The purpose of this study was to determine if the focus correction strategy of the Cumulative Writing Folder Program had a positive effect on students' overall writing skills and on the major writing areas of mechanics, style, content and organization. A pre and post exploratory study was used in this research with a sample of 22 grade 7 urban middle school students. The study looked for significant differences between high and low repetitions of focus correction areas (FCAs) and their effect on achievement. Writing samples were assessed with holistic and primary trait scoring. The important findings of this study are that: (1) The Cumulative Writing Folder Program works and produces significant increases in students' writing skills overall and for all variables studied: mechanics, style, content and organization (p $<$.001). It especially works as a way to focus teachers' attention on writing and as a means for teachers and administrators to provide a set of strategies that everyone can use. (2) A balance of FCAs should be used. An overemphasis on mechanics may actually decrease students' mechanical skills. (3) The frequency of FCAs may not be as important as the focusing of the correction itself. These results are all the more meaningful because they were achieved in an inner city middle school with minority students. They reinforce the notions that an atmosphere of literacy can be created, good writing can be taught, and classroom practices make a difference. Further research must be done to determine if the positive results were due to frequency of writing, consistency of approach, the management system, oral reading, or using past papers to teach new skills which are the other major components of this program, or to the atmosphere of literacy at the study school, and to find out what number of Focus Correction Area repetitions works best. Additionally a study should be done to examine which individual focus correction areas have the greatest effect on writing performance. When research responds to these issues, American schools will produce more effective writers and the teaching of writing will be close to reaching its potential.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-7908 |
| Date | 01 January 1990 |
| Creators | O'Neill, Mary Grassa |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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