What Does Writer's Notebook Mean to my Students?

Title: Looking into Writer's Notebook!

I conducted my first teacher research study in the fall of 2003 as a requirement for a class I was taking at Arizona State University. Teacher Research was defined as a type of research initiated and carried out by teachers in their classrooms. According to Hubbard & Power, In Living The Question: A Guide for Teacher Researchers, "The research is a process of discovering essential questions, gathering data, and analyzing it to answer questions." It uses patterns to be understood to check interactions, adjust behaviors and expectations. In Hubbard & Power, Living the Questions: A Guide for Teacher Researchers, I would concur that there are many questions where there are no concrete answers. So, after trying new ways of thinking, my questions could not be solved by trial and error alone. I have turned to professionals in the teaching field by relying on my colleagues, other teachers conducting research, and my administration for comments and ideas that are critical when trying to find productive outcomes using their experiences, insights and diverse backgrounds. My original research was focusing on journals in my second grade classroom. Each day, teachers conduct teacher research in their classrooms, with often not even realizing it. As a teacher, I plan a lesson by looking at objectives, standards, implementation, and curriculum guild lines set by Scottsdale Unified School District. After carefully planning a lesson, I gather relevant materials, manipulative, enrichment activities, and supplies to enhance and support it. Next, the execution of the lesson is put to the test. A teacher always wants the lesson to go smoothly and have the students to be engaged and have a clear and precise understanding to be successful. After the lesson has been completed, it is time to reflect on the specific elements of it. This takes careful examination and openness for any teacher to do. Some lessons are flawed by students not understanding the task, incomplete work, or not engaged in the exercise. Some lessons (this is where teachers take a deep breath) are flawed by teachers by not getting the class focused, interruptions, poor set-up time instruction, or by human error. It is difficult to reflect and not see the lesson unfold, as it should have through delicate planning and implementation strategies. Teachers love the exhilaration of the challenge to get students to be curious learners. While most jobs learn on predictability, teaching leans on the knowledge and experience learned. This is why excellent teachers spend time to re-evaluate, re-teach and re-access students. As with any profession, when mistakes are made, learning from them builds stronger backgrounds and experience expertise. Teacher research is being shaped every time a teacher re-evaluates and implements new techniques and strategies designed for student's growth. This may involve changes and refinements for specific lessons. Therefore, teacher research is constantly being conducted. My study particularly started by focusing on, "Journals and what it means to my students." There were many questions surrounding this specific question. Some of the sub-questions were as follows:

How do I make their journaling more meaningful?

Do the students like to have "assigned topics" vs. "free-page" writings?

Where are their connections coming from?

Are they connecting to the text?

How can I facilitate the students to write more about literature circles?

Are they bringing in personal experiences to thematic units we are studying?

Many teacher researchers agree that strategies used for research emerge and evolve from close, intense shifting relationships between students and teachers. Difference between the teacher researcher and the large-scale educator research is that the teacher researcher carefully weighs the value of different ways of teaching and learning. It is based upon close observation of students at work and depends upon a research community. Simple questions or curiosities are the beginning of genuine questions that are truly relevant to teacher researchers. Hubbard & Power in, Living the Question, suggests that teacher research can be rich in classroom anecdotes and personal stories. Also they suggest, that stories are a critical tool for illuminating the deeper theories or rules the way a classroom community works.

In, A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You, Ralph Fletcher

writes in the introduction of the book, "when you come right down to it, a writer's notebook is nothing more than a blank book, but within those pages you've got a powerful tool for writing and living." (p.6)

The Gingerbread Frame (topic):

I decided to start my research plan by first asking the students if they had ever journaled before my entering my second grade class. Some of the students did use journaling in the first grade, but only two children kept a diary or journaled outside the school day. The class was very excited when I told them what I planned on researching. From Hopkins, Journal Writing Every Day: Teachers Say It Really Works! "One of the best things about journal writing is that it can take so many forms. Teachers use journal writing to meet specific goals, or the purpose can be wide open. Some teachers check journal writing and work on polishing skills others use journals as the one ‘uncorrected' form of writing that students produce. Some teachers provide prompts to help students begin their writing. Others leave decisions about the direction and flow of student journals up to the students."

I began by getting the students in my class individual, 50 page notebooks from Target. I instructed them to color and decorate their journals so they would become more personal. I wondered if my students would demonstrate that they had a creative, imaginative, expressive side that would blossom in their journal writing. I remember as a child, how I loved creative writing time in my third and fourth grade classes. In Fleischer's article, A Practitioner's Retrospective, I enjoyed and could relate to the picture album metaphor. I would like to take more time to reflect, rethink, and rearrange my teachings to not only enhance the learning of my students but also for my professional growth. I did not know the background of the children in the class nor if journaling would be of interest to them.

Elizabeth Sulzby describes the answers that have come from an ongoing research program on young children's writing. "This work illustrates a progression from descriptions of children's proficiencies to collaboration between classroom and university based educators that are aimed at increasing writing opportunities for children. Educators who work with students at all levels will find insights into writing development and the manner in which questions about an area are answered through continual question asking and information gathering."(p.290-297)

The following day, we started by writing and illustrating what they did this past summer. It was an open ended assignment that would help me learn more about my new class. Some students were unable to write about their summer so they relied on illustrations. I felt that the students were engaged and simply enjoyed the writing time to reminisce their summer. It was a wonderful feeling knowing that I had sparked an interest in my students after only one entry. Sulzby writes "If you want children to write, simply ask them to write. If you want them to read, ask them to read." I anticipated that I was going to have some difficulties with children who have not yet started the writing process, or had been previously introduced to it. Sulzby writes, "In all, it appears the sophistication in children's ideas of composition and the nature of written language is not always reflected in their choice of writing forms. Children hold on to emergent forms for a long period of time, well into kindergarten and, for some, into first grade. It is not clear whether pushing children to adopt conventional-appearing forms or to use invented spelling is advantageous to my knowledge, no well-designed study with comparison groups has done this yet, nor have researchers designed reasonable criteria for this comparison." I was curious to know if the students would go back through their journals to make an extension entry. Would their experience reflect on their work? I started to examine my observations closer. I wondered if there was a way to encourage the children to become even more passionate writers.

In the book by Spandel, Seeing With New Eyes: A Guidebook on Teaching & Assessing Beginning Writers, the area of focus I chose is:

"Self-Reflection on Writing: How to get started at primary level

1. Cluster what students like in good writing. Choose a "best" book individually or as a class. Talk about why it is the best.

2. Write often yourself, and model good examples.

3. Share and tell what you like about someone else's writing (teacher first, then students).

4. Share and tell what you think you did well on your own writing (teacher first, then students)."

By incorporating the above, our class began sharing our stories in the classroom. The students complimented other students work while fostering positive feelings and building new friendships. I also noticed that some of my reserved students were comfortable and broke away from their shell for this type of lesson. The students liked this activity so much that they started reminding me during sharing bag time that they wanted to also share a journal a day! To me, I started reflecting more and did implement extra time for that to be accomplished. I thought if the students felt so strongly about an activity that I needed to provide the opportunity for them to share with their peers. Spandel quotes, "Leading psychologists and educators in a number of fields-including math, science, social studies, and, to some degree, reading-agree that it is particularly important for children to learn how to learn. The knowledge explosion makes it virtually impossible for people to keep up with any given field. Instead of cramming children with facts they may not need, the schools must help children learn to learn, to find the information they need and apply it. Donald Graves and Virginia Stuart , 1995, p. 84." (p.287)

The White Frosting (data):

From Hopkins, Journal Writing Everyday, the article states, "journal writing has proven a popular and valuable teaching tool across the grades and across the curriculum." One of the unexpected benefits the article suggests is "that the resulting responses help make teachers look more carefully at the lesson children are writing about in their journals. It also has a great benefit to particular students as it reinforces the learning and provides them with an opportunity to question their own understanding and that of others." I knew that I learned a lesson from this class. My research question had been changed and modified by their writing styles. I followed my students lead through areas I had no background experience in and ended up thrilled with a new found passion. As a result, my research question was changed to, "What does writer's notebook mean to my students?" It felt like a breath of fresh air because my research question now had great relevance to my 2 nd grade class. I learned from these little children about a whole new world of instruction and writing in the classroom.

I started by taking notes while the students were journaling. One of "The Artist's Tool Box" (p.9-49) extension activities I tried was note taking. I re-evaluated the classroom record keeping and made some adjustments to be more precise. I then tried the "after the fact" extension and noticed that the students were less emotional and had less detail in the work. I was collecting information daily by looking through their individual journals and making side notes on a notepad. I did not correct their writing in their journals because I felt it would be an invasion and could possibly change their views on journaling. Because some students are inventive spellers it can be hard to decipher their words and I did not want to make any marks in their journals that would not be positive. Instead, I would have a stamp a day that they could select and stamp their work. I also kept a running record of the differences and similarities between the students. I would then make some observations whether or not they seemed engaged in their writing. I looked for pictures that reflected on their stories, interests, and quality of the writing. Nonetheless, for the students who could not write, I looked at their pictures to see if they complimented the question of the day. After a week, I would take turns collecting the journals to see if they understood the questions and what they seemed to like to most. I began cooking notes after school and reflecting on the set time for journaling in the classroom. I made my own journal and showed the class that even adults need time to write and reflect events. They thought that was amazing and all agreed that they do not see adults journaling in their homes! We had a daily routine of journal writing. The students always wanted more than the allotted timeframe. I would write our schedule for the day on the front board and the students would immediately tell me what the time for journal writing would be.

In Katie Wood Ray's book, The Writing Workshop, "Routines seem to be like shoes-they have to fit the individual to be useful. One thing is clear from reviewing what writers have to say about their work habits-there is no such thing as one size fits all."

Next, I decided to add theoretical notes to my toolbox in order to support what I am observing my classroom. I could then justify journaling at a specific time to see how engaged the students are for different topics. I decided to take another step and administer student surveys about journaling to the class of twenty students.

I read the questions orally, so even the students who can't read independently could still be counted in my findings. I added apples with faces for each question and the students were to circle them accordingly. A "happy apple" was a good, a "straight line apple" was an okay, and a "frown apple" was a negative answer. There were 7 multiple choice questions and 1 fill in the blank response.

The Pretzel Picket Fence (discoveries):

In Cochran-Smith and Lytles's piece discuss theoretical frameworks. I think I would be more in the area of Shulman by exploring many categories that teachers have and use. His work suggests teaching is complex, encompassing knowledge of context, pedagogy, curriculum, learners and their characteristics, education contexts, purpose and values, and philosophical and historical ground. Teachers identify their research questions and utilize in the analysis and interpretation of their findings. To me, teacher research is done by assessing what is going on and builds on that moment. It is a way of discovering something new and novelty and unexpected, not planned ahead of time. Elizabeth Sulzby writes, "Memories just may be the most important possession any writer has. As much as anything else, our memories shape what we write. Memories are like a fountain no writer can live without. I believe that my best writing springs from that fountain. As a writer, you need to connect yourself with your own unique history. Claim it as your own." (p.290-297)

This led me to another question. When they are writing their "Over the Weekend" stories, are the students reflecting back and if so would it be journaling or a writer's notebook. I started asking the students when they would bring me their journals after Monday's entry if they looked back at previous pages. More than not, the answer was yes they did. I took another look at my research and found books that addressed reflection and growth in journals. I was surprised to find a new area that I was unfamiliar with called, A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You, Fletcher states, "Writing opens the doors in us we never knew existed. Writing helps us explore new worlds-inside and out. And it can be exciting to explore the world of writing." So, I checked out numerous books from our District library and went to the public library for even more books. I not only found a keen interest of the students but learned from my class an area I did not know anything about.

Ralph Fletcher states in Chapter three that maybe the single most important lesson you can learn as a writer is to write small. Use your writer's notebook to jot down the important little details you notice or hear about. These details make writing come alive. (p.23)

I collected the journals and was going to start something new with the class. I made "Writer's Notebooks" for them. I bound 30 pages with a new cover for them to illustrate. I informed them about my findings and they were so excited to begin a new writer's notebook. I have learned so much through teacher research and will continue to evaluate, revisit and question my teachings.

Finding a new passion has opened a whole areas of unanswered questions. I am wondering about the ways and the strategies to use to benefit all my student's needs to maximize their writer's notebook. While some students are using memories from a rich childhood, how can I help some students who do not?

The Ribbon Candy (learned experience):

Teaching is much like making Gingerbread houses. There is always excitement surrounding the holidays which equates with the wonderful excitement teachers feel at the beginning of a brand new school year! The framework for school is set by class, room location, expectations, procedures, rules, school basics, transportation and recess which is much like the framing on a home. The Royal Icing used is white and sturdy and will hold the foundation together for a well constructed Gingerbread house. Teachers' frosting research is the countless hours planning, carefully reviewing District standards, school goals, evaluations, implementing techniques, reflecting, and making sure each child will learn and grow! The colorful, lip smacking ribbon candy is always expected on a gingerbread house to show the individual wonderful differences of the project. The ribbon candy to a teacher is effectively trying to meet the unique and different needs of each child in a warm, inviting way, which values learning. Gingerbread houses and teaching children are very similar, since you need all the areas to make it complete, successful, and delicious!

Journaling Research Plan: Timeline for the 2 nd grade class

Purpose:

To look at journals as a creative writing process. To see if students are engaged in their journal writings. Are the students self-reflecting in their journals. How writer's workshop and writer's notebook are used in further exploration of journal writings in the classroom. The type of journaling that the students find most popular.

Question:

What does journaling mean to my students?

Sub questions:

*= more focused questions

When discussing journals before the writing process are the students more engaged in the writings?

If the students could write about any topic, what would be the most popular area?

How do I assess how engaged the students are in their journal writings?

Will interviewing students be a meaningful way of assessing 2 nd grade students?

Are the students connecting to text in their journal writings?*

Do the students enjoy journaling in the classroom?

How can I make journaling more meaningful in the classroom?*

How do I help facilitate students to relate writing to their personal experiences?*

Do students write more during "free page" then "assigned" journal days?

Where are the "free page" connections coming from?

Data Collection:

Running notes on the students behaviors during journal time

Journaling (note taking) through observations/field notes during the students' journal time

Observations by cooking notes after journal time for the students

Grouping the students journals into categories

How I can re-evaluate an effective journal experience

Student survey

Student interviews?

Looking at both the writing and illustrations in the journal, not to exclude emergent students

Specific journal samples (writing and illustrations)

Graph about journals

Data Analysis:

Go through the journals looking for the following:

Did they respond to the days writing activity? If yes, was it meaningful? Are they responding more to "free page" or "assigned" topics? What are they bringing in from personal experiences? Review anecdotal notes for consistent patterns. Select students for an interview about journaling. Check student survey to their journals for accuracy. Have the students make a graph about the type of journaling they like the best.

Timeline:

September-Model journaling

Teacher journal

Start student journaling

Observe class during journal time

See how are the students engaged in the writings

Mid-September-Add more areas to journaling

Develop student survey questions and how to assess

Start to collect journals and observe findings

Check if the students engaged in the same ways

Late-September-Review journals

Look for consistent patterns

Beginning October-Give student survey

Compare findings to journal writings

Code notes

Mid-October-Check to see if the students are more engaged in their journals

Discuss with parents during conferences

Late-October-Graph the student's responses to journals on the bar graph

Let students share how they feel about journals with a

classmate(student talk)

Beginning November-Continue journaling

Work on final analysis

Write about findings

Permission:

I am informing parents during conferences. I am asking for written consent by the parents and their children's names will be changed to protect their privacy.

Work Cited

Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S. (1993). "Research on Teaching and Teacher Research: The Issues that Divide." In M. Cochran-Smith & S. Lytle, (Eds.), Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge. New York: Teacher College Press. Pp.5-22.

Fleischer, C.(1995). Composing Teacher Research. New York: State University Press, 1995, pp. 1-18.

Fletcher, R. (1996). A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You. New York: Avon Books, Inc.

Hopkins, G. (1999). Journal Writing Everyday: Teachers Say It Really Works! [Electronic version]. Education World, 144, 1-7.

Hubbard, R & Power, B. (1993). "Finding and Framing a Research Question." In L. Patterson, C.M. Santa, K. Short & K. Smith (Eds.), Teachers are Researchers: Reflection and Action. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Hubbard, R. & Power, B. (1999). Living the Question: A Guide for Teacher- Researchers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Hubbard, R. & Power, B. (1993). The Artist's Tool Box." In R. Hubbard & B. Power (Eds.). The Art of Classroom Inquiry: A Handbook Teacher Researcher. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann: pp. 9-49.

Ray, K.(2001). The Writing Workshop: Working through the Hard Parts (And They're All Hard Parts). National Council of Teachers of English.

Sims, M. (1993). How My Question Keeps Evolving. In M. Cochran-Smith & S. Lytle (Eds.), Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge. New York: Teacher College Press pp.283-289.

Spandel, V. (1997). Seeing With New Eyes: A Guidebook on Teaching & Assessing Beginning Writers. Portland, Oregon: Northwest Regional Education Laboratory.

Sulzby, E. (1992). Research Directions: Transitions from Emergent to Conventional Writing [Electronic version]. Language Arts, (69), 290-297.

Naomi L. Goldman teaches Second Grade at Zuni Elementary School in Scottsdale, Arizona, U.S.A.