Research About The Nature Of Literature-based Instruction And Writing Practices

By Author: Ray Allen
Total Articles: 24
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1. Writers' Workshop
The workshop approach provides opportunities to enact the writing process, in which students participate in prewriting and drafting (Atwell & Newkirk, 1987; Calkins, 1994). Teacher and peer conferring support students toward standard conventions in a final draft. Students are provided a scaffold from nonstandard to standard conventions of writing and speaking and supported in distinguishing between corresponding nonstandard and Standard English features (Baker, 2002; Wheeler & Swords, 2006).

In spite of teachers' intentions to provide code-switching pedagogies within the frame of the workshop approach, Fecho et al. (2006) revealed the potential for students to resist switching to the culture of power for any reason. Resistance is embedded in sensing their identity and home language have Vibram Five Fingers been compromised, as a result of code switching to standard word choices that do not accurately depict how they speak.

2. Methodology
Findings in this article are grounded in integrated and excerpt style (Emerson, Fretz, ...
... & Shaw, 1995). Data reduction was guided by salient themes that emerged through interpretation of units of analysis. Integrated units of analysis include in-the-moment field notes and student writing samples. Excerpted units of analysis include transcribed teacher and student interviews.

3. Research Site and Participants
Data were based on observations in a seventh-grade English classroom at Barrington Middle School in an affluent Detroit suburb. The class enrolled 29 students. Twenty-one students were European American, 5 were African American, 1 was Asian American, 1 was French, and 1 was Ethiopian. There were 15 girls and 14 boys. The participants were the most racially and ethnically diverse class of Mr. Lehrer's career. At the same time, the composition corresponded with a typical classroom at Barrington. I selected Monet and Kiki as focal students because they represented Detroit students entering Oak Valley for educational parity. In addition, they were selected because they desired to preserve their Detroit identity and were vocal about preserving their voices in their writing.

4. Data Collection and Analysis
The class was observed during one 46-minute period, three to five days per week over a five-month period from February to June 2005. The findings revealed in this article are situated in a broader dissertation and ethnographic case study, which emphasized the nature of literature-based instruction and writing practices in Mr. Lehrer's classroom. For the purpose of this article, data were gathered in an effort to demonstrate the nature of writing pedagogy that was conducive to code-switching pedagogies. Therefore, I focused on data which drew from Monet and Kiki's home language to support standard and nonstandard writing conventions.

From my field note analysis, I devised assertions that were guided by Mr. Lehrer's instructional decisions during the writing process. In addition, I paid attention to the manner in which Kiki and Monet responded to those decisions.

Teacher interview excerpts were analyzed and coded into theoretical memos. Salient themes were devised and coded into assertions. I made decisions about assertions and data reduction based on Mr. Lehrer's attentiveness to distinguishing between standard and nonstandard writing conventions and attention to language varieties. Student interview excerpts rendered salient themes that were coded into assertions. While analyzing interview data, I sought to identify what I perceived to are compelling responses regarding distinguishing between standard and non-standard writing conventions.

Monet and Kiki's written artifacts were integrated to support assertions. Data reduction was determined by writing, which illustrated distinctions and transitions between standard and nonstandard writing conventions. To account for emic perspectives, writing conventions were interpreted in relation to corresponding rule-governed language features. Reference to and analysis of student writing samples that illustrate AAVE features, along with individual style and voices, are termed nonstandard. Integrated writing samples include illustrations of how Mr. Lehrer Tiight have corrected, had he called for standard contentions. In addition, writing Vibram Fivefingers Shoes samples that focus on standard grammatical usage in the context of seventh-grade expectations are termed standard.

I approached the data with the following research questions: What is the nature of writing practices that facilitate standard and nonstandard writing conventions? How are these opportunities linked to student identity? How do focal students respond to these opportunities?