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Do Students in the Fifth-Grade Benefit from the Writing Workshop with Regard to their Scores on the New York State Fifth-Grade Writing Test?
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1997-08-01
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There are two very different approaches being used in classrooms today with regards to teaching writing. A traditional approach to teaching writing might include using a grammar textbook and/or a workbook. A holistic approach to teaching writing believes that students learn to write by writing. Students move through the entire writing process, from prewriting to publishing, for each piece of work they create. This is called the Writing Workshop. More current research was needed to determine if one approach was more beneficial than the other.
In this longitudinal study, both approaches were taught in separate classrooms for an entire school year. The scores on the end of the year writing test were compared with one another to see if there was a statistically significant difference between the two teaching methods. Computed t (2.44) was greater than Table t (2. 019) indicating a statistically significant difference between Group A and Group B. Therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected.
Statistically, then, the Writing Workshop seems to have positively affected the writing skills of the fifth-grade students. Those students participating in the intervention group demonstrated more growth in their writing by the end of the year than the control group showed.