Description of Implementation
Week 1
After analyzing the results of phase one, the AR investigation pointed to a need to implement a phase two that would further assist the kindergarten students in the writing process. Specifically, the goal for phase two was to put the responsibility of finding images that interested the students on them instead of the instructor, as was the case in phase one. Phase two began at the end of May, which is significant as at this particular time of the year. There had been much less time for writing due to the busy end of the year kindergarten schedule. I was initially worried about how this lack of a consistent schedule would impact the students’ writing and the gains that we had made in phase one. When it came time to do writing on the first day of implementation of phase two, I had multiple students ask me if we were going to use pictures. I told them that I had seen a lot of students finding their own pictures in books and that I was going to show them how I would write about a picture in a book. I chose a book at random and turned to a page in the book that we agreed looked interesting.
To remain consistent between phase one and phase two, I completed the same chart with the students to identify (1) what we saw in the picture, (2) what we might hear if we were there and, (3) what the characters might be feeling. The students were extremely enthusiastic about describing the picture in this book. The picture was of a bear coming out of his cave after hibernating. The students had previously learned about this and loved coming up with how the bear was feeling and what noises he might be making. They gave answers such as “growling.” “yawning,” and “snoring.” They also thought that he was very hungry and asked me multiple times if we could name the character in the picture. After we completed the chart, I had the students give me three sentences to describe the picture in the book. We came up with three sentences and then I explained to the students that they could use their own books to help with topics or that they could up with topics of their own. I also emphasized that they could use the books to help them spell some difficult words, but that they could not copy down the sentences in their books.
As with the first day of implementation during phase one, I noticed many students using the books in their book bags on which to base their writing topic. They were excited and could not wait to write about books that they loved reading during guided reading time. The students were asking each other what book they were writing about and they could not wait to show me what they had written. As I was walking around the room, I did notice that some students were using the sentences in the books to help them write. I realized that I needed to clarify that the words in the book were not their words and they needed to use their own words except for names or harder words in the books to help them spell.
We wrote one more time during that week and I followed the same pattern of brainstorming ideas, modeling a sample story and then having the students complete their work at their desks. I emphasized multiple times during this writing time that they are not allowed to copy the sentences from the books they are using. Similarly to phase one, I recorded student topic choices on the structured checklist and noted conversations between the students or things that they said to me during writing. After each writing time, I reviewed the students' work in their journals to better identify any changes in mechanics, sentence structure and topic choice.
Week 2
Due to the busy schedule of kindergarten and our new unit on animals, which replaced writing time, the students did not have an opportunity to write in their journals for another week. I was worried about how this might affect their writing and the implementation of phase two. The other event that impacted this day of writing was that the students had just gone to the zoo for a field trip the day before. I was instructed to model a story on the zoo for the students and I believe this influenced what the students wrote about. Due to constraints on time, I did not utilize the chart paper to identify things I saw, what I felt or what I might of heard. I did ask for student input on my story and as a class we came up with three sentences about my trip to the zoo. Since I decided to model on my own topic, I reminded the students that they could still use pictures in their books to help them write about certain topics. Since the students were responsible for choosing their own pictures, I was not able to provide a list of words on the white board for students that related to the pictures. As with phase one, I monitored student topic choice, their choice to write during daily five and if they would use their books during this unstructured writing time.
Results
Structured Checklist on Topic Choice
Similarly to phase one results, on the first day of implementation of phase two, there was an initial boost in students choosing to write about a picture in one of their books. With any new change in their writing, they were excited to try something that I showed them and could not wait to pick out their favorite book and write about one of the pictures that interested them. Additionally on this first day, more than half of the class chose to write on books, while the rest of the students chose to write about a topic they had initiated on their own. By the second day of the implementation, only six students decided to use their books to help them come up with a topic during writing time. This is consistent with my findings from phase one. The first day of each phase provided a new, exciting change for them. However, they seemed to revert back to their own topics after that initial day. On the third day of writing during phase two, not a single student decided to base their writing on a picture in a book. The majority of the class wrote about our field trip to the zoo the day before. This may have been due to the instructions given to me to model on that topic or that they were passionate about the trip and therefore, had a lot to say about it. This once again appears to demonstrate that students are more interested in writing when it pertains to their lives or something that they are passionate about.
After analyzing the results of phase one, the AR investigation pointed to a need to implement a phase two that would further assist the kindergarten students in the writing process. Specifically, the goal for phase two was to put the responsibility of finding images that interested the students on them instead of the instructor, as was the case in phase one. Phase two began at the end of May, which is significant as at this particular time of the year. There had been much less time for writing due to the busy end of the year kindergarten schedule. I was initially worried about how this lack of a consistent schedule would impact the students’ writing and the gains that we had made in phase one. When it came time to do writing on the first day of implementation of phase two, I had multiple students ask me if we were going to use pictures. I told them that I had seen a lot of students finding their own pictures in books and that I was going to show them how I would write about a picture in a book. I chose a book at random and turned to a page in the book that we agreed looked interesting.
To remain consistent between phase one and phase two, I completed the same chart with the students to identify (1) what we saw in the picture, (2) what we might hear if we were there and, (3) what the characters might be feeling. The students were extremely enthusiastic about describing the picture in this book. The picture was of a bear coming out of his cave after hibernating. The students had previously learned about this and loved coming up with how the bear was feeling and what noises he might be making. They gave answers such as “growling.” “yawning,” and “snoring.” They also thought that he was very hungry and asked me multiple times if we could name the character in the picture. After we completed the chart, I had the students give me three sentences to describe the picture in the book. We came up with three sentences and then I explained to the students that they could use their own books to help with topics or that they could up with topics of their own. I also emphasized that they could use the books to help them spell some difficult words, but that they could not copy down the sentences in their books.
As with the first day of implementation during phase one, I noticed many students using the books in their book bags on which to base their writing topic. They were excited and could not wait to write about books that they loved reading during guided reading time. The students were asking each other what book they were writing about and they could not wait to show me what they had written. As I was walking around the room, I did notice that some students were using the sentences in the books to help them write. I realized that I needed to clarify that the words in the book were not their words and they needed to use their own words except for names or harder words in the books to help them spell.
We wrote one more time during that week and I followed the same pattern of brainstorming ideas, modeling a sample story and then having the students complete their work at their desks. I emphasized multiple times during this writing time that they are not allowed to copy the sentences from the books they are using. Similarly to phase one, I recorded student topic choices on the structured checklist and noted conversations between the students or things that they said to me during writing. After each writing time, I reviewed the students' work in their journals to better identify any changes in mechanics, sentence structure and topic choice.
Week 2
Due to the busy schedule of kindergarten and our new unit on animals, which replaced writing time, the students did not have an opportunity to write in their journals for another week. I was worried about how this might affect their writing and the implementation of phase two. The other event that impacted this day of writing was that the students had just gone to the zoo for a field trip the day before. I was instructed to model a story on the zoo for the students and I believe this influenced what the students wrote about. Due to constraints on time, I did not utilize the chart paper to identify things I saw, what I felt or what I might of heard. I did ask for student input on my story and as a class we came up with three sentences about my trip to the zoo. Since I decided to model on my own topic, I reminded the students that they could still use pictures in their books to help them write about certain topics. Since the students were responsible for choosing their own pictures, I was not able to provide a list of words on the white board for students that related to the pictures. As with phase one, I monitored student topic choice, their choice to write during daily five and if they would use their books during this unstructured writing time.
Results
Structured Checklist on Topic Choice
Similarly to phase one results, on the first day of implementation of phase two, there was an initial boost in students choosing to write about a picture in one of their books. With any new change in their writing, they were excited to try something that I showed them and could not wait to pick out their favorite book and write about one of the pictures that interested them. Additionally on this first day, more than half of the class chose to write on books, while the rest of the students chose to write about a topic they had initiated on their own. By the second day of the implementation, only six students decided to use their books to help them come up with a topic during writing time. This is consistent with my findings from phase one. The first day of each phase provided a new, exciting change for them. However, they seemed to revert back to their own topics after that initial day. On the third day of writing during phase two, not a single student decided to base their writing on a picture in a book. The majority of the class wrote about our field trip to the zoo the day before. This may have been due to the instructions given to me to model on that topic or that they were passionate about the trip and therefore, had a lot to say about it. This once again appears to demonstrate that students are more interested in writing when it pertains to their lives or something that they are passionate about.
Student Writing Samples
In analysis of samples of students' work during phase two, I noticed some interesting patterns. Even though students were choosing to write on their own topics more frequently, those who chose to write on a picture of a book tended to write more sentences and their sentences had more detail. As seen in the sample 1 work below, one of the more advanced students wrote about a picture in her book of cheetah cubs. She used descriptive words such as “tall grass” and incorporated the phrase “watching after her cubs.” This is very advanced writing for a kindergarten student. On the next day of writing, she chose to write about her own topic. She reverted back to simpler sentences and using verbs “has” and “is” more frequently. This demonstrates that although the students wrote about the pictures less, these pictures did help them write more creative, longer and more detailed sentences. Similarly, one of my reluctant writers who always writes about her family started to use more complex verbs in her writing about a picture in a book. She incorporated “died” and “painted” into her story. In comparison with her baseline work, these are much more complex sentences than she usually writes. See sample 2 for writing samples.
In analysis of samples of students' work during phase two, I noticed some interesting patterns. Even though students were choosing to write on their own topics more frequently, those who chose to write on a picture of a book tended to write more sentences and their sentences had more detail. As seen in the sample 1 work below, one of the more advanced students wrote about a picture in her book of cheetah cubs. She used descriptive words such as “tall grass” and incorporated the phrase “watching after her cubs.” This is very advanced writing for a kindergarten student. On the next day of writing, she chose to write about her own topic. She reverted back to simpler sentences and using verbs “has” and “is” more frequently. This demonstrates that although the students wrote about the pictures less, these pictures did help them write more creative, longer and more detailed sentences. Similarly, one of my reluctant writers who always writes about her family started to use more complex verbs in her writing about a picture in a book. She incorporated “died” and “painted” into her story. In comparison with her baseline work, these are much more complex sentences than she usually writes. See sample 2 for writing samples.
Student sample work 1: The first two images are a story that my advanced student wrote about a picture in the book. The third image is a sample of her work a week later when she chose to write on her own topic
Student sample work 2: The first two images are a baseline measure of this student's work taken in February. The third image is a sample of her writing when using a picture in one of her books.
Another important trend in the writing samples was that students who wrote about the zoo, an exciting event for them, wrote long stories, with detail. This shows how much a passion or interest can transform writing. As seen below in some sample work, this particular student usually struggles with general mechanics and penmanship. When she wrote about the zoo trip, she wrote using finger spaces, added more detail to her sentences and wrote more sentences than in prior writing. This was a finding for almost all students who wrote about the zoo. They were filling up the front and backs of their papers and there was a dramatic change in their writing. This demonstrates how important specific events and passions are to the writing process, even at such a young age.
Student sample work 3: The first image is a sample of student work from April when I was implementing phase one. The last two images are the same student's work after our field trip to the zoo a little over a month later.
Informal Observations of the Students
During my observations of the students during writing time, I noticed that students were still asking me why I was not bringing in pictures anymore. Each day of phase two I was faced with questions from the students about why I did not have any pictures for them to write about. Some of the things I heard students say over phase two were:
“Ms. C, you forgot to bring in pictures today!”
“When are we going to have the pictures on the screen again?”
“Aww, you mean we don’t have those pictures to write on anymore?”
These comments seem to point to the idea that the students were still excited about the options I had provided during phase one and were not equally as excited about having to find their own pictures in books.
As previously stated, the students were initially excited about the opportunity to find pictures in their books. Over half the class chose to look through their book bags to find a story that they loved. I heard students passionately asking each other, “Which book are you writing about?” “I am writing about this book and this picture, look!” They were extremely excited about the change in writing on this first day, but this excitement faded between the first day of implementation and the second. I heard more students asking about the pictures I provided and barely any conversations on pictures on their books. The excitement for writing increased again after the zoo field trip. I had students coming up to me and asking me to read their story about the zoo. “Ms. C look at how many sentences I wrote about the zoo today!” They were extremely passionate about this topic and this showed in their conversations and their writing.
Unlike phase one, I was noticing fewer students choosing writing during their “daily 5” time, when writing was a choice. If they did choose to write during this time, they were reverting back to topics that they were comfortable with like their family and friends. They were becoming less inventive than during the unstructured writing time during phase one.
During my observations of the students during writing time, I noticed that students were still asking me why I was not bringing in pictures anymore. Each day of phase two I was faced with questions from the students about why I did not have any pictures for them to write about. Some of the things I heard students say over phase two were:
“Ms. C, you forgot to bring in pictures today!”
“When are we going to have the pictures on the screen again?”
“Aww, you mean we don’t have those pictures to write on anymore?”
These comments seem to point to the idea that the students were still excited about the options I had provided during phase one and were not equally as excited about having to find their own pictures in books.
As previously stated, the students were initially excited about the opportunity to find pictures in their books. Over half the class chose to look through their book bags to find a story that they loved. I heard students passionately asking each other, “Which book are you writing about?” “I am writing about this book and this picture, look!” They were extremely excited about the change in writing on this first day, but this excitement faded between the first day of implementation and the second. I heard more students asking about the pictures I provided and barely any conversations on pictures on their books. The excitement for writing increased again after the zoo field trip. I had students coming up to me and asking me to read their story about the zoo. “Ms. C look at how many sentences I wrote about the zoo today!” They were extremely passionate about this topic and this showed in their conversations and their writing.
Unlike phase one, I was noticing fewer students choosing writing during their “daily 5” time, when writing was a choice. If they did choose to write during this time, they were reverting back to topics that they were comfortable with like their family and friends. They were becoming less inventive than during the unstructured writing time during phase one.