The process and potential of combined writing instruction: Self-Regulated Strategy Development in a workshop classroom

Reports indicate that inattention to writing instruction is a nation-wide problem and that students who are unable to write effectively suffer cultural, economic, and social consequences (Graham & Perrin, 2007a; National Commission on Writing for America's Families, Schools, and Colleges, 2004; National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges, 2003). Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) has been found to have positive effects on the achievement of student writers (Danoff, Harris, & Graham, 1993; Graham, Harris, & MacArthur, 2006; Graham, Harris, Mason, 2005; Sexton, Harris, & Graham, 1998); however, other forms of instruction are more widely used, such as the writing workshop model---the dominant mode of writing instruction in middle school (Graham, 2006b; Harris, Graham, & Mason, 2006).;This research study investigated the literacy needs of adolescent writers by examining the use of SRSD in a writing workshop setting as instruction for improving the revising skills of eighth grade students. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006), I examined how a regular education teacher and a special education teacher implemented writing instruction that combined an SRSD-based revising strategy with a writing workshop model and how their diverse group of students experienced and responded to this combined instruction. I collected data over nine weeks and included 30 observation hours, 11 teacher interview hours, five student interview hours, instructional documents, and student writing. My investigation yielded five related but distinct findings: 1. Autonomous classroom instruction was the product of teachers acting with and reacting to external forces in order to sustain a commitment to their convictions about education and student learning. 2. To create combined instruction, teachers used a three-phase process to promote understanding of essential components, excavate a space and define expectations for strategy use, and nurture the integration of the two models. 3. How students experienced the combined instruction varied depending on their individual beliefs about writing and their identities as writers. 4. Students gained and applied procedural understandings of revision as demonstrated by changes in revision behaviors and written products. 5. Teacher bias may have shaped students' decision-making during the revision process.