An investigation of the use of graphic organizers coupled with a checklist to improve student response writing
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Date
2010-04-28T18:08:54Z
Authors
Price, Elaine
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Abstract
Graphic organizers are believed to be beneficial for organizational purposes, and through this
study, using a formative experimental approach, a herringbone style was used to investigate
impact on student book and poetry response writing. Groups of Struggling Writers need
something to simplify the task of good response writing; thus, this study was carried out to
compare the impact of the use of a graphic organizer and teacher-prepared criteria/information
handouts, to the sole use of information handouts on student response writing. The study also
compared the impact of a checklist and a correct-usage resource handout to the sole use of a
resource handout for editing purposes. To address the continued problem of poor student
editing/proofreading, a one-step-at-a-time proofreading approach was linked with the checklist.
The participants involved ten grade seven students, indicated as Struggling Writers through
testing by the Nova Scotia Department of Education, who participated in this study for a period
of thirty-one school days. Within this study, a quantitative analysis, demonstrates that all ten
improved in their responses with the use of a graphic organizer and a checklist for their book and
poetry response writing. Participants showed significant increases of number of entries between
their book responses, and between their poetry responses for two different poems. For checklist
usage, the total mean increase for difference correct of proper usage of capital letters, commas,
quotation marks, and end punctuation for the book and poetry responses was significant. This
formative experimental model approach also investigated the reshaping of the interventions used,
the impact of inhibitor factors on participant responses, and environmental changes - resulting
future use of the interventions. Given the success of the use of the graphic organizer and
checklist within this study, recommendations for future research are provided. These results will
be of interest to educators for instructional purposes.
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Keywords
Study and teaching (Middle school) , Reader-response criticism , Graphic organizers , English language composition