25th Annual Student Research Conference
Effects of Focusing on "Next Steps" on the Writing Skills of Struggling Third-Graders
Ashley N. Brooks♦
Dr. Wendy Miner, Faculty Mentor
The purpose of this action research study was to examine the effects of taking next steps during student writing conferences on writing scores. The research was conducted during the 50-minute writing block in a third-grade classroom. Throughout the six-week unit, three third-grade boys spent five to seven minutes conferencing with a teacher twice a week. During this time, data was collected from their writing notebooks in the form of graphic organizers, pre-writing, drafting, and final drafts. After the six-weeks was completed, the researcher gave students a writing reflection to gauge how each student thought he had improved. When the six-week unit was over, the researcher compared the writing scores taken before the research began to the scores taken after the research was completed. The overall goal of this study was to see how using next steps during the conferencing phase of the writers workshop affected the quality of student writing in struggling third-graders.
Keywords: next steps, conferences, writer's workshop, graphic organizers, quality student writing, pre-writing, final draft, writing reflection
Topic(s):Education
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 113-1
Location: VH 1010
Time: 8:00