Dialogue Journals: Building Teacher-Student Relationships and Fostering Writing Growth

1. Dialogue Journals:Building Teacher-Student Relationships and Fostering Writing Growth Conducted by Jessica Farthing and Dawn Skidmore

2. Participants • Jessica’s students: two 9th-grade “academic” (at-risk) classes. • Dawn’s students: three 10th-grade “advanced” (passed English SOL) classes.

3. Procedure • Journals of personal letters were scheduled to be exchanged between student-teaching interns and students on a weekly basis. • Student-teaching interns would model correct usage within their responses. • Journals to be monitored for improvement in fluidity and other mechanics.

4. Expectations • Initial evaluation of formal student writing revealed poor writing skills. We anticipated that consistent writing and positive modeling would improve student fluency. • We planned for the journals to be exchanged weekly, with student interns replying over weekends and students responding during the week.

5. Setbacks and Limitations • Difficulty in getting students to complete the journals at all. • Teacher Interns only present two days a week. • Teacher Interns not directly responsible for grades. • “Hands-off” attitude from cooperating teachers.

6. Process • Student writing in the journals was much better than the formal writing samples we had seen. • Jessica continued with the project as planned with her low-level students. • Dawn switched to assigning creative writing pieces with her advanced 10th graders.

7. Jessica’s Results • Little to no improvement in writing from the first week to the last. • Some improvement in fluency of writing. None noted in grammar or mechanics. • Higher quality of writing than other class work. • Subject matter they enjoyed (themselves). • No pressure – not graded on mechanics.

8. Dawn’s Results • First creative assignment flopped completely. • Open-ended, non-structured. • Switched to a more structured creative assignment in “Where I’m From” poems. This went really well. • But I couldn’t measure improvement because it was the only assignment they’d completed of this nature.

9. Shared Results • Although the writing skills growth was inconclusive, we developed strong relationships with the students. We believe that this rapport made the project worthwhile regardless of the students’ growth as writers. By laying this foundation of trust and respect, we became more able to work effectively with the students.

10. Demonstrations of Rapport • Students approached us more often with questions once they’d begun the journals. • Students confided to us about deaths, divorces, and family illnesses that were causing stress. • Students wrote that they liked having a teacher ask about their lives.

11. Future Applications • We are likely to use a modified version of this assignment in the future with our classes. • We still believe that dialogue journals could improve student writing over a longer period of time.

12. Future Applications • The introductory letters and “Where I’m From” poems could be used within or without the context of dialogue journals to achieve teacher-student rapport.

13. Future Applications • Dialogue journals could be exchanged every other week, allowing the teacher more turnaround time. • Journals could be exchanged via email. • Integrating technology. • Allows teacher to type instead of handwrite personalized responses without losing the feeling of personal response.

14. In Conclusion Our results were different than we expected, but we still feel that the project was successful. Although the dialogue journals did not have the desired effect on students’ writing, they enhanced our relationships with the students in ways we hadn’t even imagined initially.