The effects of three organizational structures on the writing and critical thinking of fifth graders

The purpose of this researcher was to determine the effects of three organizational structures on fifth-grade students' writing and critical thinking. The study was conducted with 127 predominantly White fifth-grade students in a grades 2--5 elementary school in an affluent suburb of Long Island, New York. Intact classes of heterogeneously-grouped students were randomly assigned to one of three instructional conditions for writing a research report: outline, graphic organizer, or I-Chart.;Participants completed a pretest research report with no treatment and a posttest research report in one of the aforementioned treatments. A rubric combining the New York State Testing Program Grade 4 English LangMe Arts Rubric for Reading/Writing (2000) and the New York State Testing Program Writing Mechanics Rubric (2000) was used to assess the students' general writing abilities in both the pretest and posttest research reports. The students' critical thinking abilities in both pretest and posttest research reports were assessed using a modification of the Scoring Rubric for New York State Elementary English Language Arts Assessment (1996). A team of practitioners graded the research reports, and inter-rater reliability was assessed.;The findings supported the view that the I-Chart was significantly more effective than both the outline and graphic organizer in all domains of general writing except mechanics: meaning, development, organization, language use, and in all realms of critical thinking: understanding, analysis, and idea development.