Re-Visioning Writing

In our Democratic society, students should be able to write well to communicate, describe, and justify their ideas. Some of young people struggle with accuracy and fluency of putting their thoughts to paper. Introducing a visual component into the writing revision process can help struggling students improve their word choice and fluency as writers. The process of integrating sketching interventions and interactive whiteboard strategies during the writing process has shown to have an impact on the student's engagement and agency as writers. To date, most of the literature has involved studies of using art to supplement finished writing or using the interactive whiteboard to increase student engagement with general classroom lessons. But what about the use of graphic representation to deepen students' thinking about revision? Paivio's studies (1991) of dual coding and Olson's (1992) work with visual literacy are particularly pertinent to this action research. Our study documents the writing of stuggling middle schoolers as we introduce strategies to help make their thinking visible. This study examines evidence drawn from six case study participants over a six month time period.