Writing Portrait

By: Jennifer Danilowicz EDU 743 Professor Clarke December, 2012

Part 1: Description As an English Language Arts (ELA) teacher, writing is a large part of my curriculum and one that consistently evolves. When I first began teaching in North Carolina in 2002, there was a state mandated writing test in grades 4, 7 and 10. It was an on demand prompt that was graded according to a rubric based on the 6 traits of writing. Students would take the writing test in April and the essays would get shipped to some testing site in Texas, where people would grade them all day long. This one prompt was supposed to determine whether or not our students were proficient. I teach middle school and the 7th grade prompt was either argumentative or persuasive, so that was the focus in my classroom. I vividly remember choosing prompts from books and using flow chart graphic organizers to help students organize their work. I actually remember making a prompt for students after the Tsunamis struck in Asia. The prompt asked my students to write a letter to their teacher explaining what the class could do to help victims of the tsunamis. I even developed four different rubrics that assessed focus, support and elaboration, style and organization. I had students write an assisted essay each quarter and each quarter I focused on a different aspect of writing. In addition to these

assisted prompts, my students also completed two unassisted prompts each year as well. I had all of these prompts to build a writing portfolio in the event that my students failed their writing test. This portfolio would be their get out of summer school card. Students always hand wrote their essays, because they handwrote for the state exams. I would also try to make time for students to write a short story or an autobiography. But other than that, my writing instruction was limited to prompts and, in my opinion, was rather boring. A few years ago, my state decided to do away with the writing test. Teachers had been asking for years to test writing a different way. We felt that having students write an essay for one prompt and assessing them based on this one handwritten piece was not an accurate reflection of what our students could do. The fact that students did not word process the prompt was another issue because we were using computers more and more in our writing instruction, yet students were not being tested on computers. As a result, the state decided to make the writing test span over the entire year. Students would create four essays. Two essays would be on demand prompts that were similar to what we had been doing. The other two essays would be from a content area and students would have limited help in the

planning state. The goal was for the test to eventually span all grade levels, though the initial test was piloted in 4th, 7th and 10th grades. Schools were responsible for scoring the writing tests and as such teachers became the scorers. This worked out a bit better for our students, though it became very cumbersome because we didnt have proper access to computers. My principal had everyone in the school score the essays, but many teachers had a great deal of difficulty with this because they were not trained properly. It was such a mess that the state abandoned the practice and we no longer have any writing tests in North Carolina. Currently, I am following the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for my writing approach. Ive started off the year with a narrative writing project that will last throughout the year. After winter break, I will focus on explanatory/informative writing and at the end of the year my focus will be on argumentative writing. I still use some of the rubrics I created for the state writing tests because they were very specific to each goal, but I no longer do prompt based writing. My students word process everything they create in my class, though their brainstorming is generally done on graphic organizers or in their journals.

I abandoned my autobiography project that I had done for 8 years and adopted a new project; an alphabiography. My students love this writing project. Students essentially are choosing words for each letter of the alphabet and are writing a paragraph about how that word pertains to them. At the end of each entry, students are writing a life lesson that they can learn from what they wrote. For example, one of my students is writing about the chickens that her family has. They have named their chickens and she has written about three of them. Ive found it fascinating to read her entries! She shows how each chicken has its own distinct personality. Students are now on entry number five and I am amazed at the progress my fragile writers have made. One student began this year needing me to scribe for him. His last entry he completed with very little help and he earned a good grade! The repetitive nature of the assignment has helped with students like him because they know what my expectations are and they have had a great deal of scaffolding as well as brainstorming. My writing instruction has evolved greatly over my 11 years of teaching, but one aspect seems to stay the same every year. My students never cease to amaze me with their musings!

Part 2: Desired Writing Plan As I clearly noted above, my writing instruction has greatly changed over my career, but I am certainly not at the finish line in regards to my writing curriculum. There are many aspects of the writing program at my school that I would love to change. To begin with, English Language Arts teachers are expected to teach reading, writing and grammar. In my school, our classes are 46 minutes long. This is not enough time to teach reading, let alone writing or grammar. My district has a huge focus on reading because it is tested; writing is no longer tested. As a result, writing essentially gets brushed off to the side. The first thing I would change is that I would have all middle school students take a reading class and a Language Arts class. Reading would focus solely on reading instruction, although teachers would still be expected to teach writing in this class as well. According to Glenn (2007), when reading and writing are taught together, they engage students in a greater use of cognitive structures then when they are taught independently. However, a reading class would have its main focus be on active reading strategies and writing to learn. Knipper and Duggan (2006) indicate that writing to learn is

meant to be a catalyst for further learning and that it should help students make meaning of what they read. Language Arts would therefore be a place where students would focus mainly on writing and grammar. Language Arts teachers would follow research based recommendations for writing instruction. Some such strategies could be summarization, strategy instruction and peer assistance (Graham, MacArthur and Fitzgerald, 2007). Teachers would have more time to focus on writing in the classroom. Currently, teachers have students write, but do not have the time to conference with students and truly respond to student writing. Writing practice alone does not improve writing, students need to have people respond to what they write, using specific criteria (Graham, MacArthur and Fitzgerald, 2007). In a Language Arts class solely devoted to writing, teachers would be able to create rubrics with students and show students exactly how they were to be graded. Teachers could also teach what a peer response group looks like in this setting and teach students how to respond constructively to their peers work using specific criteria. Although I believe that splitting our current Language Arts classes into two separate courses will make a huge difference for our students, I

would not stop there. I would also create a writing workshop room where students could go for extra writing assistance during their activity periods (a 25 minute period where they can come to teachers for extra help). This writing workshop would be manned by our gifted specialist as well as tutors from UNC. Language Arts teachers would be collaborating in weekly PLC meetings to streamline writing projects and rubrics, so the staff in the writing workshop room would have a general idea of our common curriculum. Students would be able to conference with these tutors and would work on the writing process with them. They could go to this writing workshop room to plan, revise or edit their drafts. Finally, our school would bring back the Literary Magazine. A few years ago, we had a gifted specialist that took on this worthwhile activity. She worked with all students, not just our gifted students. The magazine was truly a work that all students had a voice in. The literary magazine would be lead by a teacher and would be a paid position, earning the same amount of money as our athletic coaches. This teacher would hold weekly meetings either before or after school with students. Not only would this literary magazine group develop a yearly magazine, but they would also create a weekly blog. The weekly blog would feature a variety of student

writing about events occurring at our school and would span across content areas, to encompass writing from all disciplines such as history projects and science experiments. All teachers at my school would see themselves as writing teachers and writing would span across all content areas. Students would focus on the writing process in Language Arts, but would have a main focus on writing to learn in all of their other classes. Part 3: Differentiation This year has been quite a challenge for me because I teach two collaborative classes instead of just one. In the past, my school has split the EC students up between the two teams, having each ELA teacher teach one collaborative class. The year I teach all of the 6 th grade EC students that have reading and writing goals on their IEPs. Because of scheduling, one of my collaborative classes consists of six gifted students, nine EC students (three of which have behavior goals) and seven students without labels that we could call average. This classroom is the poster child for differentiation. The key to differentiation in writing is using specific rubrics. On all of my rubrics this year I have placed an exemplary category. It is an option

for my EC students, but a requirement for my gifted students. My gifted students arent expected to do more work, but their work is expected to be higher quality in regards to word choice, organization and elaboration. use focus correction areas (FCAs) for my struggling writers. FCAs incrementally introduce elements of writing so that writers are not overwhelmed (Graham, MacArthur and Fitzgerald, 2007). For example, my students are working on writing alphabiographies, an ongoing writing project we wont finish until the end of the year. Some of my students are still working on solid paragraph structure. Their rubric is a checklist that specifically focuses on the parts of a paragraph. My gifted students have mastered this paragraph structure and will be moving onto descriptive writing with their next entry. Their rubric will be slightly different, though they will still, theoretically work on the same project. Another tool I could not live without is our net books. When my students work on a process piece, they word process it every single time. This greatly aids in the editing phase. Instead of having students re-write entire drafts, they simply go in and change their mistakes. Many of my students are quite savvy with a computer, while others struggle. Those that struggle receive extra scaffolding from me or another teacher in the room. I

Scaffolding is huge aspect of differentiation in my classroom. In my collaborative classes, I have a co-teacher as well as a teaching assistant. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I also have a tutor that helps during those periods. Then, on Thursdays, the reading specialist comes into work with the students. Therefore, sometimes I have five teachers in the room! I make sure to work on writing on the days when I have extra help. My co-teacher will take small groups of students to her room and then Ill determine who needs the most help and have them work with the tutors, while I circulate the room and work with students as needed. Some days, Ill spend 20-30 minutes with one student, while other days, Ill spend a few minutes with every student. I base my time strictly on student needs. In my regular education classes I also use rubrics and net books as differentiation. Students in these classes are not quite as fragile in regards to writing. I actually have these students do a bit more peer editing. Graham, MacAruthur and Fitzgerald (2007) indicate that peer groups are very beneficial for middle school students, specifically when teachers distinguish between editing groups and response groups. One of my goals this year is to have my regular education classes focus on response groups, with 3-4 students in each group. I plan on starting this after winter break

and I will have the groups stay the same until the end of the year. When they work as a peer group, I will group the students heterogeneously. In their groups they will look for specific criteria that are linked to our rubrics. Ive done this in the past with small peer groups of two students and found it to be beneficial. I may try these groups with my collaborative classes, but I would probably just have my stronger writers participate in the beginning. In many ways, I find that writing tends to differentiate itself as long as teachers have high expectations for students. When students are given a task, with a specific, detailed rubric they will most often rise to the occasion. Part 4: CCSS For years my district has focused on the three areas of writing that the CCSS mandate we teach. These areas are argument, explanatory/ informative and narrative. Although these are aspects of writing that I have been teaching for years, the CCSS takes them to another level, specifically in regards to argumentative writing. One aspect that I found really interesting was that the CCSS for ELA stated that in 6th grade students will have to draft arguments, yet in

elementary school they are merely expected to give their opinions and are not expected to base their opinions on facts. This is one of my biggest challenges as a 6th grade ELA teacher. My students have a lot of opinions, but are not always able to support them with factual evidence. Over the last couple of years I have had students watch the old version of The Clash of

the Titans. Then they write an evaluation of the movie. The special effects
are an atrocity! Ive found that students are able to make strong arguments, given the proper scaffolding. I plan on having them watch that movie again this year, but I also plan on having my students evaluate a book as well. So, they will create two evaluations this year instead of just one. I will grade these pieces with a specific rubric that asks for reasons that support their opinion through explanation, cause and effect, as well compare and contrast as those are part of the CCSS. Students enjoy writing evaluations and I believe that they will be able to produce quality work. Another aspect of the CCSS that I found rather interesting was that students are expected to type three pages in a single class setting. As I stated earlier, my students word process any piece that they run through the writing process in my classroom. I do not even think that my gifted students could word process three pages in one period and it leaves me to

question how long of a class period the CCSS are referring to here. This is something I will strive for, but certainly wont focus on this as much as teaching the actual writing process. The CCSS also indicates that 6th grade students are expected to write short research papers. Last year I had students research an aspect of the Middle Ages as they were studying that in social studies. The social studies teacher had students do research in her class and I had them write the paper in mine. I plan on doing that again this year. In addition to this we will be taking a trip to a science museum and I plan on working with my science teacher to create a research project that is geared towards their trip. I was relived to see that the CCSS listed these as short research assignments. I think it is better for 6th graders to do a few small research projects, than one huge involved project. It takes them awhile to learn the process of research and giving them multiple chances to work on this will be beneficial. I see the CCSS as enhancing my writing instruction. Its not a hurdle for me to jump through, but rather a new challenge to be embraced.

References:

Glenn, W. (2007). Real writers as aware readers: writing creatively as a

means to develop reading skills. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(1), 10-20.
Graham, S., MacArthur, C., & Fitzgerald, J. (2007). Best practices in writing instruction. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Knipper, K., & Duggan, T. (2006). Writing to learn across the curriculum: tools for comprehension in content area classes . International Reading Association, 462-470.