..
Observation ……………………………………………………………..
Observational Field Notes ………………………………………..……..
Interviews ………………………………………………………..……..
Documents ……………………………………………………….…….
Data Analysis and Interpretation ………………………………………..…...
Trustworthiness ……………………………………………………………...
Credibility ………………………………………………………..……..
Dependability …………………………………………………….……..
Confirmability…………………………………………………………...
Transferability …………………………………………………………..
Summary ………………………………………………………………..…...
50
52
54
55
56
56
57
60
62
63
66
67
71
71
74
75
75
76
4. Presentation of Findings – Case Studies: Teachers Using Interactive
Writing as a Context for Teaching Craft in Writing …………………….
77
Analysis of Data ……………………………………………………………..
Ruth …………………………………………………………………….……
Professional Background ………………………………………...……..
Experience with Interactive Writing ……………………………..……..
Description of the School and Classroom Setting ……………….……..
Writing Instruction in Ruth’s Classroom ………………………...……..
Interactive Writing ……………………………………………….
Other Contexts for Writing ……………………………...……….
Planning for Interactive Writing ………………………………………..
Preplanning for Interactive Writing by the Teacher …….……….
Planning for Writing with the Children ………………………….
Summary ………………………………………………...……….
Crafting the Text Through Negotiation or Composing …………..……..
Beginning a New Piece ………………………………….……….
Continuing a Previously Started Text …………………...……….
The Role of Rereading in Text Negotiation ……………..……….
Negotiating the Message ………………………………...……….
Sentence variation …………………………….………………
Audience (Writing with the reader in mind) ….………………
Evaluating the Writing ………………………..………………
Revision ………………………………………………………
78
81
81
82
84
87
87
91
94
94
100
107
108
108
110
112
113
114
121
134
136
xiii
Summary of the Elements of Craft Addressed During the
Negotiation of Text …………………………………..………..
Teacher Decision Making During the Negotiation of Text ……..……...
Summary ………………………………………………………..………
Marta ……………………………………………………………………...…
Professional Background ………………………………………...……..
Experience with Interactive Writing ……………………………..…….
Description of the School and Classroom Setting ……………….……..
Writing Instruction in Marta’s Classroom ……………………….……..
Writing Center …………………………………………..………….
Journal Writing ……………………………………………………
Writing Workshop ………………………………………………….
Interactive Writing ……………………………………...………....
Planning for Interactive Writing ………………………………………..
Preplanning for interactive writing by the teacher ……..…………
Planning for writing with the children ………………….………...
Summary ………………………………………………..………...
Crafting the Text Through Negotiation or Composing ………….……...
Getting started with writing …………………………….………...
The role of rereading in text negotiation ……………….………...
Negotiating the Message ………………………………..………..
Sentence variation …………………………………………….
Audience ……………………………………..……………….
Evaluating the writing ………………………..……………….
Revision ……………………………………...……………….
Summary of the Elements of Craft Addressed During the
Negotiation of Text …………………………………...………
Teacher Decision Making During Interactive Writing …………..……..
Summary ………………………………………………………………..
Analysis Across Teachers ………………………………………..……..
5. Discussion and Implications ………………………………………………...
The Problem of the Study …………………………………………………...
Procedures …………………………………………………………………...
Findings ……………………………………………………………………...
Question 1: Planning for Interactive Writing …………………………...
How the Teachers Planned for Interactive Writing ……..………..
How the Teachers Helped the Children Plan During
Interactive Writing ……………………………………………
Question 2: Elements of Craft Attended to During Interactive
Writing …………………………………………………………...…..
xiv
140
144
148
149
149
150
152
155
155
156
157
158
164
164
172
179
180
182
183
184
184
190
193
196
201
204
207
208
213
214
215
215
216
217
220
222
Sentence Variation ……………………………………………..
Audience ………………………………………………...……..
Evaluation ……………………………………………….……..
Revision ………………………………………………………..
Question 3: Using Dialogue and Discussion to Support the
Students’ Understandings of the Craft of Writing ……………..…….
Question 4: Teacher’s Moment to Moment Decision Making …..……..
Implications ……………………………………………………………..……
Directions for Further Research ……………………………………………...
Final Thoughts …………………………………………………………..…...
227
229
236
242
244
List of References ………………………………………………………………
246
Appendices ……………………………………………………………………...
254
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
Example of Field Notes ……………………………………
Example of Documentation of Teacher Response During
Pre-observation Sessions …………………………………...
Interview Questions …………………………………….......
Photos of Interactive Writing Texts ……………………….
Children’s Writing Samples ………………………………...
xv
222
223
224
225
255
257
259
262
264
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure
Page
3.1
Data Collection Schedule …………………………………………….
59
3.2
Rationale for Data Collection ………………………………………...
60
3.3
Writing Samples Collected by Children’s Ability Levels ……………
67
4.1
Analysis Categories and Definitions …………………………………
80
4.2
Diagram of Ruth’s Classroom ………………………………………..
86
4.3
Text Written During Ten Interactive Writing Sessions in Ruth’s
Classroom …………………………………………………………….
89
4.4
Breakdown of Text Written in Ruth’s Classroom ……………………
90
4.5
Summary of Elements Addressed Related to the Craft of Writing in
Ruth’s Classroom …………………………………………………….
141
4.6
Diagram of Marta’s Classroom ………………………………………
154
4.7
Text Written During Interactive Writing Sessions on Magnets in
Marta’s Classroom ……………………………………………………
160
Text Written During Interactive Writing on Simple Machines in
Marta’s Classroom ……………………………………………………
161
4.9
Breakdown of Text Written in Marta’s Classroom …………………..
163
4.10
Outcomes of the Interactive Writing Lessons During Each of the Ten
Observations …………………………………………………………
181
Summary of Elements Addressed Related to the Craft of Writing in
Marta’s Classroom ……………………………………………………
202
4.8
4.11
xvi
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Writing is an important part of our daily lives. Through writing we express our
thoughts, ideas, feelings and desires. The writer's goal is to successfully
communicate a message, which, no matter how simple, starts out with an idea and
through a sophisticated process is translated into a written format. The moment
young children realize that the marks that they have made on paper convey a
message, they begin the life-long process of developing as writers.
Writing has a significant role in young children's construction of literacy.
As they engage in classroom writing tasks, young children learn much about both
reading and writing. Clay notes, “writing can contribute to the building of almost
every kind of inner control of literacy learning that is needed by the successful
reader” (Clay, 1998, p. 130). Writing messages requires the most novice of writers
to distinguish between letters and other written marks, attend closely to the features
of different letters, and position the message on the paper by breaking it down into
its smallest components while at the same time building words, sentences and
eventually paragraphs and longer texts.
Young children bring with them to school a keen sense of narrative. Orally
they can tell interesting stories that relate to their daily lives and their experiences
1
and they quickly develop an understanding that what they can say can be
documented through written symbols. Although there is a relationship between the
spoken word and the written word, writing is more than just talk that is written
down. Oral communication is often context dependent and interactive. The
speaker can use intonation, body language, hesitation and repetition to relay his
message. The writer, however, has to communicate without interaction, thus
having to predict responses or misunderstandings that the reader may have. The
grammatical and syntactical elements of writing and speech are also different.
Speech is characterized by clauses; whereas, writing is made up of complete
sentences. Even children who dictate their messages for a more proficient writer
to inscribe are somewhat aware that there is variation between the written and
spoken word. These young students will dictate their message in a complete
sentence, often using a word by word cadence.
Many of the youngest students, however, are just emerging into the world
of written communication. They use their oral language as a resource for writing,
but are just developing an understanding of how to put their language into a written
form. For these novices, writing can be a laborious, slow and sometimes tedious
task. Numerous demands of writing simultaneously compete for their attentions as
they work to create meaningfully written messages (Bereiter & Scardemalia, 1987).
Beginning writers cope with developing the motor and perceptual skills required to
form alphabetic symbols as they construct words letter by letter, while at the same
time juggling the composition of a message that is understandable to a reader. As
2
new information about writing is learned, emergent writers integrate the new
findings into their current framework of knowledge, thus replacing what no longer
works with newly created theories.
Children's early written pieces provide the adult onlooker a window into
what the young child understands about the written code and the writing process.
Clay (1991) states, in relation to a child’s attention to specific features of print, that
“what the child generates or produces himself tends to tell us what aspects of print
he has under his own control” (p. 102). Often, however, young children's overall
writing development is evaluated only on print principles, knowledge of soundsymbol relationships or the physical characteristics demonstrated in their products
rather than on the quality of their message (Zecker, 1999). The research in the
development of emergent writers focuses mainly on the stages of writing
development that are associated with the mechanics or construction of text (Read,
1975; Clay, 1975; Sulzby, 1985) rather than on the actual composition or crafting
of the text. The emphasis on construction of text in association with emergent
writers seems to suggest that children must first develop a repertoire of skills
associated with the aspects of print before turning their attention to the craft of
writing.
Novice writers often have a restricted command over the conventional,
perceptual and symbolic aspects of written language; however, even with the
beginning writer, writing entails much more than putting letters and words down on
paper. As writers engage in the writing process, they have to consider the craft of
3
writing or how they will put together their ideas and tell their story. Writers think
about their purpose for writing, develop a plan, make decisions about what needs to
be said and how they will say it, consider who will read their piece, decide which
form or genre should be utilized for portraying their message, and reflect and
evaluate as the writing progresses. Thus, there is a complex association between
constructing and composing. Isolating the construction of text from the whole
writing process portrays an inaccurate representation of how children develop as
writers.
Helping Young Children Become Writers
Learning to write involves implementing a complex set of understandings
and procedures. In the not so distant past and perhaps still in many primary
classrooms today the teaching of writing is product rather than process oriented.
Teachers believed that young children could not write until they could read, so
writing time was spent inculcating handwriting skills by copying from the
chalkboard and developing grammar knowledge through the completion of
workbook pages. Children were expected to imitate adult models using correct
handwriting, spelling and grammar and when they did write, the children based the
subject of their compositions on prompts provided by the teacher and wrote their
pieces solely for the teacher. With more investigation being done on young
children's literacy development and the writing process, writing in many of today's
4
schools is viewed not merely as a collection of skills to be mastered, but as a
complex interactive and interpretive process that is dependent on the orchestration
of a range of strategies.
Graves (1983) writes that even the most novice of writers develop a process
for writing. The process ingredients are the same regardless of the age of the
writer, but the order and way that different writers move through the process is not
normally linear and is somewhat unpredictable. Dyson & Freedman (1991)
describe writing as a process that is kaleidoscopic, that is, one that is always
changing as the purpose for the writing or the writer's context shifts. Calkins
(1994) characterizes writing as being "life work" rather than "desk work". She
suggests that writing begins with writers noticing, wondering, remembering,
questioning and yearning rather than with their learning formulaic models for
composing. Clay (1998) suggests that composing, as well as constructing a text,
must, to some degree, be taught not through a scripted curriculum sequence, but
through the production of meaningful written messages. A teacher who ascribes to
teaching isolated elements with the hope that eventually students will become
proficient enough to put their item knowledge together in a well-written document
has perhaps lost sight of the ultimate goal -- that of developing a process for
translating ideas into a coherent, meaningful, well-thought-out text. Therefore, the
writing curriculum in a classroom should not only assist children in learning how to
construct a text, but should also help them become knowledgeable about all aspects
of the writing process.
5
Clay (1991) contends that children are active constructors of their own
language and literacy; however, their growth in competency does not take place
without a supportive classroom environment and explicit instruction. Just as
children learn to read by reading real text, they must learn to write by writing real
text. Teachers provide multiple opportunities for children to engage in real writing
in many different contexts within each school day. Children need opportunities to
write independently, as well as, time to work collaboratively with the teacher and
peers. Rogoff (1990) explains that the individual development of a child is
achieved in a social context through an apprenticeship of guided participation.
Typically, students acquire new learning when they collaboratively engage in a task
that is just outside the realm of what they can accomplish and do by themselves
with a teacher or more experienced other. Through collaboration, the teacher or
more experienced other can support or scaffold the learning so that students can
have success in completing the task and in the process learn new strategies or skills
that eventually become ones that they use on their own (Vygotsky, 1978).
Interactive writing provides a context for learning about writing that involves
children in the social construction of knowledge with the assistance of a more
experienced other.
Interactive Writing - A Context for Learning
Interactive writing, developed by a group of researchers from The Ohio
State University and educators from the Columbus Public Schools, is an
instructional context in which the teacher and a group of children share the pen as
6
they collaboratively compose a text (Button, Johnson, & Furgerson, 1996;
McCarrier, Pinnell, & Fountas, 1999). The texts composed during interactive
writing are usually more complex than the ones that children could write
independently, but many of the strategies that they develop through participation in
interactive writing transfer to their independent writing.
Interactive writing has its roots in a process developed by Moira McKenzie
who coined the term "shared writing" (McKenzie, 1985). McKenzie suggested that
shared writing should emerge from authentic purposes. For example, the writing
might be in response to a children's literature selection, a classroom event, or a
topic children are studying in another content area. Interactive writing provides an
opportunity for young writers to work together to compose a text alongside the
teacher, a more experienced user of written language. One important difference
between McKenzie's model of shared writing and interactive writing is that
children engaging in interactive writing take an active role in writing the text by
taking over the pen and doing the writing at selected points when the teacher is
explicitly teaching for transfer.
In interactive writing, the teacher's role shifts as (s)he scaffolds the learning
not only of the group, but also of the individual child as (s)he makes moment-tomoment teaching decisions (Button, 1992; Wiley, 1994). Interactive writing
provides teachers with an opportunity to engage children in purposeful writing and
reading instruction as a text is composed that holds personal and collective
meaning for the participating group of learners.
7
Recent research on interactive writing supports using interactive writing as
an instructional approach to facilitate young children's early writing development
(Chapman, 1999; Runge, 1998; Compton, 1994). These studies suggest that
interactive writing provides students with an explicit and supportive context for
developing writing strategies that are seemingly transferred to their independent
work. Although each of the authors implies that interactive writing assists students
in developing a writing process, the data are analyzed specifically for how
interactive writing contributes to children developing an understanding of
conventions of print and the correspondence between letters and sounds. .
Interactive writing has also been written about from a more theoretical
perspective (Button, Johnson, Furgerson, 1996; Wiley, 1999; Henry, 1999;
McCarrier, et.al, 1999). Wiley proposed that interactive writing, along with other
literacy learning opportunities, provides children with a context for learning and an
explicit model of how words are constructed while writing an extended text. Wiley
(1999) described the interactive writing context in relationship to particular types of
writers (emergent, early, and transitional) and their approximate grade levels. She
suggested that in kindergarten and first grade the focus of interactive writing is on
the construction of text and should be used with children on a daily basis; whereas,
in second grade the focus is more on the composition of text and tends to be
utilized less frequently.
Henry (1999) described one interactive writing lesson within a kindergarten
classroom and then explored the spelling strategies of one child. The author
8
attempted to link the teaching during the interactive writing lesson with the
knowledge that the teacher has about the students. Although the author chose the
title, Becoming a Writer: Learning through Interactive Writing, the focus, again,
was more on how children develop in their abilities to construct text rather than
how they develop as writers.
In a book devoted entirely to interactive writing, McCarrier, Pinnell and
Fountas (1999) proposed that interactive writing can be used to teach more than
just the conventions of print. The authors maintained that interactive writing is a
curricular component that can engage young writers in the writing process by
helping them not only to understand how texts are constructed, but also to help
them develop an understanding of the composing process or the craft of writing.
Beginning writers often have difficulty writing independently because the process
is slowed down by their excessive attention to construction of the text. In
interactive writing, there is a reduction in the attention given to the mechanics
associated with producing a text because the teacher supports the students by
providing assistance in constructing words. The children can then turn their focus
to the way the text is being crafted.
Interactive writing, thus, provides a context through which children become
aware of and participate in the writing process. Through interactive writing,
children develop strategies that they apply when writing independently. By
engaging in ongoing dialogue and conversation about writing with the students
during the interactive writing session and by capitalizing on explicit examples as
9
they arise, the teacher helps the students expand their understandings of the kinds
of decisions writers must make as they engage in the writing process. Interactive
writing, thus, provides a context for helping children develop an awareness of what
becoming a writer entails.
Statement of the Problem
Children learn best when they are provided with powerful models and
explicit instruction that is situated in a context offering opportunities to construct
knowledge through interactions with peers and more experienced others.
Interactive writing is such a context. Educators have seen value in using interactive
writing as a tool for helping children learn about letters, sounds, words and
concepts about print. When children participate in interactive writing sessions,
they are engaging in an event that immerses them in the writing process. Although
a few studies exist describing interactive writing as a support for children's
development of strategies for constructing a text, currently no published studies
focus on how teachers utilize interactive writing as an instructional context for
helping children develop strategies associated with the craft of writing.
The purpose of my study was to provide information about how two
experienced classroom teachers used interactive writing as a pedagogic context for
helping first grade children develop a writing process that includes both
construction and craft. The study was designed: (1) to discover what two first
grade teachers considered related to the craft of writing when planning for
interactive writing; (2) to identify elements associated with craft that were attended
10
to in daily lessons; and, (3) to reveal how conversation and dialogue were used
during thelesson to support the children's understanding of craft. Through the
study, I sought to further define the possibilities for adopting interactive writing as
an instructional method for helping beginning writers develop a writing process.
Approach to the Study
In my study, I employed a constructivist case study method of investigation
to document how two teachers thought about and helped children develop an
understanding of composing - the process that writers go through as they compose
or craft a text beginning with the formulation of an idea and continuing until the
idea fits the author's intended meaning - through the context of interactive writing
in two first grade classrooms. I selected the teachers for the study based on their
long-term experience using interactive writing in their classrooms. Follow up
conversations and interviews provided information on the teachers' moment to
moment teaching decisions and their own observations of students' understandings.
Four questions provided focus and direction during data collection and
analysis. The questions that guided the study were: (a) How do teachers plan for
interactive writing and what specifically do they consider about their students'
knowledge of composition or craft as they plan? (b) What elements of composition
or craft do the teachers attend to during interactive writing sessions? (c) How are
dialogue and discussion used during the interactive writing lesson to support the
students' understandings of the craft of writing? (d) What guides the teachers'
moment to moment decision making during interactive writing?
11
Definitions of Terms
For the purpose of this study, the following essential terms and definitions
applied.
Composing: Composing is the constant shaping of a text that closes in on
the author's meaning and through which the writer's voice emerges. Writers
manipulate words and information until it matches their intended meaning. Graves
( 1983) refers to composing as "everything a writer does from the time the first
words are put on the paper until all drafts are complete" (p. 223). Within the
context of interactive writing, composing begins with the planning of the text and
continues as the writers in the group determine how they want to put the ideas
together to reveal their message (craft of writing). Composing includes
establishing a purpose, deciding on a format and negotiating a precise text, which
the group will write.
Construction of Text: Constructing the text includes the actions writers
take to inscribe their message. Construction of text includes writing the actual
words, letter by letter, arranging words in the space on the page, and using print
conventions such as spacing between words, capitalization and punctuation. Often,
construction of text is associated with the mechanics of writing. Within the context
of interactive writing, word solving is a main instructional element associated with
the construction of text.
Constructivist Case Study: Constructivist case study research seeks to
understand the complex role of the experience from the point of view of the
12
participants. From a constructivist stance, individuals bring to new situations
perceptions, understandings and beliefs that have been formed by their prior
experiences. When the individual encounters new information, new meanings and
interpretations are constructed. Researching from a constructivist paradigm
requires the investigator not only to render an intelligible interpretation through
rich description, but to also use the rich description and information gleaned from
the participants as a point of departure for providing an explanation or
interpretation of the possible rationale behind the actions of the participants
(Schwandt, 1994). The case study approach is not so much a methodology as it is a
"choice of the object to be studied" (Stake, 1994, p. 236). In this study, the cases
being studied were two first grade teachers and their students who engaged in the
context of interactive writing on a daily basis.
Context: The context is a defined situation that is negotiated as the
participants interact with each other from moment to moment.
Craft of Writing: Craft refers to the way writers put together ideas to
reveal their message. Writers constantly shape their ideas - rereading, reflecting
upon, re-visioning, reshaping, and refocusing what has been already been revealed.
Writers repeat the process until the text is satisfying to them. Dahl and Farnan
(1998) define craft as "the skill, expertise and many strategies required to produce a
clear, coherent and effective composition" (p. 51). Fletcher and Portualupi (1998)
13
describe the craft of writing as being the "thousands of decisions that writers make
about their text as they write" (p. 3). The purpose for the writing, the determined
audience and the form selected for portraying the ideas.
A Language and Literacy Framework for Grade K-2: A flexible
organizational tool developed by surveying the research and descriptive literature
on language and literacy learning. The value of each component depends on the
organization and the effectiveness of teaching with it. The framework has evolved
as classroom teachers have participated in research based on implementation of the
components. Currently, Pinnell & Fountas (2001) delineate the framework into
three blocks of time, one for language and word study, one for reading and
independent work and one for writing. At the time of the study, the teachers looked
at the elements of the framework as eight interrelated components: reading aloud,
shared reading, guided reading, independent reading, shared writing, interactive
writing, writing workshop and independent writing. Each component included an
element of word study.
Independent Writing: Writing that the student does without the assistance
of an adult. In this study, independent writing took place at the writing center.
Journal writing was also considered independent writing. Occasionally, the teacher
engaged the students in instructional conversations as they wrote independently,
but the majority of the writing took place in a social context with peers that was
independent of the teacher.
14
Interactive Writing: An unscripted instructional context in which the
teacher and a group of children share the pen as they collaboratively compose and
write a group text. Interactive writing is a curricular component or element of the
Language and Literacy Framework.
Literacy Collaborative: The Literacy Collaborative® is a long-term
professional development program designed to provide a comprehensive schoolwide approach to literacy instruction. Schools that are part of the Literacy
Collaborative network implement the Language and Literacy framework either in
the primary grades or school-wide, participate in long term professional
development and peer coaching sessions provided by a building level literacy
coordinator who was trained at a district, regional or university training site,
provide Reading Recovery® as a safety net for first grade children who are at-risk
of reading failure and collect data on every child which becomes a part of the data
bank at the Literacy Collaborative National Data Evaluation Center.
Reflection: Reflection refers to a systematic means of inquiring into one's
own practice.
Scaffolding: A scaffold is defined as the support provided by an adult for
children engaged in learning new information. To help children accomplish a task
more difficult than the children can perform independently, the adult provides
support to the child through verbal explanation and demonstration.
Shared Writing: Shared writing is an instructional context in which the
teacher and the children work together to compose messages and stories. Shared
15
writing is different from interactive writing in that the students do not do any of the
writing; instead, the teacher acts as the scribe. Shared writing is a component of
the Language and Literacy Framework.
Strategy: In this study, a strategy is defined as an in the head action (Clay,
1991). A strategy cannot be observed, but an onlooker can view the actions that a
child takes and hypothesize on the child's understandings. A teacher can teach for
the development of a strategy; however, she can teach a strategy only indirectly
through providing experiences and demonstrating and encouraging effective
behaviors.
Transfer: Transfer means the ability to use a skill or strategy developed in
one situation or context in a different situation. The children are able to use what
they have learned and apply it in a new situation without the assistance of the
teacher.
Writing Process: The writing process consists of the course that writers
take as they go from idea to written piece. The process includes planning, drafting,
revising, editing and publishing. The elements of the process do not take place in a
linear fashion, but are more recursive in nature. Writers often have to go back to
rethink, re-plan, and reconstruct parts of the written piece that do not convey the
message to the audience in a way that the writer deems appropriate.
Writing Workshop: An instructional context in which children engage in
writing a variety of texts with the teacher guiding the process and providing
instruction through mini-lessons, conferencing and sharing. The teacher plans for
16
the mini-lessons based on the observable needs of the student writers in the
classroom. Writing workshop is an instructional component or element of the
Language and Literacy Framework.
Scope and Limitations of the Study
Through engagement in the study, I closely examined the context of
interactive writing in two first grade classrooms. Specifically, I attempted to
uncover, identify and describe how the teachers addressed the craft of writing
during the interactive writing context. I did not choose to explore the teachers'
implementation of the other components of the Language and Literacy Framework
except as they pertained to the context of the interactive writing lessons.
Although writing samples on six children from each classroom were
collected and analyzed, I did not examine how addressing the craft of writing
during interactive writing contributed to or influenced the students' performance on
standardized tests.
As the investigator, I chose only to examine the interactive writing context
in two unique first grade classrooms. The findings may not necessarily be
observed in other first grade classrooms or in other classrooms in Literacy
Collaborative Schools.
The study contributes to the body of research on instructional methods for
helping children develop a writing process by providing insights into how the craft
of writing can be addressed through the context of interactive writing. In turn, in-
17
service and pre-service teachers and researchers can refer to the research to better
understand how beginning writers develop into independent and proficient writers.
Teachers in similar educational situations will be able to make good use of the
descriptions provided in this study to draw their own assumptions for classroom
practice.
Summary
Interactive writing is a context that can assist children in developing a
writing process. Through interactive writing, teachers can explicitly teach for the
development of strategies associated with becoming a proficient writer. In this
constructivist case study, I documented the ways that two first grade teachers
addressed the element of craft or composing within the context of interactive
writing.
Chapter two of the document provides a review of the related literature that
contributes to this study. The methods and procedures that guided the investigation
are reported in chapter three. Chapter four presents the case studies of the two
teachers by describing and discussing their implementation of interactive writing as
it relates to the craft of writing and provides an analysis of the teaching and the
transfer of understanding from the teacher to the students. A summary of the
findings, implications of the research and recommendations for further research are
included in chapter five.
18
CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
In this study, I explored how two first grade teachers addressed the craft of
writing within the context of interactive writing. The review of literature that was
relevant to and informed the study is divided into six sections. The first four
sections of the literature review relate to the area of writing, with the last two being
more closely associated with the areas of teaching and learning. In section one, I
provide a synopsis of research related to beginning writers and the characteristics of
their writing. Research on the writing process and the contribution that this
research has made to the teaching of writing at the primary grades is contained in
section two followed by a review of the literature related to the craft of writing in
section three. Section four explores the current research on interactive writing.
Literature focusing on instruction as collaboration and assisted learning is the focal
point of section five and section six explores the literature related to how teacher
reflection contributes to shifts in thinking and in practice.
Research on Beginning Writers and Their Writing
Most of the research on beginning writers and their writing focuses on one
of two areas: functions of writing or forms of writing. Teale and Sulzby (1986)
19
suggested that the functions of literacy are as important to learning to read and
write as are the formal aspects of the written language. Children often understand
before coming to school that people engage in writing for different purposes. Even
before young children are capable of producing written texts that resemble
conventional forms, they demonstrate that they understand that writing is
functional (Bissex, 1980; DeFord, 1980). For the emerging writer, writing
involves the same goal as the one more experienced writers hold - communicating
with self or others by putting thoughts and ideas onto paper.
In regards to function, Graves (1981) found that children's decisions to
write are often spontaneous and based on an individual need for communication.
Graves noted that most children are secure with the fact that they are
communicating meaning even when their written messages are not readable by
anyone other than themselves.
Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) described young children as often
employing a "what next" strategy in their writing. Rather than thinking through an
overall plan for their writing, children write from one idea to the next without much
consideration of how the ideas relate to the entire composition. The somewhat
egotistical young writer has a tacit knowledge of the meaning of the produced text
because (s)he has written from personal knowledge and understanding; therefore,
the writer assumes and is confident that the intended meaning is clearly expressed
to any reader. As children develop greater understandings, they begin to recognize
that in order to be functional the text must communicate beyond the moment in
20
which the writing occurred and that they must organize it in a manner that makes
sense to a reader. In other words, young authors learn to write with the reader in
mind, with the understanding that the text must make sense on its own without
them having to add verbal commentary or clarifications.
Chapman (2002), examined how a young child learns about writing across
genres. She concluded that young writers acquire those genres to which they are
exposed and those that they have opportunities to use. She found that even young
children are capable of writing across the curriculum and making decisions about
content, genre and composing.
Much more of the research on early writing focuses on forms of writing.
Sulzby and Teale (1991) reported that children write in pre-conventional forms
long before they write conventionally. Children's writing evolves from that of
scribbling to that of convention as they gain a perceptual awareness of print, begin
to organize print in their environment and learn generalized communication
strategies (Clay, 1975; Deford, 1980).
Ferreiro and Teberosky (1982) looked at young children's writing attempts
and identified notable stages through which children seem to pass as they develop
as writers. The first stage involves the intention to create a message, often through
drawing. Stage two sees the child producing graphic representations that resemble
more conventional letter like forms or of the child writing the most familiar letters
repeatedly. In the third stage, children begin to assign a sound value to the letter.
The child represents each syllable with a letter. As children move into stage four,
21
they abandon the syllabic hypothesis and begin to analyze words based on length
and segmentation. Ferreiro and Teberosky (1982) proposed that it is not until the
fifth and final stage, that children understand the alphabetic writing system and can
systematically analyze the phonemes of the words they are writing.
Even before engaging in formal instruction, children apply their developing
knowledge of the sound system of language as they attempt to represent their
thoughts and ideas in printed form (Bissex, 1980; Chomsky, 1972; Clay, 1975;
Henderson & Beers, 1980; Read, 1971). Several studies primarily focus on
examining children's invented spellings (Read, 1971; Henderson & Beers, 1980) by
looking at their early writing attempts. Through his study of preschool children's
spelling, Read (1971) determined that many children, even before beginning
school, have some understanding of phonological analysis and employ a selfcreated spelling system based on specific features. Children attend to, depend upon
and use the relationship between letters and sounds when they spell words
independently. Read (1971) noted however, that what preschool children have not
learned is that the standard spelling system is different from their own - that the
"written form corresponds to an abstract (lexical) form, not directly to what (they)
hear" (p. 34). Read's research (1971), as well as the studies of other researchers on
children's early attempts to write using their tacit knowledge of early spelling
strategies, lead many educators of young children to incorporate and encourage
writing with "invented spelling" in classrooms.
22
The research on children's early writing attempts emphasizes that even
before beginning school, children have some understandings of the function and
forms associated with writing. The research on function and form, however, has
provided evidence that learning to write is a constructive and active, yet complex
process. By arranging opportunities for children to engage in writing in many
different contexts and with varying levels of support, adults can facilitate children's
development as writers.
Research Related to the Writing Process
Writing - the act of composing texts to be read by people who are not a part
of the writing act - is among one the most complex of mental activities (Flowers &
Hayes, 1981). Composing a text requires that the writer make thousands of
decisions and negotiate solutions to problems associated with portraying a
meaningful message to a reader (Flowers & Hayes, 1981; Clay, 1998). Writing
itself is defined by many to be a process - a process of selecting, combining,
arranging and developing ideas in effective sentences, paragraphs and longer units
of discourse (Dahl & Farnan, 1996).
Donald Murray (1985) described writing as thought processes in action. He
asserted that "meaning is not thought up and then written down. The act of writing
is an act of thought" (p. 3). Dyson and Freedman (1991) described the complexity
of the process as follows:
Writing is conceived of as a skill and yet, at the same time that skill is itself
a process dependent upon a range of other skills and, moreover a process
that is kaleidoscopic, shaped by the author's changing purposes of writing
(p. 754).
23
The process of writing requires the writer to divide attention among a number of
variables. Writers must think about tone, form, purpose and audience while
conforming to the conventions of print that are considered appropriate for their
developmental level and age.
Graves (1983) suggested that children learning to write need teachers who
are willing to compose in front of them and speak aloud about their process and
thoughts as they write, making the implicit, explicit. Children will select the points
from the teacher's talk that are most relevant to their needs as writers. Young
writers tend to select skills or strategies more easily from the modeling than when
taught a targeted skill in isolation because strategies or skills are demonstrated
within a context where natural predicaments associated with the struggles of
writing occur. The teacher, therefore, can use modeling, not as a way to teach a
specific skill that the children are expected to incorporate into their writing
immediately, but rather as a way to confirm commonalties that occur with all
writers, as well as a way to confirm what children are already considering in their
own writing processes.
Researchers interested in the writing process have directed their attention to
describing what writers think and do as they compose a text, as well as to factors
that influence their writing. Early research in the area of writing process focused
on high school age and older students. Emig (1971) was one of the first researchers
to study the composing processes of developing writers. Through a think aloud
protocol, Emig (1971) was able to identify and describe the processes that 12th
24
grade students use when writing text. She found that the writing processes of her
subjects were recursive. The writers did not move linearly through the composing
process, but planned, started, composed aloud, went back to planning, stopped,
revised, edited, reformulated ideas, contemplated and rewrote all in an effort to
produce a meaningful piece. Britton (1970) examined writing samples of high
school age students. He found that high school students' processes differ according
to the type of writing they are doing. Donald Graves (1975) did some of the
earliest research on writing with younger students when he studied the writing
processes of seven-year-olds. Graves (1975) found that they, too, enlist multiple
strategies when they compose and he claimed that the developmental level of the
writer transcends environment, materials and methodologies in influencing young
children's writing processes. Each of these researchers, however, found that
students' writing process consists of three universal components: planning, drafting
or composing and editing. Although many times in classrooms these components
are viewed as a linear and progressive model beginning with prewriting and ending
in editing a finished draft, in actuality, writers shift back and forth through the
different phases as they write.
Rickards and Hawes (2004) discovered that when teaching writing,
educators often assume five important roles. Teachers act as models, coaches,
assessors, planners, and consultants. As models, teachers can demonstrate their
own thought processes as they write in front of their students, or they can provide
models of good writing in the form of well-written trade books. As coaches, they
25
work to "establish common goals and activities, build social bonds, and support
students as they grow in their abilities" (p. 69). Writing teachers act as assessors as
they peruse each student's writing and identify strengths and areas of need. The
authors suggest that teachers assess for two purposes: to report progress to others
and to guide instruction. As planners, teachers' roles are to be knowledgeable about
the requirements that provide the foundation for the writing curriculum and to use
their knowledge of students to modify instruction to meet the diverse needs within
the group. As consultants, teachers confer with students as individuals or small
groups to provide assistance or to reinforce skills and strategies. According to
Rickards and Hawes (2004), the roles that the writing teacher assumes are not
distinct, but are over-lapping and are difficult to distinguish.
Dyson and Freedman (1991) have encouraged teachers and researchers to
consider not only the cognitive capabilities of writers, but also the nature of the task
and the social and environmental factors when evaluating children's writing
processes. Young children's oral language systems are more advanced than their
written symbol systems. Often, much of their writing process is represented
through spoken words and illustrations rather than through print (Dyson, 1982;
Graves, 1975). Thus, classroom environments and interactions can be constructed
in ways that contribute to or restrict the opportunities that young children have for
developing a process for writing (Florio & Clark, 1982; Dyson, 1993).
In light of the research on writing as a process, many classroom teachers are
moving from merely providing students with an opportunity to write to actually
26
providing instruction in how to write (Dahl & Farnan, 1996). In a 1986 booklet
published by the U.S. Department of Education, the writing process approach was
described as "the most effective way to teach writing" (p. 27). Researchers who
defend process writing as an appropriate method for helping beginning writers
develop, support the idea that children do not proceed through a predetermined set
of skills that will allow them to be writers at the end (Graves, 1983; Calkins, 1986;
Atwell, 1986; Avery, 2002). Educators have to develop ways to make these
somewhat transparent and often messy processes associated with writing visible to
students. Thus, the focus in teaching should not necessarily be on the products
produced, but rather on the development of writers and their processes (Dyson &
Freedman, 1991; Ray, 2001).
Research Related to the Craft of Writing
Several researchers (Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1987; Emig, 1971; Graves,
1983; Flower and Hayes, 1981) have studied the composing element of the writing
process with writers at different stages of development. The researchers
proclaimed that studying and understanding the composing process or the crafting
of writing is difficult because this process is somewhat intangible. Crafting or
composing is an artistic element that most generally takes place in the author's
head.
Teachers often help students to understand that what they can say, they can
write. Indeed, in both the composition of oral and written language children are
forming and reforming texts. Writing, however, is much more than talk written
27
down. King (1989) found that beginning writers make a significant shift in their
understanding of composing when they realize that writing is different from talk.
Not only do young writers have to develop an awareness that written language
sounds different than talk, but they also have to come to an understanding that the
successful crafting of a text requires them to explicitly portray their ideas to a
reader who is absent from the experience.
King (1989) acknowledged that novice writers often struggle with
translating the abstract ideas and images that they have in their heads into an
acceptable form of written language without the support of an conversational
partner; however, she found that children who are exposed to an array of written
forms and to many stories read aloud and who are actively engaged in story
retellings quickly develop an ear for the expressive language needed for writing.
By linking the oral practice of retelling to the written elements of story composing,
the children in King's (1989) study continually refined their abilities to produce a
cohesive text by forming chains of meaning utilizing both referential and lexical
ties. King (1989) discovered that knowledge of various forms of writing and
exposure to literature through read aloud events assists beginning writers in
selecting words and in weaving them together to compose a text that satisfies their
intentions for the writing and makes their meanings explicit for their audience.
Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) proposed that the process of composing
could be perceived to be both a naturally acquired ability and a problematic task
that can only be mastered with great amounts of mental thought. Writing as a
28
natural task makes maximum use of the writers competencies with oral language
and skills learned through typical social interactions; whereas, writing, from the
point of view of problem solving, involves increasing the complexity of the task as
the writer's competence grows. Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) labeled the
naturally acquired ability to write "knowledge telling". In the knowledge telling
mode, writers generate text using knowledge of the subject that is stored in their
memory. There is no planning ahead or goal setting. The writer writes as if in
automatic pilot. Words stream onto the page with the writer paying very little
attention to coherence or organization of the piece. Bereiter and Scardamalia
(1987) referred to the more refined, conscious model of composing as "knowledge
transforming". Writers, who have moved beyond the knowledge telling mode and
into the knowledge transforming mode, go beyond merely recording their thoughts
and knowledge with printed symbols. In the knowledge transforming stage, writers
craft a text to achieve their intended goals and often through the process, transform
their own thinking and knowledge. Writing becomes more of a problem solving
act when the writer is engaged in the knowledge transforming model of composing.
Although Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) cautioned against equating the two
modes of composing to the age of the writer, often the process for writing adopted
by young, less mature writers falls into the knowledge telling rather than the
knowledge transforming mode of composition.
29
Donald Graves (1983) closely examined the composing processes of
primary grade children and found that composing a text frequently begins with
conscious thoughts about the composition that occur before the writer actually puts
words onto the paper. Often, the rehearsal or planning process starts with drawing.
The drawing serves as a resource for ideas related to an experience or thought.
Graves (1983) noted that as the children in his research drew and talked with their
peers, the texts for their pieces emerged; however, the drawing rather than the text
held more meaning for the young composers. The drawing becomes the resource
for crafting the writing. From the artwork, comes the selection of information and
through it, voice elements such as emotion, feelings, and expression that are
associated with the craft of writing are exposed.
Graves (1983) revealed that as novice writers begin to encode the text, the
process is so slow and methodical as they enunciate each word and write down the
letters corresponding to the sounds that they hear that it is necessary for the writers
to return to the beginning of their message with the addition of each new word.
Transcribing the message, rather than word choice or organization, is the
dominating force in the composing process of the most inexperienced writers.
Calkins (1980) documented that for very novice writers there seems to be
no observable goal beyond the physicality of doing. Through observational studies,
she found that emergent writers compose with spontaneity and usually without
considering future readers. As writers develop, however, they become aware of the
conventions of print, the notion of audience, and the need for clarity. Calkins
30
(1980) suggested that it is at the onset of these realizations, that children begin to
cycle between involvement with the physical action of producing text and critical
concern for the final product - that is their writing begins to shift from merely a
form of play to something that is thought about and crafted.
Sowers (1985) found that six-year-old children are able to critique and
reflect on their own writing and the writing completed by their classmates. Sowers
(1985) examined the notion of conferring in classrooms from grade one through
grade four. She found that the student-teacher writing conference provides a
framework for helping children take a reflective stance toward their own writing.
In the first grade classroom in Sowers' study, the large group conference was
instrumental and served as a scaffold for helping children compose a well-written
piece. The large group, teacher-guided conferences, provide children an avenue for
offering each other suggestions for improving their pieces of writing. The
suggestions are often related to elements of craft including order, completeness and
coherence.
Fletcher and Portalupi (1998) described craft as the "cauldron in which the
writing gets forged" (p. 3). There are thousands of decisions that writers make
about the text as they write. Writers have to consider and plan what they will say,
how they will say it, the form that will best represent their ideas and how the reader
will perceive their writing. In Craft Lessons, Fletcher and Portalupi (1998)
suggested that by exploring and gaining control over new ways in which to present
ideas, beginning writers develop strategies for expressing themselves more
31
effectively. The authors recognized that when the conditions for writing are right
there is much about craft that writers can teach themselves; however, they
maintained that direct instruction in the area of craft has an important role for
growing young writers.
The crafting of writing is often an unobservable process. The many
decisions that writers make based on purpose, form, audience and content take
place inside the author's head; however, through explicit instruction teachers can
help children become aware of the kinds of decisions that all writers must make.
Through direct instruction based on the observable strengths and needs of their
students, teachers can demonstrate, model and discuss with children the role that
planning plays in writing, how purpose and audience affects voice and tone, how
organization of ideas relates to clarity and many other elements associated with
composing in writing. There is a need for helping teachers develop ways of
explicitly teaching young children about the craft of writing. Interactive writing
was developed with this need in mind.
Research Related to Interactive Writing
Interactive writing is an instructional approach used in many kindergarten
and primary classrooms. Interactive writing, defined by McCarrier, Pinnell &
Fountas (1999) as follows:
32
a dynamic, collaborative literacy event in which children actively compose
together, considering appropriate words, phrases, organization of text and
layout. At points selected by the teacher for instructional value, individual
children take over or "shared the pen" with the teacher (p. xv),
was coined by a group of researchers from The Ohio State University and a group
of teachers from Columbus, Ohio (McCarrier, et. al, 1999).
The roots of interactive writing are embedded in the elements of language
experience and shared writing (McKenzie, 1985). Language experience (see
Weaver, 1994) helps emergent readers and writers develop literacy understanding
by relating the individual's oral language to the written word. In this approach, the
teacher writes for the child as the child dictates a message. Through language
experience, children learn that what they say can be recorded in a written format.
The goal in shared writing (McKenzie, 1985) is to create a readable text
while demonstrating the writing process. In shared writing, the teacher, acting as
scribe, works with the students to compose a text that relates to a common
experience. Often a primary focus in a shared writing session is on planning,
composing and organizing the message. Children participating in shared writing
learn a great deal about the writing process as they work to generate a cohesive text
with a teacher who is commenting throughout the lesson on specific writing
techniques.
The concept of interactive writing evolved when the literacy teachers began
incorporating shared writing into their curriculums. The teachers recognized the
benefits that shared writing was having on the students' development as writers and
varied the approach by incorporating the sharing of the pen with students. During
33
interactive writing, the teachers asked different students in their class to contribute
to the encoding of the message at points in the composition where an explicit
example provided a model for a writing technique that the children could
incorporate into their own writing process. Having a student actually take over as
scribe more keenly focused the class's attention on the writing concept that the
teacher wanted them to apply within their own writing.
Several investigators have researched interactive writing as a context for
supporting children's writing development. Three previously conducted
dissertation studies (Compton, 1994; Runge, 1997; and Chapman, 1999) have
provided evidence that interactive writing is a viable teaching tool for helping
beginning writers develop. Through their studies, each researcher indicated that
children who participate in interactive writing sessions transfer writing strategies
from the interactive writing group context into their independent writing.
Compton (1994), researching under the assumption that interactive writing
provides opportunities for children to attend to the visual aspects of print with the
support of the teacher and other group members, found that the teacher's
observations of what children knew determine the basis for instruction. During
interactive writing there is a transaction between the teacher and the students where
each teaching move made by the teacher is dependent upon knowledge of the
children and their contributions to the group. In the first grade classroom where
Compton conducted her study, instruction during interactive writing relates and
integrates both reading and writing processes.
34
Runge (1997) studied her own work with preschool age children as they
engaged in interactive writing. She found that the implementation of interactive
writing provides students with low literacy knowledge support in beginning reading
and writing experiences. Runge concluded that the knowledge gained about
children as writers during the interactive writing context can inform teaching for
writing strategies as students participate in other classroom writing activities.
Chapman (1999) looked at how children in a linguistically diverse
classroom setting develop strategies in the graphophonic cueing system.
Interactive writing is one pedagogic method employed in Chapman's case study
classroom. In relation to interactive writing, the researcher's conclusions supported
using interactive writing with linguistically diverse learners as an instructional
method for helping these students develop independent problem solving strategies
associated with letter-sound relationships in writing.
Most of the published material related to the topic of interactive writing is
descriptive in nature. The theoretically oriented articles illustrate the process of
interactive writing through depiction of actual classroom examples (Pinnell &
McCarrier, 1994; Button, Johnson & Furgerson, 1996; Henry, 1999; Wiley, 1999).
The authors described interactive writing as being an explicit teaching context that
helps children learn about the writing process and about how written language
works. In each publication, the authors noted how the teachers' roles change as they
scaffold and explicate the children's emerging knowledge about print based on their
own understandings of their students' writing capabilities; however, each of the
35
articles focuses mainly on how interactive writing contributes to children's learning
about the features of print and the phonological aspects of written language. The
authors asserted that through participation in interactive writing lessons and
through the process of actually holding the pen and doing the writing, children
learn about letters, sounds and words within the context of real writing. None of
the researchers, however, explicitly look at how teachers use interactive writing as
a context for explicitly illustrating concepts associated with helping children
develop understandings related to the craft of writing.
Research Related to Instruction as Collaboration and Assisted Learning
The task of teaching students about writing and facilitating their
development as writers is extremely complex. Vygotsky (1978) argued that
learning is a social process. In his view, children become users of their culture's
signs and tools such as written language by participating in interactions with other
people. Vygotsky held firm that social interaction propels development forward, in
other words, learning does not wait on development, but proceeds it. By beginning
with what children know and planning instruction based on that knowledge, the
teacher can oversee the construction of an instructional context that moves children
forward by building upon their existing knowledge.
Brunner (1983) in his work with mothers and their children characterized
the adult role as one of providing a scaffold. He observed that mothers offer a
great deal of support to their children as they introduce new procedures or
information and gradually hand over complete control of the task to the children as
36
they become capable of executing it. Cazden (1988), however, cautioned that the
process of teaching and learning is more dynamic. The participation of the learner
affects the moves of the teacher, just as the teacher's interactions affect the learner's
understandings and contributions.
Children are active constructors of their own knowledge (Piaget, 1959;
Vygotsky, 1978). Learning is more than taking knowledge from others and
remembering it. It is creating knowledge through interacting with the environment
and with more capable others. Without some form of social interaction, children's
writing development most likely would not develop and grow.
Clay (1991) described literacy learning as the development of a self
extending system in which systems of knowledge, gained through experiences in a
social context, operate together in a way that provides for extended learning.
Through informed interactions with children, adults can help children take on
complex tasks by combining demonstration with support and direct teaching.
Rogoff, Mastov and White (1996) suggested that learning is a process of
transformation of participation where learners work together in shared endeavors to
support each other. This model implies that learning is a community process that is
collaboratively and socially constructed. Members of the community of learners
serve as resources to others and assume various roles according to their own
expertise.
Erickson and Shultz (1991) theorized about what a teacher sets out to teach
and what the learner actually takes from the experience. The authors suggested that
37
what students take from an educational experience depends upon their own
understandings, as well as, the conditions associated with the experience. When
children take part in learning situations, their own motivations for engaging
influence what they take from the interactions. Erickson and Shultz (1991) stressed
that participants can refuse to learn. Often members of a group refuse to engage
when the subject matter is not relevant or is too difficult, when they feel alienated
in or by the social situation, or when their own agenda is different from that of the
group. When children engage in contexts where they are required to interact with
the teacher and with their peers, it is critical that feelings of trust, acceptance,
ownership, and legitimacy be established among the members if learning is to
occur.
The teacher cannot just fill the child with knowledge. The child has to be
an active participant in constructing his own knowledge. As children begin to
develop understandings related to a concept or principle, the adult offers less and
less support; however, when something new is introduced, the teacher again
supports the learner to a high degree. In the teaching of writing, the teacher has to
consider what the children understand and then use this knowledge to plan for
lessons that will help the students develop more in-depth understandings. The
research on how children learn leads educators to acknowledge that teachers and
children engaging in collaborative, risk free contexts where all participants offer
38
suggestions and possibilities resulting in co-constructed products increases the
capacity for learning that carries over into students' independent attempts.
Interactive writing has the potential for offering such a context.
Research Related to the Role of the Teacher as a Reflective Practitioner
The daily job of teaching requires the professional educator to make a
multitude of complex pedagogical decisions. Clark and Peterson (1986) found that
teachers face a point for decision making about every two minutes while teaching
and make many more decisions about curriculum, planning, materials and learning
objectives outside of the school day. The decisions that educators make can, and
often do, affect the learning of the students in their classrooms. University teacher
education programs cannot prepare teachers for all of the situations that they must
face on a daily basis when they enter the realms of the classroom. Once in the
field, teachers have only minimal, if any, support in dealing with situations that
arise in their classrooms on a daily basis. Educators use their existing knowledge
about their students and the context of the school situation to inform the decisions
that they make. As schools adopt curricular components that rely very little on a
prescribed or scripted curriculum, teachers are forced to develop strategies for
deciding whether their actions and teaching decisions are impacting students'
learning in positive ways. Reflection is a systematic means of inquiring into one's
own practice. As a trait, reflection allows the teacher to evaluate experience,
learn from mistakes, repeat successes, revise, plan, clarify thought and challenge
beliefs. Although research on reflective teaching is mostly theoretical in nature,
39
much of it focuses on promoting and/or enhancing teacher reflection. Reflective
teachers are considered to have the ability to think about events; make judgments
about them; and then alter their teaching behaviors in light of craft, research, and
knowledge about their own situations.
Tsangaridou and Siedentop (1995) proposed that the conceptual and
theoretical roots of reflection or reflective teaching are found in the works of
Dewey (1933), Van Manen (1977) and Schon (1983). Dewey (1933) described two
types of teacher action: routine and reflective. For Dewey (1933), routine actions
were those actions that are impulsive or that the teacher engages in because they are
expected or because they are part of tradition. Although the actions are most
commonly based on prior experience, the willingness to take the first answer or
solution may come about as a result of mental laziness or the impatience to get
something settled quickly. Reflective actions were defined by Dewey (1933) as
being those that are engaged in after careful consideration. Beliefs, previous
experiences, and knowledge inform an individual’s reflective actions. For teachers
to engage in reflective action, they have to have an open mind and be willing to
search for and consider alternate possibilities, be willing to accept the consequences
of the action and be willing to risk putting the ideas into practice.
Van Manen (1977) considered reflection as having three distinct levels.
The first level of reflection has the teacher engaging in considerations that impact
reaching a given goal. On the second level, the reflective process has the individual
analyzing meanings, assumptions, actions, perceptions, beliefs and ideas that
40
influence actions. At the third, and what Van Manen (1977) considered the highest
level of reflection, the educator considers the ethical, moral and political
ramifications associated with teaching and learning.
Schon (1983) introduced the concepts of "reflection-in-action" and
"reflection-on-action". Reflection-in-action involves making adjustments and
changes while in the course of the activity based on information that is gathered
while participating in the action. This type of reflection is dependent on the pattern
of the actions unique to the situation in which the individual is participating.
Reflection-on-action occurs when the individual recreates a prior contextual
situation and then analyzes the actions and decisions made within the context.
Through practice, educators build up a repertoire of expectations, images
and techniques. Teachers learn what to notice and how to respond to the variations
associated with classroom practice. Eventually, as long as the context remains
somewhat stable, practitioners' responses become automatic and spontaneous, thus,
creating less of an opportunity to be surprised or awed by a situation.
Schon (1983) put forth the idea that the more a practice becomes repetitive
and routine, the more likely it is that the practitioner will miss important
opportunities to think about what (s)he is doing. By examining their actions or
decisions and uncovering norms, beliefs and feelings that underlie these decisions
or that guide behavior, practitioners can bring to the surface and criticize the tacit
understandings and actions that are associated with repetitive experiences. Being a
reflective practitioner enables educators to make new sense of day to day
41
experiences, thus allowing them to adopt new courses of action, make adjustments
or changes in their beliefs or develop new frames for solving problems. In other
words, reflective practitioners become researchers on their own practice. They do
not separate thinking from doing. Experimentation and inquiry are a part of
reflective practitioners' actions and are at the core of their practice.
According to Valli's (1997) review of the literature on reflective teaching,
five different types of reflection appeared to be prevalent: technical reflection,
reflection in and on action, deliberative reflection, personalistic reflection, and
critical reflection. Each type can help teachers consider different decisions that
need to be made, help them discriminate between various sources of information
that might be used in making decisions and assist them in relating those sources of
information to their unique situation and to their teaching practice.
Valli (1997) described technical reflection as being the type of reflection
that helps teachers judge their own teaching performance based on externally
imposed indicators. Using a tool such as a research-based state assessment
instrument or a rubric developed from an external source to evaluate one's own
performance, is an example of technical reflection. The quality of the reflection is
based on teachers' knowledge of the ideas behind the indicators and their abilities to
realistically match their teaching to an outside expert's prescribed criteria.
The concept of reflection in and on action is derived from Schon's (1983)
work. Reflection-on-action is the thinking that teachers do following the teaching
of a lesson. Reflection-in-action refers to the moment-to-moment decisions that
42
teachers make while they are teaching. The source for reflection is the environment
and the actions of the students of the individual teacher. Quality in this type of
reflection comes from teachers' abilities to make and then to justify decisions based
their own situations and experiences.
The deliberative approach to reflection emphasizes multiple voices and
perspectives. Teachers consider a variety of sources including research, their own
experiences and beliefs and the advice of others when reflecting on their actions
and decisions. Quality of the reflection is judged on the teachers' abilities to
evaluate and weigh competing points of view, consider the best possibilities for
their unique group of students and then to provide justifiable rationales for the
decisions that they make.
Within personalistic reflection, personal growth and relational issues
provide the content for reflective thinking. Teachers reflecting in this way link
their professional life with their personal life. They are most interested in thinking
about how their role as teacher influences the personal lives of their students.
The aim of critical reflection is not just understanding but improving the
quality of life in disadvantaged groups. Teachers who engage in critical reflection
are devoted to pursuing personal inquiry, are self-critical and are committed to
taking social action. The teachers' abilities to examine the goals and processes of
schooling as it relates to morals and ethics as well as broader social goals
determines the quality of this type of reflection.
43
Valli (1997) noted that each type of reflection is not without shortcomings
and problems. She suggested that to counteract the weaknesses with each
approach, educators should work to integrate the use of each of them, thus
balancing the limitations. Different situations and questions may also be best
considered using different types of reflection. Becoming aware of and utilizing
various types of reflection can help teachers become better practitioners by not only
assisting them in uncovering and changing thoughtless acts that are not conducive
to student success, but also in "serving the broader goal of improving schools,
human relations, and educational policy" (Valli, 1997 p. 85).
Osterman and Kottkamp (1993) noted that reflective practice helps
individuals find the link between theory and practice, between professing and
taking action. The authors suggested that personal action theories govern the
decisions that teachers make, the actions that they take and the way that they act.
In reflective practice, Osterman and Kottkamp (1993) described two types of
personal action theories that are critical to understanding behavior stability and
change: espoused theories and theories-in-use. Espoused theories are those ideas
that can be expressed about what one believes and thinks. These theories exist at a
conscious level and change with relative ease in response to new information or
ideas. Osterman and Kottkamp (1993) proposed that although most teachers
believe that their espoused theories guide their actions, often this is not the case.
Actions are commonly inconsistent with intentions and new ideas do not always
lead to new behaviors. Osterman and Kottkamp (1993) described theories-in-use
44
as being elusive and difficult to identify yet far more powerful in influencing
actions than espoused theories. Theories-in-use are those that contain the
assumptions and beliefs that actually guide teachers' actions. They are deeply
ingrained, cannot easily be articulated, and are not easily changed. Osterman and
Kottkamp (1993) proposed that only through reflecting, through bringing the
patterns of behavior to awareness, through unearthing discrepancies between
intentions and actions, through illuminating the gap between vision and reality, and
through identifying the problem can change and growth in teaching occur.
According to Webb (2000), dialogue was a critical factor in reflection.
Webb (2000) called reflective teaching the "contemporary grande idée" and argued
that solitary reflection does not help the teacher uncover biases that generate the
framing of situations. Webb (2000) espoused that without identifying their biases,
teachers cannot get past their previously held beliefs or assumptions; therefore,
they may not be able to come up with options or ideas beyond the scope of their
assumptions. Webb (2000) suggested that "reflective teachers must begin
reflecting from personal vantage; however, acting solely upon personal vantages
may perpetuate bad practice" (p. 225). Webb (2000) identified language as the
mechanism for identifying assumptions and stating intentions. He maintained that
in order for reflective teaching to be powerful, dialoguing with others has to be a
part of the process. Dialogic reflection allows teachers to understand their beliefs
by interacting with other teachers and other beliefs. Through dialogue teachers can
45
begin to understand their own assumptions and work to improve their practice
through sharing, revealing and discussing the values that are either explicit or
implicit in their practice.
Summary
Research in the teaching of writing as a process with young children is a
relatively new area of study. With Donald Graves' (1983) groundbreaking research
in the area of writing as a process in a first grade classroom, teachers began to see
and believe that young children could indeed compose and construct meaningful
messages. Clay (1975), Sulzby (1985), Bissex (1980) and others helped educators
recognize that children's writing develops in stages from squiggles to
conventionally spelled words. Many teachers have incorporated teaching contexts
into their classroom language arts curriculums where children have opportunities to
engage in the writing process at a level where they are capable of independently
encoding their message.
Although the research in the area of writing with young children is ever
expanding, very few studies have looked at how teachers in kindergarten and
primary grade classrooms teach children about crafting their writing. They found
that studying the composing process was somewhat difficult, because composing
generally takes place in the writer's head. However, each study concluded that
through conversation and demonstration that elements associated with the craft of
writing and the process that writers go through as they craft a text could be taught.
46
Interactive writing is a context in which teachers explicitly teach children
about various components associated with the process of writing. Through the
creation of a co-composed, co-constructed text in interactive writing, teachers can
provide guidance and assist children in developing as writers by engaging them in
discussion within the context of writing that makes the transparency of what goes
on in writers’ heads as they compose more explicit. In this study, I focused on how
two first grade teachers include interactive writing in their curriculums as a context
for teaching children about the craft of writing.
47
CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY
This study examined and described how two first grade teachers addressed
the craft of writing through the context of interactive writing within their
classrooms. The study was designed to be qualitative research and depended on
exploring the topic by observing and interacting with the participants in their own
environment. In this chapter, the research methodology is described in five
sections: (a) description of the participants and site selection process, (b) design for
the study, (c) data collection procedures, (d) description of data analysis and
interpretation (e) description of measures taken to insure trustworthiness.
Participants and Site Selection Process
One of the first methodological decisions that a researcher has to make is
determining the participants and site for the study. I selected two first grade
classrooms in two different schools as contexts for the study. I intentionally
selected the two information-rich, first grade classrooms, teachers and students.
Based upon prior observations of the teachers, it was probable that they could
provide an abundance of information pertinent to the topic of teaching for craft in
interactive writing; thus, they were considered to be purposeful samples (Patton,
48
1990). The teachers, students, classrooms and schools had some common
characteristics, yet provided enough variation to yield insights across the two
contexts.
To maintain confidentiality, it was decided that all students participating in
the study would be referred to by fictional names. I consulted with the teachers and
the principals at both schools as to whether to use their real names or pseudonyms
in the study. All agreed that since there were children involved, anonymity was
important; thus, pseudonyms are used for participants and sites.
Demographic Data
The two schools selected for the study had many common attributes. They
were in the same large, urban school district. Both schools were considered to be
neighborhood schools where all but a few students lived within the community a
few blocks from the school. The schools housed grades kindergarten through five.
They both were part of the Literacy Collaborative project associated with a local
university and had literacy coordinators who worked with the primary teachers.
Along with the similarities, there were some differences in the schools.
Davis Elementary was located in a neighborhood in close proximity to the
downtown area of the city; whereas, Clifford Elementary was located just a few
blocks from a major university. During the 1999 - 2000 school year, the student
enrollment at Davis fluctuated from about 450 to 470. The enrollment at Clifford
was between 300 to 325. Davis was classified as a Title I campus and received
federal funds as a result. At Davis, 97% of the student population received free or
49
reduced priced lunch while only 32% of the children at Clifford qualified for these
services. The schools had the following ethnic distributions: Davis, 97% Anglo
(many of whom were of Appalachian decent), 2% Black, and 1% Other (Indian and
Hispanic); Clifford 73% Anglo, 20% Black, 7% Other (Asian, Hispanic, Indian).
The classroom at Davis was part of the Disadvantaged Pupil Classroom Size
Reduction Initiative Act. As a part of the initiative, there was a lower pupil-teacher
ratio within the classroom; thus, there were only 15 students (6 boys and 9 girls)
assigned to the class. Of the 23 students enrolled in the class at Clifford, 18 of
them were boys and five were girls.
Participant Selection
I selected two teachers for the study, not necessarily to compare them, but
to broaden the possibilities for collection and analysis of data. I chose the teachers,
Ruth and Marta, as participants for a variety of reasons. Patton (2002) states:
When selecting a small sample of great diversity, the data collection and
analysis will yield two kinds of findings: (1) high-quality, detailed
description of each case, which are useful for document uniqueness, and
(2) important shared patterns that cut across cases and derive their
significance from having emerged of heterogeneity (p. 172).
Thus, selecting these two teachers offered the potential for collecting data that were
unique yet, where some similar patterns across sites might emerge during the
analysis phase of the study.
The teachers had some common characteristics. Both were veteran
educators with extensive experience with interactive writing. Both teachers had
participated in continued professional development in the area of interactive writing
50
through their schools' participation in the Literacy Collaborative and during the
time that the data were collected, both served as demonstration classrooms for
interactive writing as a part of the Literacy Collaborative's literacy coordinator
training program.
Ruth, although new to Davis in the Fall of 1999, had taught first grade for
19 years and had been in education for almost 30. She moved to Davis as a result
of a district decision to reconfigure the language arts programs in several of the
elementary schools. Ruth began her career with a cadet certificate and taught for
two years while continuing her education and eventually graduating with a
bachelor's degree in education.
Marta was new to Clifford in the Fall of 1999 and like Ruth had moved
there when the school where she taught changed to a different language arts
program. Most all of Marta's 25 years of teaching experience was in kindergarten.
Although Marta had been a substitute teacher in first grade classrooms at the
beginning of her career, at the time of the study, she was teaching first grade for the
first time. Marta also had a bachelor's degree in education and a Master’s degree in
early childhood education.
I visited formally in the classrooms several times during the beginning half
of the school year to observe interactive writing in my role as a graduate assistant
and trainer for the Literacy Collaborative. I also conducted frequent informal
visitations to both classrooms to assist and get to know the teachers and the
students in an effort to determine if the sites would be appropriate for the current
51
study. Part of the purpose for these informal visits was to talk with the teachers and
principals about possibly conducting the study in their schools and classrooms. I
knew that the teachers were comfortable talking with outsiders and that they had
both been part of dissertation studies in the past. They were both familiar with the
time and intensity required for a dissertation project and they were both agreeable
to participating in the study.
Although issues of access must be continually re-negotiated throughout the
course of a research study, I took the time to develop a sense of trust, rapport, and
authentic communication patterns with both teachers and students before the study
began. From the initial observations, I was able to capture the nuances of different
situations and the participants were more willing to share (Janesick, 1994) because
I had worked to establish relationships with them outside of the confines of the
study.
Informed consent (Eichelberger, 1989, Punch 1994) was a principle that
guided the research. I first obtained formal written permission for conducting
research from the teachers and principals. Because interactive writing takes place
in a group context and the interactions that happen between teachers and students
and products produced by students have the potential to impact instructional
decisions, written consent was also obtained from the parents of each of the
children in both classrooms. Parents were informed of the intent of the study and
were asked whether they wished their child to participate. All students in each
classroom had permission to participate.
52
Research Design
Research questions inform all methodological decisions and the analysis of
data in a study. When deciding upon questions for a study, researchers normally
begin with a topic or an area of interest and then investigate to see what
information about the topic already exists. I had a prior interest in interactive
writing and had co-authored an article on the topic and had coached and worked
with teachers in several states, cities, and schools to develop interactive writing as a
curricular component in their classrooms. Everything that researchers had
published about interactive writing identified the possibilities of this instructional
approach for helping children learn about letters and words or constructing in
writing. I knew that interactive writing lessons mimicked the writing process and
that composing or crafting a message was a big part of that process. I began to
wonder and question if teachers thought about composing in interactive writing and
if so, how their ideas shaped their teaching. From this general interest, the
following four questions emerged as a guide to explore the topic:
• How do teachers plan for interactive writing and what specifically do
they consider about their students' knowledge of composition or craft as
they plan?
• What elements of composition or craft do the teachers attend to during
interactive writing sessions?
53
• How are dialogue and discussion used during the interactive writing
lesson to support the students' understandings of the craft of writing.
• What guides the teachers' moment to moment decision making during
interactive writing?
These questions guided the methodological decisions, data collection and analysis
for this study.
Case Study Research
The study was designed to be a constructivist collective case study (Stake,
1994). Case study is "not a methodological choice, but a choice of what is to be
studied….As a form of research, case study is defined by interest in individual
cases not by the methods of inquiry used" (Stake, p.236). Case studies provide
thick description and are somewhat analytical in nature. They "may range from
developing conceptual categories used to suggest relationships among variables, to
developing theory" (Mendaglio, p.165). Researchers choosing to study particular
cases carefully analyze the collected data so that they can approximate the
viewpoints of the participants and bring the participants' voices to the attention of
others. Collective case studies take advantage of extending the study to more than
one case. Stake (1994) states that choosing to have collective case studies "will
lead to better understanding, perhaps better theorizing, about a still larger collection
of cases” (p. 237). Although this study employs multiple cases, understanding the
uniqueness of each case on its own was at the forefront of the research and analysis.
The two teachers, their students and the classroom environments served as the units
of analysis or cases for this study.
54
Although case studies can be conducted quantitatively, this research is
qualitative. The goal of qualitative research is to understand participants'
perspectives as constructed in their daily activities and actions and within a
naturalistic setting. Qualitative studies "attempt to uncover meaning via analysis of
non-numerical data that come from multiple sources of information" (O'Conner,
2002). In qualitative studies researchers recognize that they are an instrument of
the research process. As an instrument, the researcher "gathers words or pictures,
analyzes them inductively, focuses on the meaning of the participants, and
describes a process that is expressive and persuasive in language (Creswell, 1998,
p.14).
The Constructivist Research Paradigm
This study is framed within the constructivist research paradigm (Schwandt,
1994). Within the constructivist paradigm, knowledge is perceived to be created in
interaction between the parties involved. Reality is viewed subjectively. In other
words, realities are perceived to be:
multiple, intangible, mental constructions, socially and experientially based,
local and specific in nature (although elements are often shared among
many individuals and even across cultures), and dependent for their form
and content on the individual persons or groups holding the constructions.
(Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 110)
The implication for research is that any report or account is just one interpretation
where multiples exist. Consequently, researchers can only gain an approximation
and make only informed presumptions about the meanings constructed by the
participants. By including full and elaborate or "thick" description researchers
55
allow the reader to vicariously experience the situation and the nuances of the
participants' perspectives. If reported effectively, the reader is then in a position to
co-analyze the cases reported (Erickson, 1986) and to generalize to experiences in
which they are familiar.
In constructivist studies, researchers view situations through a value-laden
lens. There is no such thing as a "neutral observer". Biases, assumptions and prior
understandings cannot be removed from the researcher's interpretation of the data.
In an effort not to erase the presence of the researcher in the methodological
decisions and analysis, I chose to use first person narration in reporting the study.
Data Collection
During data collection, the researcher’s role, the procedures for data
collection, and identifying the types of data that need to be collected are all issues
that an investigator should take into consideration.
Researcher’s Role
Naturalistic observation or going into a situation and watching is one of the
most common ways of gathering data in qualitative research (Adler & Adler,
1994). Observation requires the watcher to note or document a phenomenon often
by using instruments such as recording devices. During observation, the researcher
may assume various roles along a continuum from that of strictly observing to that
of becoming a participant within the situation (Spradley, 1980). In the middle of
the continuum are observant participant and participant observer. As an observant
participant, researchers "observe and interact closely enough with members to
56
establish an insider's identity without participating in those activities constituting
the core of group membership" (Adler & Adler, 1994, p. 380). The researcher as
participant observer is more actively involved and assumes a role in the
observational context. As a participant observer, the researcher can learn more
about the setting and the thoughts and behaviors of the individuals being studied
(Goodwin & Goodwin, 1996). The researcher does not remain stagnant and in one
role as observer, but moves up and down the continuum as the situation dictates.
In an attempt to understand the interactions and thoughts of the teachers and
students during interactive writing, I assumed each of the roles, but primarily
stayed in the roles of observant participant or participant observer as those are what
the natural consequences of being present in the environment required. Although I
did not provide any direct instruction for the students, I did interact and offer ideas
during the lessons. I also, on occasion, shared my knowledge about the craft of
writing or provided ideas as I talked with the teachers after the lessons. For these
reasons, my presence as the researcher potentially influenced what occurred in
subsequent lessons and conversations with the teachers.
Data Collection Procedures
Data were mainly collected during the interactive writing time in each
classroom. I collected data on 10 interactive writing lessons over the course of six
weeks. In an effort to equalize the observations as far as time of year and children's
knowledge of writing, I observed in each classroom on a rotating schedule (see
figure 3.1). I chose to collect the data in the spring of first grade because by this
57
time in first grade, most children have a large core of high frequency words that
they can write quickly and correctly on their own and they know how to say words
slowly and write what they hear. Based on prior observations in a variety of first
grade classrooms, interactive writing was shifting in focus from a strong emphasis
on sounds and words or constructing the text to composing or crafting the text.
I worked with the teachers to come up with a time for observation and
videotaping each day. Marta's schedule included interactive writing on a consistent
basis at about 10:30 daily and on most days this is when I observed; however, when
there was a problem with the schedule I observed at a time that Marta specified.
In Ruth's classroom, interactive writing was fitted into the school day at different
times according to the school wide schedule for special area classes such as music
and art. Ruth and I decided on the time for observation on a daily basis. I also
collected data from discussions with the teachers before and after interactive
writing that took place whenever the teachers had a few moments and it was
convenient for them. Many times, I found myself discussing lessons during the
teachers' lunchtime
58
Data Collection Dates
Rotation 1
Ruth's Room
Monday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday
April 10, 11,12,13
Rotation 2
Marta's Room
Thursday, Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday
April 13, 17, 18, 19, 20
SPRING VACATION
April 24 - 28
Rotation 3
Marta's Room
Monday, Wednesday
Thursday
May 1, 3, 4
Rotation 4
Ruth's Room
Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday
Friday, Monday
May 8 - 15
Rotation 5
Marta's Room
Monday, Tuesday
May 22 - 23
Figure 3.1 Data Collection Schedule
59
or in Marta's case, when the children went outside for recess. I often arrived in the
classrooms before school and on many occasions stayed after school or returned to
the school to visit with the teachers. In addition to the observations, I conducted
interviews, kept field notes and gathered documents as a part of the data collection
for this study (see figure 3.2).
Research Question
Data Collection Procedure
How do teachers plan for interactive
writing and what specifically do they
consider about their students'
knowledge of composition or craft as
they plan?
What elements of composition or
craft do the teachers attend to during
interactive writing sessions?
How are dialogue and discussion
used during the interactive writing
lesson to support the students'
understandings of the craft of writing.
What guides the teachers' moment to
moment decision making during
interactive writing?
teacher interview
children writing samples
(document)
observation/video and audio
taping
documents (photos of interactive
writing
products)
observation/video and audio
taping
teacher interviews
observation/video and audio
taping
Figure 3.2 Rationale for Data Collection
Observation
The goal of observation is to record the “concrete particulars” (Erickson,
1996) of everyday life. During the observation of the ten interactive writing
lessons in each classroom, I videotaped, audio taped and took field notes.
60
Videotaping the sessions allowed me to freeze the event and then to re-examine it
repeatedly with more intensity. As I watched each videotape, I was able to see the
actions of the teacher and the children, as well as identify the person talking. I used
the audiotapes for transcription purposes because I could slow the talk. Before
beginning to use any equipment, I explained to the children what I was going to do
and how the machines worked. The children in both classrooms had been taped on
multiple occasions and had very little interest in what I was doing. I set the video
recorder up at the back of the interactive writing area before each session. The
audio tape recorder was placed beside the group writing area. I sat at the back of
the room beside the video recorder so that I could monitor the taping. I also
recorded notes in my field journal as the lesson progressed. Many times the notes
described the environment and documented my thinking and questions in regards to
the lessons. I used the notes to reconstruct the lessons during transcription and
analysis and also to help me identify ideas for debriefing with the teacher following
the lesson.
I transcribed each of the ten observations. The first lesson observed in each
classroom was transcribed in its entirety. In subsequent lessons, I used selective
transcription, only transcribing the parts of the lesson where composing was taking
place. In these transcripts, I summarized what happened during the construction of
the text and documented times where constructing was occurring. I also
61
documented times when "housekeeping" or redirection of off task behavior took
place. In the transcripts, I mostly noted talk, but did include some description of
speech nuances and actions of the participants.
Observational Field Notes
Each time I entered the classroom, I took a spiral bound notebook to record
notes. Each teacher had her own notebook. I took various types of notes
(Appendix A). During the lessons, I took notes of what was happening. These not
only made reference to who was in attendance, where students were seated, what
the context was and when the observation took place, I also kept track of my own
thoughts and questions about what was happening during the lesson. From these
notes, I developed ideas for things to discuss during debriefing sessions.
Summaries of conversations that I had with teachers were also written in
these notebooks. I recorded information gained in the conversations with the
teachers before lessons and in order to relieve the feelings of unease and formality
that the tape recorder caused, I ended up using the journal as a place to document
ideas that came up during the discussions following the writing sessions.
Since qualitative research designs are driven by the collection of data in the
field, are somewhat fluid in nature and cannot be totally specified beforehand
(Erickson, 1986; Goodwin & Goodwin, 1996), I kept track of variations in data
collection techniques and catalogued changes in methodology in the notebooks.
The notebooks served as a place to document my hunches and questions, some of
62
which served as a beginning source during data analysis. I kept track of times
when I was frustrated and times when I was excited about something that had
happened in the classrooms.
I generally kept observational notes on the left hand side of the paper and
personal thoughts and ideas on the right. I always kept two or three writing
implements handy because I never knew when I would notice or hear something
that I would want to record; therefore, the notes were messy and multi-colored.
Some of the information from the field notes was typed and added to the
data pool (e.g. interviews before and after the interactive writing lessons). The rest
of the information in the research journals was used to confirm data collected in
other ways or as a reference source to refer back to when writing about
methodological issues or when coding data to look for patterns (e.g. researchers
thoughts and ideas).
Interviews
Interviews in qualitative research often employee less structured, free
flowing formats (Goodwin & Goodwin, 1996). The goal of interviewing is to
better understand a respondent or to better understand phenomena from the
perspective of the respondent (Fontana & Frey, 1994).
I conducted interviews with the teachers throughout the course of data
collection in both the pre-observation sessions and the debrief sessions. These
interviews were very conversational in tone. In each interview session before the
interactive writing lesson, I asked three basic questions:
63
•
What is the plan for interactive writing today?
•
Is there anything special that you thought about as you planned for the
lesson?
What do you hope the children learn about writing and particularly
about craft from participating in the interactive writing lesson?
•
The teachers' responses were recorded as field notes in the research journals
(Appendix B). The teachers' answers gave me an idea about their planning for
interactive writing and also helped me know what was supposed to happen during
the interactive writing lesson.
Following the interactive writing sessions, I also conversed with the
teachers about what happened during the lessons. The questions for these
interviews were generated during the observations and varied greatly from day to
day. My original intent was to make an audio recording of each of these debriefing
sessions. The first debrief session that I did with Ruth, made me adjust my plans.
The main purpose for conducting these sessions was to "get inside the teacher’s
head" about the decisions that she was making during the interactive writing
lessons. I wanted to know the teachers' thoughts and was not searching for a
“correct answer” to my questions. Ruth seemed to be uncomfortable with sharing
ideas that did not have a definitive answer (RB, FN,4/10/00, p. 7). I surmised that
the tape recorder might add to her uneasiness with the situation. Consequently, on
subsequent days, the follow-up conversations were not taped and were very
informal. There was still an uneasiness with Ruth in the debriefing sessions and a
couple of times she told me that she did not have time to debrief (RB, FN, 4/13/00,
p. 33; 5/10/00, p 51; 5/12/00, p. 58). On these occasions, I tried to bring in points
64
and questions during the next day's pre-observation conversation. There were also
days when Ruth allowed or invited others (the teacher from next door, the Reading
Recovery teacher, the literacy coordinator, teachers observing in Ruth's room from
other schools) to join us (RB, FN, 4/14/00, p. 40; 5/9/00, p. 49; 5/15/00, p. 59).
Although, this was not an ideal circumstance for data collection, I felt that if I
addressed the situation I might jeopardize Ruth's participation in the study and raise
her anxiety level even more.
I learned from my experiences with Ruth and I changed my methodology
with Marta. I decided not to formally tape the debriefing sessions and to just talk
casually with her. These conversations often occurred as I was helping Marta
prepare for other things; so, I made notes after the conversation. Marta never
seemed to be uncomfortable with sharing her understandings and thoughts;
however, I am not sure if this was because I did not record the sessions or if she
just had more experience with this format because she had previously participated
in studies with a similar format.
I also conducted more formalized interviews with the teachers. The
purpose of these interviews was to find out about their personal teaching history
and to find out in general what they thought about interactive writing as a context
for teaching children about the writing process. A common set of questions (see
Appendix C) guided the interviews, but I varied the order and somewhat changed
the questions according to the teachers' responses. I formally interviewed Ruth at
two points during the study, after the first day of data collection and again when I
65
returned to the classroom for the second rotation. I audio taped both of these
interviews. I interviewed Ruth twice because after transcribing the first interview I
realized I had not asked some important questions. Both interviews took place
after school in Ruth's classroom. I formally interviewed and audio taped Marta
only once during the study, at the end of the data collection. We attempted to
schedule an interview earlier in the data collection period, but were never able to
find a convenient time. After transcribing Marta's interview, I did telephone her to
clarify and gain additional information. Marta's interview took place at her home.
I transcribed all of the taped interviews and typed my field notes from the
pre-observation and debriefing conversations. All of the interview documents
became a part of the data pool. I combined the information from the interviews
with the information collected during the observations to help me gain insight into
each teacher's backgrounds, as well as their understandings about interactive
writing and the decisions that they made before, during and after a lesson.
Documents
The third type of data that I collected during the study was documents. I
mainly collected two types of documents, photos and writing samples (Appendix
D; Appendix E). I took photos of each of the interactive writing pieces and placed
them in my research journals. The photos served as a visual reminder of exactly
what was written and how the writing looked on the paper.
I collected writing samples on six children in each classroom. The teachers
identified two children that they considered to be above average writers, two
66
considered to be average writers and two deemed to be struggling writers (see
figure 3.3). I went through each of the children's writing folders and made notes
about dates and topics. I also photocopied each of the pieces of writing contained
in the folders. As I examined these samples, I looked for growth in the children as
writers and looked to see if things that were being addressed in interactive writing
were being reflected in the children's independent writing.
Above Average
Average
Struggling
Ruth's Writers
Marta's Writers
Karen
Steven
Terri
Willy
Patty
Tamara
Mallory
Elaine
Ali
George
Jeremy
Cindy
Figure 3.3 Writing Samples Collected by Children's Ability Levels
Data Analysis and Interpretation
In qualitative studies, data analysis is not the final stage, but is an ongoing
process that begins the moment the researcher steps into the field (Graue & Walsh,
1998). Analysis is recursive. The researcher uses beginning analysis of previously
collected data to inform future data collection. I analyzed my field notes from each
lesson to know what to ask the teachers in the debriefing sessions following each
day of interactive writing. I also used the notes in my field journal to generate
questions that might identify negative cases or my own biases. These questions
67
helped me look closely at future lessons to see if my hunches were confirmed or
negated. For example, in my field notes on April 13, I posed the question, "Ruth is
explicit about ideas related to construction of text and tells the children that they
can do these things in their own writing, but is she ever explicit about craft?"
Based on the question, I began to look for examples of when Ruth did or did not
make elements of craft explicit to the students.
As with many qualitative studies, the amount of data generated with this
study was great. According to Huberman and Miles (1994), "the researcher
typically needs to see a reduced set of data as a basis for thinking about its
meanings" (p. 429). For this study, I converted the raw data into words and then
compiled the extended text. Although I had field notes to look at and do a quick
analysis of in the classrooms, I needed the data to be in a format that was usable;
therefore, I listened to and transcribed the video and audio tapes and typed salient
points from the field notes. Walsh (Graue & Walsh, 1998) calls this activity
constructing a data record. I was then able to develop an audit trail by carefully
documenting all data and marking it according to a personally devised
organizational system so that I could cross reference and retrieve specific data
easily.
Qualitative studies ultimately aim to describe or explain patterns or
relationships. From a constructivist paradigm, researchers attempt to approach the
data without a set of rigid, preconceived notions; however, analysis can only take
68
place when a set of conceptually specified analytic categories emerges or is
selected Mishler, 1990). The patterns that emerge from the raw data lead to the
formation of a grounded theory.
In grounded theory research (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), the data are
somewhat allowed to "speak for themselves" as themes and categories typically
originate from the data set rather then being predetermined. Theories are matched
against data using a constant comparative methodology. Analysis begins with the
first data collected from the field and continues throughout the study, which leads
to a cyclical pattern of investigation where subsequent data are considered in
relationship to previously analyzed data. Through these constant comparisons, the
codes and categories that are determined reveal themes and patterns that lead to the
formation of theories that can be linked back to the data. This study relied mainly
on establishing a grounded theory, but I also read the data with a set of a priori
categories related to elements of craft in writing in my mind.
I analyzed the gathered data as two separate cases. I began my analysis
with Ruth and after a bit of time transpired, finished with the analysis of data
collected in Marta's classroom. All of the transcripts were read and reread in order
to gain a sense of the larger picture (Graue & Walsh, 1998). After multiple
readings of the collected data, I began my initial coding.
According to Graue and Walsh (1998), "coding is a process of data
reduction, putting together interpretations so that they are more manageable for
both the researcher and eventually for the reader" (p. 164). During the coding
69
phase of data analysis, "data are broken down, conceptualized, and put back
together in new ways" (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 57). Codes or categories are tags
or labels identifying units of meaning in the data gathered during a study. Codes
can be attached to chunks of information that vary in size from a single word to a
whole paragraph. Once codes or categories have been identified, the researcher can
begin to look for relationships within the data and can begin to decide which
information is important and how it will be conveyed to a reader.
Initially, I categorized and coded the data in a process that Strauss and
Corbin (1990) identified as open coding. I left a large enough margin in the
transcripts that I had plenty of room to document my codes and initial theories.
Following the open coding process, tentative categories emerged that somewhat
corresponded to the questions that I was trying to answer through my investigation.
I was then able to cut and paste and reassemble the data from the open coding
process in different ways. As I identified patterns and relationships, I was able to
develop new broader categories. For example, the codes: lesson planning, required
curriculum, knowledge of student understandings of writing, layout, genre, and
establishing a purpose became a part of a category renamed planning which was
later divided into two sub-categories - planning done by the teacher before the
writing and planning done with the children during the interactive writing session.
Strauss and Corbin (1990) call this process "axial coding". The coding process was
not linear. There was a constant interplay throughout the analysis between
proposing theories and checking them against the data. At each stage, ideas
70
emerged that forced me to return to previous stages, re-think and make changes in
the coding system to assure that my theoretical interpretations were supported by
data. It is through this cyclical, recursive, reflective process, that the theories were
grounded in the data themselves.
Trustworthiness
Qualitative studies, especially those dealing with small numbers of people
or classrooms, must deal with questions related to the evaluation of their soundness
or trustworthiness. Guba and Lincoln (1989) have developed a set of standards or
guidelines that parallel those set forth by researchers conducting studies from a
more conventional, positivistic paradigm. Guba and Lincoln (1989) propose that if
researchers want to ensure that the research that they have conducted is
trustworthy, they will take precautions to establish criteria for credibility,
dependability, confirmability and transferability within their study.
Credibility
Qualitative inquirers need to demonstrate that their studies are credible.
Assuring credibility requires the researcher to develop a match between "the
constructed realities of the respondents and those realities represented by the
evaluator and attributed to various stake holders" (Guba & Lincoln, 1989, p. 237).
In this study, credibility was assured by prolonged and persistent engagement in the
field, peer debriefing, member checks, triangulation of various types of data, and
ongoing acknowledgment of researcher subjectivity.
71
Prolonged and persistent engagement in an environment, allows researchers
to identify elements more relevant to the problem being studied and gives them
more time to build better understandings of the phenomenon under investigation.
This study spanned a five-month period from initial observation for site selection
and time spent gaining insights into the classroom context of interactive writing to
exiting the field with collected data. I observed the interactive writing lessons for
only ten days in each classroom, but visited the classrooms on several other
occasions to collect writing samples, observe other curricular components related to
writing and to interview Ruth. Each time I was in the classrooms, I spent several
hours. In Marta's case, I most often arrived before the children came to school and
did not leave the environment until after lunch or later. During the course of the
entire study, I spent approximately 50 hours observing in the classrooms with a
little over 11 hours of that time spent observing interactive writing.
The accumulated data included transcripts of 20 interactive writing lessons
(10 from each room), pre-briefing and debriefing notes and transcripts for each
session, transcripts from two formal interviews with Ruth and one formal interview
with Marta, writing samples from 12 students (six from each room) and pages of
field notes. Each of these factors related to prolonged and persistent engagement
contributes to assuring credibility of the research.
I chose two doctoral students who were extremely familiar with the field of
writing to serve as "peer debriefers" for the study. With one of the doctoral
students, I spent time discussing data collection methodology, generation of the
72
questions for the study, selecting cases and general coding and analysis
methodology. She was familiar with both of the selected sites and was able to give
me her perspectives on my initial interpretations. The other peer debriefer was
extremely familiar with interactive writing and had spent hours observing and
videotaping the curricular element in classrooms all over the country. She
reviewed all of my transcripts and helped me clarify, modify and in some cases
identify particular themes. These reflective sessions challenged me to evaluate my
assumptions and biases as questions were raised by the peer debriefers who were
researchers not specifically involved in the study.
Member checks are the "single most crucial technique for establishing
credibility" (Guba & Lincoln, 1989, p. 239). I did member checks both formally
and informally throughout the study. I discussed the research with the teachers on
a daily basis and listened for their ideas and contributions. The pre-observation and
debriefing sessions that were built into the study also served as avenues for
checking with the participants. The teachers read the transcripts from the
interviews and some of the interactive writing lessons. The member checks
allowed the teachers to confirm the accuracy of the data, to offer suggestions, to
challenge interpretations and to ask questions about the study.
Triangulation of data involves using multiple methods and many data
sources in an effort to cross validate information gathered by the researcher
(Denzin, 1978; Guba & Lincoln, 1989). Although observation was a critical source
of information for this study, I used additional methods to collect data in an effort
73
to broaden my data pool and support or negate my interpretations. Videotapes,
audiotapes, field notes and writing samples allowed me to formulate answers to my
questions and corroborate information while at the same time providing resources
for rich description which made the interpretations more credible.
Altheide and Johnson (1994) define the reflective nature of qualitative
research as one in which, " the scientific observer is part and parcel of the setting,
context and culture he or she is trying to understand and represent" (p. 486). The
researcher's interpretations are thus situated in a specific time and place and are
influenced by his or her background and experiences. I continually reflected on my
own processes and kept track of my biases as they related to the study by
documenting them in the field note journals; however, I recognized that there was
truly no way to take a "neutral stance" (Erickson, 1992) toward the data.
Dependability
Dependability contributes to the validity of a study by examining the
stability of the data over time (Guba & Lincoln, 1989). In qualitative studies,
investigators must be clear and precise in tracking their methodology and data
collection procedures. The processes carried out in the research design must be
explicit enough that an outside reader can "judge the decisions that were made"
(Guba & Lincoln, 1989, p. 242). Throughout this chapter and in chapter four, I
have provided a rich description of the methods that I used to collect and analyze
data associated with this study.
74
Confirmability
Like dependability, confirmability is related to the researcher's ability to
leave a audit trail or a clear documentation of all research decisions and activities
throughout the account. To ensure confirmability, the researcher must make
transparent the fact that theories are grounded in the data and are not a personal
construction of the investigator (Guba & Lincoln, 1989). I used detailed
description and provide specific examples to help readers evaluate the findings and
to judge whether or not my interpretations made sense.
Transferability
Transferability refers to the possibilities for replication of a study or being
able to apply the findings from the study to another similar situation or setting.
Transferability in case study research is questionable (Stake, 1994) as no
observations or interpretations of an event or situation are completely repeatable.
Having more than one case in this study, allows the reader to build knowledge
across different situations; however, it is not my intention to suggest that the
findings from this study can be globally generalized to other classrooms where
interactive writing takes place. I purposefully provided readers with rich narrative
descriptions of the contexts in hopes that they would be able to identify similarities
and through their own interpretations decide whether the information presented is
applicable to their particular situation.
75
Summary
In summary, the data for this constructivist case study were collected over a
five week period of time and included observations, interviews and the collection
of photos and writing samples. Data were mainly collected during interactive
writing lessons and during conversations with the teachers prior to and following
the lessons. Although I did not provide any instruction during the time in the
classrooms, my role as researcher shifted between observant participant and
participant observer.
Data analysis was ongoing and recursive. Transcripts were read, coded, and
categorized. Themes and patterns were identified and theories were formed that
could then be checked against the data. Throughout the study measures were taken
to assure trustworthiness, credibility, dependability, and transferability.
76
CHAPTER 4
CASE STUDIES: TEACHERS’ USING INTERACTIVE WRITING AS A
CONTEXT FOR TEACHING CRAFT IN WRITING
PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS
The purpose of this study was to identify and describe how two first grade
teachers address the craft of writing through the context of interactive writing. The
two teachers participating in the study had much experience with interactive
writing as an instructional tool in their primary classrooms and were adept at using
it to promote writing development. In this chapter, case studies of two teachers
(Ruth and Marta) focusing on the elements of the interactive writing lessons that
directly related to the craft of writing are presented. The following research
questions as they relate to each teacher, guided the study:
•
•
•
•
How do the teachers plan for interactive writing and what specifically do they
consider about their students’ knowledge of composition or craft as they plan?
What elements of composition or craft do the teachers attend to during
interactive writing sessions?
How are dialogue and discussion used during the interactive writing lesson to
support the student’s understandings of the craft of writing?
What guides the teachers’ moment to moment decision making during
interactive writing?
A case study of each teacher will be presented in six sections: (a)
professional background, (b) previous experience with interactive writing (c)
description of the classroom and school setting, (d) description of writing
77
instruction in each classroom (e) planning for interactive writing, and (f) crafting
the writing during the interactive writing lessons (negotiation and composition). I
chose to use pseudonyms for both the teachers and children. The teachers are
identified using their first names (pseudonyms) and in the transcripts by their
initials. I identify the students using only their first name pseudonym. In the
transcripts, I identify myself as “researcher”.
Analysis of the Data
I coded and analyzed the data from each classroom separately. The data set
consisted of 10 video taped writing lessons from each classroom, interviews with
both teachers and students, student writing samples from six children (two from
advanced writers, two from average writers and two from writers identified as low
level writers according to each teacher), field notes related to conversations with
the teachers before and after each interactive writing observation and photographs
of the interactive writing products. The coding that follows each data reference
reported in the case studies is cited in a way that provides a reference to its location
in the data pool (teacher’s initials, followed by the number of the interview or date
of the observation or field note and the page number where the source can be
located in the transcripts).
The first interactive writing lesson from each classroom was transcribed and
coded in its entirety. In the subsequent lessons, I used selective transcription,
transcribing only the portions of the lessons that related to composing or the craft
78
of writing. I included a time allotted documentation and a brief summary of what
happened during the construction of text in each transcript, but did not transcribe
the interactions verbatim.
From the initial analysis of the data set, three distinct categories emerged:
(a) planning for interactive writing, (b) negotiation or composition of the
interactive writing text, and (c) teacher decision making during interactive writing
(figure 4.1). I compiled the data from each of these core categories and then
determined subcategories. I analyzed the core categories and the subcategories and
compiled the information. I presented the major findings in narrative sections. The
narrative sections include portions of transcripts and examples from each of the
classrooms' interactive writing sessions in an effort to provide a more detailed and
in-depth understanding of the findings.
79
Definitions and Analysis Categories
Organizational Structure for Chapter Four
Planning for Interactive Writing
•
Preplanning for interactive writing done by the teacher
Everything the teacher does to prepare herself to teach an interactive
writing lesson and to help the children develop an understanding
about a selected topic.
•
Planning for the piece of writing with the children
Teacher and children working together to clarify and make decisions
about a purpose, format, genre, audience, and focus for writing.
Sometimes writers document their ideas in writing as they plan. This
helps writers organize their thoughts and make decisions as they
write. Students often go back to planning or review their plan before
the writing occurs each day.
Negotiation or Composition of the Text
Children working together with the teacher to craft an idea that portrays
an intended message. Also sometimes called drafting in the writing
process, in interactive writing, the part of a lesson when elements of craft
are considered.
Teacher Decision Making During Interactive Writing
Intentional or unintentional teaching actions that a teacher engages in
during the interactive writing lesson. Often reflection influences the
decisions that teachers make.
Figure 4.1. Analysis Categories and Definitions
80
Ruth
Professional Background
Ruth began her teaching career in 1965 after attending college for two years
and acquiring a cadet certificate. She continued to attend night school for two
years and upon graduation in 1967, already had two years of teaching experience in
a third grade classroom. Ruth taught third, fourth and fifth grade during the next
three years in a rural district in the Midwest. After five years in the rural district,
she moved to a large urban school district in the Midwest and was hired to teach
third grade in an inner-city school. Ruth taught for two years before taking a leave
from teaching for four years to begin a family. Upon returning to education, she
substituted in the urban district for two years before they hired her permanently to
teach fifth grade in 1976. She taught only one year before she was reassigned as a
result of a move to busing within the district. At that point, Ruth became a
parent/community liaison. She stayed in this position for two years. The
administration cut the liaison position and Ruth found herself once again bidding
for a teaching position. In January of 1979, the district placed Ruth in a newly
created second/third grade classroom. The following year, the principal needed
another first grade teacher and because Ruth had the lowest seniority, she was,
against her wishes, assigned to that position. Ruth explained her first day in the
new grade:
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So, they (the district and principal) moved me down to first grade and of
course, I had no idea how to teach first grade because I was used to teaching
third, fourth and fifth graders. I remember the first day when I went out to
pick up my kids (to start school), I just sort of motioned for them or said
something like, “Let’s go”. I got back to my room and well, I had no kids
behind me. All the teachers were laughing at me and they said, “Welcome
to first grade!” I quickly realized they (the students) weren’t like my fifth
graders. (RB, Int. 2, p. 3)
Ruth did not dwell on the escapades of her beginning day in first grade and by the
end of that year had settled nicely into teaching young children. Ruth continued
teaching first grade for the next 18 years in the same building. During the 1998-99
school year, the district reorganized the language arts curriculums in various
schools and Ruth asked to be reassigned to a new building. At the end of the 199899 school year, the administration moved Ruth to a first grade classroom in a
different school. She was in her second semester in the new position when I
conducted my study and was a veteran teacher with almost 30 years of experience.
Experience with Interactive Writing
Ruth originally taught first grade using a basal approach to reading and
writing. She admits that she was a disciplinarian and that she maintained a strict
and orderly classroom (RB, Int. 2, p. 3). The children were learning to read, but as
the instructor, she was bored with the basal program. When one of Ruth’s
colleagues trained to become a Reading Recovery teacher and was able to get five
of Ruth’s lowest performing readers reading on grade level, she became curious
and began asking questions. Ruth found out about a class on running records and
she signed up to take it. This was her initial foray into a new way of teaching
reading and writing.
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About the same time, a doctoral student (Anna), from a local university was
doing her dissertation study in a kindergarten classroom across the hall from Ruth.
The teacher and the researcher would come to Ruth’s room after school to view
video footage. As Ruth worked, she watched and listened and the more she
observed the more interested she became in the way that the teacher across the hall
from her was teaching. In the Fall of 1991, Anna and several others from the
university offered a two quarter class on the Language and Literacy Framework
(McCarrier, Pinnell & Fountas, 1999) . Ruth and two other teachers from her
school signed up to take the class. The presenters structured the course in such a
way that the participants learned about a particular element and then they went
back to their own classrooms, tried it and then came back to the next class where
they provided feedback about their experiences. Ruth stated, “this (the structure of
the class) made me do things. It made me sort of stretch out and take a risk.
Taking a risk is my biggest problem” (RB, Int. 2, p. 4).
One of the elements that Ruth explored in the class was interactive writing.
Ruth remembered that the following year, Anna, who was now employed full-time
by the university, asked to come into her classroom to do some video recording of
interactive writing. Ruth and Anna watched the tape and discussed each lesson.
Ruth felt that the video taping and reflection were helping her refine her practice
(RB, Int. 2, p. 5). In 1995, one of the teachers from Ruth’s school was selected to
train to become a literacy coordinator through the Literacy Collaborative project.
The literacy coordinator continued to visit in Ruth’s room and helped her refine her
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teaching of interactive writing. Ruth’s knowledge of interactive writing and her
expertise as a teacher lead to her being selected as an observation classroom for the
Literacy Collaborative project. As a part of the Literacy Collaborative observation
classrooms, Ruth had visitors from other schools and districts observing interactive
writing in her classroom on a routine basis.
Ruth admitted that in the beginning, she only included interactive writing in
the curriculum because the professors from the university and the literacy
coordinator asked her to, but as she began to see a change in her students abilities
as writers and spellers she began to see the importance of engaging students in the
curricular component (RB, Int. 2, p. 6). At the time when this study occurred, Ruth
acknowledged that she was not including interactive writing in her schedule on a
daily basis; however, she did make sure that it was part of her language arts block
at least two or three times each week.
Description of the School and Classroom Setting
Ruth taught at Davis Elementary, a kindergarten through grade five
elementary school in a large urban school district in the Midwest. Student
enrollment at Davis fluctuated from about 450 to 470 during the 1999 - 2000
school year. The school is classified as a Title I campus where 97 percent of the
student population received free or reduced priced lunch. The ethnic distribution
consisted of 97% Anglo (many of whom were of Appalachian decent), 2% Black
and 1% Other (Indian and Hispanic). Ruth was one of six first grade teachers at
Davis.
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Ruth began her first year at Davis Elementary in the Fall of 1999. She
taught in a classroom that was part of the Disadvantaged Pupil Classroom Size
Reduction Initiative act. Consequently, Ruth had only 15 students (9 girls and 6
boys) on her class roll. Ruth shared the physical space of the classroom with
another classroom teacher. The space was a large classroom that the teachers
sectioned off into two first grade rooms with cabinets and bookshelves. Ruth’s
space was about 15 feet wide by about 20 feet long. The long rectangular room had
polished wooden floors, a high ceiling and windows along one end. Opposite the
cabinet and bookshelf room divider was a chalkboard that Ruth turned into a word
wall (figure 4.2). The children worked at round tables rather than at desks. The
interactive writing sessions took place at the group meeting area. The area
consisted of a large area rug with an easel and chair for the teacher at one end.
Ruth called the children to the rug for interactive writing. The children sat in rows
on the rug facing the easel.
There was evidence in the classroom that interactive writing had taken place
before I arrived to conduct my study. Hanging in the coatroom area was an
interactive writing piece telling what special area classes the children went to each
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Figure 4.2. Diagram of Ruth's Classroom
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day of the week. On one wall of the classroom, Ruth had posted a paragraph that
the students had written before going on a field trip to the zoo. In this piece, the
students described what they were going to do on their field trip. Another
interactive writing poster told about an experiment that the children were going to
do with magnets and listed (in paragraph form) everything that they were going to
test for attraction. On the front bulletin board next to the calendar, the teacher had
posted an invitation that the children had written to their parents about attending
open house. All of the pieces were written on newsprint paper and did not include
illustrations.
Writing Instruction in Ruth’s Classroom
Interactive Writing
Ruth and the children engaged in interactive writing at different points in
time based on the daily schedule and the need to write. Although interactive
writing was not done on a daily basis (RB, Int. 2, p. 6)), during my study Ruth was
flexible with her schedule and we worked together to establish times for
observation. Interactive writing in Ruth’s classroom came about as a result of a
unit of study or in relation to a classroom activity.
Ruth consistently began interactive writing by letting the children know
what the task was for the writing on that particular day or if the text had previously
been started, by reviewing what had already been written and then leading the
children into a discussion about what should be written next. The children then
began to negotiate the text with a great deal of support from Ruth. Once the
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students and Ruth had decided upon or composed the text orally, the children took
turns coming to the easel to write. During nine of the ten writing sessions, Ruth
took control of the pen and wrote a few of the words that she considered to be high
frequency words or words that the children knew automatically and did not have to
work to spell. Ruth chose certain words during the construction of the text to use
for word generation activities using common spelling patterns. Often as the
children wrote, Ruth prompted them to go back to the beginning of the text to
reread what they had written. When the text for the day was complete, the children
and Ruth went back to the beginning of the piece and reread the completed text.
Ruth and the students composed and wrote three pieces during the ten
sessions in which I observed (Figure 4.3). The first two pieces were completed
before I finished my observations in the classroom. The writing on the third piece,
which was still in progress when I completed my observations, was complete with
the exception of putting the authors and illustrators on the cover. The students
were still drawing pictures for the last two pages. Ruth and the students spent time
both composing and constructing text during each interactive writing session
(Figure 4.4). On my first day of observation, the students in Ruth's classroom
began creating a poster telling what they had learned about mammals. The students
continued working on the mammal poster and completed it on the second day of
observation. On day three of observation, the students began reporting on an
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Project 1: Mammals Paragraph:
Mammals are animals. A
mammal has hair or fur. They
do not lay eggs. The babies
drink milk out of their
mother’s teats. The babies
are inside their mother’s
bodies before they are born.
Project 2: Water Experiment:
Water Experiment
First we put the water in
the glass. Then we put the
glass on the windowsill. Next we had
to wait for a week. After a
week we looked at the glass.
There was less water in the glass.
The water evaporated out of the
glass into the air.
Project 3: Five Senses Book:
We have eyes to see things.
The Five Senses
your friends
Books
butterflies
We see lots of things.
We listen with our ears.
We hear radios, the
fan, my mom, and all the
other things that make
noise.
We taste with our
tongue. There are things that
are sour, sweet, salty,
and bitter.
Lemons
potato chips
apples
coffee
Which one goes with which?
We smell with our nose.
We smell things that smell
good and bad. Good means
nice, great and sweet. Bad
means stinky, awful, and
terrible.
We feel with our
Skin. We have skin
All over our body.
Figure 4.3. Text Written During Ten Interactive Writing Sessions in Ruth’s
Classroom
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Total Words Written During
Interactive Writing:
189
25 Sentences
174 Words
2 Titles
6 Words
7 labels for pictures
9 Words
Shortest: 3 words
Longest: 13 words
Average Sentence
Length: 7 words
Lesson Time Breakdown
Total Lesson Time:
359 minutes
Longest Lesson: 42 minutes
Shortest Lesson: 29 minutes
Average Lesson Time: 36 minutes
Time on
Constructing Text:
238 minutes
Time on
Composing Text:
114 minutes
Figure 4.4. Breakdown of Text Written in Ruth's Classroom
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Time on
Housekeeping:
7 minutes
evaporation experiment that they had previously conducted in class. This piece
was also written in the format of a poster. The students completed the evaporation
experiment writing on day four. During my observations on days five through ten,
the children worked to complete a book about the five senses. This project also
began as a poster, but during the debriefing with Ruth following the first day of
writing on the project, I encouraged her to try a new format and suggested a big
book. She loved the idea and stated, “If somebody will suggest it, I will try it”(RB,
FN 5/8/00, p. 46). The following day, Ruth brought large pieces of brown paper
that she had bound around the edges with masking tape. Before the children began
their interactive writing session on day six of observation, I pasted the first
sentence that the children had written the previous day and the title that they had
written on the book. On the sixth day of observation, Ruth made her students
aware of the change in format for the project. She implied that by turning the
writing into a book the students could share their knowledge and what they were
writing with others. The book consisted of one page of text with illustrations for
each of the five senses.
Other contexts for writing
In addition to interactive writing, Ruth’s students engaged in more
individualized writing activities. At the beginning of the year, Ruth had a writing
center. The writing center was one activity that the children could participate in
while Ruth taught small group reading instruction. Ruth used a chart or workboard
that had icons for each center to indicate to the children the different things they
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were to do each day. The writing center was a place in the room where the children
could go get paper and take it back to their desk to write. Ruth allowed the students
to write about whatever they wanted when working at the writing center task. Ruth
also included journal writing in the curriculum at the beginning of the school year.
During journal writing time the children all wrote at the same time on paper stapled
together with a cover. While the children wrote, Ruth would walk around and talk
with different children about their writing. When Ruth began writing workshop,
journal writing and the writing center ceased. Ruth stopped these two writing
contexts because she noticed that the children’s writing during writing workshop
was not as good. Ruth stated, “I noticed that the days I would have a writing center
and then would try to do writing workshop, they (the children) wouldn’t do writing
workshop well because they had given their all to what they were writing at the
writing center”(RB, Int. 2, p. 9). Although, Ruth did not have an icon for
independent writing on her workboard, she often allowed the children to work
independently on stories previously started during writing workshop while she was
working with small reading groups (RB, FN 4/12/00, p. 17).
During writing workshop, Ruth conducted a short mini-lesson about some
element associated with writing. The children would then take their writing
folders, go to their individual spots at tables, and write. As the children wrote,
Ruth walked around the room conferencing and assisting the individual writers.
Following the writing time, Ruth called the children back to the rug to share their
stories with the group (RB, FN 4/12/00, p. 19). Ruth gave the children lots of
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choice in what they wrote during this independent writing time, but the stories were
all written about the student author’s personal experiences. The children wrote the
stories in book form with several pages included in each. Each of the pages
included one or more ideas and many of them had rudimentary illustrations or
sketches.
The children in Ruth’s room also had time to write about the books they
were reading. During workstations, the children would reread books that they had
previously read during guided reading with the teacher. After reading several
books, the children would choose one book to write about in a notebook (RB, FN,
4/12/00, p. 19).
One thing that Ruth stressed as being an important part of her writing
curriculum was teacher modeling of the writing process. Before having the
children write, Ruth often modeled her own thinking process with the type of
writing she was expecting. For example, before asking the students to write about
their favorite part of the book that they were reading, Ruth modeled how she would
write about a book. She helped the children think about word choice like, “my
favorite part was…” or “the part of the book I like the best is…” and how to
organize the writing (RB, Int. 2, p. 9).
Ruth set expectations for writing. She emphasized rereading to check to
make sure no words were inadvertently left out of the writing. She talked with the
students about checking their writing for mechanics like spacing, capital letters and
ending punctuation marks. She pointed out that words that were on the word wall
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or that the children knew how to spell should always be spelled correctly in their
writing. Ruth stated, “You know the words on the word wall, I want them (the
students) spelling those words correctly!” (RB, Int. 2, p. 9).
Ruth also believed in the value of repetition and practice. Much of what the
children did on their own, Ruth felt like they first did in a group situation (RB,
Int.2, p. 7). Ruth would emphasize things like using the word wall or rereading
during many contexts including interactive writing and during her mini-lessons and
conferencing time during writing workshop. Ruth believed, “you’ve got to do
things over and over and over and in many different ways. It’s (teaching a concept)
not just a one time thing and that’s in all learning, not just in writing. Repetition
just has to be done!” (RB, Int. 2, p. 12).
Planning for Interactive Writing
One of the components of interactive writing is planning. Planning for
interactive writing can be divided into two parts: planning done by the teacher
before the writing and planning for the piece of writing that the teacher and the
children engage in during the process of interactive writing.
Preplanning for interactive writing by the teacher
Before the students engage in an interactive writing lesson, they, as a group,
have to do something or learn something about which they can write. The teacher
has to structure time and plan for these learning opportunities or activities. Ruth's
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students wrote three pieces while I was observing in the classroom. Each of the
pieces that the children wrote coincided with a unit of study that was a part of the
science curriculum provided by the district.
Often the children in Ruth's classroom engaged in an interactive writing
project as a culmination activity for the unit of study. Ruth acknowledged that
following the completion of a piece of interactive writing about the concept, the
students could return to that piece, which she often hung on the wall, as a resource
for recalling previously learned information as it related to their learning about new
ideas (RB, FN, 4/10/00, p. 7). Ruth did a lot of teaching about the concept before
the children began an interactive writing project. She brought in non-fiction
literature pieces, films and videos, and hands on experiences. Before the students
began their piece of interactive writing on mammals, Ruth read the children several
books about mammals and took the class on a field trip to the zoo to see various
kinds of mammals. One of the books that Ruth found to be beneficial in helping
the children understand the differences between mammals and other types of
animals was Animals Born Alive and Well (Heller, 1982). Ruth used this book as a
springboard for a discussion about mammals prior to the interactive writing
session; thus, during the writing, the children drew upon the information gleaned
from the book as well as information learned from other experiences to recall what
they had learned and to write down their understandings about mammals.
Ruth and her students learned about the water cycle and as a part of the unit
conducted an evaporation experiment. The second interactive writing piece that the
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students completed while I was conducting my study, a report on the process and
outcome of the evaporation experiment, was a culmination and follow-up activity
to the water cycle unit.
Before beginning their book on the five senses, Ruth and the children
studied the topic. They read several pieces of non-fiction literature and watched
videos about the different senses. Because there was a lapse of time between the
time the students explored the topic and the time they began the interactive writing
project, Ruth refreshed the students' memories about the topic by reading them, The
Senses (Maurer, 1999) just prior to beginning the writing. She used this book as a
resource for ideas throughout the project and returned to the book to show the
children how the author organized information.
A second area that Ruth considered related to planning for interactive
writing was the format for the piece. The format selected for the first piece on
mammals as well as the water experiment was a wall chart in paragraph form. For
the five senses writing, Ruth's original plan was to create another wall chart with
sentences about the five senses followed with a list categorizing things that could
be seen, heard, tasted, smelled or felt (RB, OBS, 5/9/00 p. 1). At my suggestion,
Ruth changed the format for the five senses piece to a big book. Ruth determined a
format for each piece before the children began the interactive writing project.
After determining the format, Ruth made sure that the children had access
to the appropriate paper. For the wall charts, the children wrote on big sheets of
newsprint and for the senses book they wrote on both the newsprint which Ruth
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and I then trimmed and pasted onto a large piece of brown wrapping paper bound
on all four sides with masking tape or they wrote directly on the brown paper.
Ruth divulged that as she planned for interactive writing projects, she
thought about accountability and the concepts that the children needed to have
mastered for the district test, not only in social studies and science, but also in
writing (RB, FN 4/10/00, p. 5). Ruth determined the purpose for the writing and
considered what she wanted the children to learn about writing that they could use
in their own writing before engaging the children in the process of interactive
writing. Ruth's purpose for the mammal piece was to help the children record and
remember previously learned information about mammals. During the actual
lesson, she wanted the students to work on saying and hearing all the sounds in a
word, on simple mechanics including putting a capital letter only at the beginning
of a sentence and not in the middle of sentences and word and placing a
punctuation mark at the end of each sentence, and on writing high frequency words
quickly (RB, FN, 4/10/00, p. 5).
Ruth's purpose for writing about the water experiment was to revisit the
experiment and to help the students determine and verbalize what had happened to
the water in the cup. As the students wrote the piece, Ruth wanted them to realize
the importance of correctly sequencing the steps in an experiment and to become
familiar with how authors use certain words such as first, next, and last to organize
the writing and help the reader (RB, FN, 4/13/00, p. 27).
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Ruth's original purpose (the five senses chart) for writing about the five
senses was to help the children understand what it meant to write factual
information versus opinions. Again, she wanted the children to review what they
had learned about the five senses and to create a piece of writing that they could
revisit to recall the information that they had learned about the topic. As writers,
Ruth wanted the students to become familiar with how they could use a list as a
way to organize information. When Ruth changed the format for the project from
the wall chart to the big book, the purpose shifted because the audience changed
from the students themselves as the readers to sharing their writing with another
group of younger readers. The purpose expanded to include informing others about
the topic. Ruth's goal for the students to take back to their own writing was to spell
words that they knew correctly and quickly. As the project progressed, Ruth
decided that the children should incorporate illustrations as well as text. Ruth's
plan expanded and she used part of the interactive writing time to focus on the
concept of matching pictures to text. She also realized that sentence variation was
important when considering audience and stated, "I think it is important that the
sentences don't all sound the same" (RB, FN, 5/8/00, p. 43). The senses book,
writing project stretched across more than the typical two days that most of the
interactive writing projects took to complete.
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Ruth reported that she based some of what she wanted to address in
interactive writing on what she observed in the children's actual writing (RB, Int. 2,
pp. 9-10) . Although Ruth did not take the time to ponder over the needs of each
child by looking at and comparing their individual writing pieces, she did identify
some general patterns and needs in the students as writers.
As the researcher, often my comments to Ruth influenced her planning for
the future direction of a project. After inquiring about the rationale behind the
writing of a paragraph with a topic sentence followed by supporting details after the
first interactive writing session on mammals (RB, OBS, 4/10/00, p. 27), topic
sentences and details became a focus and something that Ruth went back to in her
lessons on subsequent days. Following the first day on the writing about the five
senses in a paragraph format, Ruth and I talked about the notion that she wanted the
children to write something that they could go back and reread (RB, OBS, 5/8/00,
p.7). I suggested that normally as a reader, I do not read wall charts, but that I do
get information from books. My comments prompted Ruth to think about purpose
and she changed the format of the text.
Ruth reported that much of what she addressed or taught for during
interactive writing was not thought about or planned for prior to the lesson, but was
decided upon during the actual process of interactive writing (RB, OBS, 5/11/00, p.
13). Ruth went into the interactive writing session with only a rudimentary idea
about what to teach. She relied on her knowledge about the expectations and
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requirements put forth by the district and on her "in-the-head" knowledge about
what the children knew and needed as writers to make explicit teaching points as
the writing evolved during the interactive writing session.
Planning for writing with the children
Before writers begin to write, they have to have a plan or a purpose for
writing. Writers have to consider why they are writing, for whom they are writing
and what form their piece will take. These factors influence register or tone for the
piece and organization of the piece.
Although Ruth had an idea of what the topic for writing would be and what
form the writing would take before the interactive session began, she had to help
the children understand what she wanted to do. Ruth helped the children learn her
intentions through talk. As each project began, Ruth stated what she had in her
mind for the project. For example, before beginning the writing on the mammal
paragraph, Ruth told the children,
"Today we're going to write something on mammals and I think tomorrow
we will switch over and write down some things we have learned about
magnets. But, we want to write down some of the important things that
we have learned about these science ideas…" (RB, OBS, 4/10/00, p. 1)
Ruth explicitly told the children what she had in mind for them to use as a topic for
writing. When the students seemed puzzled about her intent, Ruth clarified by
giving more information, "See we're telling things (referring to the mammal piece).
We know that these are facts. We're not making stuff up. This is facts. This is
really…what would you call this? Fiction or nonfiction?" to which the children
responded, "nonfiction" (RB, OBS, 4/10/00, p.12). Ruth revealed to the students
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that this writing was going to only contain facts related to what they knew about
mammals. On the second day of writing on the mammal piece Ruth went back to
the idea that what they were writing was going to be factual,
RB: Now, we've been studying about mammals and we're writing a
nonfiction piece here.
Damon: It's real.
RB: It's real, it's true. We're not saying we like animals. We're just writing
some important facts.
Penny: Facts about mammals.
RB: Yes, facts about mammals and what was our opening sentence? (RB,
OBS, 4/11/00, p. 2)
Ruth re-established the criteria for what they were writing while helping the
students to build an awareness that when a piece of writing falls into the genre of
nonfiction, the piece has to be factual rather than based on the writer's opinion.
Teachers cannot expect for children to intuitively know how to use different
forms to craft their writing. Teachers have to provide opportunities for them to be
exposed to the different forms. Ruth helped the children learn about different
formats for writing not only through reading to them from different genres, but also
by engaging them in writing for different purposes using a variety of text structures
during interactive writing. Although I only observed the children writing on three
different projects, it was apparent from the writing that was hanging up in the room
and hall that the children had explored writing for different purposes. During the
time that I observed, the children wrote pieces that summarized what they had
learned through a report (mammal piece), that recorded what they had observed
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through the sequencing of a science experiment (water experiment) and that
informed and entertained through the writing of a big book (senses). Ruth helped
the children understand that writing is organized in different ways depending on the
purpose and audience.
The children did not contribute to the decision making for the topic for the
projects or on deciding the format for the pieces. Ruth saw it as her role to decide
the topic on which the children would write and on the format and genre they
would use to express their ideas. The children's role was to take Ruth's topic idea
and to generate sentences (with Ruth's assistance) related to that idea.
Another part of planning that Ruth and the children had to consider before
actually putting the pen on the paper was for whom the piece was being written or
the audience for the writing. Determining the audience before beginning the
writing begins allows the writer to consider how the writing should be crafted.
When a writer is writing for self, language choice and precision is not as important
as when the writing is going to be read by others. Of the pieces written during my
observation, the mammal paragraph and the water experiment seemed to be written
with the students themselves being the audience. There was really no reference to
audience as Ruth had the students review what they knew or as they reported on
their observations. Ruth did however, hang the finished projects up in the
classroom so that the children could revisit their writing (RB, OBS, 5/8/00, p.1) and
at the completion of the mammal piece, she did have the children go back and
reread the piece like they were telling someone for the first time about mammals.
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When the format shifted in the senses piece from paragraph chart to book,
the audience also shifted. From the beginning of the writing, Ruth seemed to imply
that the senses paragraph was being written for someone else to read as she stated
to the children, "…we want to tell people about the five senses" (RB, OBS, 5/8/00,
p. 4). Although the audience was not clearly defined, Ruth seemed to have an idea
that this piece was going to be shared with others. On the second day of writing
when the format of the piece changed from a paragraph to a big book, Ruth again
let the children know that they were going to be writing for an audience other than
self, "Now, we want whoever reads this book, we want them to know that we see
more than just friends" (RB, OBS, 5/9/00, p. 6). Unlike the paragraph pieces, as
the writing on the book continued, Ruth referred back to the audience and how the
students, as writers, needed to think about their absent audience's understandings
and responses as they wrote.
Another job of the writer that begins during the planning stage is deciding
how to organize the information that they know or have learned into a coherent
piece of writing. Writers have to decide what to write in addition to deciding what
information they know, but that they will leave out of a piece. Ruth had an idea of
how the projects would be organized before the writing began, but she had to help
the children to understand exactly how it was that she wanted it organized. Ruth
did this by either explicitly implanting the first sentence in the writing, "So first of
all, we know that mammals are animals, right? Do you think we should write that
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first?" (RB, OBS, 4/10/00, p. 2) or by expressing to the children the way a certain
genre of writing is organized like Ruth did as the children started writing about
their water experiment,
"Now, here's what I want to do. You know that in science experiments you
have to do things in order. Like there's something that you do first and then
next and then you have to have words to tell when you did this. So, we're
going to start out with the first thing we did." (RB, OBS, 4/12/00, p. 5)
The organization of the mammal piece did not really matter. The project
was basically a list of the characteristics of mammals written in paragraph form and
the order in which the characteristics were written did not affect the readers
understandings. Ruth's suggestion for the first sentence helped the children get
started on the piece and perhaps helped them understand that a good way to
organize a list of characteristics was to begin the writing with a topic sentence and
then support the idea with details. As the mammal project continued into day two,
Ruth had the children go back to reread what was written. After rereading, Ruth
recapped what the children knew about the topic and then had the children continue
to write their ideas. She was helping the children to know that it was necessary to
include important information and that rereading their writing could help them
check to see if their organization made sense to a reader.
The organization of the water experiment results did matter. The children
needed to understand that when writing directions or about how a scientific
experiment is carried out, the steps have to be sequenced in the correct order so that
the experiment could be repeated if necessary. Ruth recapped through discussion
with the children exactly how they conducted the experiment before allowing them
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to begin writing. The writing on the second day began with the children again
rereading what they had written the day before and Ruth asking the students, "What
do you think we should put next? Next we had to wait for a week…" (RB, OBS,
4/14/00, p. 3). When the children do not offer the next step in reporting the results,
Ruth restates what the children need to think about, "Let's read this again. (Ruth
and the children reread the text). Now, we want the results. What could we say?
What did we find out about this?" (RB, OBS, 4/14/00, p. 4). Through the
rereading and Ruth's questions the children were lead to organize the piece in
sequential order.
Ruth decided to begin the senses paragraph with a title. After stating to the
children what they were going to write something that they could read about the
senses, she said, "Okay, I think it's very important that we give this piece a title."
(RB, OBS, 5/8/00, p. 2). The title helped the children focus their ideas about the
writing. At this point in the project, the children did not have a clear idea about
what the project would be except that they were going to write about the five
senses. Ruth continued to move the writing along after writing the title by stating,
"Now, we need a nice sentence to open this up because we want to tell people about
the five senses." (RB, OBS, 5/8/00, p. 4). Ruth was probably thinking back to the
mammal piece and the concept of a topic sentence. The children seemed to know
what she wanted because they immediately started suggesting sentences like "We
use our senses." and "We have some senses." (RB, OBS, 5/8/00, p. 4) that
concisely state the topic about which they were writing. Ruth, however, did not
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want a topic sentence for the entire piece. She wanted a sentence telling about only
one of the senses. The organizational structure was altered when the format for the
piece changed to a book. Ruth knew that the children were quite familiar with the
parts of a book and how books were organized. She revealed her idea about the
organization of the book to include text and pictures through her discussion with
the children as they began the book:
Ruth: Now we're going to have some illustrations here (pointing to location
on the page). Now, I need, I think on this page what I'm going to do, what
we're going to do is some interactive writing of things that you can see. It
doesn't necessarily have to be a sentence.
Researcher: Like labels?
Ruth: Labels and then we're going to leave room enough. You're (the
students) going to draw on this paper (white cut paper) and then we're going
to cut it out and paste it beside the thing. Is that okay? (RB, OBS, 5/9/00,
p. 3)
Ruth was explicit about the way the book would be organized. As the writing on
the book continued over several days, Ruth took the children back to other books
that they knew to look at organization. She referred to the end pages in Eric Carle's
books and to the books that they had read on the five senses. Ruth even helped the
children plan out the number of illustrations that they would need before they
began writing based on the number of senses and the number of children in the
class and as they progressed through the writing, had one child keep a record of
what each child was drawing. Through talk and discussion, Ruth helped the
children to sort through their understandings and then organize relevant
information in their interactive writing pieces.
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Summary
Ruth planned as the teacher for interactive writing and helped the children
plan for writing during the process of interactive writing. As the teacher, Ruth
considered the following things as she prepared to teach her students:
•
the topic, format and purpose for writing
•
how the students would acquire information about the topic and then provided
them with opportunities to learn about the topic
•
the materials that the children would need for writing and that she would need
for teaching
•
what the children needed to know and could learn by engaging in the interactive
writing lesson based on the district's curriculum requirements for writing and
her knowledge about the students as writers
Most often, Ruth did not determine a focus for her teaching in regards to craft in
writing, but allowed her teaching points to emerge as the children participated in
the composing process.
As Ruth engaged the children in planning for writing, she assisted them in
developing understandings associated with the different components that writers
consider not only before they begin to write, but as they are writing. Through
planning, Ruth helped the children identify the topic, purpose, genre and format for
writing; determine an audience; and decide on an organizational structure for the
writing. Ruth informed the students about these components by:
•
explicitly stating her objectives, intent and ideas for the interactive writing
project
•
including the children in talk associated with the components
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•
engaging the children in writing for different purposes
•
implying or referring to the fact that writing is meant to be read
Crafting the text through negotiation or composing
Crafting the text in interactive writing takes place as the teacher and the
children work together orally to negotiate or compose what will eventually be
written on the paper. In oral discourse, speakers use cues from their audience to
refine, revise, clarify, continue, elaborate, stop, and so forth; however, in written
discourse, writers do not have the luxury of disclosing their ideas to their audience
and receiving continual feedback as they write. The element of oral negotiation of
text and discussion in interactive writing somewhat bridges the gap between
communicating orally and communicating with graphic symbols. Through the
negotiation of text, teachers can help children to understand that writing goes
beyond what might be considered in oral discourse. The writer must consider
crafting the intended message for an audience during the composing process. The
teacher's role is to guide the children in taking their oral ideas and crafting them
into a message that is composed through group consensus. Keeping all children
active in the composing process is sometimes difficult, but if the teacher does too
much work during negotiation of text the children will give up on the process as the
text becomes something conceived of by the teacher rather than a text of their own
(McCarrier, Pinnell & Fountas, 2000). During the negotiation of text, the teacher
helps the students develop an awareness of the many different kinds of things that
writers have to consider as they craft a message.
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In this section, I look at how Ruth initiates discussion surrounding the
composition of a message. I also examine what Ruth considers in the area of craft
as she helps the children learn about decisions that writers make when composing
independently.
Beginning a New Piece
Sometimes, the hardest part of writing is getting a new piece started. Ruth
began the interactive writing sessions by telling the children her plan for what they
were going to write. When beginning a new piece, Ruth briefly reviewed with the
students what they had done previously to help them know about the topic for the
writing. For example, when beginning the mammals paragraph she stated,
"Now what we're going to do is we're going to write about mammals and for about
the last two weeks we have learned how we can tell whether an animal is a
mammal or not." (RB, OBS, 4/10/00, p. 2). Before beginning the negotiation of
text for the water experiment, Ruth told the children what they were going to write
about and helped them recall what they did, "Today we're going to write about one
of our science experiments that we did last week….Now, remember it was a week
ago today that we performed this science experiment (she shows the group a cup of
water marked with a black line that she has retrieved from the window ledge)."
(RB, OBS, 4/13/00, p. 2). When Ruth showed the children the glass of water they
realized that the water was no longer up to the line and began to predict what had
happened. Ruth capitalized on Steven's idea about the water evaporating or turning
into a gas and going up into the air. In the discussion that followed, the children
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completely revealed the process of the water cycle. Before beginning the interactive
session where the children started their five senses book, Ruth reread the book The
Senses (Maurer, 1999). Rereading the book helped the children remember what
they had learned about the topic. After finishing the reading of the book, Ruth
revealed her plan for the writing, "Now, you know what I want to do, you know
how we've written about our experiments in science? We wrote about magnets and
I want to write something that you can read about the senses."
Continuing a previously started text
On days where the writing was continued from what began on a previous
day, Ruth and the children recalled what was started on a previous day. On the
second day of the mammal piece Ruth reminded the children that they were writing
a nonfiction piece about mammals.
On the second day of the writing on the water experiment, Ruth got the cup
out of the windowsill and the children began discussing that the water continued to
go down as the cup sat in the sun. Ruth used language and vocabulary that the
students might wish to include in their writing in her contributions during the
discussion, "Would you say, we started up here (pointing to line on cup), would
you say there's less, more , or the same amount (of water) as when we started" (RB,
OBS, 4/14/00, p. 2).
The second day of writing on the senses book, Ruth revealed to the children
that she had decided to change the original plan for writing a wall chart and that
they were going to change the format to that of a big book. Ruth shared the
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changes that had been made to their previous writing. The title had been cut off of
the chart paper and pasted onto the cover of the book. Ruth asked the children
about what else they would find on the cover of the book and helped the students to
know that some text would have to be added, for example the authors, to the book
with the change in format.
As the writing continued on the senses big book on a third, fourth, fifth and
sixth day, Ruth went back to the text to review what had previously been written.
On the third day, Ruth questioned the children about something that had been
previously written which helped the children understand that there was need for
revision, "Now, on this sheet, this is the one with a little question mark with Mrs. B
and I need to talk with you about this one. I went home thinking something didn't
make sense to me." (RB, OBS, 5/10/04, p. 2). Ruth's comment helped the children
know what her plan for writing was for the day.
Ruth took the children back to The Senses (Maurer, 1999) on the fourth day
of writing about the five senses. She had them look at the format of the trade book
as a model for what they might eventually do in their book. The children also took
stock of what was yet to be completed as far as illustrations on their previously
written pages. Ruth returned to the previously written text and helped the children
identify what they still needed to do for each page. She also offered suggestions
for what they might add to their illustrations to make them better. Ruth's comments
helped the children know that as authors, revision whether on text or illustrations, is
a natural part of the writing process.
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On the fifth day of writing on the five senses book, Ruth began the writing
session by telling the children that their audience would indeed be the kindergarten
children. Again, she reviewed what the format for the completed book would look
like and clarified for the students that the pages would not be individual, but would
be bound together with rings.
So, at the beginning of each follow-up writing session Ruth took the
children back to the previously started project and then added comments that
helped shape or reveal the goal for writing for the day. Although the drafting
process had already begun, planning and revising continued on subsequent days as
Ruth helped the children see the need for successfully conveying their ideas.
The role of rereading in text negotiation
Each day following the initial review and comments about the previously
completed writing, Ruth had the children reread the complete text. Rereading
served both a reading purpose, fluency and phrasing and a writing purpose,
meaning making. Through rereading the text, the children made sure that the
writing was clear and organized in such a manner that allowed the reader to follow
their ideas. On day two of writing on the senses piece, Ruth had the children reread
and think about if what they had written made sense. She stated, "I want you to
read this with me and I want you to think about what it says. (The children reread
the text: We hear radios, the fan, my mom and other things). Now, there is
something rather strange about that" (RB, OBS, 5/10/04, p. 2). When the children
looked confused about the problem that Ruth had with what they had written, she
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clarified the specific part at which she was looking, "and all the other things.
What's strange about that?" (RB, OBS, 5/10/04, p. 2). The children still did not
understand that "all the other things" could be anything and that Ruth wanted them
to be more specific in their writing. She refined her comment, "It says, 'We hear
radios, the fan, my mom and all the other things'. All the other things. One thing
might be a rug. Can we hear a rug?" (RB, OBS, 5/10/04, p. 2). Ruth knew that
she wanted the children to revise their text to be more specific so that the audience
would better understand their message; however, she had a difficult time phrasing
her words in a way that helped the children know that they needed to clarify the
kinds of things that they could hear.
Rereading the whole text before putting the pen to paper, allowed the
children to have the complete text fresh on their minds. Rereading helped Ruth and
the children evaluate how their work was developing according to the original or
revised plan and it helped them to know where they were in their writing so that
they could move forward. Through rereading, the children heard their writing from
a reader's perspective.
Negotiating the Message
The goal of negotiation of text in interactive writing is to take the group's
internalized information or knowledge of a subject and mold and present the
information in a way that communicates the authors' intended message clearly and
effectively. The teacher's role in the interactive writing process is to model the
types of questions and the thought processes that the children should be considering
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themselves as they write independently. The teacher seeks to make the implicit,
explicit by demonstrating or suggesting different ways that a writer might move
through the writing process. In interactive writing, the rehearsal and formulation of
a sentence that normally goes on in the writer's head during composing is
negotiated orally through group consensus. Ruth addressed four different areas
related to craft during the negotiation of text or crafting of the message: sentence
variation, audience, evaluation and revision.
Sentence variation.
Writers work to structure their sentences in ways that make their writing
interesting for a reader to read. Writing using the same pattern or the same words
over and over can become redundant and boring. Writers have to be aware of
different ways that they can craft sentences using different structures in order to
capture their reader's attention. Young children often pattern the structures of their
writing on what they are reading. If they are reading books with a repeating
sentence structure, many times they will write using a repeating sentence structure.
The role of the teacher is to help children understand that there are different ways
to craft an idea and that the arrangement of the word and sentences contributes to
keeping the writing interesting.
Several examples that helped the children know that variation in sentence
structure or the arrangement of the words within sentences was an important
element of craft to consider came up during interactive writing in Ruth's room. In
writing up the water experiment, Ruth wanted the children to use sequence words.
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The children began the piece with the word 'first', so naturally when they continued
on with the next sentence and Ruth asked how they should begin this sentence, the
children suggested they should use the word 'second'. Ruth pushed the children to
think of another sequence word to make the writing not so expected and more
interesting. Terri suggested "then" to which Ruth responded, "Then is good. 'Then'
is a good way to begin it" (RB, OBS, 4/13/00, p. 8). Ruth was not explicit about
why 'then' was a better word, but the children seemed to understand that there were
other words that could be used because Simon also offered the word 'after' as a
possible word to begin the sentence.
The first sentence in the senses piece was "We have eyes to see things."
When the children began the second sentence, they used the structure of the first
sentence as a model for crafting the sentence and suggested, "We have ears to
hear." Ruth knew that they were getting off to a patterned text and that they had
three more senses to go. She commented:
Ruth: Listen, lets try to make this beginning a little different. You want to
try something a little different or how could we say it about that we listen
with our ears? How could we say that? We use…. (RB, OBS, 5/8/00,
pp. 5-6)
Ruth told the children what she thought they should do to make the writing more
interesting - make the beginning different. Although, she crafted the sentence that
was eventually written in her initial question, she allowed the children to offer
various ways to phrase the idea. Ruth then allowed the children to make the
decision about which of the suggested sentences they would write.
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Ruth provided the children with opportunities to think about varying their
text by suggesting that they put a question rather than a statement and that they put
labels, which are a common access feature in expository text, instead of complete
sentences. Ruth had the children write labels for what they could see and taste.
Following the writing of the labels for taste, Ruth made a suggestion to the children
that involved asking a question of the reader:
Ruth: Now, this is what I thought for the bottom of this. See what you
think. We're not going to tell that the lemons are sour. We're not going to
tell that the apples are sweet. We're not going to tell that the potato chips
are salty. We're not going to tell that the coffee is bitter. Let's write down
here. Let's ask a question so that people can guess which is which (RB,
OBS, 5/11/00, p. 9).
Ruth and the children were able to vary the sentence structure because they
understood that they were writing for an audience other than themselves. Because
they were going to share the book with another younger group of children, they
knew that including their question, "Which one goes with which?" would make the
book more interactive and more interesting.
On many occasions during the interactive writing sessions, Ruth let the
children know that there were multiple ways to state the same information. The
children would often make a couple of suggestions for a sentence to write and then
Ruth would take the best one as the one to write or the children would decide on
which one would be written. Sometimes the sentences were different by only a
word when Ruth made them make a choice, "Okay, hold it, we've got three
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sentences here. You said at first, 'We see a lot of stuff'. You said, 'We see a lot of
things' and then you said, 'We see lots of things.' Now, which would be the best?"
(RB, OBS, 5/9/00, p. 7).
Sometimes the sentence that the children were crafting changed because a
word changed in form like in the following exchange which occurred during the
writing of the water experiment. The children were crafting a sentence to tell about
what happened to the water in the glass:
Steven: It evaporated up into the sky.
Ruth: But we want to use the word 'evaporation'.
Simon: The water evaporated out of the glass.
Ruth: Okay, we'll write that then. If you don't want to use 'evaporation', I
like evaporated, too. It comes from the same word. (RB, OBS, 4/14/00,
pp. 7-8)
The children realized that it was awkward to tell where the water went which is
what they were trying to do and at the same time use the word 'evaporation'. They
were able to change the word based on the structure of the sentence, but still
portray the same idea that evaporation took place and that was why the water in the
glass had gone below the line.
Ruth made many of the decisions about the format and structure of the
interactive writing texts without soliciting the children for their ideas. During the
writing of the five sense book, Ruth decided that since the first page had text and
labels that the second page should also have text and labels. I interrupted the
lesson to offer a suggestion in hopes that it would persuade Ruth to give up some
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control and allow the children to make some decisions about sentence structure and
format. I was also hoping that if the children contributed their ideas, the structure
and format of the book might be a little different. So, I interrupted Ruth to make
another suggestion:
Ruth: Now, I need three people to think about what they like to listen to or
what they listen to. Some things…
Researcher: Before we start writing do we need to write, "We listen with
our ears. We hear…". and then write the things that we hear.
Ruth: We hear… Okay, we'll do that.
Researcher: I don't know. I don't know if that's the way they (the students)
want to do that or if there is another way.
Ruth: Well lets ask them if they want to do that. She brought up, "We
listen to… and then we would have the three volunteer write what they like
to listen to.
Researcher: Or we hear…
Ruth: Or we could go ahead and write, "We hear…" and name the three
things and then we'll have them put the pictures down here with their names
(labels).
Researcher: We could do it like that or another way. (RB, OBS, 5/9/00,
p.9)
I attempted to solicit the children for their ideas. I thought that involving the
students might lead to alternate suggestions for ways that the text could be
structured or written; however, Ruth took my suggestion as a different way to craft
the sentence rather than a signal to her to let the children be a part of the decision
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making on what to write. The exchange between Ruth and me did, however, allow
the children to see that there were multiple ways to craft their ideas into a sentence
and that variation was something to at least consider when writing.
Another element of craft related to sentence variation that Ruth addressed
during interactive writing was balance. Balance is similar to agreement and
contributes to a writer composing a text with a well-formed structure. When a
writer crafts a text that is balanced the text seems to flow and make sense. The
issue of balance came up in several of the interactive writing lessons.
When writers include lists in their writing, everything in their list should fit
together and fit within the writing project. In Ruth's classroom, Karen understood
this notion. Her awareness and knowledge of the concept was seen through her
comment when another student included an idea for a list in the five senses book
that did not agree with the other items within the list. Karen understood that the
text was authored by the whole class and should reflect group ownership; therefore,
the use of a possessive pronoun that signaled a single writer should probably have
been avoided:
Ruth: Okay, so we want to say, "We hear radios, the fan…" and you're
going to say, "my mom."
Karen: or we could say Willy's mom. (RB, OBS, 5/9/00, p. 11)
Karen's comment made sense. The sentence began with 'we' which signaled a
collective group of authors, but when Willy contributed 'my mom', his
recommendation for the text made it sound as if he was the only author. Karen
figured out a way to make Willy's idea work. The children could have also
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changed the pronoun to 'our' to make their list more balanced. The agreement
between the authors and the items in the list was awkward, but Ruth ignored
Karen's comment and allowed the group to write the sentence: "We hear radios,
the fan, my mom, and other things".
Ruth did address balance in terms of structure. She liked the neatness of a
text where the text structure stayed the same from sentence to sentence or page to
page. One example was the water experiment. Ruth decided that the text would be
written sequentially; thus, required the children to use words that signaled a
sequence of events such as first, next, last. Ruth made sure that the crafted sentence
always started with a sequence word until the children got to the sentences where
they reported their results.
When composing sentences for the senses book, one student, Karla,
suggested that the page related to smell begin with the sentence, "We smell things
that smell good." Although Karla's sentence was a good sentence, it did not fit with
the structure of the previously written text and Ruth's reply let the students know
this:
Ruth: ...Now, what do you think we should do first though? What did we
do on the other pages? We always said the sense and what part of our body
we used. Like with our, we could see with our eyes. (RB, OBS, 5/12/00,
p. 5)
Ruth knew that in the previously written text the children had started each page
with the sense and its function. These first sentences served as topic sentences for
each of the senses. Following the first sentence, the children then added details to
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support the topic. Ruth considered Karla's contribution to be a supporting detail
rather than a topic sentence. In order for the text to be balanced, the first sentence
on each page had to fit with the structure of the previously written text.
Audience (writing with the reader in mind).
As writers compose a message, a main component related to craft that
informs many of the decisions that they make is awareness of audience. In most of
the writing that was done in Ruth's room, audience was implied rather than
specifically determined; however, there were elements associated with craft that
Ruth had the children consider related to audience as they composed their message.
Ruth had the children consider clarity within their writing as it related to
audience. If writers neglect to consider the reader's perspective as they craft their
writing, then they risk the chance of not providing the reader with enough
information to understand their thoughts or intentions. When the writing is unclear,
then the reader becomes confused. During interactive writing Ruth addressed
writing with clarity by helping the students think about specificity, pronoun
reference, adding details and presenting accurate information. As she addressed
each of these elements, Ruth implicitly implied that each contributed to the
audience's understanding of the text.
Writing with specificity forces the writer to present information using
concrete examples or ideas. When the children were considering ideas about smell
in their five senses piece, they decided that they needed to clarify for their audience
what they meant by their sentence, "We smell things that smell good and bad".
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Ruth began the discussion with her question, "Okay, what are some words that
would tell you that something smells good?" (RB, OBS, 5/12/00, p. 9). One child
suggested that something that smells good smells sweet. Willy suggested that to
him a synonym for good was nice. Ruth continued to ask the students to be
specific by asking, "Can you think of any other words?" The following exchange
occurred:
Dede: It smells great!
Ruth: Okay, nice, great…
Terri: Very great!
Ruth: What about sweet (which someone suggested, but perhaps she did
not hear)? Have you ever smelled anything that smelled sweet? (RB, OBS,
5/12/00, p. 9)
The children then talked about different things that smelled sweet before Ruth
continued:
Ruth: How would we say, I mean what could we use besides good?
Flowers smell…
Patty: sweet
Ruth: Well we could say sweet, some flowers smell sweet.
Karen: Flowers smell nice.
Ruth: Flowers smell nice and somebody said great. Okay, lets explain (to
our audience) what good means.
Child: Good is like something is very good when you eat it.
Ruth: Good means like nice, great or what can we write?
Simon: happy
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Ruth: No, things don't smell happy. Happy is a feeling and things don't
have feelings. Like does a flower have feelings?
Children: No
Ruth: So let's explain what good means. We'll say, 'Good means nice,
great or sweet.'. (RB, OBS, 5/12/00, pp. 9-10)
Through the dialogue, Ruth had the children think deeply about what it meant for
something to smell good and to come up with a way to portray their thoughts to the
reader. When Simon suggested that something smelled "happy", Ruth assisted the
children in understanding that even though 'good' might be described as 'happy'
when related to feelings that this word would not be a word that would describe
how something smells. Ruth helped the children think about describing a good
smell by having them think about something that smells good - a flower. Patty and
Karen both used the flower to think about specific words to describe 'good'
smelling. Ruth then took the children's words and combined them, composing the
sentence that the children then wrote.
Ruth again had the children consider specificity in writing as it related to
how a reader might interpret a suggested idea. On the last day of writing on the
five senses book, the children began composing a sentence about touch by thinking
about the pattern that they had used on previously written pages about the other
senses. Terri generated the sentence, "We touch with our hands." Ruth responded
to her by suggesting that she also touches with her foot, her elbow, even her head.
Ruth's comment set the children up to think about the reader's interpretation of their
text and in turn helped them think about if they were really being specific. Ruth's
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comment caused Terri to change her sentence to "We touch with our body." Ruth
accepted Terri's suggestion, but asked the children to think further as she asked
"What is our body covered with?" Ruth's question lead Willy to come up with
another sentence, "We touch with our skin." Ruth confirmed what Willy suggested
and had the children think about another word besides touch:
Ruth: "Now think. We touch, my hands are covered with skin and I can
touch Susan. My elbow is covered with skin. Skin must have something to
do with it. If I pinch myself, I can feel it. Can't you? Or if there is a little
hair on you are, see if you can pull that and feel it. What do you think?"
Children: I can feel it.
Ruth: So see, I can take parts of my body besides my hands and touch
things and you know how sometimes when (I) sit down, (I) hit my knee on
the leg (of the table). Do I feel it?
Children: Yeah. (RB, OBS, 5/15/00, p. 5)
Through her examples and comments, Ruth had the children think about using the
word 'feel' rather than the word 'touch'. In her next question, Ruth included the
word 'feeling'. She asked the children, "Does anyone have a suggestion of what we
can write about touching or feeling? About what we feel with?" (RB, OBS,
5/15/00, p. 6). Simon took Ruth's cue and composed a sentence using the word
feel. He contributed, "We feel with everything." Everything was not specific and
unclear so Ruth continued:
Ruth: Now everything, everything what?
Child: Not our eye.
Willy: Every part of our body.
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Child: How about our head?
Ruth: Every part of our body? Does that make sense? Yes it would... (RB,
OBS, 5/15/00, p. 6)
Willy clarified and was more specific, but then another child raised the question of
is it really every part. At least one child was thinking about audience and
specificity, which is what Ruth wanted them to do. The exchange ended with
Willy repeating his sentence and the children writing, "We feel with our skin." (RB,
OBS, 5/15/00, p. 6).
A second area on which Ruth focused attention that related to audience and
clarity was pronoun reference. She wanted the children to understand that they had
to clarify to whom or to what a pronoun was referring if they wanted an audience to
understand their text. In the water experiment piece, the children generated the
sentence, "First, we put water in it". The word 'it' is undefined. Ruth had the
children think about 'it', "Okay, 'First we put water in it.' Now, what's the 'it'? We
need to explain that" (RB, OBS, 4/12/00, p. 6). The children revised the sentence
to say, "First, we put the water in the glass." making it more clear. Ruth's words to
the children were very explicit and let the children know that for the writing to be
clear, they needed to clarify what 'it' was.
Ruth also helped the children understand when it would be clear to use a
pronoun. In their writing of the paragraph about mammals, the children negotiated
the sentence, "They breathe fresh air." Ruth has the children consider their choice
of the word 'they':
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Ruth: They breathe fresh air.... Okay, is it all right if we use the word 'they'
instead of 'mammals'?
Children: Yeah
Ruth: What are we talking about when we say 'they'?
Children: Mammals
Ruth: Yeah, because that is what our piece is about, about mammals and
we already said that so we can say 'they' instead of 'mammals'. (RB, OBS,
4/11/00, p. 4)
The children knew that 'they' was a pronoun referring to mammals because they
were writing the piece; however, Ruth eluded to the audience's understanding 'they'
was 'mammals' because the piece was about mammals and the writers had already
clarified that in a previously written sentence.
Writers add details to help explain their ideas and make them more concrete
for their audience. Ruth seemed to understand the importance of adding details to
clarify points, but during the interactive writing lessons did not always insist that
the students do this. In the mammal paragraph, the children wrote, "They do not
lay eggs". Ruth attempted to get the children to reconsider their sentence and to
add another supporting detail about mammals being born alive for clarification.
Ruth implanted the language for the sentence as she recapped what they had
written; however, she abandoned her agenda when the students could not come up
with a sentence:
RB: Now, they do not lay eggs. They carry their babies inside their bodies.
Willy: I want to write 'inside'
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RB: Well, we can't just write 'inside'. We've got to have a sentence. Gosh,
we've thought about they're covered with hair or fur, they do not lay eggs…
Karla: They have their babies inside their bodies.
RB: No, they don't have them, when they have them, they come our of their
bodies.
Simon: They drink milk inside their bodies.
RB: Now wait a minute. We're…
Rob: Un uh
RB: We're getting two things put together here. So what do you want to
say about them having their babies?
Child: Animals have babies
RB: Where do they…You said they do not lay eggs. Now, we've got to get
this thought down. So, how could we say this? They don't have their
babies on the inside of their bodies, no, when they have their babies they
come out of their bodies. What were you going to say Karen?
Child: And leave them on the sand?
Karen: That the babies drink milk out of the mother's teats.
RB: Okay, you want to put that right now and then we'll go back to how
they are born? I guess, okay. (RB, OBS, 4/10/00, pp. 16-17)
In a conversation with me following the writing, Ruth specifically stated that she
wanted to return to the piece and have the children add the specific detail about
mammals carrying their babies on the inside of their bodies (RB, OBS, 4/10/00,
p.28). Ruth recognized that the students were having trouble crafting a second
sentence related to the first detail; however, in her question to the students she had
not really asked them to add another detail about where the babies were before they
were born. She had just implanted the language perhaps because she thought the
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children would use this language and add to their writing to make it clearer. The
following day, Ruth had the children return to the text and think about adding a
detail to clarify where the mammal babies were if they were not hatched from an
egg:
Ruth: Now, what about when these babies are born? What about before
they are born. Now, just think about that. Karen, you had your hand up.
What were you going to say?
Karen: When the babies aren't born, they live inside their mother.
Ruth: Okay, in other words before the babies are born, they are inside their
mother's, right? Now, how can we word that?
Terri: The babies are inside their mother's body before they are birthed.
(RB, OBS, 4/11/00, p. 6)
Although Terri's sentence was awkward because of a misused word, the idea that
Ruth wanted was there. Ruth accepted the sentence, with revisions, because it
included the detail that clarified the children's sentence about not laying eggs. Ruth
did not, however, explicitly tell the children that they were clarifying their text by
adding a detail so that their audience would better understand the concept about
which they were writing.
On one occasion, I asked Ruth about adding text for clarification. The
children were writing about the five senses. The day before they had written the
sentence, "We have eyes to see things". On the day of the observation, the children
had written three labels for pictures that served as examples of things that they
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could see. For me, the previously written sentence did not define the purpose of the
pictures and labels. I asked Ruth a question in hopes that she would get the
students to add details for clarification:
Researcher: I was going to say, I don't know if you were going to do
another one (sentence) or not, but I'm getting confused. I'm sitting here
reading this and I see we have eyes to see things and then I see all of these
things that we see and I'm wondering if we need a sentence to tell us (and
the audience) that we see all of these things that we've written. Do you
think that we need that?
Ruth: We might put it down here. We might put a sentence on this kind of
paper and paste it down here and we could say we can see many things or
we don't just see these three things. Is that what you're talking about? (RB,
OBS, 5/9/00, pp. 5-6).
Ruth momentarily left this thought as she continued the lesson by stressing a
spelling rule involving the word 'butterflies'; however, when she finished, she went
back to the idea of adding a detail for clarification:
Ruth: Now, we want when whoever reads this book, we want them to know
that we see more than just friends, books, and butterflies, so we need a
sentence down here to sort of end this page.
Terri: a lot of stuff
Ruth: A lot of stuff. Is that what you want to say?
Karen: We can see a lot of flowers.
Ruth: No, we want to put it all in one word.
Shayla: We see a lot of nice things.
Ruth: We see lots of things and you said…
Dede: We see lots of things.
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Ruth: Okay, hold it. We've got three sentences here. You said at first, "We
see a lot of stuff." You said, " We see a lot of things" and then you said,
"We see lots of things. Now, which would be best?
Children: Lots
Ruth: How many want, "We see lots of things"? That would include
flowers, chairs, tables, people, things to eat… How many like that
sentence? We see lots of things. (RB, OBS, 5/9/00, pp. 6-7)
Ruth let the children know that they needed to add a sentence so that the audience
would not just think that they could see only the things for which they included
pictures and labels. One child was a bit confused and composed a sentence related
to something else that could be seen; however, the other children seemed to
understand the type of sentence that was needed to provide clarification. Following
this exchange and possibly as a result, Ruth had the children add details to explain
or clarify their initial sentence on all of the subsequent pages in the book. They did
this as they composed the initial text rather than returning to it at another point in
time. I am not sure if the children understood the purpose for the clarification, but
they did seem to understand Ruth's structure for the text and its format.
Accuracy is another important element that writers have to consider
especially when writing an expository text. Ruth placed a big emphasis on
accuracy when the children when composing sentences for the water experiment.
Ruth knew that when reporting on the experiment, accuracy was important because
a reader should be able to take the information and replicate the experiment;
however, Ruth only implied the concept as it related to audience. She insisted that
the children think about accuracy when sequencing the steps and that they use
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words that signaled the sequence but she never informed the children about why
this was important. Before writing the first sentence about the experiment, Ruth
had a rather lengthy discussion about exactly what they did and what happened.
When the students got ready to write, Ruth stated, "Now, what did we do first and I
want you to start your sentence with the word first and I'm going to go ahead and
write the word first." (RB, OBS, 4/13/00, p. 6). Ruth was very specific about the
organization of the piece and on the second day when the children suggested a
sentence telling about what happened after they waited for a week, she took them
back to exactly what they did to find out the results. The following exchange
occurred:
Dede: It (the water) went down a little.
Ruth: It went down, okay. It went down, not a little, but you can really tell
how much it's gone down, don't you think?
Terri: It was on the mark. It went down a lot?
Ruth: It went down some. All right, what else?
Simon: When the sun shines through the blinds, the water evaporates fast.
Ruth: Okay, so after a week there was…
Karen: After the week, we came back and we looked at the water.
Ruth: Okay, after a week, that's a good way to start a sentence. After a
week, we looked at the glass. (RB, OBS, 4/14/00, p. 4).
In the exchange, Simon provided a really good sentence about what happened to
the water; however, Ruth ignored his suggestion. She wanted the students to be
sure to tell their audience that they looked in the glass and that was how they knew
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that the water went down or evaporated. Ruth pushed the children to be accurate in
their writing by insisting that they put exactly what they did in the experiment in
the appropriate order. She provided the beginning of the sentence and then revised
Karen's sentence so that it was not only accurate, but also clear and concise.
Ruth wanted the children to understand that accuracy in illustrations was
also an important concept related to an audience's understanding of a text. As the
children worked to illustrate their book on the five senses, Ruth wanted them to
understand that their pictures had to match their text. The emphasis on pictures
began on the second day of writing on the book. Karen suggested the label 'your
friends' for something that she could see. Ruth responded to the class, "Oh, you
need an 's' don't you. She must be going to draw more than one friend." (RB, OBS,
5/9/00, p. 4). Ruth again stressed the importance of drawing the appropriate
number of pictures when Simon contributed radios as something he heard and
Steven contributed that he could hear a fan. Ruth commented, "You'll (Simon)
have to draw more than one radio because this says radios. You'll draw a fan,
Steven." (RB, OBS, 5/9/00, p. 12). After the children drew their pictures and were
ready to paste them in the text, Ruth showed them to the children and commented
about their accuracy:
Ruth: Now, let me show you Karen's picture of her friends. This will go up
here. Notice she wrote friends, so she had to draw more than one, didn't
she? Karla wrote books. She had to draw more than one book. Then
butterflies, Dede drew more than one butterfly…Now, here are Simon's
radios. Notice he said radios, so he had to draw more than one. We'll put
that right here. The fan - here's one fan by Steven and then my mom and
this is Aaron's mom and this is Aaron with his mom. (RB, OBS, 5/15/00, p.
2)
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When Ruth got to Patty's lemons there was some confusion about their accuracy.
Ruth commented:
Ruth: These are Patty's lemons. I almost got them mixed up with the
potato chips. I've decided I'm going to go to Big Bear or Kroger and buy a
lemon to bring into school and show her what a lemon looks like. I think
she might sort of change her drawing just a little bit. (RB, OBS, 5/15/00,
p. 3)
Patty's drawing was confusing. Ruth insisted that she go back and revise her
drawing because accuracy in the illustrations was important for clarity. A reader
might misinterpret or get confused if the text said one thing and the illustrations
showed something different.
Besides having the children consider clarity in writing and how it relates to
audience, Ruth also had the children consider how an absent audience might
respond to a text that had been written. On day four of the senses project, one of
the children asked if they were going to be able to take their finished book to
another classroom to read it. Ruth agreed that reading the piece to another class
would be a good idea, but that she would have to check with the other teacher (RB,
OBS, 5/11/00, p. 4). For the first time during writing, the children defined
specifically who their audience was. The students as well as Ruth referred back to
the determined audience as they wrote rest of the piece:
"We wrote a question remember? …Now, if you take this book to a
classroom, you're going to let the kids, like over here in kindergarten, you're
going to let them - you might say to them, 'which one is sour?' and let them
guess…Won't that be fun?" (RB, OBS, 5/15/00, p. 4)
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Through her explanation, Ruth was helping the children to know that when writing
for a specific audience, the writer should consider the audience's reaction to the
writing and include elements that would make the writing interesting and engaging.
Writing with a reader in mind is an important consideration associated with
craft in writing. Ruth very seldom explicitly referred to audience during the
negotiation of text, but she did engage the students in conversations related to
clarifying information. Ruth posed questions and made comments to the children
as they participated in negotiation of a text, that required them to consider a reader's
interpretation of their ideas .
Evaluating the writing.
Writers have to learn to stand away from their text and to evaluate it from a
reader's perspective. They have to ask themselves things like will the reader
understand what I have said, have I expressed what I wanted to say, does my
writing flow, is what I have written interesting, and are my facts correct? The
evaluation of text often leads to deleting, adding to, reordering or restructuring the
text. During interactive writing in Ruth's room both she and the children evaluated
the text for clarity.
On the first day of observation, the children wrote the sentence, "A mammal
has hair or fur." After the students finish constructing the sentence, Ruth asked,
"Okay, is it finished? Did we put down our idea? Is there anything else that we
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have to put in this sentence?" (RB, OBS, 4/10/00, p. 12). With her questions, Ruth
encouraged the children to check for completeness and if they expressed the idea
that they wanted.
Ruth asked the children to evaluate their sentence for clarity when she had
them to go back and revise their sentence, "We hear radios, the fan, my mom and
other things." After Willy suggested that they revise the sentence and add "that
make noise", Ruth asked, "Would that help us? And all the other things that make
noise. Would that clear it up do you think?" (RB, OBS, 5/10/00, p. 3). Through
her questions, Ruth was asking the children to think of their sentence from the
perspective of the reader.
Most often the questions or comments that Ruth made relating to the
evaluation of text included the word "like" or "good" At times, these comments
were not made to help the children rethink their composed sentence in terms of
clarity. In fact, Ruth was not really asking them to make changes. Ruth's
comments only acknowledged that she 'liked' the text or asked the children if they
'liked' the text. For example, when Willy suggested the sentence, "We feel with our
skin." for the five senses book, Ruth asked, "How many like that sentence?" (RB,
OBS, 5/15/00, p. 7). The term "like" was unclear because neither Ruth, nor the
children ever defined what made the sentence "likable". On one occasion, Ruth
used the word 'like', but then explained what she meant by 'like'. This was the case
when Ruth asked "How many want 'We see lots of things?' That would include
flowers, chairs, tables, people, things to eat. How many like that sentence?" (RB,
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OBS, 5/9/00, p. 7). Ruth's clarifying comment made the purpose for the evaluation
more explicit - the addition of the sentence helped the audience to know that the
labels that the children chose to include were only examples for many things that
one might see.
Revision.
Revising during composing can occur while writing or upon review of a
text that has already been written. Revision starts with a problem or a troubling
spot in the writing that requires writers to rethink their crafting of a sentence or an
idea. Because in interactive writing the ideas are first submitted orally before the
decision is made on what to write, revision often takes place orally. Ruth had the
children revise their messages several times and for several different reasons during
the interactive writing sessions.
On the first day of writing on the mammal paragraph, Simon composed the
sentence, "Mammals have fur on its coat." The sentence is awkward because the
pronoun 'its' does not fit with the plural noun 'mammals'. Ruth asked Simon to
think about another way to say his sentence; however, he did not realize his mistake
and did not know what to do. At that point, the children suggested that mammals
not only have fur, but some have hair instead. Ruth provided an example of the
elephant that has hair rather than fur. Terri then helped Simon with his sentence
and the sentence became, "Mammals have fur and hair" which was more accurate
than Simon's original sentence; however, the 'and' made it seem as if mammals had
both hair and fur rather than one or the other. The following conversation ensued:
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Ruth: Now does it have fur and hair?
Children: Yeah
Willy: It only has fur.
Ruth: Well, it's either one or the other usually. So…do we want to say fur
and hair or…
Willy: fur or hair
Ruth: fur or hair because I gave you an example of an elephant that has big
long hair. He's not covered with fur is he? Okay, so we could say 'A
mammal has…'
Simon: hair or fur. (RB, OBS, 4/10/00, pp. 6-7)
In this exchange, the children revised for two different reasons. Ruth asked Simon
to revise an awkward sentence and in the process the students realized that not only
was the sentence awkward, but it was somewhat inaccurate. Terri's sentence
contained more information, but because she had chosen to use the word 'and'
instead of 'or' had misinformation. Through the exchange, Ruth helped the children
know that sentence structure and accuracy in word choice are reasons to revise or to
rethink a sentence.
Before the children began to negotiate text on the second day of writing for
their piece on the five senses, Ruth returned to the previously written page and
pointed out a problem that she had with the way the children crafted part of the
writing, "I went home thinking that something (in our writing) didn't make sense to
me. I want you to read this with me and I want you to think about what it says."
She continued by saying, "I thought, oh my goodness have we ever got to clear this
up. We're going to explain other things" (RB, OBS, 5/10/00, p. 2). Ruth implied
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that when the absent audience read the piece, they would be confused about the
'other things'. Her comments helped the children know that they had to consciously
consider the reader when forming ideas. Ruth helped the students understand that
writers often identify unclear or confusing ideas as they reread a text. By drawing
attention to and revising the sentence, Ruth demonstrated the process that writers
proceed through as they revise.
Often times during composing, the students would generate a sentence that
made sense, but that needed a little more for clarification. For example, when the
children were writing about their water experiment, Dede suggested writing the
sentence, "Next, we had to wait." to tell what they did after they put the glass of
water in the window. Simon realized that they needed to revise Dede's sentence by
adding information to tell how long they waited. He suggested adding "a week".
So the sentence became, "Next, we had to wait a week". Two other sentences were
expanded for clarity through revision during the water experiment. Terri revised
her sentence "There was less water" when Ruth told her that they needed to clarify
where the water was. The sentence became, "There was less water in the glass".
The most in-depth discussion about revising a text by adding information resulted
from a question that I raised about where the water from the glass went:
Researcher: I know it evaporates out of the glass, but did it go into the air
or did my cat drink it…?
Simon: It goes up into the air.
Tamara: It goes up into the sky.
Shayla: It turns into a gas.
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Ruth: This was our sentence and what else could we put at the end?
Rob: and up to the sky.
Ruth: Okay
Researcher: Into the air, is that where it goes? Into the air?
Rob: Up to the sky.
Ruth: Which is where?
Rob: Air
Ruth: Air
Tamara: Way up to the clouds.
Ruth: So what are we going to say here? The water evaporated out of the
glass and into the air?
Researcher: That helps because I thought maybe somebody was drinking it.
Ruth: She thought maybe somebody was drinking the water. We really
needed to clear this up. Nobody drank this, did they? (RB, OBS, 4/13/00,
p. 8-9)
Although Ruth had the children change their sentences by adding additional
information, she never specifically told the students the reason they needed to
revise their original sentence was to make the writing more clear for the reader.
Ruth had several opportunities during the course of interactive writing to
help the children think about their composed sentences and how a reader might
interpret them. The class made revisions as they went about the writing, but on
occasion Ruth had them go back to previously written text to make changes so that
their writing would be clearer.
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Summarization of the Elements of Craft Addressed During the Negotiation of Text
Although Ruth did not often explicitly plan for the teaching of elements of
craft before working with the children in the context of interactive writing, she did
provide the children with many opportunities to learn about components related to
craft during the negotiation of text (figure 4.5). Ruth emphasized elements related
to craft within four categories - sentence variation, audience, revision and
evaluation.
Teachers have a style of teaching that is unique to them and is often based
on their underlying beliefs about how children learn. Ruth's style was to help the
children understand elements associated with the craft in writing through
demonstration and by involving her students in the process of composing.
Although Ruth was never very explicit with her words about what goes on within
writers' heads as they compose a text, she supported her children in crafting
sentences that made sense and that informed the audience of the content about
which they were writing.
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Summary of Elements Addressed Related to Craft (Ruth)
Element
Examples from Lessons
Sentence Variation
•
Capturing readers’ attention by using different
sentence structures
1) Ruth asks the children to think about
other words besides, first, second, third,
etc. to sequence a text.
1) using sequence words
2) When children compose a second
sentence in their senses text that begins
the same as their first, Ruth suggests
another beginning in a different way and
then provides an idea for the text,
"Listen, lets try to make this beginning a
little different.... how could we say it
about that we listen with our ears?"
2) moving away from patterned text
3) crafting the sentence as a question rather
than a statement
•
Recognizing that there are multiple ways to
phrase a sentence
•
Structuring the writing so that there is agreement
within the organizational features of the text
(Balance)
3) Ruth suggests that the children
include a question in their senses text
and provides an idea for words to use in
the question, "Let's ask a question so
that people can guess which is which."
•
Steven suggests writing, "It
evaporated up into the sky." Ruth
commented, "But we want to use the
word 'evaporation'." The children
find it difficult to craft a sentence that
informs the reader of where the
water from their glass goes using
the word using the word
evaporation, so Ruth allows the
children to craft a sentence using
the different form of the word.
•
Ruth asks the children to refer
back to previous sentences as
they organize their senses text,
"...What did we do on the other
pages? We always said the
sense and what part of our body
we used...."
Figure 4.5. Summary of elements addressed related to the craft of writing in Ruth's
classroom (continued)
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Figure 4.5: Continued
Element
Examples from Lessons
Audience (writing with the reader in mind)
•
Clarifying information
1) being specific through the use of concrete
examples and explanations
2) including references to pronouns
2) Children compose the text, "First,
we put water in it." Ruth asks them to
explain the word 'it'.
3) adding details to explain ideas
•
3) The children write the sentence
"They do not lay eggs." Ruth wants
the children to write about the babies
being born alive and has the children
come up with a way to explain. The
children come up with the idea that
they are inside their mother's body.
Presenting information accurately
1) organizing information in sequential order
2) matching pictures to text
•
1) Ruth has children explain what the
words 'good' and 'bad' mean in their
text on the senses
1) Ruth works with the children to write
the exact order of how they did things
in their water experiment.
2) Ruth discusses with the children
that since they wrote radios, they need
to draw more than one radio
Considering the reaction of the reader
•
Ruth shows the children how they
could involve their audience by
asking the question that they
generated for the five senses book
and then having the reader guess
which illustration goes with which
sense.
(Continued)
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Figure 4.5: Continued
Element
Examples from Lessons
Evaluation
•
Assessing completeness of idea
•
Deciding if the idea is clearly expressed
•
Judging writing based on satisfaction of the crafted
ideas
•
Ruth asks the children after they
finish writing, "A mammal has hair
or fur." if they put down their idea
and if it is finished.
•
Ruth asks the children if adding
"that make noise" to the sentence,
"We hear radios, the fan, my mom
and other things." would make the
sentence more clear.
•
Ruth comments that she 'likes'
something that has been
composed or asks the children if
they like what they have
composed.
Revision
•
Changing a text based on accuracy and word
choice
•
Terri generates sentence,
"Mammals have fur and hair."
Ruth asks, "Now, does it have fur
and hair?" Willy suggests only fur
to which Ruth responds, "Well, its
either one or the other usually.
So, do we want to say fur and hair
or ..." After the children decide on
'or', Ruth explains, "fur or hair
because I gave you an example of
an elephant that has big long hair.
He's not covered with fur is he?"
•
Clarifying non-specific information
•
Ruth had children return to a
previously written text and
suggested that they "clear up"
what they meant by "other things"
•
•
Simon realized that they needed
to add the amount of time - a
week - to Dede's sentence, "Next,
we had to wait" so that it would be
clearer for the reader.
Adding information for clarity
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Teacher Decision Making During the Negotiation of Text
Interactive writing is most effective in teaching children to be better writers
-when the teacher is keenly aware of the students' strengths and needs as writers.
Teachers gain knowledge about their students through both formal measures like
writing assessments and through informal measures such as observation. So, often
instead of thinking about a particular student to make a decision, the teacher has to
think about what the group brings to the writing arena. Not only is the teacher
making decisions that help the group learn about writing, but often the
contributions made by particular children move their peers forward in their
thinking; therefore, the teacher is not the only one teaching. Teachers have to use
their knowledge of what their students know and understand to make the most
profitable decisions about what to focus on, who to call on, the connections to
make, and what to teach.
Ruth made decisions during the planning, composing and constructing of
the text. During the composing of the text, Ruth made decisions on when the
sentence that the children crafted and suggested was the best one to write. She also
made decisions about what questions she would ask and how to phrase them to best
help the children learn more about writing. Some of Ruth's decisions were made
consciously. She knew that a particular teaching point would help a child and
would call on that child or would address that child by name. Other decisions
appeared to be made intuitively since Ruth did not explicitly verbalize them, but
seemed to
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decide on what to address as she taught the lesson. These decisions were likely
informed by Ruth's implicit knowledge of her group of students, the curriculum,
and her ideas about how children learn.
Ruth did not make a great many specific decisions related to craft in her
own planning for interactive writing. Her general goal for the children during
composing was for them "to be able to put down something that really makes sense
and that is interesting and that they like" (RB, Int. 1, p. 3); however, Ruth would
tell me during our discussions prior to lessons that she did not have a particular
element on which she was focusing during the negotiation or composing of the text.
Ruth tended not to make her teaching decisions relative to craft explicit and once
told me that she did not know what she was thinking about craft and to ask her
another question (RB, Int. 1, p. 4). Following the lessons when we had a chance to
talk, I would verbalize what I noticed that she addressed that was associated with
craft in order to initiate a dialogue about elements of craft and intentional teaching.
Ruth made many decisions about what would be written during interactive
writing. She not only decided which sentence the children would eventually write,
but many times she actually crafted the sentence or suggested the sentence that was
written. In the course of conversation and negotiation, the children may have taken
on or internalized the teacher's sentence, and she, herself considered it a shared
sentence.
On the first day of writing on the senses piece, Ruth crafted the beginning
sentence. She told the children the topic and then she asked, "So, first of all, we
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know that mammals are animals right?" She then asked the children, "Do you
think we should write that?" (RB, OBS, 4/10/00, p. 2). When she asked the
children how they would put the idea into words, Terri said, "Mammals are
animals" which is the sentence that Ruth had suggested. Ruth crafted the sentence
in an effort to get the writing started. Ruth gave the children the option of
composing a sentence, but in actuality she had already done the work of crafting
the sentence.
On the second day of writing on the water experiment Ruth started the
lesson by spending several minutes talking about what the students had written
previously and about the water experiment in general. Ruth asked a question to get
the students started:
Ruth: What did we do after a week?
Steven: We waited, um,um
Ruth: We waited for a week and then what did we do?
There was no answer from the group so Ruth had the children reread what they had
written previously perhaps in hopes that remembering what had been written would
spark additional ideas for composing. Ruth then made a suggestion about how to
focus their thinking:
Ruth: Now, we want the results. What could we say? What did we find
out about this, Dede?
Simon: I've got one.
Dede: It (the water) went down a little.
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Ruth acknowledged what Dede suggested, but her idea did not fit with the direction
that Ruth wanted the writing to take. Ruth did not ignore Dede's idea. She
discussed that the water had gone down and how much, but then she asked:
Ruth: It went down some. All right, what else? Okay, Simon.
Simon: When the sun shines through the blind the water evaporates fast.
At this point, Ruth became a little frustrated that the children were not moving to
craft a sentence that she wanted, so she began to compose the sentence herself:
Ruth: Okay, so after a week, there was…
Karen: After the week, we came back and we looked at the water.
Ruth: Okay, after a week, that's a good way to start a sentence. After a
week, we looked at the glass. Okay. Hands down.
Tamara: That's what we're gonna write!
Ruth: So, after a week, we looked at the glass. Who's in favor of writing
that? (RB, OBS, 4/14/00, p. 4)
When Ruth gave the initial stem of the sentence she wanted, Karen knew the
direction that Ruth was heading and was able to finish the sentence. Ruth took
Karen's crafted sentence and shortened it to be the sentence that she wanted.
Tamara's comment was interesting and let me know that she understood that when
Ruth said, "Hands down" that meant that the composing process was finished.
Ruth's frustration in getting the children to craft a sentence that she wanted lead her
to craft the sentence herself.
There were other times when Ruth seemed to be frustrated that the group
was doing a lot of discussing and suggesting and possibly because of time moved
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the writing forward by using the students' contributions and crafting the sentence
herself. This happened in the five senses book when the children finished writing
the sentence describing what bad smelling meant and moved on to write what good
smelling meant. The students offered ideas and then Ruth took their ideas and
crafted the sentence saying: "So let's explain what good means. We'll say good
means nice, great, or sweet." (RB, OBS, 5/12/00, p. 10). In this case, Ruth did not
even give the children the opportunity to make a suggestion for how to craft the
sentence.
Summary
Ruth had much experience in teaching first grade and in teaching writing
through the context of interactive writing. She used interactive writing as a tool for
helping children become proficient writers in both the areas of constructing a text
and composing it. During the time that I was observing in the class, Ruth's children
spent more time on constructing texts (238 minutes) than on composing them (114
minutes). The students wrote only expository texts while I was observing. Two of
the texts that were written became wall charts that reported information. The third,
was written as a big book that provided information about the five senses which the
children planned to share with a kindergarten class.
She provided multiple opportunities for the students in her class to learn
about a topic and then to use their knowledge to write about that topic through
interactive writing. As Ruth planned for interactive writing, she determined the
topic format and reason for writing. She then informed the students of the ideas
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she had in mind and worked with them to carry out the plan in writing. As Ruth
worked with the children to compose or negotiate a text during the interactive
writing sessions, she addressed various elements of craft through demonstration
and dialogue. During this process she supported the children in understanding that
the words that writers put on paper do not just magically appear but are thought
about, refined, and revised based on the writer's evaluation of how the reader will
interpret the message. Ruth very rarely turned the decision making over to the
children; however, based on many of the children's contributions during the
interactive writing sessions there was evidence that the students were considering
different criteria related to craft as they composed ideas for writing in their heads
and then suggested them to the group for consideration.
Marta
Marta was the subject of the second case study. Like Ruth, I observed ten
interactive writing sessions in Marta's classroom in an effort to identify what she
addressed as she engaged children in learning about the craft of writing.
Professional Background
Marta was a veteran teacher with 24 years of experience. She graduated
from a large mid-western university with a Bachelor of Science degree and was
unable to acquire a job in the large urban district to which she applied. So, Marta
decided to substitute teach. The district assigned Marta to teach primarily in
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programs that were state or federally funded or in positions within the reading
department. The assignments she received were usually long term, lasting three or
four months.
After two years of substitute teaching for the district, Marta was hired to
teach kindergarten full time with the state and federal programs' department. At the
time when Marta began full time teaching, the district's kindergarten program was
half day with part of the children coming to school in the morning and the other
half attending in the afternoon. The district placed Marta in an all day kindergarten
program where the children attended regular kindergarten in the morning and then
continued to attend school in the afternoon as part of the federally funded program.
She worked in this program until the district instituted full day kindergarten in all
schools. While teaching full time, Marta worked on and completed her Master of
Arts degree in early childhood education. Marta taught only kindergarten and in
only two different schools within the district until she moved into the first grade
position at Clifford in the Fall of 2000.
Like Ruth, Marta made the move to Clifford when the district made a
change in the language arts curriculum in her previous school. At the time of this
study, Marta was in her second semester in the new position.
Experience with Interactive Writing
Marta first learned about interactive writing through her participation in a
Kindergarten Early Literacy Study Project during the 1989 - 1990 school year at
the university in her town. As a part of the project, she attended classes at the
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university and participated in activities including demonstration teaching,
observational visits by university staff members and video taped reading and
writing lessons. Marta remained in the project during the following year as more of
the teachers at her campus signed up to be a part of the project. During this time,
Marta also participated in two dissertation studies, one of which examined
interactive writing extensively. Marta was instrumental in pioneering the element
of interactive writing as a context for helping young children learn about the
writing process.
Marta recalled that when she first heard about interactive writing, she was a
bit hesitant to try it. Her beginning foray at sharing the pen with her students
occurred when she allowed her students to write a little portion of the daily
classroom news. She received feedback on her beginning attempts from her
colleagues as well as from the staff and professors associated with the university.
Marta remembered that "there were lots of discussions (in class and with the
dissertation students observing in her class) about what to do (during interactive
writing) and giving the children the pen and letting them be more active in the
writing process" (MP, Int. 1, p. 3), but did not remember there being anything to
read or any video tapes to watch about interactive writing. She admitted that in the
beginning she found interactive writing a bit frustrating. The more conversations
she had and the more she tried interactive writing the more she became comfortable
with it as a curricular component. By 1993, Marta was including interactive
writing in her daily curriculum and was including many different genres of writing
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within her lessons. Because of her extensive knowledge of interactive writing and
her expertise as a teacher, Marta was invited to be an observation classroom for the
Literacy Collaborative project. Marta saw interactive writing as an authentic
writing context that gave children a real purpose for participating in the writing
process at a level highly supported by the teacher (MP, Int. 1, p. 2). At the time
when this study was conducted, Marta included interactive writing in her first grade
classroom on almost a daily basis.
Description of the School and Classroom Setting
Marta was one of two first grade teachers at Clifford Elementary. The
school, situated in a large urban school district in the Midwest, housed grades
kindergarten through grade five. During the 1999 - 2000 school year, the
enrollment at Clifford fluctuated from 300 to 325. The ethnic distribution at
Clifford consisted of 73% Anglo, 20% Black, and 7% Other (Asian, Hispanic and
Indian). Only 32% of the children at Clifford qualified to receive free or reduced
priced lunch. Of the 23 children enrolled in the classroom at Clifford, 18 of them
were male and five were female. Two additional boys frequently joined Marta's
class for interactive writing. One boy came from a second grade classroom because
his teacher felt that he could benefit from the experience of interactive writing; the
second came from the other first grade classroom where he missed interactive
writing because of his participation in an additional pull-out reading intervention
program.
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Marta's classroom was situated on the first floor of the school. The space
was a large rectangular room with windows across one whole wall. The classroom
had high ceilings and polished hardwood floors. At the back of the room, a second
space was designated as a coatroom. The focal point of the room was a carpeted,
large group area where interactive writing as well as other things took place. This
area also housed an extensive classroom library and at one end there was an easel
and a chair for the teacher (figure 4.6).
There was evidence inside and outside the classroom that the children had
frequently participated in interactive writing before the onset of this study.
Hanging just outside the classroom on the wall, was a large three-section mural
entitled "Our Life With the Sharks". The mural told a class created fiction story
about an underwater
school that had been taken over by sharks. The children told most of the collageillustrated story in speech bubbles, but each of the panels also had a short narrative
feature posted underneath it. On one bulletin board in the classroom, the children
had used interactive writing and paper collage to create a poster telling about the
water cycle. The children had written the schedule for the classroom and Marta
posted it on a column separating a section of the windows. There were also several
big books (enlarged texts) that the children had written through interactive writing
including one retelling of a folktale entitled, "Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza". All
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Figure 4.6. Diagram of Marta’s Classroom
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of the interactive writing pieces were written on large newsprint paper and then
pasted onto other larger pieces of sturdier colored paper. The students had
illustrated all of the interactive writing pieces except for the class schedule.
Writing Instruction in Marta's Classroom
The writing instruction in Marta's classroom occurred across four different
contexts: writing center, journal writing, writing workshop and interactive writing.
Each of the contexts had a unique purpose and different expectations.
Writing Center
The children went to the writing center a minimum of three days each week
as a part of the independent work time they engaged in while Marta conducted
small group reading instruction. The children used a graphic organizer called a
workboard that Marta had posted in the classroom to know when they were to go to
each of the different workstations or centers. The workboard had different icons
for the various centers and each day, the children went to different activities based
on the assigned icons. Writing center was on the workboard in three different
places.
The writing center consisted of a small table situated in the corner of the
room near the coatroom. Marta organized different types of paper, writing and
drawing implements, and staplers in containers and stackable trays on the table.
The routines for working in the center were well established when I began my
study. The main rule or expectation was that when the children went to the writing
center they were expected to write. At the writing center, Marta let the children
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decide upon their own topic and on the format for their piece. They could make a
book or draw a picture and write about it. They could write a letter to a friend or
write about what they were learning. The students established their own purposes
for writing; thus, many different products emerged from the center. One day, while
I was in the classroom conducting my study, Marta suggested that one of the
students, Caitlin, use her time at centers to conduct a survey of the class related to
the social studies topic of goods and services (MP, OBS, 4/17/00, p.1). Caitlin took
the information she collected from asking the children to contribute an idea for a
good or a service to the writing center and turned it into a chart that she later shared
with the class.
According to Marta, on most days (MP, OBS, 4/20/00, p. 1), following the
reading and independent work center time, the children met back on the rug to
share their writing from the center; thus, the children could get ideas about what to
write, not only from Marta, but from each other.
Journal Writing
The students in Marta's classroom participated in journal writing several
times each week. The children each had a stapled together book of blank paper
with a construction paper back and front that they used as a journal. The children
wrote on only one page during each journal writing session. Sometimes journal
writing was open-ended and the children could write about whatever they wanted,
but many times Marta assigned a topic or a task for writing in the journal. One day
when I was in the classroom, Marta had the children go back to the last journal
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entry they had written and reread and add more details that made sense (MP, OBS,
4/13/00, p. 1). The children all wrote in their journals at the same time. Marta
occasionally had the children share their journals with the rest of the class.
Although, she did not read every entry that the children wrote in the journals, she
did read them very frequently and would often times talk with individual children
about their writing. Some of the children took ideas from their journals and turned
them into pieces for writing workshop. The children either participated in journal
writing or writing workshop each day.
Writing Workshop
Writing workshop, in Marta's classroom, was very similar to journal
writing. The differences were in the organization, in what the children wrote, and
in the feedback that the children received. For writing workshop, each of the
children had a folder where they kept their writing. During writing workshop,
Marta expected the children to write stories. Most of the children wrote stories
about things that had happened in their own lives; however, some of the children
made attempts at fictional stories.
Most of the time, Marta began writing workshop with a mini-lesson based
on a perceived writing need of the whole class or of a small group of children in the
class. Following the mini-lesson, the children took their folders and went to their
desks to write. As they were writing, Marta called children who had finished their
stories or who were struggling with a part of their story back to her table one at a
time and conferenced with them. During the conference, she helped the children
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revise and edit their stories. When complete, Marta stapled the stories together
with a cover so that they were more like books. The children often times returned
to a previously started story during writing workshop, thus many of the stories were
written over several writing workshop sessions. Marta stated during her interview
that in writing workshop each child controlled their individual process for writing;
whereas, in interactive writing there was more of a collective group process for
writing that the teacher guided. (MP, Int. 1, p. 5).
Interactive Writing
Marta included interactive writing in her schedule on almost a daily basis.
She planned in advance for interactive writing and engaged the children in
activities
that gave them both the desire and need to write. She carefully thought about the
different genres of writing and strategically provided the children with materials
that would lead them into interactive writing with an authentic purpose.
For Marta, interactive writing was much more than a context for teaching
children skills associated with writing. It was an effective teaching tool that she
felt assisted children in acquiring a writing process (MP, Int. 1, p. 4). Marta's
definition of interactive writing caused her to not only include composing and
writing a text, but also planning as a group for an upcoming text and putting
together a finished piece in a way that it could be shared with others during the
interactive writing time. Interactive writing looked very different each day in
Marta's classroom depending upon where the group was within the writing process.
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One of the central tenets of interactive writing involves sharing the pen.
Although the children did hold the pen to put some of the words on the paper
during interactive writing in Marta's classroom, she controlled the pen the majority
of the time. Marta turned the pen over to the children only when they came across
a word within their negotiated text merited some explicit teaching related to
spelling or letter sound relationships.
Marta and the children finished writing a previously started piece, began the
writing of a second piece that was later abandoned due to lack of interest and
planned for a third interactive writing piece during the ten days that I observed in
the classroom. The children had already completed three ideas on an informational
piece about magnets when I began my observations. During the first six days of
observation, they continued to work on this piece. Each of the ideas was
numbered and several contained more than one sentence. The sentences were
complex rather than simple sentences (figure 4.7).
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Magnet Project
This is what we are learning about
magnets:
3. You can turn something metal into
a magnet! How do you do it?
You rub the metal thing across the
magnet in one direction.
1. If two magnets pull together
and you turn one over, they
will push away from each other.
4. Put a paper clip on top of a
piece of paper and a magnet
under the paper. What will
happen? The paper clip will
2. Usually big magnets pick up
more than small magnets.
move on top of the piece of
paper if you move the
magnet underneath the paper.
If you put a south pole with
a south pole they will repel
each other. If you put a north
pole with a south pole, they
will attract each other.
5. A magnet has a north pole
and a south pole. If you put
a north pole with a north pole
they will repel each other.
6. If you drop a magnet
lots of times, the magnetic
field will get weaker and weaker.
Figure 4.7. Text Written During Interactive Writing Sessions on Magnets in
Marta's Classroom
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On the seventh day of observation, the children began a new informational
piece on simple machines (figure 4.8). The children only spent two days, the
second of which I did not observe, working on this piece. The children planned to
turn the simple machine piece into a chapter book with each of the simple machines
being a chapter, but the piece was abandoned before completion.
On all, but one of the days spent on the magnet and simple machines pieces
composing and constructing took place (figure 4.9). On day five of observation
during the writing of the magnet piece, the children wrote a text that they had
composed the previous day. Marta then had the children begin suggesting ideas for
a new idea, but a decision about what to write was never decided upon and the
children started the composing process for the next idea all over again on the sixth
Simple Machines Project
This is what we are learning
about simple machines.
Chapter 1 Wheels and Axles
Wheels and axles are important
because they help people
move heavy things.
Figure 4.8. Text Written During Interactive Writing on Simple Machines in
Marta's Classroom
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day. On the eighth day of observation the children turned their writing on magnets
into a wall hanging with six different illustrated panels. On the ninth and tenth
days of observation, Marta and the students planned for the third piece which was
to be a rewritten version of a folktale based around the story, Two Ways to Count to
Ten (Dee, 1991). Marta acted as the sole scribe as she recorded the children's ideas
for the folktale.
Marta used big pieces of blank newsprint as paper for writing and for
planning. Marta brought in large sheets of colored butcher paper to complete the
wall hanging for the piece on magnets. She cut apart the interactive writing text
and pasted it on to the craft paper panels for the children before the lesson. The
children then created pictures and pasted them on each of the panels. They later
posted the panels in the hall for others to see.
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Total Words Written During
My Observations of
Interactive Writing in Marta's
Classroom (not including
planning sheets):
9 sentences
120 words
1 Title
5 words
4 labels for pictures
11 words
Shortest: 3 words
Longest: 20 words
Average Sentence
Length: 13 words
Lesson Time Breakdown
Total Lesson Time:
314 minutes
Longest Lesson: 50 minutes
Shortest Lesson: 18 minutes
Average Lesson Time: 21 minutes
Time on
Constructing
Text:
77 minutes
Time on
Composing Text:
145 minutes
Time on
Planning Text:
88 minutes
Figure 4.9. Breakdown of Text Written in Marta's Classroom
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Time on
Housekeeping:
4 minutes
Planning For Interactive Writing
It was apparent in Marta's classroom that when planning for interactive
writing, she considered her role as the teacher in preparing the children for writing
independently and she decided how the children should participate in planning for
the writing of a piece during interactive writing.
Preplanning for interactive writing by the teacher
Marta thought about planning for interactive writing by the teacher in two
different ways. She considered what she needed to teach about writing during a
writing and how best to prepare the children for engaging in the writing project.
Marta determined what she needed to teach by looking at the district
curriculum for a particular grading period. She chose to have the children write
many of the informational pieces because through writing they could revisit and
solidify their understandings of the concepts related to the social studies or science
curriculum that Marta was supposed to be teaching during a specified time period
(MP, Int. 1, p. 6). The fiction pieces and retellings allowed Marta more leeway on
teaching the requirements for writing set forth by the district.
After determining the requirements that needed to be or that could be
addressed through writing, Marta had to decide how she could best prepare the
children for engaging in the writing and how she could best utilize writing to
develop the children's understandings about a topic.
Writing and reading are so intricately related, that one of the things that
writers need to help them become better is access to good literature. Marta realized
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that until her children had experience with an abundance of books from multiple
genres, it would be especially hard for them to write from any one particular genre
with a sense of knowing (MP, Int. 1, p. 10). She also knew that they would not be
able to select the genre that was best for their writing if they did not have
experiences with different types of texts; thus, one way that Marta prepared
children for writing was to make conscious decisions about books and written texts
to include in her curriculum.
Marta read texts from various genres aloud and provided the children with
poems written in large print on lined poster board that they could read together
chorally. She made sure that the children had access to these texts long after a
particular unit was complete so that they could use them as resources for future
writing projects. As Marta read different books, she often made comments about
the authors' writing. For example, on one occasion while I was in the classroom,
Marta read aloud George Ella Lyon's story, One Lucky Girl (Lyon, 2000). Before
reading the story, Marta talked with the children about other books they had read
that were written by the same author, she began to talk about how some of Lyon's
stories reminded her of another author, Patricia Polacco, whose works the children
had also experienced. Marta commented to the children, "I just love the way they
put their words together. Good authors think about what they want to say and the
best way to say it" (MP, OBS, 4/17/00, p. 1). As she read the story, Marta drew the
children's attention to the way that Lyon used her words wisely in phrases such as,
"It got sick quiet." and "All the screams nobody had screamed tore out of my
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mother's mouth". (Lyon, 2000). Because Marta planned for and implanted these
ideas about writers and writing and because she took the time to show the children
how books worked, often times the children made reference during the interactive
writing sessions to the plethora of texts that Marta shared.
Before the children did the planning for their own folktale, Marta read them
many different folktales. Because the children were so familiar with the traditional
stories such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Three Little Pigs, she
introduced them to some traditional tales that they did not know as well. Marta
knew that she would have to judge from the children's reactions to the stories which
one they should select for creating their own story which was to be based on a
retelling of the original (MP, Int. 1, p. 6-7; OBS, 5/22/00, p. 1). The first book that
Marta chose and the one that she thought they would probably use was entitled, The
Man Who Caught Fish (Krudop, 2000). Marta soon realized by the children's
reactions and comments that this story was difficult for the children to understand;
thus, it would be impossible for the children to use as a model for retelling. Marta
knew that she would have to share additional stories until she found one that the
children found exciting enough to use to create their own version. Eventually, the
children and Marta decided upon, Two Ways to Count to Ten (Dee, 1991). Marta's
careful, up-front planning, her intuition about her students' likes and dislikes, and
her willingness to not jump into a project too quickly allowed the children the
opportunity to select a text that they were excited about using for their own piece.
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Not only did Marta plan for the children to have access to an abundance of
literature, she also planned many hands on experiences in which the children tried
things out before even thinking about writing. The magnet piece, which came
about as a part of a science unit, was based around a hands on experience. The
children had a great many experiences with magnets before they even began to
write about what they knew. They read books and poems about magnets,
experimented on their own with all different types of magnets at a science station
and learned and talked about magnets during science lessons over the course of
several weeks.
The simple machines piece was also a writing based on a science topic
where the students had been provided the opportunity to explore with hands on
materials. At the beginning of the unit, the children built and experimented with
simple machines and talked about their uses. They then used the information that
they had discovered or gathered as a springboard for writing. The children were
enthusiastic about building and experimenting with the machines; however, they
had just finished the non-fiction piece on magnets and never really got the simple
machines project started before it was abandoned.
Marta strategically planned for experiences so that her students would have
an in-depth knowledge of a topic about which she was planning to have them write.
Although both Ruth and Marta knew that the children had to have knowledge of the
subject before they could write, Marta allowed the children lots of time to
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experiment on their own and allowed them time to discuss a topic and ask
questions before beginning the writing. Marta also provided the students with
literary resources that they could use as tools during interactive writing.
Marta used the curriculum and what she knew about the students as writers
to help her think about the purpose and format for the different interactive writing
pieces; however, the children made the final format decisions. For the magnet
piece, Marta just had the children write their ideas on the newsprint without really
determining the final product for the piece (MP, OBS, 4/13/00). Marta's purpose
for having the children write the text was to help them solidify their ideas about
magnets, but more importantly, it was to help the children learn to better develop
their ideas by writing more varied and complex sentences (MP, OBS, 4/13/00, p.
1). Throughout the writing of the piece, sentence development was her focus, not
what the piece would become.
Marta also had a purpose in mind on day eight when she had the children
illustrate and put together the text for the magnet piece. She wanted the children to
understand the importance of accurateness in illustrations in an informational piece
and she wanted them to solidify their understandings of the concept. She relayed
this as the children came back to the rug to examine the finished piece:
Now, we need to read the words and make sure that they make sense and
the the illustrations match our words. When I have a book, an informational
book, the pictures are supposed to support meaning. That means they are
supposed to help me understand the words. If the pictures we made don't
help us with the words, they shouldn't be there or they need to be fixed.
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That's what illustrations in informational books do for you. They make the
idea clearer in your brain. Sometimes illustrations in picture books make
the ideas more wonderful and more exciting in your brain, but in
informational books they make it clearer. (MP, OBS, 5/4/00 p. 2)
The piece on simple machines was what Marta called an "extra thing" (MP,
OBS, 5/1/00, p.1). She really was not wanting to engage in the writing of the piece
in a in-depth manner because the school year was coming to an end and she really
wanted the children to do one more interactive writing around a piece of literature.
Her initial plan for the piece was to write one sentence about each of the simple
machines about which they learned. Marta did not really have a purpose for this
piece except to engage the children in recording ideas so that they could remember
an essential element about each of the simple machines. This lack of purpose was
probably one of the reasons that the piece was abandoned.
Before beginning the simple machine piece, Marta had decided that the
children needed to have one more opportunity to go through the process of writing
a fictional piece based around a piece of literature. She wanted them to have this
experience for several reasons. Story writing was part of the district curriculum.
She wanted the children to know that when writing fiction some elements of the
story such as characters, problem, and solution might need to be determined before
the writing and that was why planning was so important (MP, OBS, 5/22/00, p.1).
The format for the folktale piece had not been determined when I observed the
planning for the piece and because I left the classroom before the completion of the
piece, I am not sure how the children utilized their plan or what format the children
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selected, but Marta's intentions for the project were to help the children learn how
to create a plan and then use that plan as a guide for writing (MP, OBS, 5/22/00,
p.1).
Marta thought of interactive writing as a context for "helping them
(children) make the shifts that they need to make to become more fluent writers, a
time when (the teacher) can point out what might come next for them (the students)
and help them build on what they already know how to do" (MP, Int. 1, p. 2). For
this reason, Marta found it important to understand the children as writers; thus, she
used samples from the students’ journals and ideas from her conferences with them
during writing workshop to help her think about what to address during interactive
writing. Marta thought about the strengths and needs of the group of students in a
general sense based on her observations (MP, OBS, 4/18/00, p. 9). She decided on
things to address in interactive writing by considering what was most prevalent in
their independent writing in terms of what they did well and what they needed
assistance with as writers. One example was apparent in Marta's focus during
interactive writing on day five of my observations. Marta addressed rereading a
piece of writing multiple times to make sure that it made sense. She planned this as
a focus because she noticed that the children were not editing their own writing.
They were not rereading to make sure that what they intended to write is what they
actually wrote (MP, OBS, 4/20/00, p. 1). Marta also looked at writing samples to
determine what the children were capable of doing and used her knowledge of
children as writers to think about what they needed to do next. She thought about
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the writing concepts that she could support during interactive writing and what the
majority of the children would benefit from having discussed and modeled in a
whole group setting.
Marta also used the insights she gained from listening to the children during
the interactive writing lesson to help plan for future instruction. In one particular
case, Marta was shocked when Holden suggested a sentence that structurally did
not sound right and he could not figure out what was wrong with the sentence.
Immediately following the lesson, Marta commented that she needed to be more
keenly aware of his contributions to the composing process during interactive
writing and that she needed to go back and look at some of the things that he had
written during writing workshop. As Marta reflected, she recalled that during
writing workshop conferences, she often had to ask Holden if what he had written
sounded right and made sense. Marta decided that interactive writing was a good
place to help Holden think about sentence structure because he would be able to
hear his sentences before they were written and he would have support from her as
well as his peers in evaluating what he said (MP, OBS, 4/13/00, p.9).
Because so much of what is taught during interactive writing is based on the
interactions between the teacher and the children that occur during the lesson,
planning ahead can be difficult. Having a rudimentary plan, a specific focus and an
awareness of her students' understandings as writers, helped guide Marta's
decisions as to what to address and teach during the interactive writing sessions.
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Planning for writing with the children
Planning with the children took place in Marta's classroom with the three
interactive writing projects in different ways. When I arrived the first day of
observation in the classroom, Marta's children were already composing and had
several ideas on the magnet piece; thus, I was not there to see how Marta initiated
the project with the children. As the writing continued on the project, Marta
generally began the day with rereading the whole text so that the children would be
aware of where they left off on the previous day (MP, OBS, 4/13/00, 4/17/00,
4/18/00, 4/19/00, 4/20/00, 5/1/00). Following the reading, often the children
commented on some aspect of the previously written text. On the first and third
days of observation the children questioned the punctuation, on the second day they
commented on the way to read a particular page and on the sixth day Marta and the
children talked about the selection of a particular word that was more scientifically
oriented. The children then began negotiating text for the current day's writing. On
day five of the writing, the children continued the writing of an idea that they
negotiated the previous day. Marta took the pen and wrote the idea and then the
children edited her work before the children began composing something new.
With the magnet piece, the children were just writing things that they
learned and observed about magnets, so the ordering and organization for each
numbered idea unit was not important; however, the organization of the sentences
within each numbered idea unit did make a difference. Following the reading of
the whole text, the children had a sense of what was to come next and could begin
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negotiation. There was really not a need to review the overall plan for the piece.
The children understood what they were writing and what it entailed and they were
comfortable continuing the process.
On the eighth day of observation, the children put together the piece on
magnets. Marta began the session by helping the children recall a conversation that
they had previously about the role of illustrations in a text and then she let the
students know what the plan for the day would be:
We were talking about drawing the pictures and we were talking about
whether or not the pictures help us with the words. Some of you said yes.
Some of you said no. Some of you said if there was a little bit more on
there (the paper) it would help you more. Today, we are going to add some
pictures to our words. We are going to illustrate our words and then we are
going to assemble or put together our magnet writing so that other people
can enjoy it (MP, OBS, 5/4/00).
Marta had taken the words that had been written and placed each one of the ideas
on a separate sheet of large craft or butcher paper. These were sitting on the group
of desks near the rug area. Marta put the children in groups and told them exactly
what they were going to do:
Now, each group is going to have a sheet of paper (shows them the butcher
paper) and together, you need to read the words and think about the way
you want to draw the illustrations in a way that would make the words
clearer (to a reader). I'm going to give you a piece of this white paper to
draw on (MP, OBS, 5/4/00).
Marta modeled the thinking process. She had the children read the first idea and
Talk with the person sitting next to them on the rug about how they would illustrate
the concept. Each group then dispersed to an area of the room and the children
worked on the illustrations with their group.
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The children had a role in deciding that the magnet piece would be a wall
mural for the hall because Marta talked with them about where they wanted to put
the project when they finished (MP, OBS, 5/1/00, p.1) and they had a great deal of
input into how the final product would look because they worked on the
illustrations by themselves. When the groups were finished, Marta asked the
children to return to the rug and they looked at each illustration to make sure that it
corresponded to the words that they had written.
On day seven of my observations, the children began the simple machines
project. On the day before the writing, the children built cars out of blocks, tinker
toy spools, dowel rods and clay. They tested their cars to see which of them would
roll down an inclined plane. Marta began the interactive writing session by telling
the children what she wanted them to write about and suggesting to them they had
to first come up with a plan for how they might go about organizing the writing,
"Now today, we're going to start writing about simple machines and we've got to
figure out how we are going to do this" (MP, OBS, 5/3/00, p. 1). Although Marta
gave the students a topic for the writing, she did not provide them with or help
them decide upon a purpose, a reason for writing, or a format. For this reason, the
children had really no direction for how to approach the task. They began by
suggesting a way to start. Stan suggested that they could begin by drawing the cars
that they had made the day before. Marta acknowledged his idea, but then refined
what she had in her mind about how to approach the project, "I think that is an
excellent idea. In fact, what we're going to do is just that. We're going to write the
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words today and then we'll do the pictures to go with the words" (MP, OBS,
5/3/00, p. 1). Through her comment, Marta let the children know that she wanted
them to come up with a plan for the text. The children, however, continued to
offer suggestions for the format for the piece. Marta realized that format was of
great importance to the children and let them discuss and make a decision about
that rather than getting them to think about what to write. After much negotiation,
the children decided to create a lift the flap, oversized book. They decided to write
the text where the reader could see it and hide the pictures underneath the flaps.
Once the format was decided, Marta restated her objective for the day,
"What we need to do now is we need to write down something that we learned
yesterday about simple machines" (MP, OBS, 5/3/00, p. 3). The children struggled
with deciding upon what to write first about wheels and axles. I decided that I
might help by offering a way to organize the writing. After several students made
suggestions of what to write, I suggested that the children organize the writing like
a chapter book with the writing about each simple machine becoming a short
chapter:
Marta: I liked what you said about starting it the same way as the magnet
writing except changing it to, "This is what we are learning about wheels
and axles.
Child: and pulleys
Marta: And pulleys. So, maybe we should change it to, this is what we are
learning about simple machines and then write wheels and axles and then
write about wheels and axles.
Stan: But they're all simple machines.
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Marta: That right. Everything underneath here would be about simple
machines.
Researcher: Miss P., you know what I was thinking?
Marta: What were you thinking?
Researcher: I was thinking that you know at the writing center a lot of them
(the children) have been working on chapter books, so I was wondering if
you would need to put one chapter on wheels and axles, one chapter on
pulleys, one chapter on…
Marta: Good idea! (MP, OBS, 5/3/00, p. 7)
Marta had previously noticed and commented that many of the children were
attempting to write "chapters" in their writing workshop stories and several of them
were reading simple "chapter" books in their reading groups (MP, OBS, 4/20/00, p.
8). Marta had also introduced the children to Cynthia Rylant's series of books
about a boy named Henry and his dog Mudge. These books were written in
chapters. I thought that organizing the text into short chapters would provide the
children with a model for their own writing. Marta and the children decided that a
"chapter" book was a great idea and Marta allowed the piece to proceed in this
direction.
Before the children began to write on the folktale project, Marta wanted
them to go through the process of planning. Planning in writing fiction is more
important than when writing learned facts because the writer is working with the
imagination and the unknown; thus, planning allows the writer to work out some of
the story elements before writing. During my observations, Marta spent two days
during interactive writing working with the children to establish a plan for the tale.
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Marta began the planning lesson by rereading the story, Two Ways to Count to Ten
(Dee, 1991) for a third time. In the story, an antelope outsmarts other animals and
becomes king by counting to ten more quickly by twos than by ones. Even before
Marta finished reading the book, the children started making plans for the
interactive writing by suggesting ideas for a title. When Marta finished reading,
she did not have to ask the children to give her ideas, they just started making
suggestions. Marta stopped them to remind them of what they were going to do create their own folktale based on the one that they had just read. Marta provided
the genre (folktale) and the format (a book) for the children. Again, the children
immediately started making suggestions for the title. The discussion went in
different directions - titles, ways to count, characters - as Marta did not ask the
children to think specifically about one particular story element. After a few
minutes with the discussion going in different directions, Marta attempted to focus
the children by asking, "So, who will be in the story?" (MP, OBS, 5/22/00, p. 5).
Even though Marta asked a specific question about planning, she not only got
suggestions for characters, but the children began making suggestions for plot, and
more specifically about what kind of contest would occur in their story.
Marta continued to guide the discussion throughout the planning lesson
with her questions. She asked the children to think about the setting for the book
because they had decided animals would be a part of the story and certain animals
live only in certain environments. She also had them narrow their focus to
categories of animals instead of a specific animal. The children's suggestions were
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things like zoo animals, flying animals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, etc. At first,
Marta just listened to the ideas, but she made a teaching decision in the middle of
the lesson and began writing down the children's suggestions. Writing down the 18
ideas helped the children know that planning does not always just take place in the
writer's head. Writers often times document their thinking by jotting ideas so that
their thoughts will not be lost. The written plan gave the students a document to go
back and refer to as they selected the different elements to include in their story.
At the end of the first day of planning, the children determined that the
characters in the story would be butterflies and the boys and girls in the first grade
at Clifford Elementary. At the end of the lesson, Marta let the children know that
the next day they would be deciding the contest and how someone would win. The
next day, the planning lesson continued in the same way with the children deciding
on the contest. They decided the contest would be a prettiest wings contest and that
the kids in the story would bring the butterflies to the contest.
Planning is a crucial element in the writing process because it is a time
when writers make important decisions. Although not typically something that
happens in classrooms during interactive writing, through the two planning lessons,
Marta provided the children with an awareness of the decisions that writers have to
make before beginning a fiction story. Marta modeled the process of brainstorming
for ideas. She also helped the children know that when selecting the elements for a
story, the writer has to make sure that the decisions fit together or make sense. For
example, when David suggested that the contest be a running contest, Stan
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responded, "But butterflies can't run" (MP, OBS, 5/23/00, p. 1). Marta supported
David's thinking by letting the children know that their idea was problematic
because it would not work with the character that they selected. Because Marta
considered interactive writing to be a context for helping children understand the
process of writing, it was natural that when the project called for the writers to
brainstorm and make some decisions about a text before beginning to compose, that
component became a part of the interactive writing lesson.
Summary
Like Ruth, Marta planned for writing as the teacher before the interactive
writing session and engaged the children in planning for writing as they
participated in interactive writing. As the teacher, Marta considered the following
things as she planned for instruction:
•
the topic, format, purpose and genre for writing
•
the materials that the children would need for writing and that she would need
for teaching
•
what she needed to teach based on the district's curriculum requirements and on
her knowledge of the students
•
how the students would acquire information about the topic and then provided
them with opportunities to learn about the topic
•
her focus for teaching and how best to engage the students in learning about
writing
•
possibilities for future instruction in interactive writing
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Marta planned with intent. She had a focused objective in mind before she began
an interactive writing lesson and although she allowed the children to guide the
lesson with their contributions, she maintained this focus as she guided the children
in the process of composing.
Marta allowed the children to be decisions makers and involved them in
planning during the interactive writing lessons. Marta facilitated the process of
planning for writing by identifying the topic for the children. She then engaged the
children in the planning process by:
•
allowing them to reread to identify where they were in the writing and to make
comments about and suggestions for writing
•
explaining to the children what the objective was for the day
•
discussing with the children their ideas for how to share their writing with an
audience
•
involving the children in making decisions about the format for a piece
•
engaging the children in the process of brainstorming ideas before beginning to
compose and allowing them to determine elements for a fictional story
Perhaps by allowing the children to take an active role in the planning process,
Marta raised their awareness of the details that writers have to consider before they
begin writing.
Crafting the Text Through Negotiation or Composing
Eight out of the ten days that I observed in the classroom, Marta and the
children worked on negotiating or composing a text (figure 4.10). On two of the
days, the students planned for a new text. On day five of my observations, the
children wrote only one word as Marta completed a sentence that the children
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Day of
Observation
Day 1
April 13
Day 2
April 17
Day 3
April 18
Day 4
April 19
Day 5
April 20
Day 6
May 1
Day 7
May 3
Day 8
May 4
Day 9 May 22
Day 10 May 23
Interactive Writing
Children composed and wrote: Put a paper clip on
top of a piece of paper and put a magnet under the
paper. What will happen?
Children composed and wrote: The paper clip will
move on top of the piece of paper if you move the
magnet underneath the paper.
Children composed: A magnet has a north pole and
a south pole. If you put a north pole with a north
pole, they will push away from each other. If you put
a south pole with a south pole, they will push away
from each other. If you put a north pole with a south
pole, they will pull together.
Children write: A magnet has a north pole and a
south pole.
Children write: If you put a north pole with a north
pole, they will repel each other. If you put a south
pole with a south pole, they will repel each other.
Marta writes: If you put a north pole with a south
pole, they will attract each other. The children act as
scribe for attract.
Children compose other ideas about magnets, but
none is decided upon or written.
Children compose and write: If you drop a magnet a
lot of times, the magnetic field will get weaker and
weaker.
Children compose and write: This is what we are
learning about simple machines. Chapter 1: Wheels
and Axles
Children illustrate magnet piece and add captions
and labels
Children plan for folktale and decide upon characters
Children plan for folktale and decide upon type of
contest
Figure 4.10. Outcomes of the interactive writing lessons during each of the ten
observations
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composed the day before. The children talked about what else they might write on
this day, but they never wrote their ideas. On my eighth day in the classroom, the
children illustrated and put together their project on magnets. When the children
finished the pictures, there was discussion and evaluation about the clarity of the
illustrations and their accurateness. Through the discussion, the children realized
that they needed to add captions and labels. Although somewhat different from
what goes on in a typical interactive writing lesson where the text is negotiated and
then written, I still considered this lesson to be one in which Marta addressed the
craft of writing with the children. On day eight and nine, the children planned for a
new text.
In the following section, I examine how Marta initiated discussion
surrounding the composition of a text and what she considered important to address
in the area of craft.
Getting started with writing
Marta started the composing process by asking a question such as, "How do
we want to say this next part?" (MP, OBS, 4/13/00, p. 8) or by making a comment
and then asking for suggestions, "We're trying to write down facts about what we
are learning about magnets. If you have an idea, think about it in your head, about
how you want to say it and when you have the idea ready, raise your hand up" (MP,
OBS, 4/18/00, p. 2). Because the children were so familiar with the topics that they
wrote about and because Marta did not have a preconceived notion about what
should be written, she did not have to say much to get the children into the process
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of composing. Several times, Marta asked the children to compose the message
first in their heads before they shared with the group (MP, OBS, 4/18/00; 4/20/00;
5/1/00). By using this technique, Marta helped the children understand that they
think of many ideas and compose orally in interactive writing and that process is
the same when writing independently. It just goes on inside the writer's head.
The role of rereading in text negotiation
Marta often had the children reread text that they had previously written.
Rereading the previously written text gave the children a sense of where to begin
the composing process. Rereading helped them hold the meaning of the already
created text in their heads as they anticipated what would come next and make
sense. Marta made explicit to the children one reason for reading, "Let's reread
what we've got so far so that we don't add the same thing" (MP, OBS, 4/20/00, p.
1). Marta's comment let the children know that when writers neglect to reread,
sometimes they forget where they are in the process and repeat an idea. The
children also reread to evaluate their writing for clarity. Marta wanted them to
make sure that what they
said they were going to write was what they indeed wrote (MP, OBS, 4/20/00, p.1).
She wanted the children to think about their writing in terms of a reader and
evaluate it based on meaning.
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Marta focused on rereading the text on multiple occasions because the
children were not consistently doing this in their own writing. By modeling
rereading over and over, Marta helped the students understand its purpose and how
to use rereading as a tool when engaged in independent writing tasks.
Negotiating the Message
Marta's saw her role during interactive writing as that of a facilitator.
Through her questions and comments, she helped the children consider the
processes and questions that writers wrestle with as they compose a text. Like
Ruth, the elements of craft that Marta addressed fell into the same four categories
during the negotiation of the message: Sentence variation, audience (writing with
the reader in mind), evaluation and revision. Although the categories were similar,
what Marta addressed within each category and the ways in which she addressed
each of the elements was quite different.
Sentence variation.
Marta addressed sentence variation by having the children think about
different ways to arrange their words and ideas so that they made sense and were
unique and interesting. One way that she did this was by allowing many children
to contribute to the generation of ideas for what to write. Marta did not approach
the writing with a predetermined idea about the exact idea that the children would
write on a particular day. She allowed the children to come up with ideas for
writing. After listening to many children's contributions, the group had to decide
what to include and what to leave out. They decided this either by coming to a
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consensus because all of the ideas that were suggested were similar in nature (MP,
OBS, 4/17/00), by taking several ideas and combining them (MP, OBS, 4/13/00),
by evaluating the idea and determining which one was most factual (MP, OBS,
4/20/00) or by taking two of their best ideas and voting on which one to actually
construct (MP, OBS, 4/18/00, 5/3/00). The children controlled the process as Marta
facilitated. By giving the children a choice in what to write, Marta helped the
children understand that writers and readers have different opinions as to what they
like and value in writing and that there are a variety of ways to craft or compose a
message and no one of them is the correct way.
One technique that Marta used on multiple occasions that helped the
children think about their sentence composition was to repeat the children's
composed idea back to them. For example, Jeremy suggested the idea, "Sometimes
little magnets pick up a lot instead of just a little bit." Marta repeated his idea to
which Jeremy added, "because they have stronger pulls than the big ones" (MP,
OBS, 4/18/00, p. 3). Almost every time Marta did this, the children expanded or
changed their idea. By repeating the children's ideas, she allowed them to hear
their message and evaluate it for organization, clarity, and variation and to react to
their thought as a reader rather than a writer.
Several times the children expressed difficulty in taking their oral ideas and
putting them into a sentence that "sounded" like writing (MP, OBS, 4/13/00;
4/18/00; 5/1/00). On day three of the writing, Patrick had an idea, but did not know
how to put it into sentence format:
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Patrick: Well, I've got an idea, but I really can't explain it.
Marta: Can you tell us what your idea is and maybe we can help you
explain it?
Patrick: The magnet has a north pole and a south pole. The magnets push
away from each other if you put the south poles together and if you put the
two north poles together. And then, if you put a north pole together with a
south pole then the magnets will stick together.
Marta: I think you did an excellent job of explaining that (MP, OBS,
3/18/00, pp. 2-3).
Marta went on to restate in her own words the idea that Patrick articulated. The
children knew that writing sounded different than talking and did not hesitate to ask
for assistance in structuring their ideas. They also did not hesitate to express their
concerns when the writing did not sound right to them based on how we would say
something orally like in the composing of the sentence, "If you drop a magnet a lot
of times, the magnetic field will get weaker and weaker":
Cindy: Lots of times, lots, lots, lots
Marta: Now, wait a minute. Cindy when he said it, he didn't say lots of
times, he said a lot of times. If you want to change it to lots of times, we
can do it, but we all have to agree.
Cindy: It doesn't sound right to say a lot of times.
Marta: It doesn't sound right? (Thinking aloud) a lot of times.
Caitlin: Yes it does!
Cindy: No it doesn't. Listen to it. (She gets up from the rug, grabs the
pointer and rereads the sentence that has been written.)
Wilson: That makes sense.
Marta: Cindy, it makes sense both ways.
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Child: I want the 'a' out.
Cindy: I didn't say that it doesn't make sense, I said it doesn't sound right.
Marta: It doesn't sound right she says. I actually sounds right both ways.
It's just a matter of which you would prefer. Listen to the two ways and
then you kids tell me which way you want. (MP, OBS, 5/1/00 p. 13)
The sentence that they had written sounded awkward to Cindy when read aloud.
In speech, it is normal to say 'lots of times', but in writing, it is more formal to a lot
of times. Marta let the children know that there are multiple ways to say things by
letting them know that either way was correct. After listening to both sentences,
the children decided to revise their written text to say "lots of times".
The notion that there are multiple ways to craft ideas came up many times
during the composing of text. Sometimes the children suggested various ways to
word an idea on their own, such as on the first day when the children decided to
pose a question to the reader about what occurs when a magnet is moved under a
paper with a paper clip on top:
Stan: You could say, "What happens?"
Marta: Oh, you could say, "What happens?" like we said. You could say,
"Move the magnet. What happens? Good idea.
Wilson: Miss P., we could put "Do you know what happens?" (MP, OBS,
4/13/00, p. 4)
Sometimes, Marta asked the children to come up with different ways to say
something. She did this when the children were deciding on a way to tell about
what happened to the paper clip:
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Frank: After you put the paper clip on top of the piece of paper and move
the magnet, the magnet will make the paper clip move.
Marta: So, the magnet underneath the paper will move? Is that what you
wanted to say?
Caitlin: Yeah, that's good!
Marta: That's good she says. Let's get some other ideas just in case
somebody has a different way of saying it. (MP, OBS, 4/13/00, p. 5)
Marta was explicit in her comment and let the children know that there were
multiple ways to say the same idea.
The children also used texts that they had written or read previously to help
them think about different ways to craft an idea:
Mallory: Instead of writing dropped once, we could say dropped for the
first time.
Marta: Dropped for the first time. Well, we could. Either one of those
would be good, but it was his idea.
David: It's like in The Tickleoctopus (Wood, 1994)
Marta: Oh, it's like in The Tickleoctopus. In the history of people, it was
done for the very first time. Well, I'll tell you what, it's Jeremy's idea so
we'll let him decide. (MP, OBS, 5/4/00, p. 25)
Through her comments, Marta let the children know that either way was correct
and that the choice was a matter of personal preference of the writer.
When the children were planning the format for the simple machines piece,
they also suggested multiple ways to let the reader know that they would need to
manipulate the flap in order to see the picture. Marta recaps their ideas, "Okay, I
can tell we have lots of ideas. Stan said, you should put 'look under here.'
Somebody else said, 'No, we should write turn this over' and she said we could put
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'pull up'" (MP, OBS, 5/3/00, p. 3). The main idea for this exchange was not
necessarily what to write on the flap, but the fact that the writers needed to
communicate to their audience and there were multiple ways to do it. Again on the
day that the children illustrated and put together their magnet piece, the same thing
occurred. The children had to figure out a way to help the reader understand a
picture. The sentence that the students were illustrating was about the weakening
of the magnetic field of a magnet if it is dropped. The children realized that
through the picture alone, the reader would not be able to tell which magnet was
which, so decided to put a caption next to their picture indicating that one magnet
had been dropped for the very first time; whereas, the other one had been dropped
lots of times (MP, OBS, 5/4/00, pp. 22 - 23). The children learned that there was
more than one way to convey their intended message.
One of Marta's goals during interactive writing was to get the children to
think about their sentence variation and structure (MP, OBS, 4/17/00 p.13). She
wanted them to understand that not all sentences had to be short and simple and
that there were many ways to say the same idea. Through interactive writing and
her explicit teaching, she helped the children understand this. During the
interactive writing lesson on day two, Marta let the children know that they were
getting better in thinking more about developing their sentences and ideas:
When we first started writing this year, our sentences were really, short
In addition, our ideas were not complicated ideas, they were kind of simple
ideas, but look at these ideas. Look how long this is. We started this idea
here and we had to go all the way to the second page. We are thinking
better and we are thinking more complicated ideas and that's really good.
(MP, OBS, 4/17/00, pp. 12-13 )
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At least some of the children were thinking about and making conscious decisions
about developing their thoughts when writing independently. While talking to
Elaine one day about what she thought about when writing, her comment was, "I
think about complicating my story" (MP, OBS, 4/20/00, p. 8). Elaine's
understanding on sentence and story development was exactly what Marta was
hoping to portray to the students throughout the interactive writing sessions.
Audience (writing with the reader in mind).
Thinking about writing for an audience or a reader requires writers to "stand
outside" of their writing and forces them to look at their writing from a different
perspective. Considering audience helps writers make decisions that impact their
writing. Through the context of interactive writing in Marta's classroom, the
children considered the audience and kept the reader's understandings of the text at
the forefront of their writing as they composed or crafted their ideas.
Marta implied that an audience would be reading the pieces that the class
created in interactive writing through her questions and comments, "If you know
what we should write next, at the end of this to let people know what will happen,
put your hand up" (MP, OBS, 4/17/00 p. 4). In the previous comment, Marta did
not just want the children to think of an idea, she wanted the children to compose
with the reader in mind.
Marta helped the children understand that adding pictures to a piece would
help a reader better understand the topic of magnets:
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Marta: You know how it's easier to understand things when they have
pictures? Sometimes, especially in books about science things, when there
are pictures makes it (the text) so much easier to understand. We did all
that writing….
Child: But we can have the pictures in our head.
Marta: Well we do need the pictures in our head, but we also need to think
about the person reading this who doesn't know anything about magnets and
we need to make some pictures to go with the words so that they will
understand our writing about magnets. (MP, OBS, 5/3/00, p. 1)
Through her comment, Marta helped the children to know that pictures are a way to
provide a reader with additional information. She also let them know that as they
were crafting the picture or text that they needed to keep in mind the reader who
was unknowing about the topic or absent from the thinking and discussion that
went on during the composing.
At another time, Marta suggested that the children needed to think about
organization of their piece based on the reader, "Listen. You can't do 'Do you
know what happens?' until we tell them (the audience) what we're doing and
Wilson, what are we doing?" (MP, OBS, 4/13/00, p. 4). Marta was letting the
children know that writing had to be organized in a way that the reader could
understand and that even though they had composed a complete idea, one part had
to come before the other in order to maintain meaning.
Providing enough details so that the audience would understand also
became an element to consider when composing the text. During the writing of the
idea about moving a paper clip with a magnet, the children wanted to express that
the paper clip would move, but when composing, they left out an important part:
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Marta: Jeremy has got an idea, too. Jeremy what is your idea?
Jeremy: It will move.
Marta: (Going back to what has previously been written and rereading) Put
a paper clip on top of a piece of paper and a magnet under the paper. What
will happen?
Jeremy: The paper clip will move.
Marta: When?
Jeremy: Well, if you rub the magnet.
Marta: If you…
Children: Move the magnet.
Marta: The paper clip will move. Now that is easy, too.
Stan: That's a shorter way.
Marta: That's a short way to do it. If you move the magnet the paper clip
will move. That's nice and clear, too. (MP, OBS, 4/17/00, p. 7)
In order for the reader to understand their idea, the children had to tell how the
paper clip would move. When the children got ready to actually write this idea
about what happens to the paper clip, Marta had to again take them back to the idea
that the magnet had to move in order for the paper clip to move. Marta had the
students write the first part of the sentence, "The paper clip will move on the top of
the piece of paper" and then she had them stop and think about the part that they
left out. They had to include a specific detail in their writing (moving the magnet)
in order to make their idea accurate and clear for the reader.
Marta also addressed adding specific details to illustrations in a text during
interactive writing as a way to help a reader who is not present understand the
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writers’ intentions. This was evident in the conversation that occurred during the
evaluation of the pictures for the first idea about magnets (If two magnets pull
together and you turn one over, they will push away from each other):
Cindy: Let me show you what it's like (getting up from rug and going to
easel to show in illustration). These two are pushing away from each other
and this one is still with… these two are together and these two are pulling
together and these two are pulling together and these two are trying to push
away and these two are trying to push together.
Marta: See, she explained it for us, but Cindy what do we need to add to
your group's illustrations?
Children: Arrows! (MP, OBS, 5/4/00, p. 3).
By adding a small detail to their illustration - arrows to show attracting and
repelling - the children made their illustration clearer and more supportive for the
reader.
Thinking about audience during writing is an important component of
crafting or composing. Without a sense of audience, the writer composes without
purpose and direction. The children in Marta's classroom seemed to have an
understanding that they were writing for an audience and that they needed to
convey their ideas successfully to their audience. Marta was conscientious about
reminding them to consider their unseen readers' thoughts and reactions at
opportune times.
Evaluating the writing.
Marta often had the children evaluate the crafting of their messages. She
asked the students to evaluate for different reasons, but she wanted them to know
that writers are critics and need to think about their own opinions of their writing as
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well as what other people think. Some of the time when Marta asked the children
to evaluate their writing, they were not satisfied and they, in turn, revised.
Marta asked the children for their opinions based on what they liked best as
they composed and she offered her opinions of what she liked about the writing.
Marta provided feedback to Frank for his contribution, "You know what I like the
best about what you said? The very first sentence because you said, 'Move the
magnet around and the paper clip will move around.' and that's really true isn't it?
That was good! (MP, OBS, 4/17/00, p. 5). Her feedback was specific and lets
Frank know what he did that was good.
Sometimes, Marta's evaluations were spontaneous and just allowed the
children to know that she thought a decision that they made was a good one:
Marta: …I love that word - repel.
Child: It's a good word.
David: I'm glad we wrote it.
Marta: I am too!
Child: I like every word we wrote. (MP, OBS, 5/1/00, p. 2)
Marta's comment led the children to think again about their previous writing and
celebrate a job well done.
She also had the children evaluate their own ideas. One example of this
occurred when the children went back to read the lengthy idea about the magnetic
poles:
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Marta: Now, think all the way back to when Patrick first gave us this idea,
did we say what he wanted us to say?
Children: Yeah
Marta: Did we get it (the whole idea) down?
Children: Yeah
Marta: Did we leave any part out?
Children: No
Marta: Patrick are YOU happy with the way we put down your idea?
Patrick: Yes (MP, OBS, 4/20/00, p. 3)
In this exchange, Marta asked the questions that writers should ask themselves as
they evaluate their writing. She helped them think about the clarity of the idea
from both the point of view of the writer and of the reader.
Marta asked the students to evaluate their writing based on sentence
structure and the children knew that they were allowed to disagree with her:
Marta: If you put a north pole with a south pole, they will attract each
other.
Josh: Nine words?
Marta: Does that make sense? They will attract each other. That sounds
kind of odd.
Stan: I said they will attract.
Marta: Miss Furgerson, does that sound right?
Researcher: Will you say it again?
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Marta: When you put a north pole with a south pole, they will attract each
other.
Stan: No, you said 'each other'. I said they will attract.
Marta: Yeah, they will attract each other.
Marta thought that Stan's suggestion needed to include each other so that the
audience would know what was being attracted. She wanted him to include the
referent, but Stan did not think that it was needed. By saying the idea aloud and
asking someone else to evaluate it, Marta is modeling a strategy for the children
that writers use. Writers often solicit the opinions of others to help them evaluate
their writing.
Marta's entire lesson after the children illustrated the text on magnets was
based on evaluating their illustrations (MP, OBS, 5/4/00). Marta had the children
look at each of the illustrations and decide if the illustration supported the text or
helped the reader better understand the text. By having the children review the
illustrations, she forced the children to evaluate their illustrations from the point of
view of the reader and she helped them understand the role that illustration plays in
informational text. Through the evaluation, the children discovered that some of
their ideas were not very clear and by getting feedback from their peers learned
how to use labeling and caption writing as a technique for making something more
clear or apparent.
Revision.
Revising during composing can happen during the writing or upon review
of a text that has already been written. Revision starts with a problem or a
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troubling spot in the writing that requires writers to rethink their crafting of a
sentence or an idea. The children in Marta's room had many opportunities to revise
during interactive writing. The children mainly revised for two different reasons:
because they thought of a better way to say something or because they needed to
clarify information in order to better communicate with their audience.
Just listening to many ideas for what to write was an element of revision
related to crafting a message. Every time the children provided an idea, the group
accepted the idea for consideration. At times the teacher or another student revised
the idea to make it better. One example of this occurred during the writing of the
idea about dropping a magnet and how that affects the magnetic field:
Cindy: Some magnets get dropped and they get weaker and weaker.
Marta: Some magnets get dropped and they get weaker and weaker. See
that's a great new idea. Nobody has said that yet and none of the other ideas
said anything about that.
Josh: Let's write it!
Marta: We probably will write that, but let's give other people
opportunities. Cindy, keep it in your head because I might forget it in my
head. Frank, your hand is up.
Frank: If you drop a magnet, the magnetic field will get weaker.
Marta: Oooo, I like how you said that. Tell Cindy.
Frank: If you drop a magnet, the magnetic field will get weaker and
weaker.
Marta: I certainly like the way you did that. He took your idea (pointing to
Cindy) and he said it in a different way. Didn't he?
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Child: The magnetic field part.
Cindy: It's sort of the same, but a little bit different.
Marta: So you like his idea?
Cindy: Yeah, but I just didn't know how to say it right. (MP, OBS, 5/1/00,
p. 3)
Frank took Cindy's idea and made it more technical and specific; thus, creating a
better sentence for this particular idea.
During the composing of the question, "What will happen?" during my first
day of observation, there was a need to revise a sentence because the suggestion
that Holden made was awkward. Holden suggested that they write the sentence,
"What does happen?". Marta repeats Holden's sentence and then comments,
"Hmm, that doesn't sound like such a good way of asking. What could be another
way of asking?" (MP, OBS, 4/13/00, p. 8). Marta let Holden and the other
children hear the sentence when she repeated it back to them and because it was
somewhat awkward, she asked them to revise it so that it would sound better.
Coming up with a better word was another thing that caused the children to
revise their text. The children changed their idea about the paper clip moving with
the magnet from "will go" to "will move" on top of the piece of paper (MP, OBS,
4/17/00, p. 6). Using "will go" was a bit awkward and not as clear about the action
as the words, "will move".
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Marta explicitly talked with the children about revising based on word
choice during the writing of the text about the magnetic poles:
Now, after she gets 'push' up there, I'm going to ask Patrick a really tricky
question and I should of asked him before, but I forgot. Well, it's something
called revising….Now, here's what I want to ask Patrick and Patrick isn't
the only one that gets to decide this. I'm going to ask the rest of you, but
you're going to have to be sure to listen so you'll know. Patrick, when I'm
doing writing, sometimes I revise what I write. I go back and read it and if I
can think of a better way to write it, I do. Sometimes, I leave it just the way
it is. I'm going to ask you if you might want to revise this and I'll tell you
why I'm going to ask you this, because when we've been talking about
magnets, we've been using two words. The words are attract and repel.
Attract means when they stick together and repel means when they push
away (MP, OBS, 4/19/00, p. 5).
Marta was explicit in describing what revising was and why a writer does it. In this
case, the writers might revise because the choice of words attract and repel were
more specific to the topic. Based on Marta's comment, the children decided to use
correction tape and change their already written text. The other sentences included
in the idea were then written using the words attract and repel.
Several times during the interactive writing, the children revised their ideas
because as they were thinking about the sentence they realized that it was not
accurate or clear or that it did not make sense. Often they had to add details to
clarify. At one point, Cindy added to Frank's idea about the magnetic field
becoming weaker if the magnet is dropped. Cindy determined that, the writing
needed to be more specific for the reader to understand. If a magnet was only
dropped once the magnetic field would not weaken and so Cindy suggested that
they include a part about the magnet being dropped a lot of times. Marta
commented, "And you're right. We probably need to put that in because if we only
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drop it one time, it's not going to get weaker and weaker. You have to drop it lots
of times (MP, OBS, 5/1/00, p. 7). Frank took Cindy's idea and revised his sentence
so that it would be accurate. This same problem was addressed while the children
were illustrating the text. They decided that they needed to revise their illustration
to include a caption that delineated between the picture of the magnet that had not
been dropped and the one that had been dropped (MP, OBS, 5/4/00, pp. 22-23).
The children also questioned illustrations related to the words, "Usually big
magnets pick up more than little magnets." for accuracy:
Ali: But you see, we need a little more detail because you can hardly even
see the magnet and those little paper clips on the little one. You can see
some on the big one, but on the little one, you can hardly see the paper
clips.
Wilson: We can fix that.
Marta: You can fix that. How would you fix it?
Wilson: We could glue on some bigger ones and point them down. (MP,
OBS, 5/4/00, pp. 5-6)
Because Marta had allowed the children to revise their ideas and illustrations in the
past, Wilson knew that revising was an option. Ali was concerned that the
audience would be confused by the illustration. Wilson understood Ali's concern
and was able to revise in a manner that made the picture clearer and more accurate.
During the review of the illustrations, the children also revised their picture
by adding a label to an illustration so that the audience would not be confused. The
team had made their piece of paper for the words, "Put a paper clip on top of a
piece of paper and put a magnet under the paper." stand up off of the page of
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butcher paper so that the magnet underneath could be viewed. The children
decided that the strips of paper added to make the paper stand up made it look like
a table. The children revised by adding a label that said "paper" with hopes that the
reader would better understand their illustration.
Marta provided the children with opportunities to revise their ideas. She
wanted the students to review and revise their independent writing to make it better
and more clear for the reader (MP, OBS, 5/1/00, p. 9), so she spent time involving
the children in this process during the interactive writing lessons.
Summarization of the Elements of Craft Addressed During the Negotiation of Text
Marta used interactive writing to help her students learn more about the
writing process. Through interactive writing, Marta, like Ruth, provided her
students with opportunities to learn about the craft of writing through the
negotiation of text during interactive writing (figure 4.10); however, Marta's style
of teaching was different. Marta helped the children learn about the decisions that
writers make during the composing process, not only by demonstration and
involving the children in the process, but also by making explicit some of the ideas
that writers consider in their head as they craft a message.
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Summary of Elements Addressed Related to Craft (Marta)
Element
Examples from Lessons
Sentence Variation
•
Arranging words and ideas in ways that made sense
and were unique and interesting
1) multiple contributions of ideas
2) restating students ideas
•
1) Text: "The paper clip will move on
the top of the piece of paper if you
move the magnet underneath the
paper." was decided on by consensus
after contributions of ideas by ten
children
2) Jeremy suggests "Sometimes little
magnets pick up a lot instead of just a
little bit". Marta repeats and Jeremy
adds, "because they have stronger
pulls than big ones"
Recognizing that a single idea can be expressed in
many different ways
1) using various resources as models
1) The children's Idea for label in
illustration for text about dropping
magnet came from book Tickleoctopus,
a book that the children had read
multiple times
2) using different text features
2) Children suggest putting labels on
flaps and including captions for
pictures
Audience (writing with the reader in mind)
•
Standing outside the writing and considering
elements from a reader's point of view
1) adding pictures to help a reader better
understand a text
1) Marta states, "You know how it's
easier to understand things when they
have pictures?..."
2) organizing the writing so that a reader can
follow the writer's intentions
2) Marta states, "Listen. You can't do
'Do you know what happens?' until we
tell them (audience) what we're
doing..."
Figure 4.11. Summary of elements addressed related to the craft of writing in
Marta's classroom (Continued)
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Figure 4.11: Continued
Element
Examples from Lessons
Audience (continued)
3) When a child has to explain the
direction of the pull in her drawing for
the magnet piece, Marta asks, "...but
Cindy, what do we need to add to your
group's illustration?" to which the
children responded, "arrows"
3) providing the reader with accurate details
both in writing and illustration
Evaluating the writing
•
Marta and the children have a
conversation about choice of word
repel and why they were glad they
wrote it
Rethinking word choice based on genre and concept
•
Children decide between using
the words pull together or attract
•
Soliciting the opinions and feedback of others
•
Marta asks for my opinion about if
I think "they will attract" sounds
right
•
Assessing how clearly ideas are expressed both in
written text and illustrations
•
•
Providing accurate pictures that support text in
informational writing
Marta asks questions about
leaving out parts of an idea and if
anything needs to be added to
illustrations
•
When children finished
illustrations for magnet piece,
Marta has them look at each
picture to see if it accurately
represents the information in the
text
•
Judging writing based on satisfaction of the crafted
ideas
•
Revision
•
Coming up with a better way to say something
1) building on or improving another person's
idea
1) Frank revises Cindy's idea. "Some
magnets get dropped and they get
weaker and weaker." becomes, "If you
drop a magnet, the magnetic field will
get weaker and weaker."
(Continued)
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Figure. 4.11: Continued
Revision (continued)
2) Holden composes an awkward
sentence,
"What does happen?" that Marta
revises
2) reconsidering sentences with awkward
structure
3) changing a word based on clarity and
specificity
•
3) The children revise to use more
scientific words - attract and repel
Adjusting the text based on anticipation of audience
or readers' reactions
1) refining to make a text more accurate or clear
2) adding details to text or illustration so that
reader will have a better understanding
1) Cindy revises Frank's idea, "If you
drop a magnet, the magnetic field will
get weaker and weaker" becomes, "If
you drop a magnet a lot of times, the
magnetic field will get weaker and
weaker."
2) Children suggest adding the label
'paper' to an illustration that might be
interpreted by a reader to be a table
Teacher Decision Making During Interactive Writing
Like Ruth, Marta made decisions during the planning, composing and
constructing stages of creating a text. However, unlike Ruth, Marta approached
composing the text in interactive writing with the understanding that the children
would make most of the decisions with only a little guidance from her. Marta was
able to lead the children in a certain direction because she had determined a focus
based on the needs of the students. She capitalized on the opportunities for
addressing her students needs and understandings through the different projects
because she was aware of what she wanted to teach. Marta had her broad
objectives
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in mind before beginning each interactive writing session and allowed the lessons
to flow naturally while inserting her teaching points based on the contributions of
the children.
Most of the decisions that Marta made were intentional as evidenced by her
explicit articulation of these decisions during conversations that we had preceding
and following each interactive writing session. She revealed that she thought about
the curriculum requirements and her own ideas about what the children needed to
meet the objectives set forth by the district as she made decisions for the projects
(MP, Int.1, p. 6) . She disclosed that she spent more time during the lessons on
composing the text rather than on constructing because she wanted the children to
become more sophisticated in their composition in their own writing (MP, Int. 1, p.
8, MP, OBS, 4/17/00, p. 13). She modeled the time and effort needed for
composing during interactive writing because as she stated, "I want them (the
students) to understand that it takes time to generate ideas and develop stories (MP,
OBS, 4/17/00, p. 13). She thought it was important for the children to hear their
sentences before they actually wrote them (MP, OBS, 4/13/00, p. 9) which
provided an insight into the decision to restate the children's ideas. She allowed
the children opportunities to try or revisit an experiment during an interactive
writing lesson. An explicit example of this was when she took Cindy's idea about a
magnet's pull being strong enough to travel through a book and tried it with a thin
book and dictionaries with 719 and 924 pages. She conducted the experiment right
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in the middle of the interactive writing lesson (MP, OBS, 4/18/00, pp. 3-5). She
tried out the idea because as she explained, the children only needed to consider
writing it if the idea actually worked (MP, FN, 4/18/00, p 33). .
Marta appeared to base some of her decisions on the fact that she needed to
keep the lesson moving. On a few occasions, she decided on how an idea would be
worded. After Holden's awkward suggestion about how to word the question on
the first day of my observations, she asked the children, "How about, What will
happen?" (MP, OBS, 4/13/00, p.8). Ali made another suggestion for a way to state
the idea, but Marta ignored her suggestion. Perhaps this was because she was still a
bit taken back by Holden's inability to structure his idea as she commented on this
following the lesson (MP, OBS, 4/13/00, p. 9). In another situation, David
suggested changing the paper clip idea to include two paper clips rather than one.
Marta commented, "How about if we don't put two in there because we already
started with one (MP, OBS, 4/17/00, p. 7). When Marta made decisions about how
to word a text, it seemed to be because she wanted to keep the children from getting
bogged down with the wording of one idea.
For almost every decision Marta made, she provided an explanation or
rationale as to why she made it. Her comments provided evidence that she used her
knowledge of interactive writing, the writing process, and how children learn to
inform the decisions that she made.
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Summary
Much like Ruth, Marta addressed many different elements related to craft
during her interactive writing lessons (figure 4.10). She was intentional about the
elements that she wanted the children to experience and planned for lessons
according to the strengths and needs of her students.
Marta acted as a facilitator during the negotiation of text and very rarely
entered into the composing process with her own ideas or suggestions. By
allowing the children to make decisions, she gave them the tools and
understandings to make the same decision on their own while writing
independently.
Through her explicit comments, Marta helped the children put words with
the elements of craft such as revising, labeling and putting captions. She helped the
students to learn about different genres and the elements associated with each
because they engaged in different types of writing in their interactive writing
projects. Marta helped the children understand that they could use texts written by
other authors as well as their peers as resources for writing.
Marta provided the children with an awareness of how important craft in
writing is. She and the students summed it up nicely in the following interaction:
Marta: We can do the writing part of this quickly tomorrow, because we
did most of the thinking part today. So, we will finish this tomorrow and I
will write myself a note, so that I don't forget what your words were.
Researcher: You know Miss P, I was thinking as you were saying that just
how much time an author needs to think before they write.
Children: A lot
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Marta: It is a lot
Child: I think at least four minutes.
I: Or more than that maybe, because you know what? We spent more time
thinking than we spent writing our words down.
Researcher: I think today, you spent about 22 minutes thinking about what
you were going to write.
Children: Wow!
Marta: You know why? We want our ideas to be the best that they can be.
That's why.
Child: We want them (the readers) to understand it (our writing), too.
Marta: I think you're right! (MP, OBS, 4/18/00, p. 9)
Analysis Across Teachers
Ruth and Marta both used interactive writing as a context for teaching
children about craft in writing; however, there were several differences between the
two teachers in the ways that they engaged children in the process of planning for
and composing a text and in the ways that they made decisions.
Ruth provided a strong demonstration of the kinds of learning opportunities
revealed in previous studies. Children in her classroom learned much about what
writers do to construct words and sentences through interactive writing. Possibly,
seeing these components as the central goal of interactive writing, Ruth moved
away from interactive writing to focus on more independent writing and reading
across the year. Ruth's role in interactive writing was that of director and
demonstrator. She determined much of what would occur in the writing and
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provided the children with this information rather than involving the students in
making these decisions during planning and composing. Nevertheless, it was
probably Ruth's concrete demonstrations as she assisted the children in composing
sentences that made sense and portrayed the content that contributed to her students
gaining some knowledge about craft in writing through interactive writing. Some
of the key elements that Ruth taught through demonstration during interactive
writing that related to craft in writing were:
•
using sequence words to organize a text that reports on steps and
findings of an experiment
•
adding to a sentence in order to provide the reader with a clearer
understanding of an idea
•
revisiting a text through rereading to determine if there are ideas that
need to be revised because the information is not presented clearly or
because they do not make sense
•
revising a suggested sentence for an expository text that did not
accurately present information
•
varying sentences and including elements such as labels as a way to
keep the writing interesting
•
phrasing an idea in multiple ways
Although Ruth made decisions such as what to write and what to address
related to craft during the phases of planning and negotiating a text, she seemed to
have a difficult time reflecting on why she made these decisions. Perhaps, Ruth's
theories about interactive writing and the ways that she went about engaging in the
process were so deeply ingrained that she made decisions without having to really
think about what she was doing. In other words, like many educators, she may
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have made decisions as she was teaching based on deeply and unconsciously held
knowledge and beliefs about her group of students, the curriculum and how
children learn. She probably had minimal experience with providing explanations
for her actions; thus, when I asked her to discuss her decisions, she was at a loss for
how to articulate her rationales.
Marta contributed additional information to this study by making evident
how to use interactive writing to demonstrate what goes on in writers' heads as they
engage in composition. She provided explicit examples of what writers consider in
regards to craft in her conversations with and her questions to the children. She
made the transparent process of composing more apparent to the children by
incorporating the following techniques into her teaching:
•
exposing the students to a variety of texts through reading and talking
about what the writers of these text do in their own writing that makes
it "good" or interesting
•
encouraging the children to participate in the process of determining the
format and brainstorming ideas for a text
•
soliciting the opinions and feedback from peers
•
listening to and accepting the contributions of the students even when
they are in disagreement with her own ideas
•
allowing more time for the children to contribute multiple ideas during
composing by taking over more of the responsibility of writing the text
so that time spent on constructing is minimal
•
articulating her own thinking about an idea or helping children put into
words their thinking in a way that benefits the understandings of the
group of writers
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Marta acted as a facilitator and guide in the process. She allowed the students to
serve as resources to each other as they wrestled with the complexities of
composing. Through her teaching actions, Marta actively involved her children in
considering elements of craft that were not just unique to a particular interactive
writing session, but were ideas that they could apply to many other writing
situations.
Marta seemed to make decisions based upon reflection of the teaching and
learning context and upon her ideas about and goals for interactive writing. Based
on the conversations that Marta and I had preceding and following lessons and on
the information that she provided during an interview, most of the decisions that
she made were intentional. Marta appeared to be comfortable reflecting on her
decisions and had very little difficulty articulating motives for her actions. Marta
was probably more comfortable sharing her thoughts with me because she had
many opportunities to do this as she worked with individuals at the university and
as a result of participating in two previous dissertation studies in which she was
probed to reflect on her actions. As a result of reflection, Marta's ideas about using
interactive writing as a teaching tool were constantly being challenged and refined
rather than remaining stagnant. She challenged herself to think about how
interactive writing could serve as context for helping children develop not only as
constructors of text, but as composers as well as evidenced by her reflections on
why she included interactive writing in her curriculum up until almost the last day
of school:
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I think interactive writing is such a wonderful way not only to teach
children skills for writing, but how to be meaning makers, how to make
what they want to say clearer and better and more powerful. I think that
first graders - capable first graders- by the end of the year, they know how
to put words on the paper. They (her first graders) may not be able to spell
every word correctly and they may have some things that they obviously
need to work on as far as mechanics, but through interactive writing this
year I feel like I have helped them become more sophisticated about
understanding that there are so many different ways that you can say the
same thing. Some ways of saying (composing) it convey the message so
much better. It's either clearer to the reader or it's more interesting to the
reader or it's easier for the writer to put down. All this knowledge (about
writing) takes some time to acquire and I think that once first graders have
gotten some of those other things under control, they are able then to hone
their skills and become more complete writers. It's the kind of writing that
we value children being able to do, to write clearly, to write more
powerfully. (MP, Int. 1, p. 4)
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CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
Writing instruction has become an important part of the curriculum in most
elementary school classrooms. Young children bring a great deal of knowledge
about writing with them when they enter school and it is the job of the teacher to
continue to build on this knowledge and move students towards becoming better,
more developed writers. Learning to write well involves developing a complex set
of understandings. Teachers have to acquire techniques for teaching writing that
help develop the writing process in both the areas of constructing a text and
composing a text. Many researchers have studied techniques to teach the writing
process and much has been written about these techniques (Graves, 1983; Fletcher,
1992; Calkins, 1983).
Interactive writing is an instructional context where students and teacher
share the pen as they collaboratively compose a text. As an unscripted literacy
event, interactive writing allows teachers to use the understandings that they have
about their students’ abilities as writers and their own knowledge of the writing
process to model and discuss elements of writing that they want their students to
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employ as they write independently. Teachers can scaffold the learning not only of
the group, but also of the individual child as they plan for and make moment to
moment teaching decisions during the interactive writing lesson.
The Problem of the Study
The primary purpose of this study was to document how two experienced
first grade teachers used interactive writing in their classroom as an explicit
teaching technique for helping children develop strategies for thinking about
elements of craft in writing and to identify the specific elements associated with the
craft of writing that emerged as they assisted children in negotiating a text. A
qualitative case study was conducted in the teachers' classrooms to observe their
teaching practices during interactive writing.
Four questions guided the inquiry:
• How do teachers plan for interactive writing and what specifically do
they consider about their students' knowledge of composition or craft as
they plan?
• What elements of composition or craft are attended to during the
interactive writing session?
• How are dialogue and discussion used during the interactive writing
lesson to support the students' understandings of the craft of writing?
•
What guides the teachers' moment to moment decision making during
interactive writing?
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Procedures
I used a collective case study methodology to examine how the two first
grade teachers (Ruth and Marta) addressed the craft of writing during the context of
interactive writing in their classrooms. Ten observations during interactive lessons
in each of the two teachers' classrooms served as the primary source of data
collected for analysis. I collected data in the form of videotapes of lessons, audio
taped interviews, field notes, photographs, and children's writing samples over a six
week period in the Spring of 1999 - 2000 school year.
Data analysis was ongoing and recursive. Videotapes and audio tapes were
transcribed and a data record was constructed. The data were then coded and
analyzed to determine patterns related to the above questions.
Findings
The two teachers who served as cases for this study represent the diversity
in teachers in classrooms that use interactive writing as a curricular component for
teaching children about elements of writing. Up until this point, the literature about
interactive writing had largely focused on how children participated in this group
activity and took from the highly scaffolded context procedures for getting their
ideas down through constructing words arranged in sentences or other formats. In
this study, I did not set out to compare the cases, but to examine the interactive
writing instruction by two teachers with different personalities and styles to gather
as much information as possible about: (1) features addressed in relation to the
writer’s craft; and, (2) the potential use of interactive writing as a technique to
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assist children in learning about craft. Ruth and Marta, the two teachers who
participated in the study, supplied information rich settings within which to collect
data. Through the use of a qualitative case study methodology, I captured nuances
and subtleties which made each context unique. Examination of instruction in
these contexts provides authentic teaching scripts from which teachers and
researchers can gain insights into the variation in ways that the craft of writing can
be addressed through the negotiation of the message during interactive writing.
Looking across teachers, I identified commonalities associated with the elements of
craft that each addressed, thus extending the body of research beyond that which is
presented in previous studies of interactive writing.
The information gleaned from the analysis of data within and across the two
cases provided information that helped answer the four questions that guided the
study. The four questions will be used as a tool for organizing, presenting, and
discussing the results of this study.
Question One: Planning for Interactive Writing
The first question focused on how the teachers planned for the interactive
writing sessions based on their students' knowledge about the craft of writing. As
the question was examined in the data analysis, it seemed relevant to divide this
question into two categories that were somewhat interrelated: (1) How do teachers
plan for interactive writing? and (2) How do teachers help the children plan during
interactive writing?
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How the Teachers Planned for Interactive Writing
Teachers plan lessons in an effort to help children move forward in their
understanding of a subject. Often times as they plan, they consider guidelines set
forth by entities outside of their classrooms such as textbook companies or school
district personnel. Teachers plan using this criteria because it is required or
expected. Many teachers plan based on their previous experiences or traditions.
For example, a teacher who has in the past taught a particular skill in a particular
grade may continue to do so because that is what (s)he has done in the past. Other
teachers plan based on what they know about their particular students' knowledge
and strengths and their needs. These teachers examine student work samples and
make mental, as well as, written notes of children's response and contributions
during the day to day teaching contexts in the classroom.
In this study, both teachers relied on a variety of information for planning.
Both used the district curriculum guidelines to inform their planning for interactive
writing. Both planned interactive writing projects around the social studies and
science curriculum. They used district requirements for instruction in the content
areas as a resource for topics of informational texts. Marta especially talked about
the ways that she used the district's writing guidelines to organize writing projects
based on genres other than informational text.
Because it was Marta's first year in a first grade classroom, she did not
have previous grade level experience from which to draw. She did, however, have
kindergarten experience and used that knowledge of children’s capabilities to think
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about first grade. She was very conscious of moving them forward as writers and
knew that once they began to understand the way that letters and sounds worked
that she had to bring another focus to the forefront to continue to see a benefit in
interactive writing. She spent more time composing with the children and less time
allowing them to act as scribe and her plans primarily focused on supporting
elements of craft.
Ruth on the other hand, had all of her experience with interactive writing in
first grade. At the point when the data were collected, Ruth was still allowing the
children to act as primary scribes of the text. Ruth's plans for what to teach during
interactive writing focused mainly on the constructing process and hearing sounds
in words rather than on the craft of writing. She knew what beginning first graders
could do and made few shifts in interactive writing to move her children forward in
the area of composing or crafting a text.
Although both teachers claimed to have used writing samples and
contributions during interactive writing as a guide for how to plan for future
instruction, Marta mentioned specifics about what individual children were capable
of or where they were lacking in developing writing strategies that were related to
crafting or composing a text. When Ruth talked about individual children as
writers, as it related to planning, she focused on mechanics and spelling. Marta
seemed comfortable in thinking about composing in her planning; whereas, Ruth
expressed uncertainty about what I meant by crafting the writing or planning for the
composing process which may indicate that she holds a different definition. As
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teachers examine their students’ writing, they tend to focus on their own definitions
and what they find most important. Although some elements of craft did emerge as
the interactive writing lessons took place in Ruth's room, her focus on form may
have kept her from explicitly planning for elements related to craft during
interactive writing instruction.
Ruth's considerations while planning were what Dewey (1933) defined as
routine. She based her plans on what she perceived was expected of her and on
what she was comfortable with based on her prior experiences. Ruth planned
primarily for what she wanted the children to learn and do on the current interactive
writing project. She focused her planning on content and on what she might do
during the lessons related to constructing and let teaching opportunities related to
craft emerge as she conducted the lesson.
Marta's actions related to planning were more reflective (Dewey, 1933).
She searched for ways to continue to support her children through interactive
writing as they were progressing as writers. Marta was able to reflect on her
actions, actions consistent with Schon’s (1983) descriptions of the reflective
practitioner, following each lesson and used her insights as she planned for future
lessons. As a result of planning, Marta was able to stand back from the writing,
thus allowing the children opportunities to take control and make decisions as
writers that would help them not only in the current piece, but as writers in general.
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How the Teachers Helped the Children Plan During Interactive Writing
Interactive writing is a group process that is based on a common experience.
Both teachers in the study created common experiences for children through using
books, discussions, and hands-on activities. Having an opportunity to explore the
topic before writing helped the children with text negotiation and composing in
several ways. The children had knowledge of the topic from which they could
draw to compose, and they had the vocabulary associated with the topic that they
could use as they were writing. Marta's children also had an awareness of how
'real' authors crafted their writing because she helped the students notice things
related to craft in the books that she read aloud to them. Because Marta exposed
her students to an array of literary forms, they developed what King (1989) called
"an ear for expressive language". They used this knowledge as they composed
during interactive writing. The children in Marta's classroom also took powerful
ideas from their independent writing and their previously written interactive writing
pieces and used them as they planned for a new project. They were most likely
able to do this because they shared, discussed, and went back to these pieces on
multiple occasions.
One strategy that young writers employ is to sit down to write without
thinking through what they want to say or how they want to organize their writing
(Dahl & Farnan, 1998). Both teachers in this study made decisions about the topics
for interactive writing and relayed their decisions to the children. Ruth also made
decisions about the format for the piece, while Marta, set up the context, then lead
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the children in making decisions about the format or organization for their
interactive writing. Allowing the children to make format decisions appeared to
provide the children with ideas to add to the repertoire of strategies for writing that
they already possessed.
Children often write without a plan in mind (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987).
Marta assisted the children in developing a plan for a retelling of a folktale before
the actual writing began. She and the children made lists of ideas and from these
lists made decisions about what to include in their writing. They had their plan in
mind and used it to guide the writing of their own folktale based on the one that
they had read. Goldstein and Carr (1996) found that teachers who encouraged
students to use prewriting or planning strategies produced better writers who
attained higher scores on writing tests. Marta not only encouraged students to use
planning strategies, but also modeled and supported the process so that the children
would know how to create a plan when writing independently.
The findings in this study showed that the teachers considered different
criteria when planning based on their goals for writing. These criteria seemed to
guide Ruth and Marta's decisions as they worked with the children to plan and as
they provided instruction during interactive writing. Evidence from observations in
the two first grade classrooms, indicated that the students experienced planning for
writing, but revealed that turning the process over to the students was related to
greater activity relative to the aspects of planning and craft.
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Question 2: Elements of Craft Attended to During Interactive Writing
Crafting or composing in writing occurs when writers take their ideas and
mold, shape and organize them in a way to portray a clear, coherent message. By
the nature of the writing process, both teachers exposed their students to elements
related to crafting or composing a text during interactive writing.
Sentence Variation
The teachers in this study helped their students think about varying the
sentences in an effort to make their writing interesting. Marta encouraged multiple
contributions during composing and the children responded as evidenced in the
sentence variation in their written products. Marta also helped the children refine
and revise their ideas by repeating their sentences back to them so that they could
identify ways to extend a thought or add details.
Eckoff (1983) found that children's writings were influenced by the texts
that they read independently or that they heard read aloud. In Marta's classroom
the children seemed to benefit from exposure to a variety of literature. The
knowledge that the students gained from hearing lots of stories and books read
aloud and from discussing the texts as a group may have contributed to their
thinking about language, sentence structure and word choice as well as format as
they composed a text.
In Ruth's room, the children did not always compose their sentences on their
own, but Ruth did provide them with demonstrations of various ways to craft a text.
She also made suggestions to the children about different ways to vary their
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sentences or to change their ideas. This explicit use of demonstration may have
provided the children with insights into ways that they could vary their texts as they
engaged in independent writing.
Although Ruth read aloud to her students frequently, they spent more time
reading books, either independently or with teacher support, at their own levels.
Many of these books had simple sentences and repeating sentence patterns. Ruth's
children tended to compose simple, less sophisticated sentences, perhaps reflecting
their current expectations of what a written text should "sound" like. The students
in Ruth's classroom may not have had access to as many different types of writing
as did Marta's. Perhaps, as a result, they did not place as much emphasis on
multiple ways to compose a sentence. Ruth's children tended to compose simple,
less sophisticated sentences.
Audience
Both teachers helped the children think about audience as they were crafting
their texts in interactive writing. Graves (1975) found that young children were
egocentric in their writing. They could not see beyond their own interpretations of
their writing to consider what others might think or how they might react to the
writing. In this study, the teachers repeatedly referred to considering the intended
audience as they were writing. The teachers helped the children make decisions
such as using a question rather than a statement to involve an intended reader and
considering details in drawings from the point of view of the audience. Through
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their questions and responses, the teachers helped the children realize that they had
to craft their writing in a way that was clear to their audience because they would
not be present to explain their text to the reader.
Evaluation
Writers constantly evaluate their texts. When writers are satisfied with their
writing, they move on to write more or to publish. When they are dissatisfied,
often times they revise. Evaluation forces writers to think like readers. They have
to stand outside their writing and make judgments from the reader’s point of view.
In this study, the teachers had the children evaluate their texts for clarity, accuracy,
and satisfaction with ideas. Evaluation always followed the rereading of a text.
Both Ruth and Marta emphasized evaluating the effectiveness of the
writing, but in different ways. Ruth often asked the children to evaluate whether
they liked a specific aspect of a text rather than asking them what their thoughts
were about a text that they had composed. Her words were not precisely a prompt
to re-examine the text for possible revision opportunities. It may be that her
purpose was to help the students know that writers should feel satisfaction with
what they write. Ruth asked her children to reread a text to assess the completeness
and clarity of their ideas. Her purpose here may have been to help the students
view the text as readers, identifying possible areas of confusion, a technique they
can later use as writers.
Marta also involved the children in the process of rereading and revisiting a
text to evaluate it for clarity and accuracy, usually by inquiring what the students
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thought. An example occurred on the day when the children illustrated their
magnet text. Many teachers would have accepted the children's illustrations as they
were; however, Marta used this example to teach evaluation. The children
examined each of the pictures and assessed whether a reader would understand
what the illustrators were trying to portray through their drawings. She also had the
students evaluate whether the picture matched the idea stated in the text.
Throughout the process, she solicited the children's opinions and their ideas for
revision. Based on observation, the children were actively involved in the process
and seemed to find assessing the pictures and coming up with ideas for revision
relatively easy. The ease with which the children participated in the task may have
been a result of being asked to evaluate others works as well as their own. The
children may have been quick to offer suggestions, because Marta encouraged them
to consult and assist each other in all elements of the writing process.
The teachers in this study provided the children with opportunities and
assisted them in reflecting on what they wrote. Through their demonstrations and
questions, Ruth and Marta furnished the children with ideas for questions that they
could ask themselves as they engaged in writing independently.
Revision
Revision occurs at two point during writing: after a text is written as
authors go back and make changes and as the composing and constructing is taking
place as writers reconsider their text. Revision occurs because the writer is
unsatisfied with some element of the composed text. In this study, revision
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occurred for a multitude of reasons. At times, the children returned to the text after
rereading it to change something that they had written. Children also made
changes because they anticipated that their intended audience might be confused.
Often, children revised because their peers suggested ideas that they could
incorporate into their own ideas to make them better. At times, revision was
necessary because the sentence structure was awkward and did not sound right
when read aloud. Ruth usually brought the dilemma up to her children and
prompted them to reconsider what they had written. She provided ideas and
suggestions for ways that they could change the text. In Marta's room, she
sometimes pointed out the concerns that she had with parts of the writing, but many
times the children discovered problems with the writing on their own. Bereiter and
Scardamalia (1987) found that children could be taught specific revision routines.
Although the teachers helped the students consider revision in this study, they did
not teach a specific routine for revising.
As I looked across elements that the teachers addressed related to craft, it
was somewhat difficult to separate them into distinct categories because they are so
intricately intertwined with one element overlapping or influencing another. The
commonality between them all seems to link back to awareness of audience. If
teachers neglect to provide authentic purposes for writing and if they do not help
children develop ways to determine an audience for a piece, than the considerations
that authors have to make when composing or crafting a text may become mundane
or meaningless.
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Question 3: Using Dialogue and Discussion to Support the Students'
Understandings of the Craft of Writing
The lessons followed a pattern in which the writers negotiated text by
composing sentences for the group to consider. The teacher or the students
selected which sentence most accurately portrayed their intended message. The
sentence was written and then the text was reread before the process started all over
again.
Vygotsky proposed that social interaction promotes cognitive development
and learning. In interactive writing, composing or crafting the message is a group
rather than individual process. The children crafted a message in their heads and
then orally offered their ideas to the group. The dialogue that the classes had with
their teacher and with their peers around the suggested message helped the children
create knowledge about the craft of writing.
In Marta's classroom, the children offered many suggestions that through
discussion were often revised or refined by the teacher or by peers. Marta often
provided suggestions that the children disagreed with or challenged. Often when
this happened, Marta stepped back, listened to, and responded to the students' ideas.
By taking a supportive rather than directive role, Marta allowed the children to
work out some of their own problems around the crafting of the text. By listening,
she also gained information about the children's understandings that she could later
refer back to during interactive writing or as she conferenced with the children
during independent writing times. On multiple occasions, the children wrestled
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with different ways to word an idea. By allowing the writers time to hear multiple
ideas, Marta forced the children to weigh and analyze suggestions before the pen
was put to the paper. Marta also phrased her questions in such a way that the
children took an active, thinking role. The turn taking was often not the typical
teacher-child, teacher-child interaction, but more conversational with the children
serving as resources to each other. According to Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987),
allowing writers to participate in group interactions such as these promotes a higher
level of awareness of the writing process especially as it relates to planning.
In Ruth's classroom, children tended to suggest fewer alternative sentences
prior to writing. Ruth appeared to be more concerned with moving into text
construction, perhaps because she viewed this element as being of greater benefit to
her students. Consequently, the dialogue was seldom extended and Ruth usually
suggested the sentence that the students eventually wrote. Ruth frequently asked a
question or made a comment in which a viable sentence was imbedded. The
children appeared to have learned to look for these suggestions and then used them
to produce the desired sentence. There were times when Ruth would ask the
children to contribute ideas for what to write, and they offered no suggestions. As
Cazden (1988) has suggested, a teacher's interactions can influence the
contributions of the learners. It may be that the children in Ruth's room had figured
out a system. They knew that Ruth had an idea in mind for the way the sentence
might be crafted and if they made no suggestions she would eventually get around
to doing the composing work for them.
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Crafting a message is a transparent process that goes on inside the head of
the writer. Graves (1983) found that teachers, who were able to verbalize the
thinking that they were doing as they were composing, helped children better
understand this process. Although the teachers in this study were not modeling
their own process during interactive writing, there were times when they explicitly
discussed how an element associated with craft might be used. In Marta's
classroom, several of the ideas that the class discussed explicitly and extensively,
such as adding details, were at a later time brought up again for consideration by
the children. Ruth's children were able to internalize the concepts related to craft
that she brought up enough that when she referred back to a particular element at
another point in time, the students were able to consider it and answer Ruth's
questions related to how they might use it.
One can never know exactly what children take away or internalize from
participating in a dialogue. Graves (1983), however, suggested that children will
select the points that are most relevant to their needs at a particular point in time.
Through conversation and dialogue the teachers in this study provided information
related to composing or crafting the writing that their students could use
independently in their own writing.
Question 4: Teacher's Moment to Moment Decision Making
Teachers are faced with making thousands of simple and significant
decisions over the course of the day. During interactive writing, teachers have to
make decisions about such things as what to teach, what to write, what to ask and
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how to ask it, when to turn control over to the children, when to provide extra
support to the children, and how to pace the lesson. The decisions that teachers
make can make a difference in how much their children learn.
Before the lesson, the teachers in this study made decisions about the
writing topic that influenced their actions during the lessons. Both teachers based
some of their decisions about what to write on the social studies and science
curriculum. Writers write best about topics with which they have great familiarity
(Graves, 1983). Both teachers made decisions about how the children would learn
about their topic and provided the children with experiences to help them expand
their content knowledge. Marta spent several weeks on building the children's
background knowledge before the writing began. The children learned about the
topic in many different ways. Marta allowed the children to learn about the topic
through hands on experimentation. Every child had the opportunity to experiment
and before the writing of the text began, she also held many conversations with the
children about what they were discovering. These decisions influenced the
children's abilities to negotiate sentences during the actual interactive writing
lesson. Ruth also spent time building the children's background knowledge. Often,
the children wrote about the topic several days or weeks after the original
experiences with the topic. The information from which they drew was not fresh in
their minds. These factors may have contributed to difficulty in composing
sentences for these young children.
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Before beginning a lesson, Marta decided on her focus for teaching. She
used her knowledge of the expectations for writing from the district, her knowledge
about what the children knew and could control based on her perusal of the
children's writing samples, and what she noticed about the children's contributions
in previous interactive writing sessions to guide these decisions. Often the
decisions that she made during the actual writing reflected the focus for the lesson.
According to information that Ruth provide during interviews and in discussions
before lessons, she had an idea about the content and about what she would focus
on as the children constructed the text, but had made few explicit decisions about
the specifics that she wanted her children to learn about craft in writing. Ruth stuck
to the goal of clear communication and assumed learning would occur through
participation. According to her comments, she based many of her decisions on her
intuitive knowledge about writing and the needs of the children. Because her focus
was usually on construction rather than craft during the lesson, the teaching for
craft tended to be incidental; although, the demonstrations she provided helped the
children participate.
The ways in which the teachers conceived of the context of interactive
writing also influenced their decisions about what to teach. Marta considered
interactive writing to be aligned with the writing process, a theory that probably
contributed to her focusing interactive writing lessons in ways that supported all
parts of the writing process including planning and publishing. According to
information gathered in interviews and discussions prior to and following the
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lessons, Marta made decisions before and during the lessons that she thought would
help her students develop their individual writing processes. Ruth's conceptions of
the contributions and benefits of interactive writing focused more on the
construction of text. Although interactive writing in her room demonstrated the
writing process, Ruth's beliefs about interactive writing being a context for
expanding children's understandings about spelling, how words work and
mechanics influenced the decisions that she made on where to spend her time
during the lessons.
Finally, an important factor that seemed to contribute to the decisions that
the teachers made as they planned for interactive writing were their own
understandings related to the craft of writing. Marta seemed to have an
understanding about what elements in writing were associated with craft and
thought about them as she planned. Because Marta had this knowledge base, when
an opportunity for teaching about the element came up during writing, she was able
to take advantage of it. Although Ruth addressed elements of craft in her lessons,
she did not explicitly identify these elements or address them with great emphasis
as she planned for lessons and was not cognizant of them as she taught.
Teacher’s decisions and thinking before lessons informed the decisions that
they made during lessons. They kept their knowledge about what the children
knew and their own understandings and biases about writing in mind and drew
from it during the composing and constructing of the text.
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Schon (1983) proposed that teachers reflect and make adjustments to
instruction while participating in the act of teaching. Both teachers made decisions
while the interactive writing lessons were taking place. One of the significant
decisions that they made was determining what the children would write based on
their suggested composed sentences. Ruth made these decisions based on what
she had in mind for the writing. Her comments indicated that she had an idea in
mind for what she wanted put on the paper before the interactive writing session
began and she guided the children into crafting a sentence related to that idea.
When the children came close to what she wanted in their suggestions, she adjusted
her comments and questions so that the children's contributions fit her intentions.
Ruth's actions seemed to be part of a routine technique that she had for interactive
writing and on her perceptions of her role as the teacher. Virtually every sentence
that was composed, was based upon the teacher's original suggestion. She often
ignored alternatives that deviated from her original plan; and, when she did allow
the children's contributions to influence her decision to proceed in a different
direction, she usually went back to her idea at another point in time.
Marta revealed that several different things influenced the decisions that she
made about what to write. Although she was the final arbitrator of the
composition, she listened for group consensus. When many of the children were
suggesting the same idea in a different way, then she determined that the idea was
important to them and that they should write it. She also made decisions about
what to write based on how the contributions could be used to refine the children's
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understandings of craft. For example, as the children made multiple suggestions,
she would narrow the ideas down to a few and then would have the children
evaluate which idea they thought was better based on their intentions for the
writing and their feelings of personal satisfaction with the sentence. Sometimes
Marta based her decisions for what to write on how much the negotiated sentence
represented the students' knowledge of subject. When the children suggested a
sentence that Marta thought she could use to extend and clarify their content
knowledge through the discussion leading up to the actual constructing of text, she
would encourage the children to select the idea. Based on her comments, it was
obvious that Marta had reflected on her role as facilitator in the composing process;
although, many of her decisions were made quickly and perhaps even without
conscious thought. Possibly, her theoretical foundations lead to intuitive actions.
However, because Marta had spent time reflecting on her actions after lessons in
the past, she may have built a system of tacit understandings, which influenced her
underlying decisions and allowed her to make decisions in a seemingly intuitive
way. Overall, however, her teaching was highly intentional. She was able to
express a rationale for her teaching plans and important decisions within it.
Marta always reflected aloud on her teaching and what transpired during the
interactive writing lesson following the event. She spontaneously made comments
about her actions and decisions during the lesson and about observations that she
made and insights that she gained about individual children's learning. At times,
her reflections resulted in new actions in future lessons and at times it lead her to
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re-examine a child's understandings based on their abilities in other areas of the
curriculum. Her reflections seemed to affect the decisions that she made. Ruth
expressed some lack of comfort in reflecting aloud on what occurred during the
lesson. She rarely commented on the lesson and when she did it was never related
to her own actions during the lesson but was more about the actions of the children.
When I attempted to get Ruth to reflect by asking her about the decisions that she
made during the lessons, she often had no answer or talked around the question;
however, when I made a suggestion or divulged my interpretations of what she did,
she would often agree. It may be that Ruth preferred simply acting out of her own
beliefs, keeping the focus on the children to becoming highly analytical about her
own teaching. Not all exceptional teachers are inclined to reflecting orally;
however, when they do, they provide a window into their complex decision making
process.
As a participant observer, I also had an influence on the decisions that the
teachers made. My being in the room and the teachers having knowledge of the
questions guiding the study affected the decisions that they made. It may be, for
example, that Marta sometimes intentionally planned and made decisions during
the lesson to provide me with the information that I needed. Ruth may have made
the decision to include interactive writing during her day because I was observing.
With her focus on independent reading and writing, she might not have chosen to
include interactive writing so often at that point during the year. If she were
including interactive writing for this reason, it seems likely that Ruth might have
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taken an approach that helped her to move into the process in a shorter amount of
time rather than spend a great deal of time on composition. My comments also
influenced the decisions that the teachers made regarding the format of a piece.
Ruth made the decision to change the format for one of the projects that the
children were writing based on a suggestion that I made and Marta allowed the
children to select a format based on a contribution that I made during an interactive
writing session.
The goal for interactive writing is for every child to gain a deeper
understanding of the writing process and to learn techniques that writers employ as
they write. Teachers need to be aware of how their decisions are impacting the
actions of their students not only during the interactive writing, but as they write
independently. According to Schon (1983) and Valli (1997), when practitioners
can reflect on the impact of their decisions, they can make new sense of a context
and can adjust their teaching to better meet the needs of their students.
In summary, the two teachers included in this study, through different
styles, have revealed some important instructional considerations if we want to
provide powerful demonstrations of how educators can assist children in
developing as crafters of texts.
Implications
The findings from this constructivist case study serve as an example of what
might be found in classrooms where teachers use interactive writing as a curricular
component. One can examine the two case studies and look across contexts for
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information that can lead to the drawing of conclusions. From these two cases,
several implications emerge.
1. Teachers using interactive writing in their classrooms need to have an indepth understanding of the writing process and how interactive writing corresponds
to it. Many teachers have used interactive writing to assist children in developing
skills in areas of writing related to the construction of a text. It is easy to document
and identify how children use the information gained from interactive writing as
they construct a text. They provide evidence of learning in their writing samples.
Teachers can see their instruction reflected in the children's independent writing.
Composing is more of an "in the head" process. It is more difficult to look at an
independent writing sample and identify what children are learning about the
composing process through interactive writing because the elements associated
with crafting a message are harder to recognize. Consequently, teachers may not
spend time emphasizing elements related to craft during the negotiation of text.
Thus, the benefits of interactive writing are hard to see once students have acquired
strategies for constructing a text.
Children have to have some knowledge of how to construct a text, but the
majority of the time that a writer spends during writing is related to the crafting of a
message. Young writers often just start writing without having intentions, ideas, or
a direction in mind. Teachers who are cognizant of the writing process and how
they can support it through interactive writing can structure lessons that involve
children in all parts of the process from planning to publication. Through their
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engagement in the process within a highly supported context students can develop
strategies that they can use as they write independently related to all parts of the
writing process including those associated with planning and composing.
2. Teachers’ understandings of elements associated with craft in writing
contribute to their intentionality in teaching for it. According to Donald Graves
(1983), young children think, "when adults write, the words flow, arrive 'Shazam!'
on the page" (p. 43). The teacher's role during the negotiation of text in interactive
writing is to assist the children in learning about what writers do and what they
consider as they work to craft a text. If the teacher is adept at making the process
that normally goes on inside the head of the writer more explicit for the students,
then the student writers can choose the points that are relevant for them to take
back to their independent writing.
Teachers who do not value or who have less knowledge of a subject have a
difficult time providing the explicit teaching that will move children forward in
their abilities. Teachers need opportunities to learn about the composing process
and elements related to the crafting of a message. They can learn about these
elements through reading or by engaging in dialogue with more experienced others.
I hypothesize that Marta's greater emphasis on the composing process was the
result of ongoing dialogue with and support from university personnel who
observed and videotaped in her classroom on a regular basis. I surmise that many
of the sessions in which Marta participated dealt with thinking about strategic
teaching of elements of craft during interactive writing. The conversations that she
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had and her own desire to learn how to better support her children through
interactive writing lead her to seek additional information. Having available
resources in the form of literature on writing and knowledgeable literacy support
staff on a campus can assist teachers in developing their own understandings
related to elements of craft in writing.
3. Providing children with multiple and varied opportunities to explore a
topic before engaging in interactive writing on the topic enhances composing
ability. Having opportunities to explore a topic before the writing occurred
assisted the children in this study with text negotiation and composing. Through
their explorations, the students acquired ideas for writing, vocabulary related to the
topic and knowledge about their subject. Because they had explored a topic, the
children had authentic purposes for writing.
Although reading books can inform an author about a topic, directly
experiencing a phenomenon has greater impact. Marta's children knew a great deal
about magnets because they had participated in various hands on activities that
provide them with knowledge. Ruth's children knew about the water cycle because
they had not only read about the cycle, but they had observed it through a simple
experiment that they conducted in their classroom. Often teachers make the
mistake of having children begin writing about a topic before they have enough
information about the topic from which to draw. When students are "experts" on a
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topic they can take a more active role and the teacher can take a more passive role
in the composing process because the students have a bank of information from
which to draw as they craft a sentence.
4. Teachers need opportunities and support in planning for and reflecting
on what they are teaching during interactive writing. Children learn best when
teachers can support them at a level that is neither too difficult nor too easy.
Teachers need time to plan for instruction based on their children's needs. It takes
time to look at writing samples, but they can provide teachers with valuable
information of what their children are able to use and control and where they have
gaps and need support. Experienced teachers can often use their background
knowledge and experiences to help them plan and provide quality instruction, but
those teachers new to the profession need opportunities to build a knowledge base
to be effective. Having a more experienced other on campus who provides
assistance, can help teachers develop criteria for evaluating writing samples and
can serve as another second observer who can document children's responses,
contributions and learning during the interactive writing lesson which also helps
with planning. A more experienced other can help experienced teachers by helping
them see things during the lesson that they often do not recognize because they
teach with automaticity.
Along with planning time, teachers need opportunities to reflect on their
teaching following their lessons. Reflection can impact the decisions that teachers
make. When teachers have opportunities to dialogue and discuss their concerns
240
and successes with others, it can affect their teaching. Although new ideas do not
always lead to new behaviors (Ostermann & Kotthamp, 1993), without
opportunities to reflect teachers cannot identify their deeply ingrained beliefs and
they cannot make shifts in teaching that could affect the learning of their students.
5. Teachers need to be aware of and make conscious decisions about the
different types of writing they are doing during interactive writing and the different
audiences for which they are having children write. Writing from different genres
forces writers to consider different possibilities. A fictional narrative requires
different considerations and understandings of different elements than an
informational article. When children are exposed to different types of writing
through reading and when they are supported in crafting different types of writing
during interactive writing, they extend their capabilities. Having knowledge of
many different genres, allows the writer to consider different options when
choosing a genre for expressing their thoughts and ideas when writing
independently.
6. Teachers need examples of differing ways to enact a pedagogy. No
two teachers engage in the craft of teaching in exactly the same way. The diversity
across teachers is a product of differing backgrounds and beliefs. We cannot
expect that even when provided with a scripted curriculum that educators will all
teach in identical ways. Teachers need access to examples of variations in teaching
241
techniques such as interactive writing. The examples can serve as demonstrations
for beginning teachers and can provide veteran teachers with information that they
can employ as they compare and reflect on their own practices.
Directions for Further Research
This study presented information of how two first grade teachers addressed
the craft of writing through interactive writing in their first grade classrooms.
Several areas for future research arose during the study. First, I did not examine
how children's writing was affected by how the teachers addressed craft during
interactive writing. By looking at the children's writing, one could see if what the
teachers were teaching was influencing the children as independent writers. It
would be beneficial to know how interactive writing as a specific classroom
teaching technique assists children with their own composing process.
Secondly, additional studies on how educators gain understandings about
craft in writing and how their knowledge impacts their teaching would be worthy of
investigation. This study did not explicitly look at the knowledge of the teachers
regarding craft in writing. We know that when teachers are knowledgeable about a
subject, they are more likely to teach it with success (Graves, 1983). It would be
informative to know what contexts most affect the learning of teachers so that the
contexts can be replicated.
A third area where research could be conducted relates to how teachers vary
interactive writing sessions based on their knowledge of their students’ capabilities.
Some people believe that interactive writing is less powerful and should be
242
discontinued at a point when children have developed independent strategies for
constructing a text. Others believe that interactive writing slows down the process
enough that teachers can make explicit teaching points and support the children to a
high degree in taking on new skills. Can teachers continue to support children in
developing as writers by varying what they teach during interactive writing? This
question requires further investigation.
In this study, the teachers mainly asked their children to write to inform;
thus, they wrote informational texts. Another area where future research could
focus is on looking at the different writing genres that can be explored through
interactive writing in primary grade classrooms. Additional studies on how
teachers plan for teaching the different attributes of a genre, what educators teach
as the children are participating in the writing of these genres, and how teachers
assist children in learning about these genres before engaging in writing would add
to the research on how children acquire knowledge on different writing genres.
Interactive writing is a dynamic, unscripted literacy event that is carried out
in different ways in different classrooms. Additional qualitative studies would
contribute more information to the potential of interactive writing for teaching
students about the craft of writing. By conducting studies that look across a greater
number of teachers with varying amounts of experience and from different
educational backgrounds related to literacy instruction than the teachers included in
this study, researchers could provide additional authentic examples from which
teachers could construct their own scripts for teaching.
243
A last suggestion for further research would be to follow interactive writing
for a more intensified time. I only observed the teachers for ten lessons all situated
within a very short time period. Extending the period of time for observation and
spacing out the observations, could allow a researcher to catch nuances of craft that
did not occur during this study.
Final Thoughts
Interactive writing is a dynamic teaching technique where teachers and
children work together to compose and construct a shared text. Interactive writing
provides a context for helping children understand the decisions that writers make
as they participate in the writing process.
During the teaching of interactive writing in their classrooms, the two
teachers in this study, Ruth and Marta, both addressed elements associated with
craft in writing in the areas of sentence variation, audience, evaluation of writing,
and revision. Although the teachers had similarities in the things on which they
focused during the negotiation of text, their teaching style and the ways that they
chose to involve their students in the process was quite different. Ruth
demonstrated how writers go about composing text. She was direct in her
instruction, often providing the children with her own ideas about how a text
should be composed. Based on analysis, Ruth's children spent more time on
constructing a text, than on composing it. Ruth generally provided the children
with a plan for writing that they carried out as they worked to compose texts with
her guidance. Marta, however, not only demonstrated how writers go about
244
composing a text for her students, but also provided them with concrete examples
of the kinds of things that writers think about when engaged in composition. Based
on analysis, Marta's children spent more time composing a text, than on
constructing it. Marta's served as facilitator or guide during the negotiation of text.
She encouraged conversation among the children and often turned the
responsibility for making decisions about crafting a text over to her students.
From the research included in this study, we can better understand how
various elements related to the writer’s craft can be addressed through the context
of interactive writing. The findings also underscore the fact that teaching is highly
individual. As scripted lessons become more prevalent in language arts
curriculums, there is value in looking at diversity in teaching styles. Rich
descriptions of instructional contexts in classrooms can provide authentic scripts
that assist teachers and researchers in identifying possibilities for variations in
teaching.
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APPENDICES
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APPENDIX A
EXAMPLE OF FIELD NOTES
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256
APPENDIX B
EXAMPLE OF DOCUMENTATION OF TEACHER RESPONSE DURING
PRE-OBSERVATION SESSIONS
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258
APPENDIX C
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
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Interview Questions for Dissertation
1. Teaching experience and background
2. How do you think children become writers?
3. How do you help children develop as writers within your classroom?
4. What kinds of writing opportunities do children have in your classroom?
5. How do you document students’ progress as writers?
6. How have you learned about interactive writing? How long have you been
doing interactive writing?
7. Why do you include interactive writing as a part of the curriculum in your
classroom (value of interactive writing)?
8. What kinds of things do you hope children learn as a result of participating in
interactive writing?
9. How do you use interactive writing to help children understand the writer’s craft
– things such as writing for an audience, deciding on the precise message, revising
a piece of writing, etc?
10. How do you plan for interactive writing? What kinds of things do you
consider as you plan?
11. How do you use children’s independent writing products as you plan for
interactive writing?
12. How do you think reading influences writing?
13. What kinds of products have been written during interactive writing in you
classroom this year?
14. How has interactive writing changed since the beginning of the school year
until now?
15. What kinds of opportunities do children have to write independently? How
often do the children write independently?
16. How often have you done interactive writing this year?
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17. What are your end-of-the-year goals for first grade writers?
18. How as a teacher, do you learn about new teaching techniques?
19. Has any of your thinking about interactive writing shifted since the beginning
of this study?
20. Is there anything else that you would like to tell me that I may not have asked?
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APPENDIX D
PHOTOS OF INTERACTIVE WRITING TEXT
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APPENDIX E
CHILDREN’S WRITING SAMPLES
.
264
Writing Sample from Ruth’s Classroom
265
Writing Sample from Marta’s Classroom
266