Assessment: Insights Into Teachers\u27 Beliefs and Practices

It is well established that instruction in process writing is important from the primary grades through the high school years. The work of Graves (1983) and Calkins (1986) provides teachers with a theoretical framework for implementing process writing instruction. However, wide variation in translating theory into practice is evident among teachers (Mangano and Allen, 1986; Bridge, Hiebert and Chesky, 1983). Research reveals that teachers seem to maintain their preset notions about writing conventions such as correct spelling, proper grammar and neatness while attempting to incorporate process writing into the curriculum (Ray, Lee and Stansell, 1986). Thus, teachers\u27 conceptualizations seem to affect the way writing is taught (Bridge, Hiebert and Chesky, 1983)

Assessment: Insights into Children\u27s Beliefs and Perceptions About Process Writing

How do children acquire knowledge about written language? Investigations of emergent literacy have shown that children\u27s written language knowledge reflects their cultural environment (Clay, 1982; Kastler, Roser, and Hoffman, 1987). At home, children observe their parents writing grocery lists, letters to friends and relatives, and telephone messages, thereby learning the functions of written language as they are used in daily life (Morgan, 1987; Purcell-Gates, 1986). Independently, children experiment with their own messages, incorporating scribble, pictures and random letters. Often their written products mirror the functional writing their parents modeled (Rowe, 1989). In school, additional opportunities to learn about written language are presented. Some tasks are inherent to the school setting, such as reports and labels, while others resemble those practices at home (Dyson, 1984). Children in classrooms where traditional writing instruction prevails find constraints placed upon their writing by their teacher, such as topic, length and purpose