Abstract
The present case study investigated the impact of a short-term summer literacy approach on writing performance and self-perception of writing for young adolescents of low-income families residing in urban housing projects. The approach offered intensive literacy engagement to offset summer achievement loss; assisted ethnic-minority, low socioeconomic youth achieve state benchmarks in the English language arts; and pioneered research on writer self-perception for this population. Findings from pre/post use of a normed writer self-perception scale, Chi-square analysis of a camp experience survey, participant interviews and a program exit survey revealed that the 250 youth entering grades five through seven and engaged in extensive writing prompted by reading, discussion, and use of graphic organizers believed their progress and ability to write positively improved. Progress in writing was objectively measured by pre/post writing accounts of a favorite experience evaluated by calibrated raters using the state rubric system. The results of a dependent t-test evidenced a significant increase in writing performance with 157 participants increasing, 56 decreasing, and 37 achieving the same score between pre/post evaluation. A bivariate correlation comparing postwriting scores with postresults of four self-perception subscales revealed significant correlations at the .01 level.
Highlights
1.1 Introduce the ProblemWhile young adolescents engage routinely in oral discourse, in the context of local speakers conversing in familiar surroundings, learning to write poses a challenge for many as the discourse style of written language needs to be learned
An analysis of the scores in the three subscale areas revealed no significant differences for the composite scores of the eight items on the General Progress subscale, (t(249) = 1.47, p = .142); the seven items on the Specific Progress subscale (t(249) = .77, p = .445); and the six items of the Physiological States subscale (t(249) = 1.41, p = .160)
While there were no significant differences found for the three subscale scores, it should be noted as indicated in Table 1, that significance was achieved for seven additional items within the three subscales; four had to do with general progress (GPR) in writing; two with specific progress (SPR); and one with physiological states (PS)
Summary
1.1 Introduce the ProblemWhile young adolescents engage routinely in oral discourse, in the context of local speakers conversing in familiar surroundings, learning to write poses a challenge for many as the discourse style of written language needs to be learned. The unifying characteristic of this population was that they all resided in urban housing projects. As such they provided a unique population for this case study that explored how writing engagement affected their ability and perceptions about writing. The National Commission on Writing (2003) had urged earlier that time-on-task for writing should be doubled and that writing should be encouraged during out-of-school time. The Common Core Standards for Writing (National Governors Association for Best Practices, Council of Chief School Offices, 2010) asks that young adolescents write routinely over extended and shorter time frames while focusing on discipline-specific tasks and purposes
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