BWP Reflections

Literature Review

Penny Oldfather is an assistant professor at the University of Georgia in the elementary education department. Her focus is on qualitative research process that measure student motivation and constructivism in teaching and learning. This research is based on “41 open-ended in-depth interviews” with fourteen students. Its main focus was to study the students’ perceptions of their learning and motivation in a whole language classroom setting. She shares large portions of the student responses within the paper to demonstrate their ownership into the instructional strategy by all parties. One student comments, “Choices… encourage us to write… we get a less pressured feeling, which, believe it or not, leads us to write the longest paper we ever wrote” (1993). While I found this article very helpful in knowing what the teacher and students ran into while implementing whole language and its effect on voice in writing, I still felt there could have been a more direct distinction made on specific instruction. There was a broader focus on “choice” in general. For instance, there was a science project due. The teacher told the kids there was one due. The topic and the mode of presentation was left up to the students. It would have been helpful to see the teaching that went along with the project. There had to be instruction to keep it on track.

Marylyn Calabrese offers a glimpse into research that responds to the topic of how the focus of the instruction affects the voice in writing. This is more of a summary piece of other research than one specific piece of research. The process for gathering neither the initial data nor the summary of it is discussed. She neither quotes specific pieces, although she does mention outcomes. When a teacher spends more time on grammar and spelling, students cut short the creative process, thus eliminating the voice in the piece. Her comments on students becoming writers that are more effective when they focus on letting their voice create meaning are fitting for my research. She mostly discusses the effect that the overemphasis on avoiding errors has on the creativity. This part is helpful in that it lets me know that effective writing instruction would contain portions of this and not a focus on it during the early stages of the writing process.

Gary Troix and Mary Maddox used focus groups and rating scales to research the impacts on student writing outcomes. What they found was that the tighter the guidelines on the instructional process (i.e. district mandated curriculum guides that were underdeveloped or misaligned, too much content with too little time, etc.) had a large impact on the efficacy of the teacher. The educators, both general and special education, felt that students that wrote in all core areas had a greater ability to write reflectively in all areas. This is most interesting to me because until students can put thought to paper with ease as if it is second nature, voice will struggle to come out. Their recommendation to have general education and special education teachers work collaboratively to help middle school students become better writers was interesting to note and might have a little bearing on my final research since the tie between a writers’ workshop style of instruction and a more constrictive style of error checking has an effect on the final written product from a student. The qualitative measures used in this research will prove beneficial.

Grainger, Goouch, and Lambirth look into ongoing research that studies the impact of empowering teachers to develop their own voice in writing. The data collected was mostly qualitative while they were able to arrive at a level of quantitative analysis with some of the collected data. The initial stage collected student and teacher perceptions as well as samples of student writing. This was followed by focus groups to gather and examine data. Finally, collecting summative data and follow up samples from the earlier chosen students allowed the researchers to compare the outcomes. Interesting results from this research showed that the teachers felt they were not allowed to have creativity because so much of the decision-making in curriculum was taken out of their hands. In turn, they mainly prepared the students using the textbook resources and readied them for the standardized exam. Students also raised the question of exercising more choice in their writing as early as the third and fourth grades in this study. While the research was extended for an additional year, it is obvious that autonomy for the teachers and the students will bring about more creativity from choice. This is important for student development of voice in his/her writing.

Derek Soles postulates that educators should use a diverse set of instructional strategies in order to reach all of the different learning styles (as compiled by Howard Gardner) and personality types (as compiled by Isabel Briggs Myers). The critical conclusion from this research is that teachers need to use multiple methods of instruction in an attempt to allow students to experience effective writing since it requires creative, social, and cognitive processes. Students must use these skills fluently if voice is to be found in their writing. While the research is directed for higher education teachers, the results are still valid in public school settings. Students must become engaged in their writing for voice to appear. If content is presented in different styles, there is a better chance for students to become engaged. While the research does not appear to gather any new data on its own, the author collected data from multiple resources of previous bodies of work to draw the conclusions. It is still a viable source of information for me. It proves that Instructional strategies have a bearing on student engagement, which in turn drives creativity in writing which controls voice.

Richard Ferdig and Kaye Trammell present findings on how blogging offers educators another avenue for student engagement. Their gathering of resources provides the conclusion that blogs increase student interest and ownership in learning. Discussing Vygotsky’s learning theory about the parallels between knowledge construction and meaning-making through social process of language offers me insight into the importance of literacy in authentic applications. Placed into these authentic applications, students will be drawn into the process and create a personal tie to the content, thus improving the chances for voice to arise out of their writing. This correlates rather well with my own findings.

Donald Pardlow studied his students in his own composition course in an attempt to find the affect creative writing and writing freedom had on his students. While his qualitative research is formally limited to just five of the initial twenty-four students that enrolled in his course, it draws very interesting results discussing racial backgrounds and their influences on the characteristics of their writing. He drew many conclusions that would ultimately affect his instructional style. He concluded that this freer style of instruction gave his students the opportunity to “develop their voices as writers” (2003). Among other useful data, this supports my theory that choice allows voice to burgeon in student writing.

Mimi Schwartz’s writing, while not a research piece, guides the reader through the importance of finding voice. The process is hard to identify as any one thing, but Schwartz shares the words, rhythms, and attitudes needed to correctly choose the write voice for a piece of writing. Her concepts of voice in writing add a different view to choice in writing. She shares that choice controls the voice as well as kills it. If the writer, making his or her own choices, chooses wrong, then the reader will be turned off. Schwartz’s summary of this forces me to consider the process of teaching “choice” to students instead of just turning them loose on a piece of writing and standing back and hoping for the best.

Tom Romano, in his text Crafting Authentic Voice, offers much insight to voice. Again, while not a research piece of work, it cites many pieces of research that discuss multiple facets of voice creation and destruction. The destruction part is what I found interesting for my research. Students lose voice over the fear of the audience as much as anything else. While students may naturally write with voice, they need to feel the safety of the audience for which they write to not only hold on to the voice, but to allow it to blossom. The amount of information the student has to share will also affect voice. Too much or too little will compel the writer to force the writing. It comes as no surprise that Romano suggests quick writes as a solution to this problem offering the writer the chance to have pour out (or gush as Roman calls it) what is apparently the most pertinent information to the topic. This text offers much in the way of instructional direction for my research.

Barry Lane writes that “writers who write with voice constantly make choices that reflect a personal interest in their subject” (1993). In After the End: Teaching and Learning Creative Revision, Lane supports the belief that there must be choice and personal ownership in student writing for voice to make an appearance and that voice can be apparent in many types of writing. His belief that validating and valuing one’s students is the best way to begin teaching voice. Students need the approval of an authority to appreciate their own writing until they gain the confidence and knowledge to effectively introduce voice into all of their writings, regardless of style.

Each of these resources offer me an opportunity to better understand voice and the part it plays in writing instruction. Helping students find voice seems to be much easier than I initially anticipated due to the vast number of activities out there for educators. The activities were difficult to search out initially because so many of them are contained in collections of other works about the writing process. It is obvious that using a writer’s workshop form of teaching allows the student to have freedom in his or her writing while still having the support system in place from the teacher and peers. During the writing time, student will be able to write freely without the fear of failure in the chosen path. Reflective conferencing allows students to gain a personal connection with their own writing due to the questioning by their peers. Schwartz, Romano, and Lane offer me guidance within the scope of the classroom with strategies that have been proven to work. While they are not resources of direct research, they are the hands-on materials that a teacher needs to make appropriate choices. From Oldfather’s view on student motivation to Grainger’s (et.al.) view on teacher empowerment, the compiled research within my collection offers a diverse and woven view on literacy instruction and the voice within it.

Oldfather has a quote that reads, “Students said that having choice was one of the main reasons they felt so motivated to learn” (1993). I say it goes along with teacher action research as well. Knowing the processes this entails and having a run-through with it will encourage me to do more of my own. My goal for this coming school year is to use action research as it becomes necessary and publish an article on my findings within a professional journal. While I have had many newspaper articles, letters to the editor, and poetry published throughout my years, a scholarly journal article would be a new high for me. Until now, I never truly saw the need to share with others what I find in the classroom. Now I understand the importance. Why keep it to myself if it will benefit other teachers and students?


Categories: Literacy, Writing Process, Voice

posted by Scott S. Floyd @ 11:20 AM