The Role of Elementary and Middle School Teachers on the Enduring Efficacy of Writing Instructors

Abstract

A teacher’s own early experiences with writing, whether positive or negative, have a significant effect on the students that they teach, especially those who go on to become teachers. Sometimes these memories are latent, buried in years of pain of the rejection or humiliation from those initial experiences; at other times, mentors step in and create a more positive environment in which young writers thrive. In our master's program for education and reading instruction at the University of West Georgia, we ask our teachers through a writing biography assignment to explore these memories of their earliest writing experiences and determine how those experiences fit into their current teaching careers. For this qualitative project, the researcher analyzed eighteen of twenty-eight submitted essays that were submitted for the “Writing Autobiography” assignment for this graduate level writing class for educators. Narrative coding was used to determine the effect of these early writing experiences on this set of teachers, based on their own reflections and memories submitted for this assignment, and to what degree these experiences affect their writing identity and current teaching of writing. This study established that these teachers’ early experiences with writing significantly affected their efficacy in writing and in teaching writing for their current students. In some cases, the participants were still learning handwriting when feelings of writing inadequacies were established through teacher criticism. While middle and high school also were listed as turning points in writing efficacy for these participants, the most common climatic moment for the participants—for better or worse— occurred in third, fourth, or fifth grades. Mentors, both teachers and family members, contributed to the recovery from early negative writing experiences in school.

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The Role of Elementary and Middle School Teachers on the Enduring Efficacy of Writing Instructors

Stream B

A teacher’s own early experiences with writing, whether positive or negative, have a significant effect on the students that they teach, especially those who go on to become teachers. Sometimes these memories are latent, buried in years of pain of the rejection or humiliation from those initial experiences; at other times, mentors step in and create a more positive environment in which young writers thrive. In our master's program for education and reading instruction at the University of West Georgia, we ask our teachers through a writing biography assignment to explore these memories of their earliest writing experiences and determine how those experiences fit into their current teaching careers. For this qualitative project, the researcher analyzed eighteen of twenty-eight submitted essays that were submitted for the “Writing Autobiography” assignment for this graduate level writing class for educators. Narrative coding was used to determine the effect of these early writing experiences on this set of teachers, based on their own reflections and memories submitted for this assignment, and to what degree these experiences affect their writing identity and current teaching of writing. This study established that these teachers’ early experiences with writing significantly affected their efficacy in writing and in teaching writing for their current students. In some cases, the participants were still learning handwriting when feelings of writing inadequacies were established through teacher criticism. While middle and high school also were listed as turning points in writing efficacy for these participants, the most common climatic moment for the participants—for better or worse— occurred in third, fourth, or fifth grades. Mentors, both teachers and family members, contributed to the recovery from early negative writing experiences in school.