The Beginning

How did it all begin?  It probably began in my mind years ago, but at last I have a vehicle to share my thoughts about some aspects of teaching. Since I have been teaching for 25 years I have seen many different faces of teaching literacy go through the classroom.  From ideas that began in Australia to literacy ideas from our government.  We now have common core standards and it will be interesting to see how literacy instruction will change or not change. With all that being said I attend Manhattanville College and I am in a Literacy Research Seminar class.  When I enrolled for this class I had  a different idea of what action research looked like.   After learning in the first few classes about action research and brainstorming with my professor and class I understand it much better and I came up with a question that will propel my research into action.

Question: How do I meet the District's goals of implementing the "Journeys Writing Program" within the framework of the Writing Workshop model?

The district that I teach in has adopted a comprehensive reading program.  Within this comprehensive reading program there includes a component on the teaching of writing.  However, this published program does not necessarily meet the needs of my students, match the philosophy of the teaching of writing that I believe in, or make the moves toward the writing goals that the published units have identified as ending writing pieces.  Therefore, I have designed a project that will investigate the writing components of the Journey's Writing Program, the outlined goals of the units within the program, (for example, to author a personal narrative), in combination with published research on the teaching of writing within a workshop framework, to (re)design the Writing Workshop framework in my classroom for teaching young children how to become better writer's.

I will develop lessons based on research and materials written from a perspective of the writing process and the writing workshop framework- that believes that every student has stories and experiences to draw from and incorporates the teaching of skills and strategies of a specific genre while incorporating the required grammar and syntax lessons outlined in the Journey's Program.

All my students will participate in the Writer's workshop, however I will choose two focus students. I will collect the students' writing work ( writing samples, writer's notebooks, drafts) for my beginning data to analyze how they are using their new skills and strategies in their work.  I will also use anecdotal notes as I listen in to the writers as they work together, share together during mini lessons when they "turn and talk", as well as when I confer with them one-to-one. These are methods that do not stray from my everyday teaching style.  I will also try to film myself as a teacher to make sure that I am explicitly teaching writing skills and strategies in ways that help my students and guide them to use the new skills/strategies in their own independent writing.  I will keep a reflective notebook to track my teaching moves and thinking as I work through this process.