It goes without saying : the importance of creating space for writing talk with African American students
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Writing research, primarily done in the 1980s, led to better understanding of writing as a recursive social process and affected change in many language arts classrooms. However, more research is needed to determine what instructional practices around writing are effective in supporting students who struggle with writing, particularly African American students. The achievement gap in American schools is widely documented; this gap is especially wide with regard the writing achievement of African American students. As a group, African Americans scored in the lowest percentile across all grades tested on the 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) writing exam and the 2007 NAEP writing exam scores continue to show a drop in the percentage of African American students at proficient between eighth and twelfth grade. This is a case study of two middle school English/Language Arts teachers chosen from a larger pool of effective teachers based on value-added measures, and observational data from a prior study. The author investigated the instructional practices of these teachers in one predominantly African American middle school and their impact on the development of students' writing skills and identities as writers. Data included classroom observations, student and teacher interviews, class sets of student writing from the beginning and end of the academic year, and artifacts such as graphic organizers and rubrics. The aim of this study was not to pinpoint one best way of teaching writing, but to develop a better understanding of the ways we can support struggling writers, particularly African American students, to develop their writing skills and a writer's identity. From this work, certain facets of teaching seem particularly supportive during the teaching of writing with African American students: namely, the use of writing talk as a mechanism to bridge between students' and the academic writing required in schools today. This talk creates opportunities for students to engage with models and their peers in ways that support engagement and persistence, and approximate the practice of experienced writers.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2010 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Alston, Chandra Lynette |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, School of Education. |
| Primary advisor | Grossman, Pamela L. (Pamela Lynn), 1953- |
| Thesis advisor | Grossman, Pamela L. (Pamela Lynn), 1953- |
| Thesis advisor | Darling-Hammond, Linda, 1951- |
| Thesis advisor | Lotan, Rachel A |
| Thesis advisor | Lunsford, Andrea A, 1942- |
| Advisor | Darling-Hammond, Linda, 1951- |
| Advisor | Lotan, Rachel A |
| Advisor | Lunsford, Andrea A, 1942- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Chandra L. Alston. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the School of Education. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2010. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2010 by Chandra Lynette Alston
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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