Abigail Geisel

Nakisha Whittington

Writing Analysis

December 2nd, 2016

I expected to go into Easterly and be impressed by my Pen Pal, I was picturing the

excitement my Pal would have talking to me about his own personal writing and his

strengths. In all of my past experiences, I was amazed on how much children enjoyed all

forms and types of writing. Although this wasnt the case with my interaction at Easterly,

it was interesting to see it from a different, unexpected perspective. My second grade Pen

Pal at Easterly Elementary is Dylan. Dylan had a lot of pieces in his writing journal, but

he was more focused on his illustrations rather than writing. When he was writing, it was

more about the free write or free choice, he was interested in his writings about Star

Wars. When asked about other, more formal writings he would simply not talk about

them. I asked if as a class they wrote about any other things and he replied with yes,

but when asked about them he would say I dont know. I would say do you guys have

writers workshop? Another yes, but he would say they wrote about stuff. Dylan is

fluent in three different languages, he can write in English but only speaks the others at

home. When comparing his writing to others students in the classroom, it seemed to be

slightly below average. I could tell Dylan wasnt interested in writing, he completed

what he needed to but didnt go above and beyond. As for technicalities, he could

successfully sound words and write them but they would still not be the correct spelling,

his spacing was a little inaccurate as well, and he mixed up similar letters like b and

d. Things Dylan said he would like to do better as a writer included: writing letters up
to the top and fixing my punctuation. He said he learned to write in first grade, and

what helped him was a lot of practicing; he will use this strategy of practice to improve

his weaknesses. His attitude was very shy and reserved, unless he was talking about

something he was interested in. Holding a conversation was a big challenge for me. Also,

Dylan was very up front. I noticed in the beginning of class one of my classmates threw

out an empty tissue box, and Dylan with a straight face and sassy tone questioned him

immediately: Why did you do that? It doesnt go in there. and proceeded to walk away.

I think Dylan doesnt hold back and doesnt participate if he doesnt want to, which made

it hard for me to talk to him. I think it wouldve been more beneficial for him to talk to

someone he related to, such as another guy. Dylan did not have a positive view towards

reading and writing, but it also was not completely negative. He was very neutral about

both, but for the most part I could infer neither interested him too much.

Context

Attending State College for the past three years has helped me get a feel for what

the community feels is important to them. It is clear that the university highly values their

alumni, which exemplifies their need for a close community. They put a lot of focus on

their roots and the people that contribute. It is also obvious that State College community

enforces and supports a good education system, whether its the district schools or the

university. There is always encouragement as well as financial support that keep the

system growing and flourishing. Also, it is obvious that Easterly abides to what is

important to the rest of the community. Support in Easterly is key: they are always

lending a helping hand to their students and the community, and they get the same in
return. They value each other just as much as their education, which is a main aspect of

State Colleges attitude.

Growing up in State College has a number of benefits due to the community feel

and educational value. The person I interviewed said growing up here was extremely

beneficial to her education and social life because the whole community highly values

education, and the relationship between the community, school district, and university is

close knit. She said State College is big as a community, but has a small feel to it. Some

of the challenges include the competition in education. It is extremely hard to not only

keep up with your peers, but also excel above them. Lastly, another problem only pertains

to few, but those who are in the lower class are not given the same opportunity due to

lack of resources as well as the competition aspect.

In State College the writing curriculum is strategically planned to assist the

students in excelling in the best way possible. At the schools, writing is taught through

narratives, information writing, and opinion writing. They enforce inquiry, reflection, and

collaboration. They believe that writing depends on audience and experiences, and their

curriculum is heavily impacted by it. They use much of what the students are personally

interested in, and connect it to their lessons. The students also share information,

experiences, explanations, and opinions with their peers in order to learn from each other.

Lucky Calkins curriculum has similar ideas, but sets different kinds of standards and

goals for the children. Although they are somewhat different, she also helps teach

opinion/argument, information, and narrative writing. They focus on high-level thinking

strategies such as analyzing pieces and critique. Calkins curriculum includes performance

assessments in order to strategically monitor proficiency, therefore creating a platform

for instruction. Lastly, Calkins Units of Studies on Teaching Writing gives teachers the

opportunity to receive scaffolding and guidance while teaching. I feel as though Calkins

curriculum has a lot of strengths involving the complexity and sophistication of her ideas.

Her complex views of what these young writers should be able to do involves a lot of

high level thinking, but might be too mature. I feel as if the expectations are very

extreme, and I especially dislike the freedom of the curriculum. I believe her views are

set in stone without any type of flexibility. I do like Calkins specific goals for the

curriculum but I think curriculum should also be based on the children as individuals and

allow some sort of margin.

From my experience at Easterly, it seemed as if what was most important to the

teacher was keeping students comfortable and motivated when writing. She explained

that she will do whatever it takes to avoid in making the students dislike writing. Also a

big part of it is letting them choose their topics, when given a choice students tend to

excel and overall enjoy it significantly more. In the classroom there is a lot of emphasis

on details in writing. When they turn in a piece, they are always asked to add detail and

prompted with further open ended questions to extend it. There is also a lot of peer

sharing and editing. They believe that learning from their classmates and getting critique

from them is crucial to their learning. Some things that are de-emphasized are too much

structure. They are given a lot of flexibility with their writing, so they avoid anything that

is too formatted. As following what they think is important, students are given a lot of

freedom of what they can write about, and they are also allowed to include many

illustrations. I believe in this classroom, the child has the majority of the ownership of

their piece. For the most part I think they are either given an open-ended prompt, or a
genre they must follow, but the rest is up to them. This classroom encourages a lot of self-

expression through their writing, so the teachers allow the students to make a lot of

choices about their individual writing.

Part 2

I plan to analyze my child using the intentions of my personal lens, which are my

beliefs about teaching and learning writing. My lens consists of a number of teaching

methods and practices that are student driven. I base a lot of my teaching around guided

learning/practice because I believe teaching should be more guided than directed,

allowing the students to choose how they wish to learn or do something rather than

following something too concrete. I also believe in demonstration, especially the I do,

we do, you do method. This involves a lot of initial demonstration, then allowing the

students to help and go through the steps together, and then lastly they are on their own to

follow your model independently. Lastly, I highly believe engagement can enhance ones

writing tremendously. Engagement between the teachers, other students to sharing similar

ideas, and lastly engagement in peer edit and review. Talking to others gives a lot of

insight to a topic as well as assists in forming new and similar ideas or connections. All of

these things contribute to my lens and my basic beliefs of the most effect way of teaching

and learning writing.

My lens has similar beliefs about learning to those of Cambourne and Overmeyer.

In Cambournes Conditions for Acquiring Literacy he talks about demonstration as well

as engagement. He talks about how you should provide demonstration through shared

writing and modeled writing. It accurately describes that through shared experience, they
will have a better understanding of how something works and what is expected. As for

engagement, Cambourne (1995) says, Immersions and demonstrations are necessary

conditions for learning to occur, but they are not sufficient (p 185). He says becoming

involved with your learning as well as your peers allows a child to see relevance and

purpose, make connections, and get appropriate feedback. My lens also has Overmeyers

main idea in common; children should admire their work. I dont necessarily use the

word admiration, but as a teaching, giving the students the flexibility to guide their own

writing using a platform they will spark interest in their work. If children are able to have

choice and are given the opportunity to display their interests and preferences they will

appreciate their personal writing.

Dylans writing is very hard to read; most of his words are misspelled, he has a

very simple sentence structure, and he has little to no form of any leads or endings.

Dylans stories usually only include him and his friend Patrick, there is never any

physical or personal description, it only talks about their actions and adventures. There is

no apparent organization in his writing besides the sequence of his story, he uses no

transitions, context, introductions or conclusions. Dylan starts his stories going straight

into his ideas, and ends abruptly resulting in no closing. He moves from one idea to the

next without any transition. There are no literary devices present besides inclusion of a

few elements. He doesnt use any literary techniques and his only elements include

conflict, point of view, setting, and a climax. As inferred, there are no leads included in

his writing. He lacks a beginning or starting sentence, and most of his writing isnt in

complete sentences; some of his sentences begin mid-idea. When it comes to endings, he

has no closure or any form of conclusion. The story or piece usually stops after his last
idea or event, and he does not finish with any type of ending. Dylan does not have much

of a strong voice within his writing, he displays his interest in dinosaurs through

adventures with his best friend, Patrick. He shows some excitement by using exclamation

points from time to time, but not much of his personality shines through his writing. He

displays his strong knowledge of dinosaurs and their attributes but does not use much

emotion. Dylans word choice is extremely simple language, he does not use extensive

vocabulary unless he is talking about something to do with dinosaurs. He knows a lot of

vocabulary having to do with their names and attributes, but the rest of the sentence is

always composed of short, basic words. He does not work towards making his writing

more mature, throughout his advancement in writing he does not attempt to use bigger or

more difficult vocab. throughout his writing and adventures with Patrick, Dylan

surprisingly uses no dialogue between them. His writing is solely listing out the events

theyre doing in first person point of view. He shows no attempt in using dialogue in any

of his writing pieces. Dylan has little sentence variation, he tends to use simple language

and basic sentences. If he sentence isnt short and simple, it tends to be a run on sentence.

He uses a very basic sentence structure and doesnt change up the order of subject, verb,

and noun. Such as We were depp in the forist. We just have to gete past the folcenoes.

We cud goww urawd it? It will fide us. This piece Dylan is writing about has the same

structure each time and uses very easy words with little description. His writing shows no

signs of variation throughout his stories. Lastly, Dylan uses mostly sight words in his

writing. He spells short ones (four or less letters) correctly for most of the time, but often

tends to misspell the longer sight words or the ones with silent letters and short vowels.

Dylan always spells a, an, and, we, were, the, this, they, to correct, but misspells sight
words such as when, went, until, those, these, down, could wrong throughout his

writing. His writing mostly consists of sight words even though they are not always

spelled correct.

Word Childs Observations Phonology (p) or

Spelling Morphology (m)?

Forrest Forist Missed doublet mm p

Mistakes vowel e for i

Climbed Climd Misses e in inflected ending p/m

Misses blend of silent b

Finished Finisht Substitutes t for suffix ed m
Came Cam Misses CVCe pattern p
Woods Wuds Mistakes double vowel o sound p/m

for u
Swimming swiming Missed doublet mm p
Built bilt Misses short vowel u p

When teaching a mini lesson, you should start with demonstration, participate in guided

practice with the students, and allow time for a lot of independent practice. I would start

out by modeling when and how to do something. When it came to Dylan, I chose to do a

mini-lesson on punctuation in run-on sentences. I introduced to him what we were doing,

and why it was important in writing. I explained to him that when he finishes an idea, it

needs a period. If he is listing something or continuing a though, he probably needs a

comma. First, I had a short paragraph typed up with little punctuation, and I proceeded to

show him how I would choose when to end a sentence. When I am done with a thought

or finished with an idea, I will put a period at the end of the last word in that thought.

Watch as I read this to myself and try to figure out where one thought ends and another
begins. I read my short prompt out loud and asked him to note when my voice sounded

like a finished sentence and how I would put the punctuation there appropriately. We then

read over it together to see if it sounded accurate. I then gave Dylan the opportunity to do

it with some guidance from me. I gave him a different prompt, and instructed him Read

this out loud slowly and thoughtfully, and when you think you are finished with an idea,

thought, or statement, add the correct form of punctuation. He read out loud and

successfully put punctuation where needed. We read back through it a second time and

checked over his work, he was missing one period and a few commas, which already

showed some growth. I congratulated his success so far and noted some advice where he

was missing the periods and commas. I referenced a book in order to show where authors

choose to put punctuation and had him explain to me why he thought why certain

commas or periods were there. I would ask Do you see these commas? Why do you

think they need to be there? and he would respond that theres a pause in the thought or

the author was making a list, which was correct. I prompted him with many questions on

where punctuation would be and why it was needed. After Dylan seemed to understand

the concept, he did independent practice by editing his own writing. I found pages where

he had a lot of run on sentences and used little punctuation. I instructed him to take his

time to edit his work without my help, and I would check it once he was finished. I

allowed Dylan to complete a few pages of editing before I checked. Dylan missed a few

minor things, but I could tell he now understood punctuation on a whole new level and

appreciated the importance it has to his personal writing. We read through his work

together with a new set of eyes and realized the difference it made, and after my quick
mini-lesson Dylan grew dramatically and was now able to fix or avoid these errors

independently.

Part 3

Word Spacing

Dylan struggles a lot with spelling as well as the mechanics of writing. When looking

through his entries, he had a lot of problems with spacing towards the beginning of the

year. The spacing within his word was too large and the spacing between words was all

over the place, sometimes too large but sometimes too small to identify the separation

between words.

Punctuation

Dylan doesnt use punctuation often besides at the end of a sentence, which even then

sometimes he avoids and creates run-on sentences. Dylan had problems with punctuation

in his earlier writing, and although it has improved he still tends to create a few run on

sentences. One instance where punctuation was needed but not used was in his Pen Pal

letter to me, (spelling is corrected) I am 7 years old I know 3 languages I do swimming,

and skiing, and tai kwon do how many languages do you know. I noticed that in the

beginning, he had trouble distinguishing between the ends and beginning of a new

thought, question, or idea; this was a potential indication of why he doesnt use necessary

punctuation.

Capitalization

Dylan does use capitalization, but is very inconsistent. He expresses knowledge of when

capitalization should be used, but he often forgets to utilize it when needed. Dylan always
remembers to capitalize names, sometimes utilizes it at the beginning of a sentence, but

often forgets it when using I.

Legibility

Dylan does not have problems with is legibility. His letters are clear and concise, with an

exception of a mix-up between lowercase B and D, such as when he wrote dlock as

block. Other than the confusion between those two letters, one of Dylans main

strengths is writing clear, neat, and legible.

Although Dylan has trouble with spelling, craft, and mechanics of writing, I can

see throughout his writers book that he is improving drastically. For such little time

between entries, he has fixed a lot of basic errors but has also attempted in adding more

detail to writing. Dylan has a lot to work on for the basics of writing, but his stories are

becoming more elaborate and imaginative. Dylan has a lot of potential as a writer, and I

can see him fulfilling it to his fullest if he becomes committed to recognizing his errors

and weaknesses, and addressing them with positive determination.