Why Writing?Noticing a need for change, I chose to focus on how to reach my class of struggling writers. Through observation, I realized my class was very reluctant to write and very dependent of others during independent writing time. Initially, I observed my student engagement level in a 35 minute time frame. I chose to gather data and document time on task for 35 minutes, which is the suggested amount of time students in third grade should be able to independently write. From the data collected, I found that my students were on task which means they were working or planning for their writing 61% of the time. On the contrary, 39% of the time, my students were off task. Off task behaviors included wandering the room, sharpening pencils, talking, or complete disengagement. In addition to collecting time on task, I also asked students how they felt about writing. Out of 17 students, 71% of my students stated they enjoyed writing, while 29% of students were neutral or did not enjoy writing.
I knew I needed to change things and create a more predictable structure where students were excited to write, and independence was encouraged. Focusing my energy on my reluctant writers, I was failing to meet the needs of my independent writers. A large component of writer’s workshop is teacher-student conferences which are designed to meet students where they are in their writing, and drive individual growth. By implementing writing conferences, I would able to meet with each of my students on a weekly basis, despite their academic level. In December, students wrote a personal narrative which was assessed from our district rubric. I scored this writing to use as my pre-test data. In scoring my students writing I found the following:
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Quantitative data
Qualitative Data
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