Field+Study+Summary+Spring+2010

My initial question(s) – ** Will the students’ participation and accountability increase by offering them the option of composing on the computer during class time. Furthermore, will their interest in writing polished pieces of work increase knowing that they will be peer reviewed?
 * __ Summary of Field Study #2 __**

-journal writing in class using pen and paper on topics chosen by me -self editing of journal entry -I collect edit and return journals -after two or three journals, the students are taught to peer edit and proofread each other’s work -“Free Writing” is explained and students do a paper and pencil entry that is five minutes long – topic “My Name” -This free write is kept personal, i.e. not edited by a peer or by me - Students enter the lab and do a survey with regard to composing on the computer in a lab - the survey is completed on the Sharepoint survey maker and is kept on my website - students then completed the first free write on the computer -it was ten minutes of continuous writing on the topic of “A Funny Story” -students immediately edited their own work for the conventions of writing -they learned how to submit to //My Inbox// on Sharepoint and attach the document -I read the entry, graded it and gave a comment -I did not edit the piece of writing but I gave suggestions for edits -I gave another lesson about editing and gave the students the BC Performance Standards for Impromptu Writing with which to compare their work
 * __ The Process I undertook for the Field Study: __**

-the students did a second free write in the lab on the topic of “My Favourite Place”

-this time the students wrote for fifteen minutes straight -immediately afterward they edited their own work and made changes -the documents were saved in Word 2007 -another day, they came back to the lab and proofread their work a second time to catch any additional errors -student peer edited each other’s entries by physically moving themselves around the room to different computers -peer editors were to use red font to make the changes in punctuation and also look for sentence structure and paragraphing changes to be made -they were then to write a “sandwich comment” at the bottom that gave the writer a good idea about their writing and editing skills -this document was attached to the Sharepoint “In Box” as Journal #2 -the students were given feedback by me and it could be picked up at the Sharepoint site -in class, we worked on editing worksheets to improve the basics of punctuation and conventions of writing as I felt that they were still not picking up the mistakes -I also gave them a peer editing checklist to use as a prompt when they edited other’s work -we went back to the lab and did a third free write on “If Pets Could Talk” -this one was a little less formal but the students were asked to write for fifteen minutes again -they self-edited and saved their document -another day, the editors used red font to make the changes and wrote a comment at the bottom of the entry - they saved the edited version as a new document and then attached both documents to the In Box in Sharepoint -they did a final survey on their experiences with Free Writing and Peer Editing

-time -not all class members are able to participate in this due to conflicts in schedules (pull out class) - technical glitches -lab access
 * __ Difficulties and Challenges __**