In Class Writing

Part I: Exploration
1. Identify the issue or problem that you plan to focus on in your Inquiry Project.
2. What is your personal connection to and interest in this topic?
3. What opinions do you already hold about this topic?
4. What knowledge do you already have about this topic. What are your main questions about this topic? What are you most curious about?
6. How might composition theorists and researchers approach or study this topic? Does this approach differ from those of other related disciplines (such as communication studies)?
7. How could you research this topic outside the library (for example, through interviews and/or observations)?

Part II: FocusingWrite an initial claim, or an open-ended question, to guide your research on this topic. Make it specific but exploratory. Remember that a good claim opens up an area of inquiry about a topic; a claim should invite evidence, support, and debate.

The issue I plan to focus on in my inquiry project is the various techniques of teaching writing at the presecondary level. How do these methods help or hinder the students in preparing for secondry education? I want to focus on what methods teachers are currently using in the classroom. What do they feel the benefits or limitations of those methods are? If a student doesn't fit into the standard "mold" when writing is taught, what options does an instructor have to help them?

My personal connection through this project is I have a daughter that is currently at the start of this stage and it is one I will continue to observe as her education progresses. I believe that the methods we are taught at the earliest stages of writing tend to stick with us as writers, whether they are beneficial are not. Seldom do we stray from the norm as writers. I have little experience beyond my own personal education. In school, I was taught the five paragraph method by one instructor and to write a draft for everthing by another instructor. However, he made the class write the draft and finished product immediately after, without any input from the class or himself. The draft was for his own use, so he could see how we had specifially changed our writing based on our own proofreading and ideas about revision. I don't feel this helped the students much apart from making me hate to proofread assignments.

What most interests me about this assignment is how teachers deal with students who don't seem to "get it" in regards to traditional writing instruction. What fall back plans do instructors have in place for students whose writing skills do not improve over an extended period of time? Are the students assigned a tutor? Do the instructors spend extra time coaching or assign additional work for those students who are falling behind their peers? Or are the students merely left to fall behind or placed in a remedial class?

I honestly have little information on how a theorist might address this. Although a few have addressed how unsophisticated writers approach an assignment, most theorists do so in a manner that benefits whatever method they advocate is the best way to teach writing. I have yet to find a theorist who focuses exclusively on the dilemma of the student. Research will be required to see what has been done already, although I have a feeling that the research is limited. Part of this project will clearly have to address what the current methods of teaching writing are.

As part of this, I would like to focus exclusively on my own community. The high schools of the area---Streator Township High School, Ottawa Township High School, LaSalle-Peru High School, and Mendota High School---tend to be "behind the times" so to speak. Through prior observations, I learned that the book "Speak" only made its way into the curriculum of LP within the last year. This is only true for LP, which is usually the case for most changes in the curriculum. Streator, Ottawa, and Mendota tend to follow along after LP has already implemented changes.

The research for this type of project I believe will have to be two-fold: What has already been done by way of research? I will have to scout out academic texts and articles (preferably recent ones that have been published in education journals). After reading over the available material, I believe that the vast bulk of my research will have to come from interviews with instructors and possibly students. Instructors may not be the best source about how the students feel personally about how their writing is impacted by the methods their instructors use. The instructor aspect may be useful in terms of chronicling progress. However, a writing method that produces passing grades may still leave the student feeling uncertain about how to write.

I believe my specific claim boils down to this: What methods are currently used to instruct presecondary writers and what is to be done for students who cannot learn writing via these traditionally accepted channels?