Teachers' development towards the reflective teaching of writing: An action research

Tmchmg d Teacher Educamn. Vol. 6. No. 1. pp. 337-354. IYW Pnnrrd in Great Bnram

TEACHERS’ DEVELOPMENT TOWARDS THE REFLECTIVE TEACHING OF WRITING: AN ACTION RESEARCH

MICHAL ZELLERMAYER

Tel Aviv University, Israel

Abstract -This paper is based on an action research where teachers’ change process is the object of inquiry. The study was designed for the purpose of preparing writing teacher trainers in Israel and its context is a year-long inservice professional training program for teaching the writing process taking place at Tel Aviv University. The study consists of four phases: 1, Identifying the participants’ problems; 2. Planning an intervention; 3. Developingpre- and posttest questionnaires and a scheme for analyzing transcripts taken from 100 hours of audiotaped discussions of the intervention and its implications; 4. Assessing these teachers’ change as a result of the intervention and describing their route iowards this change.

Two “revolutions” have recently taken place in teacher education aiming to transform teaching into a new professionalism: The one (reflection- in-action) is a movement concerning teacher education in general; the other (teaching the writing process) concerns the teaching of writing. The present action research, designed for the preparation of experienced teachers for reflective teaching of the writing process, draws simultaneously on the two notions. It is based on what has been gained so far and what is still lacking in the study of teacher education in general, and in the study of inservice programs for teaching the writing process, in particular.

The study of teaching, according to Clark and Peterson’s (1986) extensive review, focuses lately on teacher thinking and teacher cogni- tion. The rationale for these studies is that ex- panding teachers’ knowledge of subject matter or supplying teachers with specific teaching plans does not suffice for the training of effective teachers. Many of these studies conclude that through research we must find ways of training “thoughtful” teachers who think for themselves and are capable of helping others think for themselves (Peterson, 1988; Carnegie Commission, 1986).

This new aim for teacher education has largely been inspired by the notion of the effec-

tive professional’s being a reflective practitioner (Argyris & SchGn, 1982; SchGn, 1983, 1987), who is able not only to solve on-line problems but also to reflect on the way that he or she does it. Discontent with the decrease of confidence in professionalism as manifested in the attitude of society towards professionals and of the professionals towards themselves, this school of thought is interested in transforming professionalism from “technical rationality” into “reflection-in-action”. For the above writers, “technical rationality” is the state where professionals perceive themselves as having the knowledge of the rules and regulations of a specific domain and the responsibility for providing conclusive answers to any questions directed to them according to these rules and regulations. “Reflection-in-action”, on the other hand, is the state where the professional has a theoretical command of the rationale of his or her domain, and on the basis of this rationale can improvise solutions to new problems that he or she has not dealt with before, to reflect on own cognitional knowledge and to assess time and again what works and what does not work in different situations.

It should be noted, however, that this latter school of thought has not yet provided answers to central questions regarding the training of

This study was supported by the Golda Meir Institute for Social and Labor Research.

337

338 MICHXL ZELLERhlAYER

teachers for reflection-in-action. Calderhead (19S9), who discusses the notion of reflective teaching in teacher education, stresses that reflective teaching has become a slogan which is yet short of providing a theoretical model for teacher education. He suggests that “through an understanding of how student teachers do think about practice, why they think as they do, the substance of their thinking, how their thinking is affected by alternative course designs, and how attempts to change their ways of thinking have been influential. we may develop an im- proved understanding of the nature and potential of reflection” (p. 46).

In the same line of thought, Clark and Peter- son (1986) and Kagan (1988) suggest that in order to gain such understanding we need longitudinal studies of teaching that chart naturalistically the course of cognitive development among teachers as they mature in the profession. Ennis (1939), moreover, explains that any attempt to describe the development of teachers’ cognitive development needs to be conducted within the context of the specific subject matter.

This study took Calderhead’s, Clark and Peterson’s, as well as Kagan’s and Ennis’ claims into serious consideration. Following their suggestions, this is a longitudinal study of teachers’ development in the specific area of writing instruction. It tracks the growth and restructuring of these teachers’ professional knowledge on the route towards expertise, and describes their development with illustrations particularly relevant to the specific domain of writing instruction.

Reflection-in-action in Writing Instruction

During the last decade there has been a revolution in the teaching of writing compared by some to the emergence of a new paradigm (Hairston, 1982). This revolution took place in response to three conditions: (a) the “writing crisis” described by surveys of writing and writing instruction that took place in British and American schools (e.g., Britton, Burgess, Mar- tin, McLeod, & Rosen, 1975; Applebee, 1981); (b) the acknowledgement of the importance of writing to the development of general learning abilities (Goodlad, 1984); and (c) the growing

research on writing as a cognitive process and on writing instruction as a way of intervening in that process (Scardamalia s( Bereiter, 1956).

The above mentioned surveys showed that writing has generally been taught in the manner of technical rationality. Rules and regulations for good writing and good language use were prescribed by teachers. Students were made to participate in series of drills focusing on discrete language items. Teachers, who expected students simply to follow their rules and pro- duce well-written texts, marked these drills with grades. The National Commission for Studies on Excellence in Education (1983) and other reports, as well as teachers’ dissatisfaction with the results of their work, showed that such writing instruction does not help learners solve their real writing problems. For example, it does not provide answers to questions that learners ask, such as “How do I discover the topic I really want to write about?” or “How do I take into consideration the knowledge and interests of my potential readers?” Because students did not respond well enough to the tradi- tional “product-oriented” manner of teaching, there has been a decrease in the confidence of society, of students, and of the teachers themselves in teachers’ ability to induce learners’ progress in writing.

At the same time, due to cognitive models of the writing process, of which the best known is Hayes and Flowers’ (1980), a new image of expert writing emerged: A recursive process which has several components and different facets. This view of writing is in the tradition of problem solving models (e.g., Newell & Simon. 1972). It describes writing as a goal-oriented symbolic activity which consists of a heuristic search through various problem spaces. According to this view, the good writer must have flexible access to a wide range of mental representations of the actual and intended text and of conditions bearing on plans for the text, as well as a sophisticated control structure for coordinating operations on these many different kinds of knowledge (Scardamalia &i Berei- ter, 1986, p. 783). This view of the writing process is concurrent with the idea of “reflection- in-action”. In both, the professional would need the ability to recognize and solve new problems as they occur on the basis of already known procedures and actions. For both, one would need

Teachers’ Development Towards the Reflective Teaching of Writing: An Action Research 339

Table 1

Writing Insrrrtction According IO “Technical Rarionality” and to “ReJlection-in-action”

Characteristics Technical rationality Reflection-in-action

Goals Product Process Expectations Ideal text Expert writer’s strategies Intervention foci Spelling, handwriting Discovery of relevant topic knowledge and audience, evaluation

grammar, usage, text of text produced so far Taskownership Teacher Student Teacher’s responsibility Provides rules, corrects Provides frequent opportunities for writing and real audience

errors. and evaluates response, prompts and coaches interactions with other audiences,

written product assesses process. and evaluates revised product Task source A central curriculum Created by the learningsituation Responsibility for Teacher Teacher-student-peers problem solving Evaluation External Teacher-student-peers Criteria for evaluation Objective and finite Subjective but consistent Incentive for teacher Students’ grades Satisfaction from the ability to deal with new problems in real time. and student The publication of a text

the ability to improvise such procedures in new situations and to reflect on these improvisa- tions. According to this view, the reflective practitioner, just like the reflective writer, must have flexible access to a wide range of mental representations of actual and intended actions and of conditions bearing on plans for these actions, as well as a sophisticated control structure for coordinating operations on these many different kinds of knowledge.

If writing is “reflection-in-action”, so is writing instruction. Irrespective of content or subject matter, it focuses mainly on guiding students in their problem-solving route. According to this view of instruction, because no two students or writing situations are exactly alike, and because students’ problem-solving routes are largely unpredictable and new, the teacher must be able to improvise interventions in this route and reflect upon their consequences. These writing teachers meet up with a multitude of unique situations for which they could not possi- bly be trained. It is for this reason that Myers (1983, like Schon, conceives of these teachers as researchers constantly collecting field data and making on-the-spot interpretations of these data on the basis of theory, and, if necessary, lesson revisions. In the field of writing instruction the transformation from “technical rationality” to “reflection-in-action” has many different meanings, as described in Table 1.

This transformation involves a switch in emphasis from teaching the written product to

teaching the writing process. No more a pro- vider of rules and regulations, the teachers’ responsibility is to provide frequent opportunities for the learner to experience writing in many formats, to provide genuine audience response, to facilitate the interaction with peers and other potential audiences, and to assess the process at its end. The writing task no longer comes from a central writing curriculum but from relevant learning activities, and from the communicative experience of learners participating in a writers’ community. The teacher is no longer the sole person responsible for solving students’ problems, but that solution is expected to be reached through student-teacher-peers interaction. The same interactions are also used for’ the assessment of the written product. The criteria for such interactive assessment are not expected to be objective and conclusive but rather subjective and consistent. And finally, such a transformation means that the reward for teaching would no longer come from students’ grades but from the teacher’s and students’ satisfaction at having mastered higher-level problem-solving abilities.

The repertoire of actions improvised by the reflective writing teacher draws largely upon the recently perceived differences between expert and novice writers. Such a comparison has shown that for both writing is a difficult and complex process. The difference between their writing processes lies in the extent of their awareness of the complexity of the process and

340 MICHAL ZELLERMAYER

in their ability to break it into manageable units and employ effective procedures to overcome the difficulties in that phase. In this view, the in- structor’s responsibility is mainly to help novice writers simulate experts’ writing processes: To help students divide their writing process into chunks and to prompt them to employ procedures used by experts to solve their problems in each of these units. Because both expert and novice writers have been found to depend on social interaction and audience response for their writing development, another important responsibility is to provide learners with a setting where such interactions can be practiced.

The so called “revolution” in writing instruction, described here as the change from the perception of writing instruction as technical rationality to reflection-in-action, or the switch to teaching the writing process, resulted in numerous inservice workshops for teachers, most of which took place in English speaking countries. Some of these workshops have been documented and studied by the trainers and participating teachers. Many of them (e.g., Calkins, 1983; Per], 1983; Daniels & Zemel- man, 1985; Tierney, Leys, & Rogers, 1984) show that such a transformation is indeed feasi- ble for writing teachers, and that the graduates of these programs have a better knowledge of the theory of writing instruction and know more ways for engaging teacher and peer interactions to support school-based writing. These studies also show that, in general, these teachers have more professional confidence and their students are more cooperative and enthusiastic about writing than are those of teachers of the old school. Other studies show that some teachers who have undergone such inservice training and have a command of the “knowing what” of writing instruction, still often behave according to the old model (Wilson, 1989). It thus becomes clear that writing teachers who take this transformation route go through several different phases in restructuring their knowledge. Yet, no study has yet undertaken to follow and docu- ment their process of change or attempt to inter- pret their behavior in the various phases of their development.

The present study collected data from an extensive inservice training program taking place at the School of Education of Tel Aviv Uni- versity in 1987/8. Prompted by the Ministry of

Education, this program is the first of its kind in Israel. Its initial aim was to familiarize writing teachers with students’ writing processes and with possible interventions in these processes. Unlike other programs taking place in English- speaking countries, the one described in the present study is not a summer program or a semester’s course for teachers on sabbatical, but a 200 hour, year-long workshop, where the participants (N=lS) for the first time experience composing school-based writing tasks and interventions in their own writing processes, and participate in a peer-response group. Another difference between this and other programs is that the participants were told in ad- vance that they were expected to become teacher trainers and help other teachers in their schools or in other schools develop in writing instruction. Most of the participants vvere chosen by the superintendent of language teaching in the Board of Education because of their extensive teaching experience (10-35 years) and their involvement in other activities such as assessing matriculation writing examinations for high- school graduates.

The Method

This is an action research planned to answer the following question: How can we transform a group of 18 experienced writing teachers into reflective practitioners? Two conditions provided a natural setting for this study: First, the researcher functioned as intervention administrator; second, the intervention was adminis- tered on a group, and was expected to result in this ,group’s actions and in the participants’ re- flections upon these actions. These conditions were utilized before in various organizational development training studies (Schmuck, Run- kel, Arends, & Arends, 1977), as well as other types of social research (Kemmis, 1983).

The present study, which followed the model of action research as described by Lippit (1982), consisted of four phases:

1. Identifying the problem; 2. Planning an intervention; 3. Developing instruments to measure and

describe the intended change; 4. Assessing the change with the data col-

lected by these measures.


In the present study, the general questions addressed were: Will these experienced teachers change as a result of the intervention? And how far will they develop towards reflection-in-action? The following parts of this paper will describe each of these phases and will. conclude with a discussion of their findings.

An interesting finding was that these teachers’ domain knowledge was not only vague, but that they were completely isolated from the work of writing teachers abroad. When told about the “revolution” in writing instruction they professed to have no knowledge of the current theory of writing instruction or of what that theory claims can work or cannot work in teaching students to write.

Phase 1: Assessment of the problem and the identification of categories for analyzing

teachers’ development Teachers’ Beliefs about Students

In order to assess the problems of the teachers, the first two meetings with them were audiotaped and their transcripts analyzed. For this phase the study examined how the teachers conceived of themselves (their professional knowledge and problems), of significant others (students, colleagues, and the educational system) and of the teaching situation.

Teachers’ Self-concept

The participants of the workshop described a general feeling of vagueness about the professional domain of writing instruction. One teacher said (and others agreed with her): “When I teach literature I know what I am teaching. Here, I don’t.” One of their main difficulties, they said, was in not having clear criteria for assessing good writing, but the greatest difficulty of all was in not getting responses from students. This feeling was best described by one of the teachers who said: “For so many years I tried. I worked hard. I even had them listening in class. But I see that the good writers would have done well without me, and as for the rest - most of them are unreachable. I cannot help them.”

The teachers said that students “are unable to form an opinion, unable to act as their own readers: They depend completely on the teacher to tell them whether their work is good or not.” They blamed this lack of ability on the fact that “they have no general knowledge, I say: ‘Choose a topic to write about,’ but he has nothing to write about, nothing interests him.” This is an example of how teachers’ and students’ “technical rationality” may interact. Teachers provide rules and students become totally dependent on teachers’ judgment, which, in turn, confirms teachers’ first assumptions that students cannot think for themselves.

Although these teachers have extensive working experience and hold a relatively high position in the school (language arts directors and/or readers of matriculation writing exams), they suffer from “disrespect” coming from other teachers and students because they deal with writing instruction. They tell us that in their schools writing instruction occupies 1 hour every 2 weeks. Because they are also teachers of literature, most of these hours are transformed into literature classes.

Teachers’ Beliefs about the Teaching Situation

After 10-35 years of work, these teachers are The teachers clearly believed that students clearly discontented with their achievements. had to be born with a special gift for writing, or They feel the need for change. They have else there was very little that could be done for reached the point where they understand that them. This belief was revealed when they dealing with discrete aspects of language is not asked: “If a student is taught to write, will he relevant for writing instruction. They say: “The become an O’Henry? Is it at all possible?” The preoccupation with grammar and syntax should transcripts also showed that these teachers con- be replaced by semantic contextual issues”, “I ceived of writing as of higher-order communica- would teach logical thinking.” Yet they have no tion. They said that “writing must be executed idea where such a change should direct them, or according to rules that everybody respects,” what operational tools could lead to that because “writing has this special status that change. demands of the writer to say what he or she


Table 2

Teachers’ Attitude Towards Self, Others and the Teaching Situation

Self

We try but do not succeed. As a result the status of writing instruction is low

Others

Students are to blame because they lack knowledge and motivation. The successful student must have innate talent. For such a student writing is easy

Situation

Studentsshould be better informed of features of the ideal text

We do not have the appropriate tools for teaching and criteria for evaluation

The system is to blame for not providing us with textbooks and objective criteria for evaluating writine

We need ready-made short-term solutions

for our problems

means on paper in the best, clearest, and most persuasive way, in the most logical, the most cohesive writing that is actually pre-planned.” This type of statement made by the teachers gave evidence of a rather rigid normative view of written communication guided by a notion of an ideal text that all writers had to follow. Rather than focusing on learners’ abilities and on their development, they strived to achieve these rigid norms for good writing. For these teachers, speech communication was a lower level communication. They were totally un- aware of the collaboration between speech and writing in the writing process, of the major role of speech in writing.

Perhaps it was this normative belief in the existence of the “ideal text” and the prescriptive approach to writing that constituted the cause of their fear of exposure. When asked to introduce themselves in writing, only five of them actually did so. The ones who did restricted themselves to very short lists of facts that included the name and type of school they worked in and the sub- jects they taught. When asked if there was any- thing else they wanted to tell the group, one teacher said: “To expose myself in front of people that I don’t know . . . is difficult.” And another: “I feel terrible. I want to jump in and get it over with.”

Teachers’ fear of exposure was accompanied by their resistance to intervention and change. At this point this resistance manifested itself in their reluctance to write for the workshop and share their writing with others, and in their refusal to read professional material on writing and writing instruction. Apparently, they could not see the relevance of writing to professional development. When asked to write during the

workshop, teachers said: “This is not part of our lives now.” “We feel coerced, part of an artificial situation.” They explained that although they were aware that while writing they had to “keep in touch with the world”, so that they “do not write nonsense”, writing for them was a solitary activity they never shared. It was clear that these teachers resented the kind of school-based writing that they themselves in- flicted on their students. One of them expressed this resentment in saying: “I think that you are trying to place us in the situation of our students who are suddenly asked to write something. . . We have already distanced ourselves from this situation where one has to sit and write according to someone else’s orders.” Yet, they made no reference to a possible analogy between their own writing difficulty and that of their students. They also resented the demands which the workshop placed upon them, to read professional articles about writing and writing instruction. While discussing their reading assign- ments, one teacher explained that she failed to see the relevance of such reading: “I do not see how this is relevant.” At this point they believed that they needed quick recipes and ready-made solutions for their problems. One teacher said: “At my age, I am looking for clearer solutions that I could use in my teaching.”

The teachers’ self-concept, their conception of others and of the teaching situation is sum- marized in Table 2.

The table shows that the teachers’ problem manifested itself in two interrelated areas: (a) Insufficient professional knowledge and vagueness about the domains of writing and writing instruction; and (b) misconceptions about several different issues: the existence of an ideal


text; the-place of writing in everyday activity; the roles and prospects of writing instruction; students’ knowledge and abilities; and the needs of writing teachers. The table also showed that these misconceptions affected the teachers’ self-concept and their expectations of change.

The conclusions from the findings in this phase are: (a) that intervention is needed in order to cause a growth in professional knowledge as well as attitudinal change; (b) that research instruments need to be devised in order to measure the change of teachers’ knowledge and attitudes; and (c) that the analysis of transcripts of teachers’ discussions in the workshop is a powerful tool that could be helpful in track- ing their developmental route.

Phase 2: The intervention

On the basis of the findings in phase 1 of the study, intervention was devised so as to prompt teachers’ development in the problem areas described above.

1. Degree of confidence in present teaching skills: Encourage teachers to take risks in sharing writing and in trying out procedures practiced in the workshop in their own classes and in reporting on these trials and their effects on students and on themselves.

2. Insight about impact on students: Practicing feedback techniques in the workshop and trying them out in class.

3. Approach to particular methods, theories, or materials of instruction: Attaching a reading program to the workshop. Introducing texts by researchers and teachers on writing and on writing instruction.

4. Sense of professional identity: Helping teachers overcome the need for textbooks and for planned lessons and materials developed by others, by giving them the responsibility for raising problems to be dealt with in the workshop and engaging them in the practice of on- line problem-solving procedures in response to real problems they bring to the workshop from their classrooms.

5. Awareness of limitations of teaching: Getting acquainted with the writing processes of expert writers and practicing school-like writing tasks.

The expectations of the researcher were that as a result of the intervention:

1. Teachers would restructure their knowledge about writing and writing instruction, about students’ abilities, and about the ideal text.

2. Teachers would change their beliefs about themselves, others, and the teaching situation.

3. Teachers would gain confidence in their professionalism and would be willing to take risks.

4. Teachers would want to train other teachers in this new professionalism.

The literature shows that in order for such changes to occur, the workshop must include mechanisms for cognitive growth and knowledge restructuring. These mechanisms include the violation of expectations: The teachers must perceive the discrepancy between expected and achieved results, analyze the cause, and repair the faulty element in the problem solving strategy (Hayes-Roth, Klahr. & Mostow, 1981).

Although there is a general agreement that the discovery of inconsistency in one’s own theory leads to knowledge restructuring, social psychologists, starting from Lewin (1917) have already noticed that the change in knowledge does not necessarily lead to a change in action. Since we wanted to influence teachers’ action, we followed the Lewinian legacy which advo- cates group dynamics as a mechanism for chan- neling knowledge restructuring into action. Lewin’s ideas seemed particularly suitable for this study because of his claim that group dynamics, when internalized by the group members, becomes a tool enabling them to subsequently act as change agents for other groups outside the workshop.

Lewin’s group dynamics has been utilized for experiential learning in educational settings in various contexts (Kolb & Fry, 1975). In Israel such a method of teacher inset-vice training was part of the Sharan and Hertz-Lazarowitz (1981) study of a training program in small-group instruction. In their study the intervention consisted of a circular chain of events including workshop experience, inquiry and analysis, planning for classroom implementation of experience, and implementation leading to further workshop experience. In the present study, because the goal of the intervention

34-J MICHAL ZELLERMAYER

(described in Figure 1) was to encourage risk- taking and improvisation, the intervention encouraged teachers to implement their workshop experiences without going through prior planning in the workshop. Group dynamics supported teachers’ subsequent reflection on these attempts of implementation.

Rcflccdon and \

Figure 1. The intervention

The intervention was thus organized as a series of events where teachers were given school-type writing tasks. The teachers who experienced writing blocks in the different phases of this writing were encouraged to express their difficulties and expose them to interventions by the group leader or by peers, which helped them solve their problems. These writing events and teachers’ responses to them were then discussed in the workshop, where teachers raised expectations about their students’ possible reactions to such interventions. They were then encouraged to give the same type of tasks in class, watch for students’ reactions, detect their writing blocks and try some of these interventions in their classrooms. These experiences were discussed again in the workshop and the participants were asked to write a report of their findings supported by a theoretical interpretation of these findings, drawing on their reading of published reports of other teachers’ and researchers’ experiences. In the context of this program the manifestations of change were expected to be: (a) risk-taking; (b) expressions of surprise at

outcomes of risk-taking; (c) understanding of relevance of workshop experiences to classroom teaching and ability to conduct a theory- based reflection on these experiences; (d) less resistance to change; and (e) interest in becom- ing agents of change and working with other teachers.

Phase 3: The development of research instruments and measures for the assessment of

change

In this study we developed three sets of instruments to be used before, during and after the intervention: (a) transcribed audiotaped protocols of 20 workshop sessions; (b) pre- and posttest questionnaires; and (c) participant observer fieldnotes from the workshop sessions taken by a research assistant.

The Transcripts and their Analysis

Five of the 20 transcripts were read by four trained judges who identified 21 topics of discussion to which all of the teachers’ utterances could be related. (See Appendix for a list of these topics.) The interrater reliability of these judges exceeded 85%.

The Questionnaires

The pre- and posttests comprised two questionnaires. The first, developed by Gere, Schuessler, & Abbott (1984), tested teachers’ theoretical knowledge and attitudes towards writing instruction in five topics: the importance of standard language in the instruction of written composition; the importance of defining and evaluating writing tasks; the importance of students’self expression; and the importance of linguistic maturity. The second questionnaire by Davis, Striven, and Thomas (1981) assessed teachers’ classroom practices during writing instruction, such as: the frequency of the use of specific intervention techniques in students’ writing processes; ways of responding to students’ writing; specific problem areas for students and teachers; as well as the expectations of the teachers from the workshop. These questionnaires jointly included 90 items to be re- sponded to on a Likert-type .5-point scale,


where the third point was “no opinion” for the first questionnaire (Gere et al., 1983) and “somewhat” for the second (Davis et al., 1981). Also included were 10 open questions.

Phase 3: Data analysis and findings

Teachers’ Baseline Knowledge and Attitudes

The pre-test questionnaire established teachers’ baseline knowledge and attitudes. The findings of the pre-test were cross-validated with data from transcripts of the first two meetings of the workshop performed in phase 1 of the study. In general, the pre-test supported the findings of phase 1 of the study. It confirmed the statement made by one teacher at phase 1, that “When I teach writing, I do not really know what I am doing.” The pre-test showed that these teachers’ knowledge about writing was vague, and that they were unclear about what could or could not work in writing instruction. The mode of teachers’ response to the questionnaire was 3 on the l-5 scale for 70% of the questions, indicating that the participants had either no opinion or only a vague one about most of the statements pertaining to the domain and professional knowledge. For example, their response to items concerning the importance of standard language to writing instruction was M = 2.9; the importance of defining and evaluating writing tasks: M = 3.08. Opinions about the importance of linguistic maturity to writing instruction (M = 3.37) as well as about the importance of self-expression (A4 = 2.76) seemed to be somewhat more defined. Yet, they could not relate statements referring to these topics to their students’ specific writing problems. When asked to define these problems, the teachers identified mainly problems reflected in the written product (editing, style, and originality); all the other questions referring to their students’ writing process (e.g., discovering a topic, brainstorming, starting to write, revising, organizing) got the same vague “somewhat problematic” response from the majority of the participants. According to the pre-test, the teachers were not sure about the severity of their own teaching problems (M = 3.07) or about the relevance to their own teaching prob-

lems of specific techniques of intervention in learners’ writing processes (M = 2.58). The pre- test questionnaire showed that the teachers’ lack of confidence in their professional knowledge was manifested in their class practices. They reported giving infrequent writing assign- ments per year (M = 1.05), normally completed by a relatively low percentage of students (39%).

At this stage of development, the teachers seemed to be unclear not only about what com- prises good writing or good writing instruction but also about their students’ writing abilities or how these should be assessed. There was a discrepancy between teachers’ statements about students’ knowledge and potential in phase 1 of the study, and these teachers’ assessment of their students’ writing abilities on the questionnaire. On the one hand, the teachers said in the discussion of their problems in the workshop that, by and large, students’ knowledge was insufficient for writing. On the other hand, the grade they gave their students’ writing at the beginning of the intervention was surprisingly high (2.6 points on the l-5 scale). The explanation for this discrepancy can be found, perhaps, in the teachers’ confessed confusion about assessing students’ writing.

Another important finding of the protocol analysis at phase 1 of the study that was confirmed by the questionnaire, was that the teachers believed in the effectiveness of recipes and short-term solutions. It showed a general agreement among the participants in the workshop about the expectation that the workshop would supply them with clear guidelines and directions as well as ready-made lesson plans. At that point they thought that “better teaching materials, and more objective rules for writing assessment” would provide a solution for their professional problems.

The pre-test questionnaire revealed that the teachers held an additional expectation: That the workshop would provide them with a variety of writing topics to use in class. Appa- rently they believed that good teaching meant being able to induce writing through varied writing topics and learning materials rather than through a variety of writing strategies.

Having established their baseline level of development, the analysis of data set about answering the questions: Do these teachers


Table 3

Teachers’ Professional Gains as Reoorted in Posttest

Question Mean grade (on a l-5 scale) SD (N= 18)

How useful was the workshop for teaching? Did it fulfill your expectations? Do you write more as a result of the workshop? Do you feel more confidence in writing? How do you now grade your students’ writing

at the beginning of this year? attheendofthisyear?

How do you rate the change in your students’ writing this year in motivation for writing? in confidence in writing? in fluency and productivity? in organizing writing?

In comparison to previous years, do your students devote more time to writing’?

4.00 1.36 3.80 1.01 2.60 0.85 2.35 0.93

2.15 0.69

3.17 0.94

3.80 1.08

4.00 0.68

4.00 0.68

3.50 1.16 4.50 0.86

change as a result of the intervention? If so, teachers experienced a significant change both

what is their developmental route? in knowledge and in attitudes towards them-

Teachers’ Change selves, their students and the teaching situation. One of its main findings was that the partici-

The posttest questionnaire established that in pants in the workshop felt more confident about

spite of the problems described in phase 1 of the teaching writing at the end of the intervention. This confidence, they felt, was manifested in

study and teachers’ extensive experience in their students’ writing. teaching in the technical rationality mode, the Table 3 shows that the teachers felt that their

Table 4

Teachers’ Significant Knowledge Gains and Attitudinal Changes as Reflected in t Tests of the Differences Between Pre- and Posttests

Topic

Expectations from workshop:

Direction ofchange p

How helpful do you expect the following opportunities to be? 1. to consult with trainer? 2. toconsult with other participants? 3. to prepare teaching materials

Attitudes towards writing instruction:

+ <.Ol + <.Ol + <.OOl

How often did you use the following activities during the workshop? 1. Student work in small groups to help each other in writing 2. Students evaluate each other’s writing 3. Students engage in pre-writing activities 4. Students are asked to revise their writing 5. Students present their first drafts forevaluation

Perception of the teachers’ role in writing instruction:

+ <.ot + <.OOl + <.OOl + <.OOl

<.Ol

1. Rewriting parts ofstudents’text to show them how they could write 2. Tries to limit comments to what was good in students’ writing 3. Points to mistakes in mechanics (spelling and grammar) and corrects them 4. Commentson problems in logic and organization

Difficulties in teaching:

1. Holistic assessment ofstudents’ writing 2. Motivatingstudents towrite

Perceptionofstudents’abilities: 1. How do you evaluate students’ writing abilities?

- <.Ol + <.OOl - <.oOl - <.Ol

<.Ol - <.Ol

+ <.Ol


professional gains were reflected in students’ writing fluency, productivity, and confidence. According to their responses to the questionnaire, the teachers’ main gain was that they succeeded in making their students write much more than in the previous years of their teaching.

The comparison between pre- and posttests showed that at the end of the intervention, the teachers could identify helpful versus unhelpful interventions, as well as helpful versus unhelpful attitudes towards writing instruction. Table 4 illustrates how the teachers’ professional knowledge grew during their participation in the workshop, in the five topics that were dealt with in the questionnaires.

Table 4 shows that the teachers made most

progress in understanding the negative relation- ship between the emphasis on rules for correct language use and writing development, in the assessment of students’ writing, and in sharing with students the responsibility for problem- solving and decision-making. Since teachers’ understanding of the significance of coherence to writing was already relatively high at the beginning of the intervention (M = 3.37), the intervention did not cause a dramatic growth in their understanding of this topic.

Teachers’ Developmental Route

Having compared teachers’ baseline knowledge with their response to the posttest, the study set out to trace their developmental route

Table 5

Frequencies of Utterances in Stages of Teachers’ Development

Meeting Frequency Characteristics

Resistance Conflict Change

N % N % N %

1 13 87 2 9 82 3 9 56 4 18 56.5

2 15 9 zz

M 12.5 72

0 0 2 13 0 0 2 18 2 12.5 - 31

10 31 ;: 12.5 0 0 4 21 4 27 1 9

2.5 12 18 16 stage 1

7 4 28 2 14 8 58 8 12 67

; 22.5 2 11.5

9 4 36.5 13 5 50.5 10 4 22 6 33 8 45 11 2 66.5 1 33.5 0 0

iM 5 48.5 2 19 4 32.5

Resistance, discovery of students’ ability, beginning of awareness of intervention relevance and of conflict between new and old knowledge.

Lowering resistance, rising awareness of students’ ability and of the relevance of rhe intervention, awarenessof change.

staee 2

I2 7 13 4 17 1 18 I

M 3

19 2 20 0 21 7 22 0 23 6 25 0 26 1

M 3

28.5 9 34.5 10 37 Declining resistance, risk taking while holding 22 6 33 8 45 on to old values, rise in awareness of change. 14 28.5 8 57.5 4 33 0 0 2 67

24 4 24 6 52 stage 3

20 2 20 6 60 Further decline in resistance, normativity and 0 2 11 16 89 prescriptivity. Significant rise in awareness of

24 5 17 17 59 change. Making plans to change others and the 0 2 28.5 5 71.5 environment.

15.5 4 10.5 28 74 14.5 2 6 27 79.5 5.5 0 0 17 84.5

14 2.5 I2 16 74 stage 4

3-B MICHAL ZELLERMAYER

during their participation in the workshop. Transcripts of the discussions in 20 meetings of the workshop provided the data for this analysis. By arranging the categories for analysis described in the Appendix into three groups - categories that indicate difficulties (resistance, normativity, and prescriptivity), categories that indicate conflict between new and old knowledge; and categories that indicate change and reflectivity - we traced four distinct stages of teacher development (see Table 5).

A stage was defined as a series of meetings where the frequency of utterances belonging to a certain category exceeded the median (60%). (See meetings 1-6 where the mean of utterances expressing resistance exceeded 60%; or meetings 19-26, where more than 60% of the mean number of utterances transcribed expressed change and reflectivity.) Stages 2 and 3 are characterized by a relatively marked decrease or increase (exceeding 50%) in the mean number of utterances of conflict and change (stage 2) and of resistance and change (stage 3).

Table 5 indicates that there was a clear change in the distribution of utterances in each of the above identified stages. This distribution is described in Figure 2.

It thus became clear that stage 1, for example, is characterized by resistance, normativity, and prescriptivity (72%), yet the seeds of change are already apparent even then. Even at that early stage, certain surprises about the discrepancy

100

90

80

70

60

% 50

40

30

20

10

0 I

between teachers’ expectations and their experiences in the workshop and in their classrooms prompted the feeling of conflict between old and new knowledge (16%) as well as some signs of change and reflectivity (11%). Figure 2 shows that the initial resistance diminished gradually, and at the last stage of the program it attended only 14% of the utterances transcribed. Most of the utterances expressing resistance were replaced at this final stage by utterances expressing metacognitive knowledge about writing and writing instruction, reflectivity, and plans for the future (71%). The utterances expressing conflict rose sharply between the first and second stage and then decreased towards the fourth stage to a level where they were not significantly fewer than their mean number in the first stage of the program. This developmental route will become clearer with concrete examples from teachers’ utterances transcribed in each stage of their development.

The Developmerlt of Teachers’ Cogrlitions

Stage 1: Resistance. Many utterances expressing resistance describe a lack of confidence in the program: “I am debating whether to con- tinue attending this program. I need to be con- vinced that the aim will be achieved. that there is no time loss.“The teachers express the expectation to be externally directed and given ready made solutions: “Aren’t there any shortcuts?

Change

Conflict

Resistance

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4

Figure 2. Distribution of criteria in the four stages of teachers’ development


We spent two meetings constructing profiles of exams, and recommendations from our work in the expert writer and the learner. True, you this workshop and from our reading.“They per- speak about internalization and about the pro- ceive their old and new knowledge as mutually cess of maturing, but aren’t there any other exclusive. It does not yet occur to them that they ways?” may have the power to bridge the two.

Yet even at this stage they already show surprise at their own misconceptions: -*It is astonishing that I found some of the same procedures in the writing of expert writers and learners.” “ What surprised me was that he (the student) could focus on his own problem in such a concise way. ” “They (the students) knew exactly what to say and their use of style and organization was incredible.” “I could see thinking, planning and organization.” At this point the teachers begin to realize the complexity of the writing process and the discrepancy between the expert’s way of directing this process and their work in class. Discussing experts’ heuristic strategies while preparing themselves for writing, they say: “We take a child and tell him: You have an hour and a half to write a composition on a certain topic. Where is all this inner growth?” They begin to understand the significance of metacognitive reflectivity: “In order to write in such a manner one must have a high level of self-awareness.”

One of the manifestations of this conflict is teachers’ anxiety about working without objective criteria for assessing students’ progress. A typical example can be found in their discussion of holistic assessment of students’ Lvriting that followed several meetings on responding to students’ writing. In that discussion they com- plained about being influenced by their own emotional response to students’ wnting. When one teacher said that she liked a student’s text because it was “convincing”, the response of the other teachers is: “What is ‘convincing”? This is a very subjective criterion!” It is still difficult for them to accept the idea that awareness of their own response can help them develop a systematic method for the assessment of students’ writing.

Stage 2: The fear of taking risks. At this stage the teachers keep asking: “Do you think this is going to work in class?” “Can we do it with 40 students?” “Do you think the students will agree. 3” “How will I be able to manage it?” The response they get in the program is that they should try and find the answers for these questions in their work at school. For example, when the idea of peer collaboration is introduced for the purpose of teaching revision, one teacher asks: “What will I do when one student poses questions about another student’s text?” The answer she gets is that there are no rules about such interactions other than letting the students pursue their specific problem. She persists and asks: “What should I do about it? I cannot try it in class unless I know what to do about it.”

Stage 4: Reflecting on change and expressing intention to create changes in the teaching environment. Here is how one teacher described her newly-acquired reflectivity: “In teaching writing there are two kinds of awareness: The awareness of the writer (the students) . . . to ‘Where am I going?’ ‘Who is my audience?’ . . But another awareness is that of the teacher. There’s a change in teachers’ awareness. We came here to get recipes. We received a complete attitudinal change. And I think that just as we are enthusiastic about dealing Lvith it, we could pass it on to other teachers.” Another teacher talked about professional confidence: “Because we cannot take care of all students, we must start with teachers. But teacher trainers must project that they have changed and that this has caused them to feel so good that they could pass it on to others.”

Stage 3: Confi’ict. The main characteristic of this stage is teachers’ feeling of discrepancy between the new knowledge and the demands of the school system. They say: “We are torn now. There are the demands of the matriculation

The analysis showed that these statements did not yet mean that these teachers were accomplished reflective practitioners. At that point, not only did they still express occasional resistance to change, but they had not yet given up the expectation that they should be provided with a finished curriculum to use for teaching and for teacher training. While working on a tentative sketch of a curriculum. one teacher said: “I thought we could come out of here with


a finished teaching plan to use while working with other teachers.”

The analysis of the transcripts as well as the questionnaire show that this development is by no means complete: 21.4% of the teachers felt insecure about working with other teachers. The most common explanation they gave for this was that without a structured curriculum and the appropriate teaching materials they did not feel ready. This means that in spite of the extensive work on reflection-in-action done in this workshop, more than 21% of the participants were at that point unable to free themselves of their old dependence on outside guidance, because they had not yet developed the appropriate mechanisms for acting confidently without such guidance.

Summary

This study looked at a group of 18 experienced teachers who participated in a year long inservice training program for writing instruction. These teachers were referred to the program by the Ministry of Education in Israel because of their reputation as the strongest teachers in this field. The reason for their refer- ral was these teachers’ expressed discontent with their own achievements and status, their students’ achievements and potential, and the support they were getting from the educational system.

First, it should be noted that this study looked at the group of teachers as if they constituted a total body of knowledge or a total belief system and described the aggregate effect of the program on the teachers. No attempt was made to trace the development of individual participants of the group. Although many instances of interesting group dynamics were recorded which could illuminate the way that teachers’ growth interacted with other members of the program as well as with its leader, this type of information is not included in this report.

What we have here is an analysis of data collected from teachers during 20 transcribed meetings at the workshop which was then cross- validated with data collected through pre- and posttest questionnaires.

The first finding of the study relates to the teachers’ base-line problems. The study found

that these problems were manifested in eight areas:

1. General discontent of teachers towards their professionalism, a low self-concept, frustration from lack of feedback, stress, burn- out, and boredom because of lack of prospects.

2. A vague conceptualization of the professional domain of writing and writing instruction. Insufficient professional knowledge and detachment from activities and developments in this field.

3. Putting the blame on external factors: Students’ lack of knowledge, the size of the class, the lack of teaching materials. no support from the system.

4. Lack of understanding of the influence of their feedback on students’ development.

5. Fear of exposure. 6. Lack of experience in writing and resis-

tance to experience tasks designed for students. 7. Fear of risk-taking, looking for external

solutions instead. 8. Belief in the effectiveness of quick recipes

and short-term solutions. We wanted to know if and to what extent these teachers were able to overcome their problems during the intervention. The findings showed that all of the teachers had changed. The group as a whole overcame problems 1-6 during the period of their participation in the program. They acquired professional knowledge and as a result the domain of writing became clearer and more distinguished from other content domains they were teaching. They realized that their difficulties could not be attributed solely to external factors such as: students’ lack of knowledge and motivation, the size of their class, and lack of appropriate teaching materials. They gained an understanding of the importance of their feedback to students, and overcame their fear of exposure in front of their colleagues and students.

The findings of the questionnaire and tran- script analysis taken at the end of the program showed that the teachers needed additional support in solving problems 7 and 8. The teachers still needed more experience in writing and in breaking the processes into manageable units. They needed more support in risk-taking and improvising solutions to on-line problems. A year-long workshop did not suffice for completely liberating them from their dependence


on ready-made recipes. Because overcoming these problems is crucial for reflection-in- action, the conclusion of the study was that transforming teachers into experts in this new professionalism is a longer process than the one attempted here, and probably needs additional support systems to the one given by the workshop.

Concluding Comments

As a result of this study several conclusions were drawn about conducting action research, about the intervention used in the present action research and the change process caused by this intervention, and about the instruments used for collecting and analyzing data, their advantages and limitations as well as questions they still left unanswered.

Action research has been at the center of the movement calling for increasing the involvement of teachers in research. Involvement of teachers in the collection and analysis of data on teaching is now conceived as an important means for achieving teachers’ reflectivity and teachers’ change. In the present action research, however, the teachers are the objects of the study and of the change process, while the researcher is the administrator of the intervention. The latter type of action research has been found to have several advantages. First, it allows for the planning of an intervention which, it was assumed, would particularly suit the problems of the teachers identified in the first phase of the study. Second, it allowed for a systematic collection and cross-validation of data from several sources.

On the basis of the findings of the first phase of the study it was established that the source of these teachers’ problems was that they were trained in technical rationality: to supply students with rules and regulations for good language use and good writing. This was perceived as a major obstacle for these teachers because the teaching of writing, perhaps more than the teaching of any other topic, demands of teachers and students the ability to reflect in action. Writing teachers do not teach content but strategies. Hence, while focusing on each students’ text they need to improvise solutions to on-line problems arising in different parts of

each of these texts and in different phases of each of the students’ writing processes. And on the basis of the professional knowledge they command, they must constantly assess these interventions.

This study assumed that such a manner of teaching demanded a different type of teacher training. Rather than concentrating on lesson plans which purport to cover all the writing problems students may have in relation to a given topic, teachers must shift their energy to retrospective analyses of students’ problems while writing and of students’ response to the solutions offered to them by the teacher. This way of teaching demands of the experienced teacher to become a risk taker and a researcher who is constantly trying to find out answers to such questions as: What do my students enjoy doing? What do they find problematic? What kinds of intervention do they find helpful and under what circumstances?

The study found that such a shift in teaching demands an expansion of teachers’ theoretical knowledge as well as a change in teachers’ attitudes and expectations. This finding led the researcher/administrator to reorder the ele- ments of the typical Lewinian intervention cycle. The intervention encouraged teachers to take risks for testing the new knowledge acquired in the workshop in class and provided group dynamics for reflecting on the consequences of this risk-taking.

Group dynamics - a central element of the intervention - was another notion derived from Lewin’s theory of change. Lewin led us to believe that group forces can be controlled and converted into agents of change. According to Lewin (1947), if attitudes and conduct on need of change coincide with the boundaries of some group, then change involves replacing the old culture of that group. This acceptance of new norms increases when a strong “we-feeling” is created. This process culminates in a desire on the part of the participants to disseminate this new culture in society outside that group. Because the teachers participating in this study were meant to become agents of change, the intervention in this research was designed so that group dynamics would prepare the participants for leadership in the new culture of writing teachers. In this context group dynamics offered certain advantages which could not be

so readily attained in other ways: it was respon- sive to the participants’ needs; it provided conditions for active training and for tasks that allowed individual response, as well as opportunities to try out techniques and receive systematic feedback; it increased teachers’ sense of efficacy and their feeling that they could make a difference in the situation. The results of the study show that such an intervention is difficult and painful, arousing considerable resistance, some of which remains throughout the intervention. It is a long-term, complex process requir- ing the involvement of all those affected by it, including the administrator of the intervention. These teachers’ change was a slow and intensive process which affected the ways in which they perceived themselves, their students, and the situation. The data showed clearly that even when the intervention ended, the teachers needed further support.

for many of the topics discussed in the workshop as well as from the fieldnotes adding comments on the participants’ unrecorded responses. The successful matching of these three sources of data so that they support each other and explain each other was made possible by another con- dition typical of action research: The administrator of the intervention was also the researcher. Much of the interpretation of the data was facilitated by the researchers’ inside knowledge and many other informal exchanges with the participants.

This process of change was assessed through three sources of data: through pre- and post- intervention questionnaires and through an analysis of transcripts of the discussions taking place in 22 meetings of the workshop, analyzed with the help of a participant observer and fieldnotes taken at all sessions. These three sources helped cross-validate the data. Each alone is insufficient because it does not give a full and reliable picture. The questionnaires show a change in teachers’ response to items related to the professional knowledge necessary for the effective teaching of writing as well as their attitudes towards themselves, the students, and the teaching situation. It did not show how this change evolved or how these teachers translated this new knowledge and new attitudes into actions.

Because this study looked at the change process for the whole group, it was not able to answer many interesting questions about forces within or outside the group and their influence on the groups’ dynamics and its development. For example, it did not attempt to identify these teachers who changed more than others, and see whether that change related to their initial knowledge and attitudes or to other conditions existing at the time of the intervention. Neither did it look at the amount and types of support that the teachers received from the educational system which referred them to the program, and in which they were subsequently supposed to function as change agents. The question of external support is particularly important, because of the finding that the teachers ended the program with a strong feeling that they needed additional support to maintain and further develop the new ideas acquired in the workshop.

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Appendix

Categories of Utterances Identified in Transcripts of Teachers’ Discussions

Categories Topics

1. Teachers’ self-confidence

2. Awareness of students’ needs

3. Domain knowledge

4. Conception of professional status

5. Awareness of the limitations of teaching

1.1 Resistance to workshop activities 1.2 Resistance to risk-taking and trying new teaching methods 1.3 Self-criticism 2.1 Assumptions about students’ limitations 2.2 Identification with students’difficulties 2.3 Discovery of students’ abilities 3.1 Normativity (belief in an ideal text) 3.2 Prescriptivity (belief in the effectiveness of rules and regulations) 3.3 Craft knowledge 3.4 Awareness of the writing process 3.5 Awareness of teaching as an intervention in students’ writing process 3.6 Awareness of the relevance of the workshop to teaching 3.7 On-line problem solving 4.1 Frustration with professional status 4.2Conflict between demands made by the intervention and the school demands 4.3 The presentation of new demands and future plans 5.1 Magical thinking and beliefs in innate conditions 5.2 Expectations forexternal objective criteria 5.3 Expect to control learning situation and evaluation 5.4 Use of theoretical rationale 5.5 Confidence in subjective criteria

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Teachers' development towards the reflective teaching of writing: An action research