What impact will effective writing partnerships have on my 4th grade students’ writing achievement?

Seminar Title

What impact will effective writing partnerships have on my 4th grade students’ writing achievement?

Student partners/Sharing/Writer's Workshop

4th Grade

5th Grade

Writing

Mathematics

Have you ever dreaded writing time as an educator? I know I used to. Not anymore! After much research on the best practices in Writer’s Workshop, I believe I found the one missing link that was causing writing to be uneventful and boring to myself as well as my students: authentic sharing! For my action research project, I intentionally taught my students how to be effective writing partners to each other in order to maximize student sharing and feedback. After implementing this plan for two entire writing units, not only did my students’ writing abilities improve, but they also grew to love writing more than they had in the past. If you are looking for a way to love teaching writing and instill a passion for writing in your class, then look no further. My session will impact your life more than sliced bread!

I believe the mind retains information so much better when it is engaged throughout the learning process. On the other hand, if students do not enjoy walking into your room, they will just be counting down the minutes until they can leave and their wandering minds will struggle to grasp any new concepts being taught. During these last four years of teaching writing, my writing instruction was far from fun. Neither the students nor myself looked forward to writing time. Not only were we not enjoying writing, but I was not seeing much progress in my students’ writing abilities. Even though I prepared myself before each lesson and followed my writing curriculum schedule, something was missing in my writing instruction. After conducting a thorough review of literature around Writer’s Workshop, I believe I found what I was missing. One component of Writer’s Workshop that I wasn’t integrating into my own instruction was the aspect of students sharing their writing. I’m not talking about a student just telling another student at the end of the lesson what they did. I’m talking about really sharing their thoughts, ideas, and plans about their writing. After sharing, having students get feedback from someone about their writing is equally important. Therefore, I planned to teach my students how to be effective writing partners for each other. I wanted to see if having someone readily available to share and discuss writing would positively impact my students’ writing achievement. The following is a result of this research question: What impact will effective writing partnerships have on my students’ writing achievement? My implementation plan took place from the beginning of the school year until Christmas break. During that time, I was able to implement this plan for two writing units: Realistic Fiction and Opinion. After intentionally teaching my students how to be effective writing partners every day for the first week of school, I paired them up based on writing abilities to begin unit one. Everyday in writing, the students worked closely with their writing partner. In addition to daily collaboration, I also taught a “partnership” lesson every Friday in place of a new writing lesson. Students would then incorporate the new skills they learned on Friday to their daily collaboration time. After unit one, I let the students choose their own partners for unit two, but follow the same collaborative routine. Along with an analysis of both units’ pre and post samples, I administered a writing survey at three points throughout the plan assessing their views on writing as well as working with a partner. After analyzing results of the students’ surveys, pre and post writing samples of units one and two, and reflecting on my daily anecdotal notes of partnership interactions, here is what I found. According to the nine documented areas in my student writing surveys, the two areas with the most significant amount of growth include my students’ passion for writing in school as well as their belief that they work better with a partner. Also, four more students said writing was their favorite subject at the end of this project compared to the beginning. After analyzing their pre and post writing samples for unit one and unit two by scoring on rubrics, students showed major growth in their overall ability to write a narrative with events bit by bit excluding unimportant parts and also the ability to make a claim about a topic supported by reasons. To conclude, intentionally teaching students how to be effective writing partners paid off. Giving them time every day to collaborate and share their writing positively affected their writing abilities. Not only did my students become better writers, but they also increased their passion for writing which will help them in their writing endeavors far after fourth grade. The research I did about students sharing their writing as well as the benefits of partner collaboration proved to be successful in my plan. I look forward to furthering my research in the area of student sharing and partner collaboration. Even though my action research plan is over, I am excited to continue this teaching strategy in my classroom during writing time as well as incorporate it into other areas of my daily instruction.