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This wiki contains ideas, articles, opinions, and other written pieces relating to the ECI 520 course experience.

Topics for Multigenre Research Project

By your name, please provide a brief description of your topic and a few of the questions motivating your research interest. Use the page linked to your topic to further develop your project as needed. It is also a good space to give and receive feedback on your project work.

Elizabeth Austell I am from a large family that is very close. I am also from a very small town, Cherryville, where everyone knows everyone, and where around 80% of the population has lived there their entire lives. Therefore, everyone there knows my family throughout their childhood as well as mine.

If anyone asked me who my hero was, I would respond to them that my hero is my grandfather, Paw Paw. Growing up I have always recognized what a great man my Paw Paw is. I have also heard this from everyone that I know in Cherryville, especially my home town church congregation. Through this story telling, I have heard great bits and pieces about my Paw Paw but I have still yet to learn his entire story, what has made him the honorable man that the town knows him for. My Paw Paw is now 89, and is the strongest man that I know. He has fought many diseases and has overcome many medical battles, this I know and have witnessed. However, I want to learn more about his younger years and the battles he faught and overcame then.

I plan to research my Paw Paw's life, not only to finally learn all about him while I can but also to celebrate his life.

Rachel Bumgardner I spent last year on an island off the coast of Madagascar. This island is called Reunion. Reunion Island is owned by the French, and I was hired to work there as a teaching assistant in English. While I was living there many awesome events occurred like the volcano erupting, a cyclone hitting the island, and snow falling on the mountain tops (which almost never occurs). I learned so much about the island and its people through my friends, teachers, and students. I would like to share my emotional and physical journey on this island while incorporating facts on its history, landscape, and people.

Sue CarterThroughout middle and high school, the Holocaust was taught, but was never taught in much depth. It was evident that my teachers would have liked to spend more time on the topic but couldn't because of the curriculum. The topic of the Holocuast interests me, even though some of the stories behind the Holocaust can be extremely depressing. The Holocaust was responsible for the death of nine to eleven million people. Six million of those were Jews. I want to focus my research on the lives of the Jewish people and the stories many survivors have left behind regarding their life during the Holocaust. How were they treated? How did they survive? What happened to the rest of their family? What do they remember about Nazi Germany?

Amanda Galvin

Robyn Moser This past June I had the opportunity to visit Yellowstone National Park with the NC Museum of Natural Sciences Educators of Excellence program. It was the most amazing experience I have ever had - so amazing I am going back in January. I am interested in using my experience to write these pieces, read some of the books I got on the trip, and spend some time navigating their amazing website. Guiding questions: What are the details of the gray wolf reintroduction? Why were some so resistant? What are all of the species of wildlife that live there? What kind of adaptations/behaviors help them survive/make them unique? What connections are there to NC? What are some of the stories from the history of Yellowstone? What was it like for the Native Americans living there before European exporation/settlement? Why were invasive species introduced and what are the current effects? What were the experience like of those in the Hayden Expedition?

Kelly Lynn Owen

Velicia Pernell

Tina Renee Shirley This past September I was in a school that failed to even recognize the event of 9/11. This made me begin to examin the importance of remembering this event. Why DO we want our children to remember 9/11? What do we want them to remember about this event? I began to realize that it is important to not only remember the event, but remember what lead up to this event. After speaking with several people about 9/11 I realized that one of the reasons we're not talking ( or teaching) about 9/11 is because we are not sure what is truth and what is part of a grand witch hunt to "get the bad guys". Through my project I hope to bring the topic back to the table to be discussed and thought about. I hope to get the reader to make their own descisions about the facts, while also honoring the victims and their familes.

Angela Trythall If there is one historical moment I wish I could have witnessed in person, it would have to be Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Therefore, I decided to use this as the topic for my multi-genre project. Pretty much, all I am familiar with in regards to the speech is the video of the speech itself. I am hoping to delve into what it was like to be there and how one man's words could change the conscience of a nation.

Jessica Woodruff

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To access the Multigenre Research and Writing Sources posted on our WolfBlog, Click Here.

What We Know About Writing Workshop

The image below features the brainstorming we did about writing workshop during class 6.

Artist & archivist: Jessica Woodruff, 10/1/07

Building on the web above, the lists below represent some of the ideas we identified as important to writing workshop from the reading for class 7.

Interactive Writing text: for emergent and developing writers, early elementary, the importance of ongoing observations of student writing and keeping notes related to assessment of student progress with regard to writing and using this as a tool to frame feedback and instruction (e.g., student knows how to..., student needs to know how to..., and plan for teaching...)

The Harwayne text: general framework for writing workshop; multigrade literacy collaborations; writing from memories as a basis for young writers and a place to build from as they grow and develop; she provides examples of authentic purposes for writing that motivate and engage young students

Atwell text: "nuts and bolts" of writing workshop; organization that gives the illusion of freedom; very organized; importance of the layout of the room; use of reading and writing surveys, as well as her notions of reading and writing territories; she provides actual dialogue with kids during writing workshop which helps to demystify what workshop is; she provides a good description of what minilessons are and how they can serve as a regular routine within workshop; minilessons can originate from several categories, rather than just be focused on grammar; she provides ideas for journals/journaling; status of the class conference works well as a way to structure and monitor writing workshop

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What Research Tells Us About the Process Approach to Teaching Writing

The Process Approach to writing began in the 1970’s when a group of teachers in the San Francisco Bay area began to share their own writing and compare how professional writers compose against how writing was being taught in the classroom. This new pedagogy of writing emphasized a balance between the writing process and the products. Initially the writing process began with three stages: prewrite, write and rewrite. This has since been extended to seven stages: prewrite, draft, evaluate, revise, edit, and publish. Among each of these stages are many additional imbedded elements such as defining audience, planning etc. “Most educators today hold the view that producing a written text is a mental recursive process coupled with procedural strategies for completing the writing process (Pritchard, Honeycutt 2006). This view was is supported by Graves study where he concluded that the writing process has "multiple variable, freequently unknown to the writer" that influences the writing process.--Trshirle 09:51, 26 September 2007 (EDT)Tina Shirley

Scannella's (1982) research, which set out to specifically measure how writing process instruction affects the quality of writing produced, found, "...overall, students taught in the process method evidenced greater improvement in their expository writing, but not in their creative writing, than did the students in the control group. Furthermore, the experimental group evidenced a statistically significant increase in positive attitudes toward writing, whereas the control group showed a slight decrease in overall positive attitudes toward writing" (280). - Angela Trythall

Research also found that multiple factors influence the writing process. They found that there were social benefits in using peer groups. In addition to improving writing products, best practices in teaching writing required and enhanced other skills that are quite valuable including developing positive dispositions, social behaviors, and problem solving skills. (285)[robyn]

According to Elbow (1973), "the writing process [is] a series of problem solving steps one goes trhough in order to discover what he or she knows about a subject." Thus the writing process is essential in helping students their own views on a given topic. As students write they will begin to understand and develop their own sets of values through the writing process. -Velicia Pernell

Many criticisms emerged in the early studies of the writing process. Once criticism is that the early writing process was modeled after the methods used by professional writers, a group that Smagorinsky (1987)describes as mostly famous literary figures. These studies also criticized the assumption that children had the innate ability to understand the structure and characteristics of various genres (Cope & Kalantzis, 1993; Hicks, 1997). Yet another criticism is that young writers in various stages of development should not be expected to apply steps of an adult writing process to their writing in classrooms mainly for teacher and peer audiences. As a result of these studies, it became better understood that young writers needed to learn about various genres (not just narratives) and be taught with pedagogy that more broadly addressed developmental and contextual needs. -Amanda Galvin

Research also suggests that the National Writing Project (NWP) has had a significant impact on student writing. Pritchard's research found that students of trained NWP teachers achieved the highest mean scores on a set of essays. The higher scores could be attributed to a greater amount of class time spent on writing lessons and less time spent on traditional activities such as spelling, grammar, and vocabulary (284). - Sue Carter

Most researchers agree now that the writing is not a linear process but a recursive and interlocked one. However, many have seen that "studying one component at a time makes an enormously complex research task more manageable" (281). Students could feel intimidated by the writing process thus making an emphasis on each stage is important like for instance prewriting and revising. Students must master these stages in order to have a final product of their liking. -Rachel Bumgardner

The NAEP assessment of 1992 suggest that teaching a cluster of writing techniques that is defined as the "Writing Process" is associated with a higher average of writing proficiency among studnets (278). Those teachers who implemented the writing process and its various techniques almost every day obtained the hightest averate writing scores on the NAEP writing assessment. - Elizabeth Austell

Hillocks says, "the teacher's role in the process model is to facilitate the writing process rather than to provide direct instruction" (275). At first there were three distinct writing stages, now experts have said that, "the writing process is individualized and does not occur in any fixed order (277). -Heather Rivenbark

"Critics of the process approach argue that attention to the processes of creating texts has made writing products into by-products. "The process has become so ubiquitous as to mean anything, or perhaps more precisely, almost nothing. Tragically, the art and soul of writing have been lost in the "process"" (285). This means to me that making the power of writing available to all through the writing process approach nessesarily contaminates "real" or authentic writing done by the few who show success with traditional teaching of writing. The writing process approach attempts to make writing accessible for the majority by scaffolding the process. Imagine the power of a generation of people equipped with the skills to write well. -Jessica

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What We Know About the Writing Process

The image below features the brainstorming we did about the writing process during class 5 in response to the following prompts: What comes to mind when you think about "the writing process"? What is it? What are your experiences with it--as a student, a writer, a reader, a teacher, etc.?

Artist and archivist: Robyn Moser, 9/25/07

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Initial Ideas About Defining Composition

Elizabeth Austell - Katie Wood Ray explained that there are two kinds of writing: writing to support your own life and writing to communicate ideas. She states that the second type of writing, writing to communicate ideas, is composition. Composition is writing that is directed to an audience so that they can feel and understand what the writer is trying to communicate. Ray puts the emphasis on how the teacher needs to make time for students to create compositions and to have time just to write. I completely agree. Ray goes on to explain that composition is when writers take an idea and “begin to shape it with genre form, sound, and the conventions of the language system” (pg. 21). I have never thought about the definition of composition, however after reading “Two Kinds of Writing” I find myself agreeing with Katie Wood Ray. For words on a piece of paper to be classified as a composition, it has to communicate ideas to an intended audience. This means that a grocery store list that only serves the purpose to remember things to buy does not classify as a composition. The grocery store list does not invoke feelings and understanding, instead it only serves to bring order to our lives.

Rachel Bumgardner - In the article "The Writing Workshop:Working Through the Hard Times" the author Katie Wood Ray defines composition in two ways. One is "writing to live" where people write to support their lives and the other is "composition" in which people write to communicate ideas to others. Composition to me means organizing written thoughts into a complex argument intended for the purposes of an audience. Ray states, "Writing done in journals, notebooks, and diaries is writing that helps us remember and figure things out. It's writing done just for the one writing it, with no worries about following the chaotic pattern of thoughts because it is just for the writer". Here Ray is referring to the "writing to live", which I tend to find more enjoyable than composition. But Ray does say in the article that composition is hard because composition demands that the writer organize their thoughts into a coherent body of writing. Others would not be able to identify with and understand the author if the argument was not well presented. I often believe that when most people to begin to write they do not want to commit the time to go back and reread their work, they are mostly just interested in the end product and not the process. But in the process is where a writer can truly begin to improve, when they work and rework their words and presentation. With a willingness to put forth time and effort, everyone has the capability to become complex composition writers.

Sue Carter - Ray writes that composition is writing that begins with an idea a writer wants to communicate with an audience. The writer takes his/her piece and develops it in a way that will impact readers. Ray too points out that writing as composition is a lot harder than writing to support our living. I completely agree. Composition is a creative endeavor and it deserves at least as much classtime as any of the other content area. Unfortunately, it seems that teachers often relegate writing and composition to homework. The teachers then miss the opportunity to give assistance to their students when they need it most - during the composition experience. As Ray writes, it is imperative that teachers allow more time in class for writing and just writing. Frequency of writing increases fluency. Students need to generate their own ideas and texts. Students should experience and explore writing even if it is in the form of a journal or a draft. Composition is a process. Learning to write, whether it be a diary entry or a polished short story, is all a part of learning how to perform that process.

Amanda Galvin - I agree with Woods that composition is writing to convey ideas to others so they understand a message. In addition, I also think it can involve writing on a personal level, such as diaries and memoirs. These are often acts of learning, discovery and growth for the writer and can be considered composition as well, even if they are never read by another audience. In this way, the writer himself is the audience, which can be very important when the writer is reflecting. The writer can gain an understanding of his own message through the exploration of his thoughts during the act of composition.

Robyn Moser - According to this author, my instinct was "right" in that all of the "writing to live" that supports life business is not the writing to communicate ideas - composition. They say composition begins with an idea as well as the desire to communicate something and/or make others (an audience) feel or understand something. The commentary on integration v. separating writing and reading was interesting to me. It made a lot of sense, since neither are something you can "know," they are something you must do. I like the idea of the workshop being the space where you get to do the writing (or reading) and where growth can happen.

Kelly Lynn Owen - After reflecting on my own beliefs concerning composition, while contemplating Wood Ray's definition, I find that I have a much broader sense of what the term actually embodies. A vague, but simple, definition for “composition” is the act of taking elements or pieces and combining them to make a whole. In the essence of writing, I believe that composition is the combination of written symbols, words, ideas, phrases, etc., that when combined, are used by mankind for communication. Wood Ray separates writing into two separate genres according to their purpose: supportive writing and composition. I believe that this places too many restrictions on the term and limits the extent of its purpose. Anything that is written for the purpose of communication, no matter the topic or under what circumstances, should be considered composition. On a basic level, I would define composition as when one uses their mental processes to create, understand, remember, rationalize, or any other method pertaining to an idea, and then expresses this thought physically through writing. The only time writing is not composition is during the act of blatant "plagiarism", where one is just mimicking the written symbols that resulted from someone else’s mental processes. What Wood Ray considers composition, I would label as a higher level of the term. For example, making a grocery list or jotting daily notes would be a lower level of composition. Writing across content areas in an educational setting would be a mid-level example of composition. Writing resulting from abstract thinking and utilizing formal operational skills would be considered the highest level of composition, and should be considered the goal of anyone who strives to better themselves through written expression.

Velicia Pernell - "Writing as a curriculum" is profound for many students ask the age-old question "when will I use this in the real world?" It becomes the role of the teacher to expose students to writing as the "real world," writing that not only helps them to live but writing that makes them alive. As students are awakened to the numerous written methods for communicating their ideas and sharing their ideas with others, they will be more encouraged to spend time writing. Writing has to be something teachers believe in. We tell the truth badly when we stress the importance of writing but never spend personal time in writing or allow classroom time in writing. We and our students are disadvantaged when writing is neglected. We miss the moments that would have been captured, the words of inspiration from a student composition and the satisfaction of knowing that another writer has found a way to express himself/herself.

Tina Shirley - Kate Wood Ray defined composition writing as “writing to communicate ideas, writing designed to make others feel or understand something.” ( Pg 20). She also stated that composition writing must be done independently of other subjects because they are very clearly actions we do, not information we learn or know. This concept of composition, Ray suggests, moves writing from “something we do to get our work done, to something we do to get our lives done” ( pg 26). After sitting back and contemplating these statements, I discovered I agree with her. While I had never thought of composition in the exact way she had expressed it, I certain see the wisdom in the statements. When thinking back on how I taught writing last year it wasn’t something I squeezed into my students day, it was something we spent significant chunks of time practicing. We would pre-write (choose your strategy, we did them all), compose, conference with each other, revise, and sometimes publish. In other words we made time to just write. I did not try and bring in any other content while I was teaching writing, because the act of writing was the content. Audience, voice, dialect, metaphors, similes and purpose were all included in the writing content, but it was distinctly different. With writing we were creating metaphors, and similes, not pulling them out of the text and discerning their meaning. While there was a connection to reading, the actual act of writing was very different. It was as if with writing I was teaching students to construct a meaningful thought, and with reading I was teaching students to deconstruct the passage to lift out the meaning. Both are related, but I certainly could not teach student to construct and deconstruct at the same time. Each element of language had to be taught independently, and then later brought together. In summary, based on my experiences, Ray’s suggestion that writing needs to be taught as its own curriculum seems valid. Teaching and learning composition writing is exhausting work. Students need to concentrate on just the act of constructing writing when composing. Whither through traditional writing work shops in the younger grades, or a more modified writing in the older grades, I agree with Ray, teachers need to simply make time to write.

Angela Trythall - After reading "Two Kinds of Writing," I see Katie Wood Ray as defining composition as writing that communicates ideas to others effectively. In composition, a writer must make another person understand or feel something, and he/she must develop that arguement convincingly. To truly create a composition, the writer must begin with an idea he/she feels compelled to communicate to a specific audience as well as use a genre, form, sound, and language conventions. My own definition of composition is quite similar. Simply put, to me composition is the communication of an idea or ideas for an audience in writing. A writer's composition will give an opinion, make an arguement, and present those ideas in a coherent and logical manner to a specific audience.

Jessica Woodruff -

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