Running Head: CONVENTIONS TO TEACH OR NOT TO TEACH

Conventions: To Teach or Not to Teach

Amanda Hazergian

Michigan State University

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Conventions: To Teach or Not to TeachIntroduction

What makes a good writing piece? When teachers grade their students’ writing, they often look for organization, sentence structure, word choice and conventions to name a few. Many elementary writing rubrics often contain criteria on these exact writing skills. The one area that I find the most difficult to teach is conventions. I find it difficult to teach because I have not found the most effective way to instill the skill of using conventions in my students so that they include them on their own. Like the title of this project, “to teach or not to teach,” I have often contemplated whether students learn the use of conventions through direct instruction or whether they gain practice with conventions through time and practice with other writing activities. In my previous years teaching, I have done both methods of instruction. For example, I have given my students activities with punctuation, capitalization and grammatical errors or omissions and students had to correct and rewrite the sentences. I have also taught and reminded my students about using appropriate punctuation, capitalization and grammar while incorporating them into our writing lessons. However, neither approach proved to have a noticeable effect. From my experience, students know to include punctuation, capitalization, grammar, etc. but they often struggle to include it automatically. I am always trying to find a way to make including conventions a habit, hence, why I chose this as the focus of my Teaching Project.

This topic is important to me because having taught kindergarten, first and second grade, I noticed that writing conventions have tended to be a problem for students in all three grade-levels. Moreover, when reflecting back on my students’ writing assessments over the years, they always seemed to do poorly in the writing conventions category. Having taught lower elementary, I have often wondered if my students’ inabilities to include conventions is simply developmentally inappropriate at such an early age. Or, if indeed we can teach them to include punctuation and capitalization as they write.

Before beginning my research, I hoped to gain a better idea of the best way to teach writing conventions, whether through isolated lessons or within writing activities. I was also curious as to if students should make writing conventions a habit, and something they do without thinking, or if it is sufficient for them to add conventions during the editing and revising phases of writing. Prior to researching, I knew writing conventions were important but I was not sure of the best approach to teach them. As Michaela Colombo noted, “students must learn the conventions of writing so that their writing is clear to them (they are saying what they intended to say) and clear to others (others understand the writer’s message)” (2012, p. 227). Again, I knew writing conventions must be taught, but I wanted to research how they should be taught.

Literature ReviewAs just mentioned, through research, I initially hoped to learn the best approach to

teaching writing conventions.

Research On Writing Conventions: U R What U WriteIn this quantitative study, Leah Nelson and Sheryl Feinstein (2007) discussed high school

students’ use of writing conventions in academic writing in comparison to using conventions in social writing, such as emails, Instant Messages (IM), text messages and blogs (p. 1-2). Students had to provide both classroom samples as well as Internet samples and they were scored using the 6+1 Trait Writing rubric. This rubric features a “continuum from 1 to 5 with the descriptors

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Not Yet, Emerging, Developing, Effective, and Strong” (Nelson & Feinstein, 2007, p. 6-7). When comparing writing conventions use in classroom samples and online samples, Nelson and Feinstein (2007) found that “writing on the Internet has demonstrated a need for much improvement in the conventions department (p. 13). Graves (2002) also stated that writing must be practiced at least four days a week in order for it to become a “practical medium for thinking and self-expression” (as cited in Nelson & Feinstein, 2007, p. 4). This made me realized that students should be given writing practice almost every day of the school week.

As cited in Nelson and Feinstein (2007), Hagemann (2003) concluded that using good grammar, spelling and punctuation “[contribute] to meaning and [aid] in communication” and moreover, “[conventions] are a link between writers and readers, and without them, readers would be lost” (p. 18). This confirmed my stance that students need repeated practice and instruction with writing conventions.

Queries: How Do We Help Children with the Conventions of Writing?This short but extremely valuable article helped me answer my question about whether

the best approach to teaching conventions is through isolated lessons or within the writing activities. Rosemary Winkeljohann (1981) emphasized that a separate program or curriculum is not necessary nor beneficial in teaching conventions. Instead, she stated teachers have two resources, “the students and [themselves]” (p. 862). She went on to explain that the “teacher brings the support and the children bring their experience, background, and time” (Winkeljohann, 1981, p. 862). Winkeljohann cited Shirley M. Haley-James, of Georgia State University, and listed her suggested thoughts on teaching students writing conventions. As cited in Winkeljohann (1981), Haley-James stressed that students learn by doing rather than by completing workbook pages or convention exercises (p. 863). Instead, they should be “discovering for themselves ways in which the conventions of writing serve their personal purposes as well as “working to make their own writing better” (1981, p. 863). In addition to suggesting that writing conventions instruction should occur during the actual context of writing, rather than an isolated activity, she also highlighted that writing conventions are enhanced when students write about something they care about and want to write about. That way, they are fully invested in their writing and they find it important (Winkeljohann, 1981, p. 863). Another suggestion brought up was allowing students the opportunity to read their writing to others or for others to read their writing aloud. Through these activities, students can “hear” what they need to fix to improve their writing (Winkeljohann, 1981, p. 863). One of the biggest take away suggestions that resonated with me was that teachers should refrain from “teaching conventions” and instead, put more effort on supporting students in their acquisition of conventions (Winkeljohann, 1981, p. 863).

Other ResourcesOne particular resource, such as the UNC School of Education website, was especially

helpful in finding lesson plans and activities to teach and give students practice with writing conventions. The lessons included learning outcomes, the estimated time for the lesson, materials, step-by-step activities, an assessment, supplemental information as well as the aligned Common Core State Standards.

William McColly’s article was also helpful in determining example methods and procedures one teacher used when teaching and monitoring students’ use of writing mechanics. On the other hand, Helmut W. Bonheim recommended a different approach. In his article, he

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suggested that basic writing mechanics can be taught through the use of literature, instead of direction classroom instruction or drill assignments “related to [the] usage, grammar, organization or the mechanics of composition” (1956, p.40-41). He noted that through carefully reading a piece of literature, students enjoy and respect the works of an author. And, by thoughtfully reading, they appreciate the skills involved in the mechanics of writing. It seems Bonheim’s idea is very similar to the use of mentor texts in writing instruction. Additionally, similar to what McColly said, if students are motivated, especially by an author’s piece, they “do a great many things by and for themselves” (1964, p. 175).

Additional Methods to Teaching ConventionsSteve Graham, Charles A. MacArthur and Jill Fitzgerald (2013) mentioned a few ways to

help students with writing conventions, such as teacher feedback that is supportive and “explains problems and makes specific suggestions” is effective for students. (p. 219) Graham et al. (2013) also stated that teacher conferences can be a helpful component of writing instruction (p. 219). Additionally, peer revising, when “integrated with instruction in evaluation and revision” can be beneficial (Graham et al., 2013, p. 219). Not only do students learn from receiving their peer’s feedback, but students also learn just as much when they are giving the feedback. Another way to help students include writing conventions, is to give them specific criteria or rubrics, that they can use when revising and editing their papers (Graham et al., 2013, p. 220).

In their chapter on peer revising, Karen R. Harris, Steve Graham, Linda H. Mason, and Barbara Friedlander provided a resource for students to use when peer revising one of their classmate’s writing. Initially, the teacher should guide the students through the checklist so that eventually, students can independently complete the checklist. The checklist includes a revising section about what the listener likes best, what the paper was about and if everything is clear. The proofreading section includes various writing conventions such as sentences, capitals, punctuation, and spelling. (2008, p. 333) Also within the proofreading section, the proofreader must discuss their corrections with their classmate. The idea of this checklist is supported by Colombo, when she stated, “revising offers an authentic opportunity for teaching writing conventions” (2012, p. 227). Going along with peer revision, Bradshaw (2010) stated that students are often more motivated to edit someone else’s paper rather than their own, and additionally they might find it easier. (p. 286)

As evident in Table 1 below, the School of Education at the University of North Carolina put together a list of lessons to target writing conventions.

Table 1Activities to Teach Writing Conventions

Activity Title Activity Targeted Conventions

Appositive Action Students create appositives, which are descriptive phrases that are set off by commas.

Use of commas to form longer, smoother and less choppy sentences

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Be the Sentence Students act as words and punctuation to create a complete sentence.

Parts of speech, word order, punctuation and capitalization

Mumbling Together Students use this strategy to edit their writing.

Appropriate punctuation use and sentence structure

Word Bank Students use a “word bank” to find the correct spelling of words in their writing.

Correct spelling

Read It Backwards Students proofread their writing by reading it backwards

Misspelled words, punctuation, capitalization, sentence structure

Plans for Implementation:Through implementation, I wanted to test both methods of instruction for teaching

writing conventions; both isolated lessons to foster their use and incorporating instruction into our current writing unit. Consequently, my implementation plan involved three types of writing. For one, my students would continue with our current writing unit, which was nonfiction writing, and I would emphasize writing conventions during our lessons and work time. At the time of implementation, my students were involved in writing nonfiction insect reports. They had already researched their insects and were in the phase of drafting and then eventually revising and editing. One part of my implementation was to have my students continue drafting their insect reports while reminding them to include conventions. Prior to writing their final drafts, my students had to edit and revise. To do this, I gave my students different colored highlighters to use when editing. Each color signified a different item to edit. For instance, pink was for punctuation, orange was for spelling, yellow was for capitalization and blue was for “needs to be rewritten,” or “does not make sense.” By doing the revisions with different colors, my students could easily see which area of writing conventions they needed the most improvement. For instance, if a student had predominantly yellow marks on their paper, they quickly realized they needed to be more aware of correct capitalization when writing. Similar to what McColly (1964) noted, “through correcting their own errors, students find the instruction more meaningful” (p. 175). It was also an easy formative assessment for my purposes and a good way to lead my students to future writing goals. Additionally, after my students made their edits, I also read their papers and added my feedback and recommended revisions.

My second form of implementation included specific lessons that gave students practice with writing conventions. The specific purpose of these lessons was strictly writing conventions.

My third and final plan for implementation, involved, “Funky Friday Writing.” On Fridays, the writing portion of our day does not go along with our writing unit. Instead, we call it “Funky Friday Writing” because my students are free to write about anything. They can write stories, poems, lists, etc. on any topic they choose. For students that sometimes need assistance coming up with a topic, I give them some sort of silly writing prompt as a story starter. However, the writing task is completely open-ended. During this time, students truly care about their writing and still get a chance to improve their use of writing conventions.

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The use of mentor texts was also included in my implementation plan. As Colombo (2012) pointed out, mentor texts help students “uncover how good writers effectively use writing conventions” (p.228).

Results/Analysis of Three StudentsAs previously mentioned, there were three components to my implementation plan. The

first component involved continuing our current unit of writing and implementing lessons to support writing conventions. As evident in Appendices A, B, and C, when my focus students used different color highlighters to edit their drafts, it became very clear to them what they needed to work on. For example, on Jacob’s paper, most of his edits were for incorrect capitalization. Whereas Sarah’s and Christi’s had a more variety of editing marks in their drafts, which was a helpful reminder to be a careful writer during drafting.

As recommended by Graham et al. (2013), I also looked over the students’ drafts and offered feedback. At times, I made edit marks with different colored highlighters, just as the students did. Other times, I made comments, to help the students revise their writing. Also suggested by Graham et al., teachers can help students with writing by giving them criteria or a rubric when writing their papers. One will notice at the top of the students’ insect report drafts, there is a list of items they should include in their piece. For their final drafts, I also provided them with a scoring rubric, that I would later use to grade their reports. As a class, we reviewed the rubric together so they knew exactly what needed to be included in their paper. Again, I offered specific feedback if students were lacking a portion of the rubric in their drafts. Additionally, teacher conferences were also suggested as a means to support writing instruction. Based on my observations of the students’ work, I also called my focus students over in a small group for a conference, so that I could help them with their specific area for revision. During the conference, I helped them focus on their previous drafts and what they needed the most help with, such as Jacob and capitalization. When I met with him during the conference, we focused on capitalization so that when he began writing additional drafts for other insect categories, he paid closer attention to capitalizing letters. Both the conferences and the different colored editing marks, helped students see what they needed to work on. After editing their first few drafts and meeting with me for conferences, I noticed a slight decrease in the amount of items they needed to revise.

For the second part of implementation, I had the students engage in our usual Friday activity of “Funky Friday Writing.” As previously mentioned, during this time, students are free to choose to practice any form of writing on a topic of their choice. To continue my instruction on writing conventions, I had my students engage in “The Peer Revising Strategy Checklist.” Harris et al. (2008), suggested using the checklist in the effort that students will eventually use the checklist independently. The checklist was easy to read and included both meaning revisions and conventions revisions. When I introduced it to my focus students, I still had to scaffold and guide them through the steps. Because this was the first time they had used this, I sat with my focus students when they completed the checklist. I offered suggestions such as underlining a word when it is misspelled, adding punctuation that is missing or circling a letter that needs to be capitalized. As evident in Appendices D, F, and H, students made revisions on their peer’s work. Jacob had a difficult time making revisions when something did not make sense. He just circled it on Christi’s paper. For this reason, in my opinion, the most effective piece on the checklist was when students had to discuss the proposed suggestions and corrections. This not only gave the peer reviser a chance to explain their recommendations, but it also gave the writer a chance to

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respond. For example, when Christi told Jacob that he should include how the wolf sleeps, he mentioned he did not include that in his writing piece because that information was not in the particular book he was reading at the time. Christi then suggested getting another wolf book to find that information. After analyzing my students’ work with the checklist, I would definitely continue to foster the use of it among my students.

For the third piece of implementation, I engaged the students in a variety of activities specifically aimed at practicing writing conventions. Rather than the typical drill activities, in which students correct and edit errors on a worksheet, I used more authentic activities but still focused on teaching writing conventions. One of the lessons was titled, “Appositive Action,” which involved having the students learn to combine two sentences by using descriptive phrases, set off by commas. For example, instead of writing, “My friend has a furry dog” and “My friend asked me to come out and play” as two sentences, students learned to combine them by writing, “My friend, with the furry dog, asked me to come out and play.” We ended up adding this skill to our “What Authors Do” anchor chart, as a reminder to do this in everyday writing. My students excelled at the appositive activity when doing the isolated activity, but I did not see this carry over into their writing.

The “Be the Sentence” activity was a great movement activity that reinforced where and when to use punctuation. It was an activity that fostered teamwork in discussing appropriate punctuation. Students enjoyed the activity and excelled at working together to correctly place punctuation; however, similar to the previous activity, I did not see much carryover into their writing.

On the contrary, the “Mumbling Together” and “Read it Backwards” activities were especially helpful in having students identify errors that needed to be corrected or edited in their own writing. Students did not realize, until doing these two strategies, that the mind often corrects the mistakes because it knows how the paper should sound. Students were surprised to find additional areas for editing when they read it backwards or aloud. In fact, these two strategies were the two most effective ways for students to independently edit their papers. Students took the most initiative in revising their papers when they did one of these two strategies. These strategies were especially helpful for Jacob and Christi. When reading their writing aloud, Jacob would often stop several times, knowing he had to revise and correct a mistake. Similarly, when Christi read her writing backwards, it was easier for her to see what was spelled wrong or when a sentence did not make sense. Sentence fluency was a typical error for Christi. Often times, she would repeat phrases unintentionally or leave off the endings of sentences when drafting. However, when reading her paper backwards, these errors for easier for her to notice on her own.

As an additional support for my students during the editing process, I also employed the “Word Bank” activity. The “Word Bank” is a set of library pockets, each labeled with one letter of the alphabet, that students can use when they need to know how to spell a word. I taught my students to check our classroom dictionary first. However, if they could not find a word they were looking for, they knew how to quietly bring me the appropriate letter card to ask how to spell a word. I would then write the spelling on that card. The “Word Bank” feature was used very frequently by all three of my focus students.

When reflecting on my three focus students and their progress with the three forms of implementation, I saw the most improvement with the editing and revising activities, rather than direction instruction with writing conventions. Instead, students learn and use writing conventions when involved in the writing process, either in drafting or when going back to

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revise. This helped me conclude that although students might not have appropriate writing conventions in their drafts, they can still be considered strong writers if they know which editing strategies to employ to make their writing better. Moreover, when utilizing these editing strategies across writing assignments, students get repeated practice using writing conventions. With more exposure, overtime students will hopefully frequent their use during the drafting phase.

ConclusionsAs I conclude my research on teaching writing conventions, I am thinking about where to

go next. Many of the strategies and lessons I implemented were based on individual student work. In the future, I would like to do a more collaborative and interactive approach, similar to what Glorianne Bradshaw suggested. Bradshaw (2010) described a classroom newsletter that her students wrote as a class. There were sections on “local news” such as a student losing a tooth or having a birthday, a section on weather, sports (for recess or gym happenings), subject area learning concepts, a book review from the week, and an art and/or music section. (p. 286) In addition to the students being responsible for writing each news section, there was also a team of editors, including the Legibility Editor, Capital Checker, Punctuation Pointer, and Spell Checker, to name a few. The editors were responsible for editing the news sections. (Bradshaw, 2010, p. 286) Every Monday in my classroom, I send out a newsletter to my classroom parents, explaining upcoming lessons and events for the week. Having completed my Teaching Project, I plan to have students create a newspaper to go home on Friday, as a wrap up to the week. In order to reinforce writing conventions, Colombo (2012) suggested providing students “with opportunities to practice interactive writing,” which is similar to the newspaper project recommended by Bradshaw. (p. 228) Similar to what Bradshaw did with her students, I plan on having a group of students responsible for writing the news and another group of students edit the newspaper. This activity would be a great opportunity for shared writing and practice with conventions.

In his book, What a Writer Needs, Ralph Fletcher quoted James Michener when he said, “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.” This made me think back to my initial question of whether students should be trained to automatically include writing conventions or if it is sufficient for them to add it during the editing and revising phases. When reflecting on this quote and my work on my Teaching Project, I do think it is sufficient for students to use the editing and revising phases as a place to check for writing conventions. Even if a student is not able to include them automatically when drafting, they can still create a well-written piece.

Lastly, when thinking about my future writing instruction and targeting the needs of my students, I plan to model my writing workshop block around the suggested model by Graham et al., in their chapter on “Best Practices in Writing Instruction,” which includes, but is not limited to, a predictable routine, conferencing, appropriate scaffolding, concrete feedback, cooperative learning assignments and self-regulation (2013, p. 405). Many of these teaching strategies were used within my Teaching Project and I was able to see the positive effects on my students.

When deciding on a teaching project topic and beginning research, I hoped to gain a better understanding of the best approach to teaching writing conventions. Through research and implementation, I have learned that there is not one, sole instructional approach that fosters students’ use of writing conventions. Instead, a combination of instructional strategies gives

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students practice with writing conventions in a variety of forms. So, when referring back to my title, “Conventions: To Teach or Not to Teach,” the answer is “yes,” teach.

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Appendices

Appendix A: Jacob’s Insect Report

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Appendix B: Sarah’s Insect Report

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Appendix C: Christi’s Insect Report

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Appendix D: Jacob’s “Funky Friday Writing” Entry

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Appendix E: Peer Revising Checklist of Jacob’s Writing

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Appendix F: Christi’s “Funky Friday Writing” Entry

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Appendix G: Peer Revising Checklist of Christi’s Writing

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Appendix H: Sarah’s “Funky Friday Writing” Entry

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Appendix I: Peer Revising Checklist of Sarah’s Writing

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Writer’s Memo for My Teaching Project

The journey writing my teaching project was exactly that: a journey. Having been working on the project throughout the entire semester, my project went through many phases. To start, coming up with a topic was very easy. When it comes to writing instruction, I always have numerous questions. It is typically the subject that I find myself seeking the most help to improve my teaching. Moreover, the one area that has always intrigued me is teaching writing conventions, which consequently became the focus of my teaching project.

Once my topic was chosen, I began researching journal articles and class textbooks to find data on teaching writing conventions. After finding valuable information, I began coming up with a plan for implementation. I made sure my plan touched on all of the different approaches to teaching writing conventions. Additionally, I chose three focus students that differed in ability, cultural background, etc. for me to play close attention to throughout implementation. The implementation and drafting phases were intertwined, because I had started drafting my paper while still continuing to implement lessons. My rough draft was a continuous work in progress. There were certain areas I could write right away, such as the introduction and literature review. However, other sections, such as the findings, I had to wait until after implementation. Even after going back and filling in those missing pieces, my draft was still a long way from its current stage. I had made several notes in my paper, which reminded me to elaborate, add, delete, or rephrase my writing to make my paper better. Throughout the revision phase, I utilized many ways to edit my paper, such as reading it aloud, consulting others for feedback and viewing example teaching projects from previous students. Now that my teaching project journey has ended, I am happy to say that I am proud of the work that it has become.

As previously mentioned, my writing journey went through many phases. This is one way that will impact how I teach my students. I plan to instill this “journey” feeling into my students so they realize writing is not a strict step-by-step procedure but rather a development of writing from one place to another. Although there is a typical process to draft a paper, including brainstorming a topic, researching, organizing ideas, drafting, editing and revising, the pace at which one travels along that journey can be very different. In the past, I would have my entire class begin researching at the same time and require them to finish that phase at the same time. Likewise, all of my students would be in the various phases on the same days. Now, after reflecting on my experience with the teaching project, I plan to allow my students to guide their own writing journey, similar to the way I did throughout my writing process. I can give them a start date and an end date, and guide them along the way; however, the pace and direction in which they take their writing journey is up to them.

What might be a little different for my students is the amount of guidance I give them. Because they are still young children, they will require more guidance as to how to write an expository piece. They might also need more frequent feedback, to ensure their piece is headed in the right direction.

From writing my teaching project and trying other forms of writing in this course, I found expository writing easier than other forms of writing. I think it was easier because it was informative and based on true facts and findings. Whereas, fictional or poetry writing, for example, require much deeper thought that is not based on research. Although I find expository writing easier, that might not be true for all writers. As a result, it was an important reminder for

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me to remember that the writers in my class all have different writing preferences. To conclude, as one can see, creating my teaching project was a journey of writing and learning.

Bibliography

Bonheim, H. W. (1956, October). Teaching a novel to improve writing mechanics. College English, 18(1), 40-41.

Bradshaw, G. (2010). Does a visor an editor make? The Reading Teacher, 64(4), 286.

Colombo, M. (2012). Teaching english language learners: 43 strategies for successful k- 8 classrooms. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Fletcher, R. (2013). What a writer needs (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Graham, S., MacArthur, C. A., & Fitzgerald, J. (Eds.). (2013). Best practices in writing instruction (2nd ed.). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Harris, K. R., Graham, S., Mason, L. H., & Friedlander, B. (2008). Powerful writing strategies for all students (pp. 332-333). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes

Lesson plans for teaching conventions (n.d.). In Learn NC. Retrieved from             http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/2742

McColly, W. (1964, November). Teaching the mechanics of writing systematically. The Clearing House, 39(3), 175.

Nelson, L., & Feinstein, S. G. (2007). Research on Writing Conventions: U R what u write.

Winkeljohann, R. (1981). How do we help children with the conventions of writing. Language Arts, 58(7), 862-863.