This article offers insights into students’ perceptions of writing through the use of drawings and written responses. In a descriptive qualitative study of fifth graders across two diverse elementary ...schools, students were prompted to draw a picture about a recent experience with writing and how that experience made them feel. Students were then asked to write a description of their drawings. We studied features in the drawings and written responses and constructed four thematic categories. Findings highlight the range of both positive and negative experiences with writing as well as a realistic tool for literacy teachers to use to take the temperature of the classroom.
This study explored the use of student-marked school maps, a practitioner-friendly method for assessing student perceptions of positive and negative peer interactions in specific school settings. Two ...hundred eighty-two third- through fifth-grade students from a Midwestern U.S. elementary school participated. Descriptive analyses were used to determine the key school locations reported by students where cooperative and conflictual peer interactions occurred. In general, students reported the playground, classroom, gym, library, and cafeteria as places where students get along most regularly and the playground, restroom, and cafeteria as the most conflict-prone locations. Results from Pearson's chi-square analyses indicated the presence of grade-level differences in student responses. No gender differences were found. Students also were able to identify possible reasons that explain why their classmates do and do not get along in various school settings. Findings suggest that the methods used in this study are effective means for assessing students' positive and negative social interactions.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of implementing the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model of instruction (Graham & Harris, 2005; Harris & Graham, 1996) on ...the writing skills and writing self-regulation, attitudes, self-efficacy, and knowledge of 6 first grade students. A multiple-baseline design across participants with multiple probes (Kazdin, 2010) was used to test the effectiveness of the SRSD instructional intervention. Each participant was taught an SRSD story writing strategy as well as self-regulation strategies. All students wrote stories in response to picture prompts during the baseline, instruction, independent performance, and maintenance phases. Stories were assessed for essential story components, length, and overall quality. All participants also completed a writing attitude scale, a writing self-efficacy scale, and participated in brief interviews during the baseline and independent performance phases. Results indicated that SRSD can be beneficial for average first grade writers. Participants wrote stories that contained more essential components, were longer, and of better quality after SRSD instruction. Participants also showed some improvement in writing self-efficacy from pre- to post-instruction. All of the students maintained positive writing attitudes throughout the study.
