My elementary school was opened three years ago. We currently have 435 students. The demographic is 75% white, 22% other ethnicities. There are 80 second graders. My classroom is made up of 19 students with 12 girls and 7 boys. Halfway through the year, a male student moved away. Two students are on behavior plans.
Why was this study chosen?
"A strong writing teacher creates the itch to write. It's deliberate."
-Thomas Newkirk
Student Focused
The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of conferencing, mentor texts, and rubrics within a writer's workshop model would improve student achievement in the area of writing.
A baseline writing test that I used to assess my students at the beginning of the year showed that only one student was writing at proficiency at second grade. Eight students were one level behind at progressing, while nine students were two levels behind at beginning.
I needed to get all kids to proficiency by the end of the year. Due to the huge range of achievement, I knew I needed to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of my students.
My anecdotal observations showed that students did not have a structure to organize their writing or know how to incorporate the different traits of writing.
They were not confident writers, did not like writing, and did not know what made good writing.
My students did not have the stamina to write independently for a long period of time. For one student, writing was a trigger which created avoidance issues and escalated behavior.
Teacher Focused
One of the things that motivated me to choose this topic of study was a desire to know my writers on an individual level and their writing identities. Knowing this would help me to meet their needs individually.
I wanted to increase my abilities as an educator to mesh my praise and area of growth in scope and sequence in order to support my students to reach their full potential as writers. I desired to gain research-based strategies to confidently instruct writing, while using best practices to support all students.
I wanted my students to gain a positive writing identity as my abilities to teach writing grew. I had access to highly qualified professionals with specializations in language arts; therefore, I knew I could tap into them as resources to best support my students.
