Writing on the web: online technology and the writers' workshop in the junior secondary classroom

Schools are places where students are required to perform writing acts and submit written products. A writers' workshop (WW) is one method used in schools to encourage students to write. Most would include the peer conference, the time for a student to talk about her/his writing, face-to-face, in various stages, one to one or in small groups of three to four peers. Graves (1983, 1985, 1991, 1995, 1996), Calkins (1986), and Atwell (1987) gave encouraging descriptions of their WW classrooms. Others have illuminated some of the challenges (DiPardo and Freedman, 1998; Lensmire, 1992, 1994; Morse, 1994; Rouse, 1988; Zemelman and Daniels, 1988). In particular, implementation of the peer conference has been problematic. Issues of teacher control are forefront and reinforced by the need to maintain a safe and productive classroom environment. Unlike the traditional teacher-talk dominated classroom, the peer conference creates less closely supervised opportunities for students to speak. In this restructured learning environment, the immediate peer culture becomes an important concern. The teacher cannot be sure that the classroom is a safe place for every student to share her/his work with peers (Lensmire, 1992). Despite these realities, constructivist theory stresses the importance of context and encourages active participation of students through talk and writing (Schaafsma, 1996; Doolittle, 1999; Schallert, Dodson, Benton, Reed, Amador, Lissi, Coward & Fleeman,1999). Online technology opens a new range of alternatives, and several features seem applicable to the problem of safety in the peer conference. Tornow (1997) and Bonk, Malik:owski, Angeli, and Supplee (1998) described the use of the online conference in a university setting. These authors defended the benefits of learning in a social context. Bonk et. al. (1998) saw web-based conferencing as "an electronic apprenticeship," an application of Vygotsky's negotiation of meaning within students' zone of proximal development. Three of Bakhtin's (1981) key perceptions are embodied in the WW: Through writing, the individual is able to to develop a dialogic awareness of his/her own place in the community (Brandist, 1997; Lensmire, 1994). Student stories are utterances in context, socio-linguistic narratives with an intertextual nature (Schallert et. al., 1999). However, with the reduction of autocratic control, the peer conference, like Bakhtin's carnival, has the potential to open the darker underbelly of the adolescent nature, and further serves as a caution to maintain a safe classroom environment. As researcher, I had a dual role as the teacher of the classroom under study. My goals were: ( 1) to create an online learning environment for the peer conference; (2) to peruse the peer responses to monitor class climate; (3) to assess the value of the peer conference; ( 4) to obtain students' evaluations of the online conference experience; and (5) to assess the value of the peer conference as indicated by revisions made between the draft and final copy of one piece of narrative writing. In collaboration with the project leader at the university computer center, we adapted a Weber site to meet our purposes. WebCT is a multi-dimensional communication tool developed at the University of British Columbia. A course construction template within this technology accommodated all of the functions necessary to establish the online peer conference. The main findings of this study were: ( 1) WebCT provided an appropriate online learning environment for the peer conference. In both the survey and class meeting data students confirmed that the online conference was a valuable way to construct meaning. One student commented, the assignment "gave us a thought process, not just a writing one." (2) Although one student received negative response to his story, for the vast majority of peer responses, safe environment was not a concern. However, the quality of peer responses was raised as an issue. (3) On the survey, of 22 participants, 17 students somewhat or strongly agreed that they would recommend the online conference for other students. At the last class meeting, of 18 participants present, 16 voted yes, they would like to do this project again. (4) On the survey, 18 somewhat or strongly agreed that they liked anonymous response. During class meeting discussion, students favored the use of a code name and suggested possible improvements: numbers versus names, assigned names, number only, no name and no number. Anonymous response allowed response to the writing and not to the writer, or the writer's place in the social hierarchy. (5) The concern for improved quality of peer response was reinforced as I found evidence of insufficient revision made between the draft and final copies of these narratives.