Creativity in Children’s Writing
Abstract
In this master thesis the author tests three different story writing approaches to determine which best prompts students’ creativity. The three approaches include: tall tales, actual experiences, and suggested topics. Twenty 6th grade students wrote creative stories in one of the three approaches. The researcher made it clear that students’ stories not be graded, and would not impact their grade report in any way. Three different teachers independently scored each story for its creativity. The researcher found that writing about actual experiences seemed to stimulate the most creativity from students. Tall tales yielded the same level of creativity as suggested topics, however both yielded less than actual experiences. The study also suggests that lower-performing students tended to write the most creative stories, while high-performing students tended to write the least creative stories.Description
Repository staff created abstract to aid in discovery.Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
A Comparison of the Perception which Third-Grade Students and Sixth-Grade Students have of Themselves as WritersChildren learn to write at an early age, however, many children do not enjoy writing as an activity. This masters’ thesis investigates students’ opinions about writing, and compares the opinions of elementary students to those of middle school students. The author surveyed seventy-nine students from two 3rd grade classrooms and two 6th grade classrooms in western New York. The survey consisted of seventeen questions about how students felt about writing in the classroom. These surveys were then collected and sorted into three categories: positive, ambivalent, and negative. The researcher found that about 64% of 3rd grade students had a positive writing attitude, with 0% displaying a negative attitude. Sixth graders, however, had less positive feelings. Only about 40% of the 6th grade students had a positive writing attitude, while 9% had negative attitudes. The author concludes that teachers should not only strive to improve each student’s writing ability, but also their self-concepts as writers.
-
Using Writing Conferences to Scaffold First Grade Students' Narrative WritingYoung teachers are entering into their profession with little training on effectively teaching writing to their students. Writing conferences promote the growth of student writing skills, but their implementation remains uncertain to unexperienced teachers. This qualitative case study explored how writing conferences are utilized as a means of scaffolding the narrative writing skills of three first grade students, who participated in a series of writing conferences which built upon the specific needs of the students. Results suggest that student interest and peer review are instrumental in cultivating students’ skills of sentence fluency. Implications of results are discussed.
-
The Impact Self-Graphing has on the Writing Fluency and Writing Attitudes of Three 3rd Grade Students with Special NeedsWith the demands of the Common Core Standards, a large emphasis has been placed on writing in all content areas. Unfortunately, in regards to students with special needs, teachers are unsure how to instruct them to produce higher quality writing and increase writing fluency. This study was designed to explore the impact self-graphing has on the writing fluency and writing attitudes of three third grade male students with special needs. Each student was given a survey to determine his or her attitude towards writing and asked to write about a prompt for varying amounts of time for six weeks. The students maintained personal graphs that displayed the number of words they had written during each instructional period. Additional data were collected through observations. The results indicated that self-graphing directly impacts students’ writing fluency, students may need to be provided with concrete prompts that are of high interest, some students may need additional time to process prompts given and engage in a conversation about the writing task; despite attitude, writing is a process and takes time, and when students with special needs are given a supportive writing environment, they may develop positive attitudes about writing that can lead to improved written communication. Recommendations for future research include investigating the affect self-graphing has on students’ quality of writing, the impact self-graphing has on students’ writing fluency when a set amount of time is given, and the impact of student choice on high interest writing topics.
