WORKSHOP
WRITING
RATIONALE
the HISTORY
My capstone project centered around my kindergarten class of 24 students. As of October 22, 2018, 322 students were enrolled at the suburban, military area elementary school where I taught. Because my school was situated in a military area, I saw students come and go often due to military placement and other reasons. The study was conducted with 23 students. My class of 11 girls and 12 boys consisted of 17% (4) African American, 4% (1) Asian, and 79% (18) Caucasian students. For this project, I excluded one student who did not fully participate in regular class activities and was generally out of the room when we practiced writing. I had a somewhat racially diverse class and our writing topics varied based on student experiences. 33% (8) of my students attended speech intervention 1-2 times a week. This meant I had to pay more attention to the language they used in their writing. 17% (4) had behavior and/or academic Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). Of those four students, one was on a positive behavior plan and three received special education minutes daily, which means I paid extra attention to these students, provided additional supports, and encouraged them to try their best during writing exercises.
the NEED
Students took the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test, which is an adaptive test the students take three times a year to measure growth in the areas of math and reading. The 2018 Fall MAP reading scores showed that nine students scored below average in the area of reading. Writing is a subset of the reading assessment through the MAP test. 48% of my students scored in the low/low-average range, while 32% of my students scored in the average range. 20% of my students scored above average. This data demonstrated a general need for improvement in writing for the students in my class. It also demonstrated a wide range of achievement with writing; recognizing this, I knew I needed to differentiate writing lessons for my students.
During every other unit in our reading curriculum, we took a unit benchmark test. For our Unit 1 Benchmark taken September 10 - 21, 2018, data showed 50% of my students could not write a sentence without receiving specific ideas and examples. I saw I needed to model frequently for my students at first and then use the gradual release method to slowly ease them into writing on their own. This gradual release took place using a writing workshop model. Integrating the workshop model was appropriate because my data showcased that half of my students needed to work on writing a sentence, while half of my students did not. It would have been inappropriate to reteach my entire class a certain skill that only half of my students needed more experience with. It allowed me to reach students at different levels at the same time.
The third data point that demonstrated a need for the implementation of a writing workshop model came from a teacher-created assessment. I created an assessment that tested what the students knew about writing a sentence and parts of a sentence so I could focus on specific parts. The parts included having an uppercase letter at the beginning, using lowercase letters throughout, using finger spaces between words, and having punctuation at the end of each sentence. To test these points, I used a checklist and asked each student to name the parts of a sentence and recorded if they could name the point or not. 54% (12) of my students got two or less correct, 29% (7) got three correct, and 17% (4) knew all four {shown to the right}. By implementing a writer’s workshop, I was able to help students set more personalized goals during our one-on-one conferences. Since there was such a wide variety of abilities in my class, this approach was most beneficial.
In addition to MAP data, the checklist, and scores from the Unit 1 benchmark assessment, I created a rubric to assess student writing. Upon assessing a piece of writing used as a baseline, 32% (8) of my students scored at a beginning level, 30% (7) scored at a progressing level, 23% (5) scored at a proficient level, and 15% (3) scored at an advanced level. These scores demonstrated a need for differentiation within my instruction to meet the varied needs of my students. Students who performed at the beginning level needed more modeling and examples done with the whole group. On-level performing students needed less modeling, but more assistance with choosing topics. Students performing at the proficient and advanced levels required more of a challenge from me during our small group instruction.
Based on a student attitude assessment that my students completed about their feelings toward writing, I saw a lack of excitement and positive feelings about writing. The assessment measured whether or not each student liked writing and how they saw themselves as writers. They had a choice of smiley face, sad face, and in-between. About half of my students indicated they do not like writing by filling in the sad face or in-between face, and about 45% (10) of my students suggested they either did not see themselves as good writers or that they were unsure. One of the statements was "I want to be a better writer" for which 96% (22) of my students answered yes. The student responses showed me that I needed to instill a love for writing in my students and show them that writing could be fun! With this information in tow, I was even more convinced that implementing a writing workshop would allow me to best meet the needs of the writers in my room.
The writing workshop model supported meeting the varied needs of my students, and the hope was that it would instill a joy of writing in them because I was able to conference with each student and assist them in improving their writing skills. All of these data points showed me that writing was an area in my classroom where differentiation was imperative.
the IMPORTANCE
This was an important topic to think about because writing is utilized in each and every subject in school and throughout life. I chose writing as my topic because it was where my students struggled the most academically. While this was the area my students struggled the most, I also had students who were meeting grade-level expectations in writing. Each group was ensured instruction to help them grow academically. Students are creative at this age, and I wanted to embrace that creativity while pushing them toward grade-level proficiency in writing. Kindergarten is where students begin to build their foundation for writing and formulating their own ideas. I wanted to put them in the best position for them to be successful in expressing their ideas. Writing workshop was something that I was learning more about through a graduate class I was taking at the time. I wanted to take the time to implement it in my class to help my students become writers, which would subsequently help them become better readers and students all around. This research study also helped me develop in my professional practice by understanding what is developmentally appropriate for my students.
LITERATURE REVIEW
My class of 24 students had varying abilities and interests in the area of writing, as kindergartners should. Based on data gathered, research I had done, and the fact that my district did not have any set writing curriculum, I chose to explore writer’s workshop as a way to structure writing in my classroom effectively. I planned on determining the effectiveness of the writing workshop with my students through an action research study. The purpose of my study was to determine if implementing a writer’s workshop model would increase student achievement and confidence in writing. The sources and studies identified throughout this paper helped define different aspects of a writers’ workshop model, as well as determine the success in the early childhood classroom. Research suggested a few different ways to approach a writer’s workshop model. Throughout the literature, common themes have emerged. These themes include mini-lessons and modeling from the teacher, student writing time, conferences with the teacher, and sharing out to the whole class; this literature review is organized following those synthesized themes.