Education Commons^™

Making Space For Student Agency: A Multilayered Exploration Of Agency And Writing In A First‐Grade Classroom, Kara Decoursey

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Early literacy learning is crucial for later success in reading and writing. We have a limited understanding of generative writing (i.e., expressing ideas in writing) in first grade and further research is warranted. The socially situated nature of writing justifies a study of student agency during writing.

In this study, data were collected before, during, and after 10 writing sessions in a first-grade classroom. Students took a pre- and post-survey that revealed their self-perceptions of their agency and confidence as literacy learners. The participating teacher was interviewed three times and the teacher’s talk was recorded during all 45- to 60- …

Promoting Student Reflection Through Reflective Writing Tasks, Elena Taylor

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Access the online Pressbooks version of this article here.

Reflection is a necessary component of learning. Through reflective assignments and tasks, students are given opportunities to evaluate their learning and analyze strategies they use while acquiring and applying course material. Reflections also help students assess and think deeply about the information presented in class and thus better retain it. Through reflecting on their learning, students are also given the opportunity to formulate goals for future improvement. Reflective tasks can be implemented in any classroom, and writing is a powerful tool to do that. This article describes several writing tasks that …

Full Issue: Journal On Empowering Teaching Excellence, Volume 7, Issue 1, Spring 2023

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

The full-length Spring 2023 issue (Volume 7, Issue 1) of the Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Access the online Pressbooks version (with downloadable EPUB format) here.

The Spring 2023 issue presents research and guidance on topics related to student self-reflection, participatory learning, and returning to the in-person learning following the COVID-19 pandemic. The first article takes a critical approach to understanding pedagogy with adult learners by involving students in the creation of course syllabi as a way to challenge ideologies related the roles of instructor and students. The second article blends research and narrative to explore how the experiences of …

Using Online Genres To Promote Students’ Audience Awareness, Elena Taylor

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Writing assignments that students complete in university courses are typically designed for evaluation and grading by the instructor, who, therefore, acts as the sole reader of student written work. However, most written genres students would--and do--encounter in the world beyond the classroom are composed for diverse audiences who influence writers’ text construction considerably. Because most students will be likely to write for multiple audiences as part of their career or future academic endeavors, it is crucial for them to develop a sense of audience awareness as an indispensable rhetorical concept that shapes composing processes. Writing online presents a great opportunity …

Full Issue: Journal On Empowering Teaching Excellence, Volume 5, Issue 2, Fall 2021

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

The full Fall 2021 issue (Volume 5, Issue 2) of the Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

An Exploration Of Teacher Preparation Practices With Foundational Knowledge Of Literacy, Marla K. Robertson, Laurie A. Sharp, Roberta D. Raymond, Rebekah E. Piper

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

The Standards for the Preparation of Literacy Professionals 2017 published by the International Literacy Association provide the basis for high-quality literacy teacher preparation. This study used qualitative survey responses to explore the literacy practices that teacher educators use to promote understandings among preservice teachers for each grade-level band (i.e., Pre-K/Primary, Elementary/Intermediate, Middle/High School). The researchers used conceptualizations of teacher knowledge as a theoretical lens to better understand reported preparation practices. Data analysis revealed three themes: Teacher Educator Pedagogy, Course Content, Student and Program Expectations. Researchers posit that teacher educators do not evenly focus on all components of literacy and contend …

The Wall Of Silence: Disrupting Kairotic Spaces, Victoria Jaye

Writing Center Analysis Papers

Every class has a balance of kairotic space where teachers have power and students accept that power within the confining space of the classroom. Power defines our world as well as our relationships to one another; without power there is no control which can be key to governing a classroom. Disruption of this power dynamic can open dialogue between teachers and students that might not have existed otherwise because students feel confined to the strictures binding their power creating a wall of silence. Using brainstorming and reflecting as well as peer tutoring, I experimented with breaking down the wall of …

Learning On Equal Grounds, Andrea Diamond

Writing Center Analysis Papers

Utah State University welcomes students to its beautiful campus where they can achieve their potential in an environment where everyone is welcome and each is promised that their voice will be heard and valued. The “Diversity Statement” facilitates this by encouraging discourse in a “free and respectful exchange of ideas.” Certainly, the opportunity to collaborate with students, scholars, and instructors in such an environment would help each gain command of the English language and improve their writing skills. As a graduate student, graduate instructor, and Writing Center tutor, I looked forward to this opportunity from many angles. Navigating my campus …

Five Instructional Practices To Optimize Peer Feedback Activities Among Adult Learners, Regina C. Rodriguez, Laurie A. Sharp

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

There is a significant need for adult learners to improve their writing proficiency within a variety of contexts. Thus, postsecondary instructors require effective research-based teaching strategies to support adult learners hone their writing skills. While studies on peer feedback abound, little has been done to date to consider ways in which postsecondary instructors design quality peer feedback activities within their courses. The purpose of this article was to describe five instructional practices to optimize peer feedback activities among adult learners.

Examining The Read-To-Write Strategy And Its Effects On Second Grader’S Writing Of Sequential Text, John Neal

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Writing is so important. It is important in school and in our careers; writing is found to be helpful physiologically and psychologically. Experts wonder, with writing so important, why is writing not being adequately taught in the schools. The answer may be that writing is complex and teaching it is even more complex. The Read-to-Write Strategy is a writing model based on the study of exemplary models of text and children are explicitly taught how to write the way an author writes through a process of the teacher modeling how to write this way; the teacher sharing the writing task …

Writing Attitudes And Practices Of Content Area Teachers After Participating In The Central Utah Writing Project Summer Institute, Joseph P. Anson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study of four case studies looks at how secondary math, music, science, and social studies teachers' attitudes and classroom practices were affected by their participation in the Central Utah Writing Project (CUWP) summer institute. Participant interviews, observations, and artifacts were analyzed by looking at themes for effective professional development: a participant's personal interpretation of the experience (phenomenon), construction of one's own learning, active learning/participation in the professional development, the inclusion of authentic tasks, collaborative support community, inclusion of prior knowledge and/or experience, self-efficacy regarding one's own writing and the teaching of writing, motivation as a teacher, motivation as a …

Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition In Middle School: An Examination Of Three Instructional Conditions, David B. Lee

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The importance of vocabulary knowledge gained through incidental learning is well documented. The growth of incidental vocabulary knowledge is especially crucial for middle school students due to the complex words encountered in their studies. However, research on incidental vocabulary acquisition for middle school students is lacking. The purpose of this study was to compare the relative effectiveness of three instructional conditions (reading, writing, and reading and writing) on incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention with middle school students in an English as a first language (L1) environment.

In this within subjects repeated measure study, 263 eighth-grade participants received treatment in three …

An Investigatory Study Of Relationships Among Selected Theoretical Components Of Letter-Writing Fluency, Pamela C. Reutzel

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Research that shows the need for letter-writing fluency as a foundation for being able to attend to higher-level thinking skills in writing calls for more research as to what the components of letter-writing fluency actually are and how they are related to writing efficiency. To study the components of letter-writing fluency, four assessments were used to evaluate 49 kindergarten students’ letter writing abilities. These assessments were made in December of their kindergarten year. The first assessed subskill was letter-naming fluency (LNF), which has previously been shown to be predictive of reading ability. The other two subskills that were assessed focus …

Using Writing To Explore Human-Environment Interactions: An Integrated Approach, Lindsay Prettyman

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This Honors Thesis includes a literature review on integrated curriculum for a third grade class. It also includes 22 lessons which, along with the literature review, explore the idea of integrating inquiry based social studies with language arts, especially informational narrative writing in the classroom Other subjects are integrated as well, including math and science. The curriculum development was, in part, pilot tested at Edith Bowen Laboratory School. It uses McTighe's Backward Design curriculum model and focuses on the settlement of the pioneers in Cache Valley.

Scaffolding Improvement In Writing Instruction: An Action Research Project, Kristine W. Miller

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Research has demonstrated students may improve their writing ability when cognitive strategies are demonstrated for them in clear and explicit ways as they observe and participate in writing events directed by knowledgeable writers, particularly when these events are followed by opportunities for independent writing. Carefully crafted scaffolding with abundant amounts of oral interaction such as that in Read’s IMSCI model that includes inquiry, modeling, shared writing, collaboration and independent writing, can give students the needed support to develop skills essential to quality writing. An informational genre unit was developed with seven specific lesson plans focusing on the five elements in …

Parents As Partners In Kindergarten And Second Grade Literacy Instruction: A Qualitative Inquiry Into Student-Authored Traveling Books, Dorothy C. Little

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this research was to study a sociocognitive “student/parent/peer authoring community” called Traveling Books (TBks) in kindergarten and second grade in a public elementary school setting. TBks are teacher-made vehicles for involving parents in peer-based literacy environments. The study was based on Epstein's theory that increasing overlap of students' spheres of influence, home, school, and community, creates a greater likelihood that children will learn what the parents want them to learn. The aim was to locate essential elements that triggered learning processes to occur and to discover research-based fundamentals still missing from TBks.

This qualitative inquiry incorporated the …

Lessons Learned From Test Writing, Todd Campbell

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Writing Moment, Or, A Little Writing Theory Can Make All The Difference, Sylvia Read

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

"Kid Mice Hunt For Their Selfs:" First And Second Graders Writing Research, Sylvia Read

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Development And Writing Of A Children's Story To Promote An Awareness Of Deaf Culture And American Sign Language, Blaine J. Taylor

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Many advocates of the deaf fear that a whole generation of deaf children will be lost emotionally, socially, and educationally, this fear stems from the fact that many children who are deaf are not having their linguistic, sociocultural. and communicative needs met at home or at school (King, 1993). Their needs are not met primarily for three reasons. First. the hearing culture is often inaccessible to them because they do not understand most of the spoken language around them. When children lack the communicative abilities to interact with the hearing culture, they can not be expected to be knowledgeable of …