Modeling in Teacher Education: The Effects on Writing Attitude

Abstract

Abstract Teacher educators must assume more responsibility for developing teachers who know how to write, are confident in their writing ability, and can teach children to benefit from the writing process. This article reports the effects of modeling the writing process on college students' attitudes toward writing. Twenty-one undergraduates enrolled in a language arts methods course experienced the writing process as children would in an elementary setting with 50-minute class periods. While the instructor modeled the role of a teacher, students wrote on self-selected topics, revised and edited a selected piece, bound the final draft in a book, and shared the book with the class. Student scores on the pretest of writing attitudes ranged from negative to slightly favorable. Posttest responses indicated slightly favorable to strongly favorable attitudes toward writing. These gains were significant at the p < .001 level.