Building a whole-language writing program

Kappa Delta Pi Record, Winter 2003 by Porcaro, Jennifer J, Johnson, Karen Gudeman

A workshop focusing on the writing process provides a rich writing program while still meeting the requirements of state- mandated tests.

Writing has become an invaluable skill in education today. As the demands of state testing increase, many teachers are critically reevaluating their writing programs to ensure that students are prepared to take the writing portion of the test. How can teachers create a rich writing program that focuses on the writing process, yet still meets the requirements of state-mandated writing tests? This question weighed heavily on our minds as the pressure to raise students' scores increased.

Foundations of the Writing Workshop

We looked critically at the Writing Workshop program that was already underway in Karen's third-grade classroom. As a classmate in a graduate class and an outside observer in Karen's room, Jenni was an essential and objective critic of the writing program.

The Writing Workshop program in Karen's classroom is based on a whole language approach that focuses on the writing process. The theory behind the program is that, in order to look more critically at their own work, children must have a working knowledge of the process they use when writing. Using the writing process, we can help each of our students invent, use, and adapt effective writing strategies (Calkins 1986).

Karen: The Writing Workshop in My Class

At the beginning of each school year, I set up an interactive Writing Workshop bulletin board for my class to use. My class at the time of this study consisted of 15 girls and 8 boys, approximately 50 percent African American and 50 percent European American. As I always do to get ready for the workshop, I labeled each of five library card envelopes with a step in the writing process, prepared an index card with each student's name, and added colorful graphics to complete the bulletin board (see Figure 1 on page 76). All student work is kept in special Writing Workshop folders and stored in the Writing Center. Using this system, I can easily monitor student progress.

At the beginning of each Writing Workshop session, the students take their folders to their seats. I go through the index cards, verbally verifying the writing step of each student. The students are responsible for moving the cards themselves, and my verification at the beginning of each session helps ensure accuracy. The chalkboard is used to list students needing a peer or teacher edit.

As students begin their work, chaos seems to take over. Some move to the computers to publish, some pair up for peer edits, while others move to the carpet area to work. Jenni's initial journal observations paint the picture clearly:

With the background of classical music, students moved to various writing activities. They started working right away and were highly engaged in their writing. Although there was considerable "bustle" in the room, they were on task. They worked busily until it was time for recess, a full hour of writing time.

Our Beginning Blueprints

While the program created a high level of enthusiasm and appeared to be highly successful in instilling knowledge of the writing process, there were problems. We didn't feel that journal writing alone was enough to teach the writing process, but we didn't want to scrap the entire Writing Workshop program to teach writing prompt skills. How could we ensure that the students would use this knowledge of the writing process on a statemandated writing prompt with very specific requirements?

To answer this question, we thoroughly examined the existing Writing Workshop program in light of the state requirements. We agreed that knowledge of the writing process is essential for students' growth and development as writers, whether used in "demand" situations, such as state achievement tests, or in open, free-writing environments. Downing (1995, 200) states, "any required writing on an assigned topic completed in a fixed time period" serves as demand writing. She also underscores the need for a writing process, saying, "the process is perceived by students of varied abilities and ages as authentic and valid, and therefore meaningful." We made modifications to the existing Writing Workshop to enhance the process of writing by focusing on specific writing prompt skills that would increase the students' knowledge of the writing process and comfort level with writing prompts.

To provide opportunities for students to practice for their third-- and fourth-grade writing achievement tests ("demand" writing activities), we introduced three modifications that would help them to achieve success on the tests and to look critically at their own work. We provided guidelines for several genres, or types of writing, from which they could choose in setting goals for their work (see Figure 2 on page 77). We also instructed them to complete a story web as their prewriting activity and introduced proficiency-style checklists for use in editing their work.

First, we described the various genres students could choose for their writing tasks. In Karen's Writing Workshop, students could select any topic and use any genre they desired. Preserving student choice was important to us; however, we also needed to make sure that students gained experience in producing writing samples in a variety of styles. To encourage practice with the array of writing genres that may be encountered on our state's proficiency test, we asked students to choose three or four of the genres and write them on their index cards as goals.