Aiden

Self Concept as a Writer

During our first Writing Workshop, I expected students to need some time to adjust to a new style of exercise and for only a sentence or two to be written at the most. Students were asked to color a picture of a piece of clothing, describe how it looks, and give it a price for our 'store'. Aiden wrote five full, nearly correct sentences, more than any other student in class. I collected all the students' work and published the six page 'Haydn Class Clothes Store' catalog. It included the pictures they colored and a teacher corrected version of their writing printed from the computer. Each student got a copy to share with their parents. Original writing and a copy of the catalog were displayed on the wall. I often found Aiden studying the wall. His work stood out as being the longest and he was proud of this fact. By the beginning of the next week, Aiden was filling the entire page with writing and then writing on the back of the paper. I gave him praise for the large amount of writing and the quality he created. Aiden focused on the quantity of writing though, not the quality. During the fifth week of Writing Workshop, Aiden wrote about his weekend. He finished writing time with four full pages of writing, but much of it was repeated phrases that expressed the same or similar ideas multiple times and acted as filler. An example of a repeated phrase from this piece, "and Grama by it", is shown in Figure A1. Aiden's handwriting is uncharacteristically sloppy from rushing to write as well.

Figure A1- Aiden's Weekend

I found out three main ideas about Aiden's concept of writing and his self concept as a writer through analyzing his work, conferencing, and the interview. First, Aiden considers the length and speed of writing to be indicative of quality. He feels he does well in these areas and has a positive self image as a writer as a result. In the interview, Aiden noted he was good at "fast writing" and felt he improved as a writer because he wrote larger pieces. Aiden's ability to write a large volume of work is supported by Calkins (2011) who noted that kindergartners are capable of being prolific writers, even in the beginning weeks of Writing Workshop. Calkins (2011) also noted that over time, kindergarten students slow their pace of production as they focus on creating higher quality work. It is possible that my research on Writing Workshop was over too short a time to see Aiden adopt this style of writing. Graves (1975) showed that students have unique motivations and coping mechanisms for writing, which could explain Aiden's focus on the importance of the length of his writing.

Secondly, Aiden was competing with and comparing himself to peers. He mimicked some of their habits that align with his beliefs on writing. Sean, a boy Aiden has been competitive with socially and academically all year, began writing multiple page stories longer than Aiden's by using repeated phrases that act as filler. A few days after Sean, Aiden began writing with repeated phrases too. I conferred with him about it and he responded that, "Sean does it too."

Figure A2- Aiden sharing in the 'Author's Chair'

Lastly, Aiden loves to share, which he excitedly declared in the interview. Throughout the weeks of Writing Workshop, he proactively sought to share his works with others, as seen above in Figure A2 where he volunteered to be the first presenter in the 'Author's Chair'. When reading his work to peers, he sometimes identified when his writing was confusing and would interject with an explanation to clarify. In video A3 below, I prompt Aiden to repeat an clarification he gave on his own moments earlier. Aiden's love of sharing could be partly explained by how the act of sharing gives students an audience to make writing work more authentic and meaningful (Behymer, 2003; Calkins, 2011; Dennis & Votteler, 2012; Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001; Graves, 1985; Hertz & Heydenberk, 1997). Another important factor that could contribute to his love of sharing and explain his competition with Sean would be how these affect his social positioning in the classroom. Bomer & Laman (2004) found that much of what is said and done in a Writing Workshop for young learners, including spelling aloud, rehearsing written work, sharing, and interacting with peers during writing time, is often motivated by students trying to "affect change in the intentional, emotional, or positional state if the interlocutor, not simply to think through a problem with the writing itself" (p.424). Aiden was concerned with his social positioning so he worked to be the best at what he considered important measurements of writing. By actively showing others, they would recognize his skill and hopefully reward him socially.

Video A3- Aiden clarifies 'date'

Effects of Teacher Modeling

When he engaged in the three styles of modeling I use in the classroom, Aiden responded admirably to more open ended verbal models. When we did verbal practice of target language sentences or the whole structure of how a piece would be written, Aiden was able to remember and manipulate them to communicate his ideas. Although he did not use periods to separate sentences, Aiden was able to remember several different structures in our first Writing Workshop that were only presented verbally (Figure A4). Calkins (2011) strongly encourages writing strategies be a main focus of Writing Workshop. By understanding core language structures needed to write a certain kind of piece, Aiden was able to give attention to the writing strategies I presented during mini-lessons and conferencing, such as adding details to support opinions or expand ideas.

Figure A4- Writing from a Verbal model

When I wrote key words or phrases on the board in addition to practicing a verbal model, Aiden tended to limit his writing to topics the key words addressed. His writing was shorter but more direct and purposeful. When writing an apology letter with this style of model, Aiden concentrated more on form, spelling, and handwriting than with other writing tasks in the same time period with only verbal models (Figure A5). Aiden did not try to add filler to make the longest letter in class either. Even though Aiden is one of my most advanced students, he is still very young and in the early stages of writing development. Written teacher models can be invaluable to developing authors struggling to find their voice or develop writing topics (Behymer, 2003; Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001; Hertz & Heydenberk, 1997). Weak models written on the board struck a balance between structure and openness that suited Aiden better than other styles of modeling.

Figure A5 - Apology to the Gym teachers

When I wrote strong models on the board like full sentences or works, Aiden struggled to write in structures outside the model. Aiden repeatedly used the structure "Yoon will wear ___________." when he wrote about how he would dress his friend for the upcoming fashion show at our school, but failed to use structures we discussed verbally (Figure A6). The only input Aiden added was a vocabulary word to fill in a blank. Students engaged in Writing Workshop need some freedom of choice to make writing authentic and meaningful (Calkins, 2011; Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001; Graves, 1975, 1985; Hertz & Heydenberk, 1997). By using strong models on the board, writing assignments became display work to Aiden instead of a means of authentic, meaningful communication.

Figure A6- Repeated Structures

Writing Product development

Aiden began the Writing Workshop ahead of most or all of the class in spelling, grammar, vocabulary knowledge, and varied word use. He regularly used spelling that is consistent with the phonetic stage of invented spelling by representing every surface level feature of words even if the spelling is unconventional at times (Gentry, 1982). Aiden consistently included correctly positioned subjects, verbs, and objects. Subject verb agreement was usually logical, although Aiden sometimes used object pronouns in the place of subject pronouns. Article use and marking plural nouns were inconsistent. His handwriting was average for a student in my class. His weakest areas were punctuation and capitalization. He would only capitalize first letters of a whole passage, the word 'I', and names. Aiden used 'and' to create run-on sentences instead of using periods and multiple sentences.

Through Writing Workshop, Aiden was able to add and improve several skills. He learned to write to give information, explain an event, and give his opinion, the three types of writing required by Common Core Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, 2010). Most of Aiden's writing mechanics did not develop noticeably over the six weeks of Writing Workshop, although he did show signs of using transitional spelling occasionally (Figure IS 4). Punctuation, capitalization, article use, plural noun marking, and hand writing remained stagnant. Aiden used several unprompted vocabulary words and phrases that were surprising, including 'date', 'xylophone', 'overalls', 'jungle', 'swing like a monkey', 'in another room', and 'rectangle'. Conferencing and interactive sharing helped Aiden learn to clarify and answer questions on his writing. A focus of conferencing with Aiden was to encourage him to develop details and present those details in a manageable way. He learned to add a great number of details, but is still developing skills to present them clearly.