How To Write Papers For Elementary Educators Matt Palmisano Ferris State University

How to write papers for Elementary Educators
Matt Palmisano
Ferris State University

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Just like gender, race, nationality, political beliefs, and many, many other traits
define us as people and individuals, so to does language and dialect. For language, the
language you speak may determine where someone hails from, whereas a dialect of
that language makes humans even more individualized by narrowing the area down
even smaller. The words we choose to use in certain social situations help present to
the world who we are, and in that specific situation (or sometimes even all situations)
who we want to be and how we want to be heard. This fact of life ties in deeply with the
way certain occupations converse with fellow people of the same occupation. The
terminology, the formality or informality of speech, the personal or impersonal outlook
on certain hot topics, all of these and more help individualize occupations from one
another, sometimes to the point that people looking from outside the occupation hardly
recognize what is even being said. Elementary educators are their own unique beast
when it comes to this.
Elementary education journals are unique in how diverse each one can be
written. Sometimes an article is written to address a problem with the intended audience
being anyone willing to lend an ear, sometimes the article is about how integrating a
new practice can be beneficial to a classroom and the teacher, and sometimes, it is
simply a lesson plan for a very specific activity with the only supporting details being
what elements of educating are included and how fun the activity is.
A commonality of many education journals and articles is that there is always a
sample classroom that is closely examined throughout the entirety of the article. For
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example, in Suzan Spezzini’s article, many different children are identified to use as a
focal point for the crux of the issue;
“Chiwengo asked her 6th-grade teacher for a sheet of paper. Her penalty was
serving detention.Carlos told his 4th-grade classmates about going to the beach. A
repeat offender, he was sent to the principal's office. Mei responded by saying thanks.
This 8th-grader found herself awaiting a parent/teacher conference with the counselor.
Hamsa asked his kindergarten teacher about the vacuum cleaner. As punishment, he
was kept in from recess.
Why were these children punished? Because they had made pronunciation
errors. The teachers heard the children's accented pronunciation of appropriate
vocabulary (in bold) as inappropriate words.” (Spezzini, 2010).
Many times, writers in the field of education will be somewhat generous and offer
a helping hand in terms of comprehending what the main topic of their paper is. For
example, when one author wanted to compare student teacher self-efficacy and their
views on teaching, the author decided it would be a wise idea to remind readers what
the definition of self efficacy is;
“The concept of self-efficacy is within self-concept in terms of meaning. Self-
concept is the sum of one's self perception (Schunk, 2000: 344), the way the one's
perception of his own essence. In other words, it means the positive and negative
perception that one' has developed for his skills and other characteristics” (Cayci, 2011).
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Once the author clarified what the meaning of self efficacy was, he used it to his
advantage and used the wordplay to defend his point with phrases such as “In this
direction,” and “it could be said that” (Cayci, 2011).
In almost every article and journal in the history of the profession of teaching,
authors have always used as many sources as they can find, usually resulting in around
fifteen to twenty-five being the minimum number of sources for scholarly articles.
Sometimes in education journals the quoting is so extensive that almost every sentence
in the entire article is just a quote. For example, in the article The relationship between
the elementary teacher candidates' teacher efficacy and their attitudes towards the
profession of teaching, every single paragraph in the article ends with a list of multiple
sources, sometimes it would only list one source, other times it would list four to five.
One difference that was found when looking at multiple articles was the number
of pictures and charts found in each article. Some journals had generic pictures
included and nothing else, such as TOUCH, TALK, TEXT: Practices that support both
reading and science instruction ( Sarah J. Carrier, Grifenhagen, and Scharen, 2021).
Some articles had the best of both worlds, with both charts and images, such as
Engineering with Kindergartners: a fun winter activity that inspires an engineering
challenge, due to the nature of the journal, it discusses a winter activity and showcases
the results from a sample classroom as well as pictures of the sample classroom’s
students engaging in the engineering activity. And unfortunately for more casual readers
more often than not most education scholarly journals may include no charts or images,
and require the reader to mainly trust the sources cited rather than tables of raw data,
such as in the article Raising teacher salaries: the funds are there.
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Occasionally, education articles will begin with an abstract detailing how the
supporting evidence found within the article was discovered or where it was interpreted
from. The three examples found from my search were: Raising teacher salaries: the
funds are there, Physical education preservice teachers' conceptions of caring, The
relationship between the elementary teacher candidates' teacher efficacy and their
attitudes towards the profession of teaching. Most often, abstracts are used to describe
the experiment from which the data was collected, for example, in Physical education
preservice teachers' conceptions of caring, the abstract details how the data was
extracted like so;
“The purpose of this study was to examine prospective physical education
teachers' conceptions of caring during their student teaching experiences. This study
was conducted through a qualitative research design that included semi-structured
interviews, field observations, and document analysis. Four student teachers (1 male
and 3 females) from physical education teacher education (PETE) programs at two
universities participated in this study” (Okeson Lee, Revissa, 2008).
In conclusion, Educational journals are very similar to many different types of
other occupation journals due to the flexibility the occupation allows. Sometimes the
journal is simple, sometimes it is complex, sometimes it is over 5,000 words, sometimes
authors can get their point across in just over 1000. But one of the most important
commonalities that every education journal has is that is backed by many, many
different sources, and raw data.

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Reference Page
Carrier, S. J., Grifenhagen, J. F., Scharen, D. R. (2021). TOUCH, TALK, TEXT:
Practices that support both reading and science instruction. Science and Children.
Retrieved from https://go-gale-com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?
tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=
682&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=3&docId=GALE
%7CA682564745&docType=Article&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=ZONE-
MOD1&prodId=AONE&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE
%7CA682564745&searchId=R4&userGroupName=lom_ferrissu&inPS=true
Cayci, B. (2011). The relationship between the elementary teacher candidates' teacher
efficacy and their attitudes towards the profession of teaching. Education. Retrieved
from
https://go-gale-com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?
Haberman, M. (2005). Raising teacher salaries: the funds are there. Education.
Retrieved from https://go-gale-com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?

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Hammack, R. and Vo, T. (2021). Engineering with Kindergarteners: A fun winter activity
inspires an engineering challenge. Science and Children. Retrieved from https://go-
gale-com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?
Lee, O., Ravizza, D. (2008). Physical education preservice teachers' conceptions of
caring. Education. Retrieved from https://go-gale-com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?
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Loft K. and Clark, S. (2021). Learning the Language of Scientists: Using disciplinary
literacy to increase reading and writing in early elementary grades. Science and
Children. Retrieved from https://go-gale-com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?
Okpala, C. O., Ellis R. (2005). The perceptions of college students on teacher quality: a
focus on teacher qualifications. Education. Retrieved from https://go-gale-
com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?
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Spezzini, S. (2010). Children were punished: not for what they said, but for what their
teachers heard. Childhood Education. Retrieved from https://go-gale-
com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?
Tanak, A. and Hanuscin, D. (2021). When Is Asking Questions a Science Practice?
Scientific vs. pedagogical questions. Science and Children. Retrieved from https://go-
gale-com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?
Wheeler, E., Stomfay-Stitz, A. (2008). Responding to urban violence: what teachers tell
us they can and must do in their classrooms. Childhood Education. Retrieved from
https://go-gale-com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?
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terminology, the formality or informality of speech, the personal or impersonal outlook

when it comes to this.

A commonality of many education journals and articles is that there is always a

focal point for the crux of the issue;

was kept in from recess.

errors. The teachers heard the children's accented pronunciation of appropriate

vocabulary (in bold) as inappropriate words.” (Spezzini, 2010).

the definition of self efficacy is;

“The concept of self-efficacy is within self-concept in terms of meaning. Self-

direction,” and “it could be said that” (Cayci, 2011).

Engineering with Kindergartners: a fun winter activity that inspires an engineering

extracted like so;

“The purpose of this study was to examine prospective physical education

was conducted through a qualitative research design that included semi-structured

universities participated in this study” (Okeson Lee, Revissa, 2008).

In conclusion, Educational journals are very similar to many different types of

journal is simple, sometimes it is complex, sometimes it is over 5,000 words, sometimes

different sources, and raw data.

Carrier, S. J., Grifenhagen, J. F., Scharen, D. R. (2021). TOUCH, TALK, TEXT:

Retrieved from https://go-gale-com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?

Retrieved from https://go-gale-com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?

inspires an engineering challenge. Science and Children. Retrieved from https://go-

Lee, O., Ravizza, D. (2008). Physical education preservice teachers' conceptions of

caring. Education. Retrieved from https://go-gale-com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?

Children. Retrieved from https://go-gale-com.ferris.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?

focus on teacher qualifications. Education. Retrieved from https://go-gale-

teachers heard. Childhood Education. Retrieved from https://go-gale-

Tanak, A. and Hanuscin, D. (2021). When Is Asking Questions a Science Practice?

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