Memo # 5

I still want to know more about is the balance of the pre writing because I had a source mention that she feels the graphic organizer is a clutch for students and that it also limits them. I want to know more about what is enough or to much support. I also want to know more about leaning students off the organizers.

I am meeting with my last planned source this week, and feel that I am set for that, but what I really am looking forward to is talking to more students because talking to my first student was so be focal. It was a joy so I am hoping to get more from these students.  Which leads me to wonder what I will get from this source and her students because my first two sources were from a suburban area and this set of sources with be an urban setting.

Memo #4

***WILL BE EDITING AND ADDING POTHER SOURCES***

• Riley (Student)
• I loved talking to Riley because she told me exactly what she wants and what she does.
• One thing that really stuck with me,although unrelated, is that she doesn't like to hand write her rough drafts because she doesn't do well with mess. She doesn't like having to cross things out an put inserts in. As an educator, letting her type her rough draft is such an easy fix.
• Later thought for followup question: Does handwriting the rough draft end up lowering your motivation and therefore the quality of what you hand in?
•  Riley often skips G.O's because she has a good sense of forming ideas.
• She has used story plots and kites
• Brittany (Teacher)
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Memo #3 (Adding information)

  This is unfinished post. It is some brainstorming of other questions.

• For students:
• How do you feel when I say writing?
• What do you do in the writing process?
• What is pre-writing?
• How do you prepare to write?
• How do you organize your thoughts?
• How do you come up with ideas for writing?
• For teachers:
• What tools and strategies do you use to support student writing?
• What do you find useful with your students writing?
• How do you guide students to organizing their ideas?
• Do you use any other resources for pre-writing?

Memo #2.5 Follow-up on Secondary Sources

I am slowly making my way through a stack of books from the library and I noticed focusing on graphic organizers specifically as a search is limiting what I am getting. Other secondary sources that I will now be looking for are sources pertaining to pre-writing in general.

I have found an article about helping low-achieving students to become better writers using different strategies and I have hopes that this will lead me to more types of pre-writing that I can look into. As I was flipping through the article I was able to see a few different examples of prewriting and writing traits. In the back of this article several resources are also listed and I have pulled out a few I would like to find and have a look at.

As I continue to work on the I-Search research I found it helpful to talk to a teacher I know about what she uses for pre-writing. Fortunately this teacher has several books, which I should be getting today. My hope is that these books will help me to give me alternatives to graphic organizers that are successful in helping students develop their writing.

Overall my hopes are that by using these new sources that I will be able to come up with more ways that successful writing can come from prewriting preparation. Through my research in secondary sources I want to gain an understanding of what specifics parts of a pre-writing are useful to students.

Memo #3: Planning for Primary Sources

• Who are my primary sources? 
• Karyl C.- 6th grade Woonsocket Middle School English Teacher 
• Brittany R.- 6th grade Jamestown Middle School English Teacher 
• Riley L.- 4th grader at Portsmouth Middle School
• What will I ask them? 
• Karyl 
•  Have you used graphic organizers for student writing? 
• If yes, have you found them effective? Why or why not? 
• If no, why don’t you use them? 
• What do you use to help students organize their writing? 
• Brittany 
• Have you used graphic organizers for student writing? 
• If yes, have you found them effective? Why or why not? 
• If no, why don’t you use them? 
• What do you use to help students organize their writing? 
• Riley 
• How do you feel about writing? 
• How do you come up with ideas for writing? 
• Do you know what a graphic organizer is? 
• If yes, how have you used graphic organizers in writing? 
• What is my relationship to my participants? 
• Karyl C-  A co-worker to my mom 
• Brittany R- A previous co-worker, a mentor, and friend 
• Riley L- A good family friend 
• How will I gain access to them or their classrooms? 
• Karyl C- I will set up a day to observe and talk in her classroom 
• Brittany R- I will likely observe and talk in her classroom, or if needed at her home 
• Riley L- At her home

Memo #2 Search for Scholarly Sources and Educational Research

• Held, Stephany. "Dumping Graphic Organizers For A More Effective Approach To Prewriting Instruction." Illinois Reading Council Journal 38.3 (2010): 20-28. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Feb. 2015.

o   I really liked this source because it was a counter argument for graphic organizers. The others of this sources is a teacher who noticed her students stories did not sound like “real stories”, when they used graphic organizers. She went on to describe 3 different students’ stories. The author went on to discuss how she used mentor texts, high-quality shared writing, peer talk, modeling, and conferencing with her students. After completing the description of the process she went on to describe the changes she saw in the students writing that she had discussed earlier in the article. She has used Vicki Spandel’s 2005 text The 9 rights of Every Writer: A Guide for Teachers as a reference and used several quotes from her that I think will be highly beneficial.

o   In context of my research this is a great source to use because it offers an opposite idea of graphic organizers. The author was in depth with what she did and it was very helpful to see the student work included, as well as know that this process had been tried with actual students.

• Nessel, Denise D., and Joyce Graham. Baltas. "Graphic Organizers." Thinking Strategies for Student Achievement: Improving Learning across the Curriculum, K-12. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2007. 75-80. Print.

o   For this sources I found information about what a graphic organizer is defined as. It stated that research proves graphic organizers are helpful to most students in comprehension. As a read, I noticed it was entirely focused on reading comprehension. I also noted that some of their references for research are from 1992 and 1996 and I think that are not necessary relevant anymore.

o   In context with my research this source is not very helpful at all, because it does not focus on the writing aspect of the use of a graphic organizer.

• Oczkus, Lori D. Guided Writing: Practical Lessons, Powerful Results. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2007. Print.

o   This source gave me some information about how graphic organizers are not required, nor should we rely on the completely or forever. It discusses how graphic organizers are helpful as a support, but eventually they are not needed and no longer help. I also really like how there was a chart that gave sample organizers for various types of guided writing. This shows that one type of organizer may not be useful for every type of writing. The other piece that I really like for this source was that it had a step by step noted for using guided writing for small groups and whole class.

o   In context of my research I was able to find some helpful information, but it also has me now wanting to look into guided writing more. I want to because I think it will help give me other alternatives to graphic organizers.

• Sundeen, Todd H. "So What's The Big Idea? Using Graphic Organizers To Guide Writing For Secondary Students With Learning And Behavioral Issues." Beyond Behavior 16.3 (2007): 29-34. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Feb. 2015

o   This source began by discussing how students need to be provided with effective strategies to expand their skills. It continues to say that graphic organizers are an effective strategy in the first to steps of the writing process. It states that graphic organizers are designed to help students visualize the process and then help to them to use expressive writing. I like that it discusses modeling for your students what you are thinking as you go through the writing process. This source specifically focuses on two graphic organizers that tie into each other, and are also broken up by a color coded system. One other interesting aspect of this source is that it tied students learning issues and behavioral issues together, by saying if a student is struggling academically they are more likely to act out instead of contribute to the class or lesson.

o   In connection with my research I found some of the importation useful. Originally I thought it was going to be highly focused on the behavioral piece, but only some of it was. It really gets into having “Big Ideas” when writing and how the organizers making writing a draft a smoother process. It then goes to tie up the behavioral piece.

Do Graphic Organizers Weather the Storm?