Date of Award
1-1-1992
Document Type
Practicum
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Child and Youth Care Administration
Advisor
William Anderson
Committee Member
Brenda Edwards
Keywords
brainstorming, children's writing, collaborative learning, collaborative writing, clustering, desktop publishing, freewriting, intermediate grades, revision, small group conferences, word processing, writing attitudes, writing development, writing evaluation, writing improvement, writing instruction, writing processes, writing research, writing strategies
Abstract
The problem for this eight-month practicum was that there were 30 intermediate students who had adverse feelings for writing. The problem was documented as a result of responses to a writing survey by Donato (1990). The survey was administered to a group of 71 students. The highest possible score was 30. Ten students from each grade level (third, fourth and fifth) with the lowest scores completed the practicum activities.
Students viewed a film for the first strategy. Following the film, the students were guided through a brainstorming activity. The students' reactions to the film served as the basis for a brainstorming activity. One of the concepts was used to develop a story. Students had the option of using one of the concepts that had been generated from the brainstorming activity or coming up with one of their own as they wrote stories. Some stories were written by children who worked in groups of six. Others were done in pairs. Students had small group conferences to make corrections Corrected work was typed (using desktop publishing for children) and illustrated. Completed work was bound by the writer.
A visual was used for the second strategy, clustering. The same procedure described for brainstorming was followed. This time, students did their own typing of corrected work. Freewriting was the final strategy. Practicum participants were able to complete this strategy without seeing a film.
At the end of the practicum, most of the students had shown improved attitudes toward writing as documented by their responses to the post-writing survey. Those students whose scores remained the same seemed to change their attitude toward one or more areas on the survey.