Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 1
Diane R. Phelps
University at Buffalo
December 11, 2007
The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of
Education, through Grant PR/Award # R305G040153 to The State University of New York at Buffalo.
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S.
Department of Education. I would like to thank Dr. Mary McVee for guidance in refining the construct of this study, and Dr. James L. Collins for his permission to investigate my hunch and interpret a portion of the WIRC data. The names of all participants to whom I refer in this report have been
changed to protect their privacy.

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 2
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the
age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity . . .
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
Introduction
While many of us would argue that it is an “age of foolishness” with respect to our prevailing American educational policy (Boyd et al, 2006; Coles, 2003; Darling-
Hammond, 2004; Miller, 2006), we on the WIRC research team also like to believe that we are doing something right as we seek to be part of the literacy solution.
At the time this assignment was given, I was grappling with a perplexing
‘mystery’ that had just surfaced from our Writing Intensive Reading Comprehension
(WIRC) Year III data. With the exception of one or two students, the 4 th
grade class of
Mrs. Carpenter (one of my favorite ‘stellar’ teachers) had failed to show improvement on our posttest results. I had systematically observed this teacher all year as she demonstrated high fidelity in implementing our thinksheet (Raphael, Kirschner, &
Englert, 1986) intervention. I had had many conversations with Mrs. Carpenter and I had great respect for her obvious dedication to her work and our ‘WIRC.’ This past summer in a paper I had co-authored (Phelps & Pontrello, 2007) for the WIRC study, I had even selected Mrs. Carpenter to profile as an exemplary teacher. I had written, “It was truly remarkable to observe the progress of Mrs. Carpenter’s students over the year as their knowledge transformational thinksheet experience took them from struggling emergent

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 3 writers to confident authors eager to share their writing with anyone remotely interested.”
What had gone wrong?
I had the privilege of joining the WIRC research team in the fall of 2006. I was assigned to the field observations of twenty experimental and seven control 4 th
and 5 th grade English Language Arts classrooms. All classrooms receiving the WIRC thinksheet intervention had been identified by the State as schools in need of improvement (SINI schools). It was my observation that most of the administrators, teachers, and students with whom I was assigned to work enthusiastically received our team and our thinksheet intervention.
The WIRC Research and the Thinksheet Intervention
The study of reading-writing relations with writing happening apart from reading and usually after reading, has been going on for decades (Tierney & Shanahan, 1991).
The basic premise behind the WIRC grant is that the use of thinksheets integrates reading and writing instruction (Englert & Raphael, 1988) to maximize learning. For our purposes, thinksheets can be defined as step-by-step guides to problem solving designed to be used interactively by teachers with their students (Kirschner & Yates, 1983). The combination of collaborative instruction and textual interaction creates a favorable environment for the development of higher psychological processes (Vygotsky, 1978) of reading comprehension and writing composition.
In his chapter entitled The making of the literate mind, Olson’s (1994) first four general principles about the relation between speech and writing point in the direction of

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 4 our WIRC research. The following principles are of particular relevance: Whorf’s hypothesis on the relation between language and thought (principle one), the interrelatedness of the reading and writing transaction (principle three), and the perspective of putting the meaning before the model (principle four) when learning to read (pp. 258-
263). As thinksheets support students through the process of writing about reading, they bring together two cognitive problem spaces for students—the rhetorical and the content
(Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987).
The Study
Prior to this study, I had been looking the problem of the ‘Carpenter Mystery’ from a socio-cognitive perspective. Because I believed in the validity of what I had observed in the implementation of our WIRC intervention, my hunch was that the disconnect was in our pretest and posttest assessment tools. We had patterned our assessment after the standardized ELA assessment tool used by the state. I was convinced that the heart of the issue had to do with that which was taught not having been measured.
I decided I needed to objectively re-examine the data by conducting a case study to investigate more thoroughly teacher practice. I selected two students with similar profiles: Bobby from the more successful 4 th
grade classroom of Mrs. Lesswing, and
Devan from Mrs. Carpenter’s class. The evidence gathered from this study has caused me to reframe my argument. My new argument is that Mrs. Carpenter’s students never learned how to reappropriate text to make new meaning because they were highly dependent on directly copying from their teacher in two forms: copying from the blackboard as a group, and recording the thoughts and opinions of the teacher during individual writing conferences. One way that might be helpful to think about this in the

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 5 context of WIRC is Pearson’s model of the Gradual Release of Responsibility. It seems like while this teacher may have been a master at scaffolding and supporting students, she wasn’t helping them to move from dependence on her to independence.
Methodology
I approached my case study with ample data. I had the quantative data of Mrs.
Carpenter’s total class gain score as well as the pre and posttest scores. I had the detailed qualitative data from my field notes, the class thinksheets, and teacher and student surveys about the thinksheet intervention. I had also gathered subsequent audio and video tapings and follow-up interviews. I decided to select two similar students from two similar fourth grade classrooms and make a comparison.
Upon first examination, the only noteable difference in the data from teachers I selected was in the total class gain scores. The total average class gain score for our fourth grade experimental classrooms was 7.99. The total gain score of Mrs. Lesswing’s class was 9.43, while Mrs. Carpenter’s class gain score was 3.94. Both boys selected were categorized by the district to be in the lowest scoring group of their grade level: the
‘intensive’ level. Both boys were of African American descent and had trouble staying on task. Bobby (from Mrs. Lesswing’s class) and Devon (from Mrs. Carpenter’s class) both had scores of “1” on the WIRC intervention pretest writing cluster scores. On the posttest, Bobby improved to a “2” in his overall writing cluster score, while Devan remained the same. In fact, Devan actually demonstrated a drop from a “1” to a “0” in posttest reading comprehension, while Bobby demonstrated a slight gain in reading comprehension.

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 6
Aside from comparing the pre and posttest scores of the boys, I also looked at all of the thinksheet writing which had been completed by both boys over the course of the year. They amounted to twelve in all from five different theme units. I then restudied the video data of the learning transactions of each of the boys.
In addition to the total class gain scores and my field notes, I studied the teacher video data paying close attention to “teacher talk” and the teacher’s use of copying as a strategy for learning.
Data Collection
As part of my Graduate Assistant job assignment with the WIRC team this year, I recorded quantitative data on my observation checklist for the fidelity of the implementation of the thinksheet intervention. Over the course of the academic year
(Year III of the WIRC study) I observed for two dozen variables, such as: “Did the students have their books open while using thinksheets?” and “Did the teacher confer with individual students about the selection?” I also recorded qualitative narrative data to provide a “snap-shot” of what occurred during each observation session. Toward the end of the year, I selected three “stellar” experimental classrooms. Two of the three classrooms I selected were those of Mrs. Lesswing and Mrs. Carpenter. We gave all selected teachers audio recorders to capture the audio of the full “WIRC week.” At the same time over the course of one full week, I also video-taped each of these teachers in action as they worked through an entire thinksheet with their respective ELA classes. I followed up this taping with taped interviews of select students from each “stellar” classroom.

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 7
Some charts here summarizing the data set you are working with for this current paper would be helpful
Data Collected Prior To This Study
Of the nineteen students in her class, Mrs. Carpenter explained to me that seven were Hispanic ESL students. Two-thirds of the students in the class were struggling learners with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs)—in this urban district, these students are all classified as being at the “intensive” level. Mrs. Lesswing told me that the demographic data of her classroom was similar: both fourth grade classrooms were located in the same elementary school. In addition, Mrs. Lesswing told me that Bobby had an attention deficit disorder. The audio and video data recorded in the “stellar” teachers classrooms reflected the five day “WIRC week” as based upon the sequential arrangement of the stories in the Harcourt Trophies anthologies used by the district. Over the summer, I systematically examined all of my field data. Based upon my written field notes only, I wrote about my observations in both the experimental and control classrooms (Phelps & Pontrello, 2007). Since September, the WIRC team has been evaluating quantitative data. The break down of the student pre and posttest scores includes: cluster writing scores, three reading comprehension scores, and a mechanics score. We have been paying particular attention to the cluster writing score, the class gain scores, and teacher fidelity and efficacy of intervention implementation.
Data Added For The Purpose Of This Study
For the purpose of this study, I created two master files. The first was a file including all data pertaining to the two students being compared: pre/posttest scores, audio/visual data, and all completed thinksheets. The second file included all classroom

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 8 data for Mrs. Lesswing and Mrs. Carpenter: all completed thinksheets in chronological order, the total class gain scores, the average fourth grade experimental gain score, all video data for both teachers (I did not have time to review the audio data), and a phone interview with Mrs. Lesswing to further discuss her classroom practice.
Data Analysis: The Two Students
The following table represents the data gathered on the pretest and posttests of
Bobby and Devan. The cluster score represents the score on the extended writing section of the thinksheet. The ‘RC’ scores represent scores for a three part short answer reading comprehension section of the tests. The ‘Mech’ score indicates the score for writing mechanics. The mechanics score is of secondary interest to me as a WIRC team researcher, but I include it here for comparison purposes.
Table 1 The Analysis of Pretest and Posttest Results
Pre/Cluster Pre/RC Pre/Mech Post/Cluster Post/RC Post/Mech
Bobby
1 2, 1, 2
0 2 2, 2, 2 1
Devan 1 1, 1, 1 1 1 0, 0, 0 1
Interpretation of Data:

Bobby demonstrated growth in all three areas of evaluation—cluster score, reading comprehension, and mechanics

Devan remained the same in both the cluster and mechanics scores

Devan demonstrated a decline in reading comprehension

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 9
Somewhere you need to explain the cluster scorses as it is not clear to me what this is and they have been mentioned several times. Next, I looked at the use of the test planning page and the extended writing on the pretest and posttest of both boys. I found that neither boy had made much use of the planning page, and that the writing of Bobby in the posttest represented an attempt at discussing the story, but that it was lacking in supplying the details or evidence for the response.
Table 2 Planning Page Usage and Extended Write Analysis
Bobby
Bobby
Devan
Devan
No use of planning page
No extended write, only
“If someone…”
No use of planning page
No extended write
No use of planning page
Three “paragraph” sentences, no story evidence
Attempted use of t-chart
Six sentences with inaccuracies and speculations
Lastly, to round out the comparative analysis of the learning transactions of
Bobby and Devan, I reviewed all completed thinksheets on file for both students. I later selected those that both boys had completed to use in my copying study. I was particularly astonished by what the data of Figure 1.3 reveals. Bobby had attempted to complete 25% less thinksheets than Devan. Of the 75% that Bobby attempted, one third were handed in incomplete. As advocated by the WIRC team, Bobby made use of partial sentences in his ‘Ideas’ and ‘Graphic Organizer’ section. In general, Bobby wrote in

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 10 complete sentences only for his extended writing. Devan had written much more than
Bobby, but it was Bobby whose writing demonstrated knowledge-transformation.
Judging by the nature of the writing on Devan’s thinksheets, it was apparent that it was
Devan’s teacher who had done the work. Once I had assimilated the results from Figure
1.3, I was compelled to investigate both of my selected classrooms for evidence of copying. So in other words the number of think sheets/intervention doesn’t determine the amount of growth alone. It depends on the teacher’s expert knowledge as s/he moves a child toward knowledge transformation.
Figure 1.3 Thinksheet Usage: Who is doing the work?
Bobby
*all but last 2 (of 15) thinksheets had
First and final writing drafts
* 1/3 (5/15) of total number of think-
Sheets turned in were incomplete
Devan
*many erasure marks, but no first drafts (often that which was erased is no where near accurate)
*the first 17 (of 20) thinksheets completed are very thoroughly done
*the last 3 thinksheets are incomplete
*complete sentences meticulously copied in all three thinksheet sections
* frequent usage of partial sentences in both extended write and graphic
Organizer
*simple vocabulary usage—copying on a broad scale not apparent
*a completely blank thinksheet turned in reveals prompts (mostly page numbers) from the teacher throughout to facilitate student
*use of sophisticated vocabulary words—copying apparent throughout
*all thinksheets often include a detailed organizational “extra step” provided by the teacher between the graphic organizer and the extended

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 11 completion of answers write
It would be very interesting to expand this analysis to other children in the study and see if the same pattern exists. Without a broader representative category from each class, it is difficult to substantiate claims.
Data Analysis: The Copying Study
We on the WIRC team do not believe that all copying is bad copying. Students are often told to put their responses “in their own words.” More often than not, students who struggle do not have their own words to use. As a result they sometimes copy directly from a text. This, according to Collins (1998) is a default strategy. Struggling writers do not have a “better way” to put information on the page. The result often is copying, not in the deceptive sense, but rather as a means to an end. Part of the WIRC theory is that students can develop this re-appropriation of words from a text over time through the use of thinksheets. Thinksheets allow them to interact with the teacher and have meaningful transactions as they return to the text they are reading (or re-reading).
There are three stages of development which provided evidence for students moving forward from knowledge telling to knowledge transforming: direct copying, less copying, and high overlap or strategic copying. Strategic copying demonstrates knowledge transforming higher levels of thinking. Over time, these ideas have become increasingly important in the analysis of student writing in the WIRC project ( Brutt-Griffler, Collins,
& Lee, 2006; Collins & Lee, 2005).
I believe that the charts of Figure 1.4 are self-explanatory, with the exception of the ‘I, O, and E’ headers. To save space, ‘I’ refers to the ‘Ideas’ section of the thinksheet,
‘O’ stands for the ‘Graphic Organizer’ middle section of the thinksheet, and ‘E’ stands

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 12 for the final section of the thinksheet--the ‘Extended Write.’ What I found most intriguing about the results of Figure 1.4 is the very apparent scaffolding to knowledge transformation that is evident in Mrs. Lesswing’s classroom. Some copying occurs across the thinksheets after the first ten weeks. By January there is no evidence of broad-based copying for the class as a whole. What this means is that individual students may be copying from the text, but the class as a whole is not copying uniform evidence from the text for the Ideas and Graphic Organizer sections, nor is there sufficient evidence to conclude that the class is directly copying from teacher prompts for the Extended Writing section. The case is different in Mrs. Carpenter’s classroom. As late as January, there is evidence that some class sets of thinksheets have identical copied responses for the Ideas section, and mostly copied responses in the Graphic Organizer section. While it is possible the Ideas section copying could have come directly from the text, identical
Graphic Organizers most probably are the work of the teacher. Lastly, nine out of the eleven class sets of thinksheets examined exhibited at least partial copying in the
Extended Writing section. This tells me that the teacher bypassed the positive effect of the intervention for those thinksheets because the teacher did the work. As Dr. Collins is so fond of repeating, “The one who does the work does the learning.”
Date Theme
Figure 1.4 The Copying Study of Both Classrooms
Thinksheet Story Title All Most Some No
Copied Copied Copied Copying
I O E I O E I O E I O E Evidence of copying in Mrs.
Lesswing’s 4 th Grade Classroom
9/15 1 The Gardener
9/25 1
Donavan’s Word Jar
* *
* *
*
*

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 13
10/25
10/30
12/4
12/13
1
2
2
2
Amelia Goes for a Ride
The Baker’s Neighbor
The Garden of
Happiness (Double
Bonus—ELA Exam
Prep)
How to Baby-sit an
Orangutan
1/2 3 Sarah Plain and Tall
(Double Bonus
Thinksheet)
Stealing Home 1/16
1/25
2/7
3
3
3
The Cricket in Times
Square
Two Lands, One Heart
3/2 4
The Kids’ Invention
Book
6/8 6 Fly Traps! Plants that bite back
* * *
*
*
* *
* *
* * *
* n/a *
*
*
*
*
*
*
* * *
* * *
* * *
Date Theme Thinksheet Story Title All
Copied
Most
Copied
Some
Copied
No
Copying
I O E I O E I O E I O E Evidence of copying in Mrs.
Carpenter’s 4 th Grade Classroom
9/15 1 The Gardener
9/25 1 Donavan’s Word Jar
* * *
1.
* * *

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 14
10/25
10/30
12/4
12/13
1
2
2
2
Amelia Goes for a Ride
The Baker’s Neighbor
The Garden of Happiness
(Double Bonus—ELA
Exam Prep)
How to Baby-sit an
Orangutan
1/2
1/16
1/25
3
3
3
Sarah Plain and Tall
(Double Bonus
Thinksheet)
Stealing Home
The Cricket in Times
Square
Two Lands, One Heart 2/7 3
3/2 4
The Kids’ Invention
Book
6/8 5 Blue Willow
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
Interpretation of the data: Whole class copying study
Lesswing’s classroom:

Evidence of quotation marks for copying from text (9/25 & 10/25)

Evidence of good copying from Ideas section in extended write (12/13)
Example: I. 2. Why is babysitting orangutans not a forever job?
Jonathan’s essay: “…It is not a forever job because when they are all grown up they have to say bye bye.”
Shoshanna’s essay: “…Babysitting an orangutan is not a forever job because the orangutans grow up and go back to the wild to make their own family.”

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 15

What looks like some possible copying in the Ideas section could be due question specificity (12/4). Knowledge transforming is evident along with commonalities.
Example: I. 3. What happens to Marisol’s flower? How does Marisol feel?
Kaitlyn’s response: “Due to the sunflower dieing. This is how she feels. She feels sad.”
Tim’s response: “It got dry and brown leaves. Sad.”
Ebony’s response: “It dies. She feels sad. She feels this way because she really liked the flower.”
Demetrius’ response: “It die because it was a new seasene. She was so sad she can’t look at the garden.”

Evidence of writing growth (3/2, 6/8): more detailed evidence in Ideas section, students choose their own graphic organizers, students provide varied responses for Ideas section questions that also may have easily been copied.
Example: I. 1. What are inventions supposed to do?
(Responses elicited express same thought in varied ways: “fix problems”, “solve problems”, “help people”, etc…)
Carpenter’s classroom:
 Evidence of copying from the teacher’s interpretation of the text in Ideas section, responses universally consist of complete sentences/quotations with sophisticated vocabulary.
 Evidence of year-long teacher-constructed introductions for extended writes
Examples of universal introductory sentences:
(9/25) “Donavan learned that words are powerful.”
(12/4) “Lydia Grace showed strength when she was away with Uncle Jim. She was lonely. She didn’t know Uncle Jim and she missed her family.” [There is evidence of some students also adding their own words in the Ideas section, and toward the end of their essays.]
(1/25) Class chose between two different inductory sentences: Either “People’s feelings often change.” Or “Have you ever felt all alone in a big place…?”
 Double bonus thinksheet (1/2) teacher comment: “Very good ELA prep” yet teacher guided students through constructed responses and extended writing, so class did not receive full benefit of this intervention

Students never independently selected their own graphic organizers

Much end-of-the year evidence of student confusion (erasure marks throughout all three thinksheet sections) and student shut-down (blank and incomplete thinksheets

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 16
Findings
In composition instruction, the practice of extended periods of teacher dominated discussion is referred to by George Hillocks as the Presentational Mode of instruction
(Hillocks, 1984, 1986). This manner of instruction is teacher-directed and provides little opportunity for students to interact and to demonstrate the processes through which they make meaning. Teachers in this mode facilitate instruction through a series of Initiation,
Response, Evaluation (IRE) sequences (Cazden, 1986). They ask questions that necessitate single word or similar easily evaluated responses from students. Based upon the evidence, it appears that Mrs. Carpenter tended to lead the students through the thinksheet-interpreting each question on the thinksheet as an IRE sequence. Mrs.
Carpenter was often pressed for time. When students did not respond quickly enough,
Mrs. Carpenter would provide the answer for the students. Part of the reason that I selected Devon for this study is that last spring during a video taped writing conference with Mrs. Carpenter, Devan was recorded as saying that he did not know the answer because he had not read the story.
Based upon the findings of this comparative analysis, I have concluded that the following three ‘glitches’ exist in Mrs. Carpenter’s classroom, which serve only to undermine her well-intended efforts at excellence:
1.
“Counterfeit collaboration”
Teacher-dependent students can usually ‘get the right answer’ if they
are willing to wait long enough.
2.
Priority to old ways and methods takes time away from the co-construction
of writing.
(ie. Teaching grammar out of context)

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 17
3.
Quality and quantity of copied writing valued over true knowledge building.
Especially with the ‘intensive’ level students, knowledge transformation can be very time consuming. A teacher who takes the short-cut today of allowing extensive copying fails to cultivate the independent thinking necessary to take the assessment tomorrow.
On the other hand, based upon my findings and a follow up teacher interview, in
Mrs. Lesswing’s classroom I was able to identify the following three mediators to successful knowledge transformation in both reading comprehension and writing composition:
1. Time devoted each week to the one-on-one writing conference—
(Teacher-Student-Text connectedness)
2.
Grammar and direct instruction de-emphasized—student centered
classroom
3.
Effective and flexible classroom management—much teacher patience
Discussion
Upon the completion of my study, I selected the pseudonyms ‘Carpenter’ and
‘Lesswing.’ I selected ‘Carpenter’ because Mrs. Carpenter did much of the work for her students. On the other hand, Mrs. Lesswing proved that less really is more. In my follow up interview with Mrs. Lesswing I learned that Devan had shut down by the end of the year and he was one of three students who had failed in Mrs. Carpenter’s class. He is presently repeating the fourth grade with Mrs. Lesswing. I have to admit that I still find the interpretation of my data for Mrs. Carpenter to be depressing. I set out to prove that
Mrs. Carpenter’s classroom was a product of ‘collateral damage’ from the deficiencies of high stakes testing. Mrs. Carpenter is a teacher of excellence who tended to supply the

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 18 answers to her ‘intensive’ level students. She did not seem to be aware that the help that she was providing was actually hindering her students from learning. But why did I miss all of this as a field observer? In retrospect, I believe there were a few reasons: I was impressed by Mrs. Carpenter’s excellent classroom management with an extremely difficult group of students, Mrs. Carpenter always took me aside to explain the rationale behind everything that she was doing—she was very thorough, and lastly, I was not in the classroom often enough to observe the pattern of copying. As I established earlier, not all copying is bad copying. It took a thorough analysis of the data to identify the type and extent of classroom copying that took place over the course of the year.
WIRC Case Study Implications
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
--Chinese Proverb
While Mrs. Carpenter may have meant well by ‘giving fish’ to her class, in actuality it was Mrs. Lesswing who ‘taught her class to fish.’ What follows are some resulting implications from the findings of this case study:
The Teacher: The case for unpacking traditional preconceptions

The draw-back to teaching grammar out of context—grammar is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself

Direct instruction as supplementary to collaborative learning

Good versus bad copying
1.
copying of the extended write is never productive
(Try using sentence starters, instead.)
2.
copying of evidence for Ideas section must be done accurately
3.
having the student copy complete sentences in the Ideas sentence hinders the student from generating original sentences later

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 19
The Student: The case for connecting and confidence-building

The importance of the one-on-one writing conference
1.
facilitates the co-construction of meaning by allowing the teacher to get to know the individual student
2.
having student read his or her own writing aloud to the teacher allows the teacher to stop at every sentence with suggestions or questions
[The art of questioning to elicit writing: how and why questions, What does it look like?...] This writing conference questioning process is instrumental for the instantiation of authentic knowledgetransformation.
3.
one on one time on writing task scaffolds to independent thinking

The importance of student motivation: as a one-on-one writing mediator, the teacher motivates the student to put forth her best effort by keeping her connected to the writing process
Conclusion
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the
age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity . . .
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
When I reflect upon my findings for Mrs. Carpenter’s class, I am reminded of the colored cards and the forbidden colors task of Luria and Leont’ev (Wertsch, 1991). I take heart when I recall that in both of these studies, the intervention did not always help either.
While I am still incredulous about my evaluation of Mrs. Carpenter’s classroom, at least I am no longer mystified. In today’s “epoch of belief,” I believe that in this case study I have found a good model for the future evaluation and analysis of other WIRC intervention classrooms. For the classrooms investigated, I believe that this study answered the question: who is doing the work? Lastly, I believe that this study most definitely proved that the one who does the work does the learning.

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 20
Diane, this is really compelling. There are some sections that need a little further filling out. With some tightening, reorganization, and strengthened literature review I think this could become a publishable paper. I think people would be interested in reading it and hearing what the WIRC grant team has found. You might start be presenting this as a research report at NRC or AERA. You could do that as part of the WIRC team (e.g. symposium) or you could do that solo (with Dr. Colln’s approval, of course). You might start with presenting at the GSE GSA spring research conference as a “work in progress” and later at a conference.
It was wonderful to have you in class as Dr. Collins has been raving about you for a long time. You are an excellent thinker and writer. I appreciate your dedication and boundless enthusiasm. I will hope to meet you in another class in the future!
Final Paper: 30/30
Final Course Grade: 100/100
References
Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1987). The psychology of written composition .
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 21
Boyd, F., Ariail, M., Williams, R., Jocson, K., Tinker Sachs, G., & McNeal, K.(2006).
Real teaching for real diversity: Preparing English language arts teachers for
21 st century classrooms. [Special Issue] English Education , 38, 278-294.
Brutt-Griffler, J., Collins, J., & Lee, J. (2006, December). A model and method for analyzing reading-writing connections.
Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Reading Conference, Los Angeles, CA.
Cazden, C. (1986). Classroom Discourse. In M. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Teaching (3rd ed., pp. 432-463). New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
Coles, G. (2003). Reading the Naked Truth: literacy, legislation, and lies. Portsmouth:
Heinemann.
Collins, J. (1998). Strategies for struggling writers . New York: Guilford.
Collins, J., & Lee, J. (2005, December). Bringing together reading and writing to enhance comprehension.
Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National
Reading Conference, Miami, FL.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2004). I: From “Separate but Equal” to “No Child Left Behind”:
The Collision of New Standards and Old Inequalities. In D. Meier and G. Wood
(Eds.), Many children left behind (pp. 3-31). Boston: Beacon Press.
Englert, C. S., & Raphael, T., E. (1988). Constructing Well-Formed Prose: Process,
Structure, and Metacognitive Knowledge. Exceptional Children, 54 (6), 513-520.
Hillocks, G. (1984). What Works in Teaching Composition: A Meta-Analysis of
Experimental Treatment Studies. American Journal of Education, 93 (1), 133-170.
Hillocks, G. (1986). Research on Written Composition: New Directions for Teaching .
Urbana, Ill: National Conference on Research in English.
Kirschner, B. W., & Yates, J. M. (1983). Discovery to Discourse: The Composing
Process . New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.
Miller, S. (2006). Reconstructing English Education for the 21 st
Century: The Action
Agenda.
[Special Issue] English Education, 38, 394-399.

Phelps: A Tale of Two WIRC Classrooms 22
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