Technology and Secondary Writing: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

This article reports a review of the literature that focused on relationship between writing instruction and technology in the secondary classroom since the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act over the past two decades. Based on the search, six themes have emerged across the fields of writing instruction and assessment. Within writing instruction, it was found that researchers often focused on a third space (Bhabha, 1994) where writing can take place in meaningful ways. Also, technology often served as a motivator during the instructional process of writing and worked to engage students in varied lessons. Finally, researchers found an increase in the amount of writing for secondary students when technology was introduced into the instructional classroom. Within writing assessment, the research focused on special populations including special education students, minorities, economically disadvantaged and English language learners. Next, technology served as a motivator in both the instruction and assessment of writing and tended to be a factor that increased writing assessment scores. Finally, researchers posit technology can be used to allow teachers to give effective and efficient feedback through the instructional and assessment cycles and tended to increase student assessment scores. These themes emerged across all articles reviewed and truly demonstrate where writing with technology research has occurred in the secondary classroom.

Keywords

• Writing, Instruction, Technology, Policy, Secondary Education, Motivation

Kaynakça

1. Bass, R. & Rosenzwig, R. (1999) Rewiring the history and social studies classroom: Needs, frameworks, dangers, and proposals. Journal of Education, 181(3), 41-63.
2. Bazerman, C. (2004). Speech acts, genres, and activity systems: How texts organize activity and people. In C. Bazerman & P. Prior (Eds.), What writing does and how it does it: An introduction to analyzing texts and textual practices (pp. 309-339). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
3. Bhabha, H.K., (1994). The location of culture. London: Routledge.
4. Creswell, J. W. & Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
5. Dikli, S. (2006). An overview of automated scoring of essays. Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment, 5(1), 1-36.
6. Dimitriadi, Y. (2001). Evaluating the use of multimedia authoring with dyslexic learners: A case study. British Journal of Educational Technology, 32, 265-276.
7. Fasulo, A., Girardet, H., & Pontecorvo, C. (1998) Seeing the past: Learning history through group discussion of iconographic sources. In J.F. Voss and M. Carretero (Eds.), International review of history education - Vol 2: Learning and reasoning in history. London: Wobum.
8. Faux, F. (2005) Multimodality: How students with special education needs create multimedia stories. Communication and Information, 5, 167-181.

9. Gee, J. (1989) What is literacy? Journal of Education, 171(1), 18-25.
10. Gibbons, S. (2010). Collaborating like never before: Reading and writing through a wiki. English Journal, 99(5), 35-39.
11. Glaser, B. G. & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory; strategies for qualitative research. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
12. Grimes, D. & Warschauer, M. (2008). Learning with laptops: A multi-method case study. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 38(3), 305-332.
13. Grimes, D. & Warschauer, M. (2010). Utility in a fallible tool: A multi-site case study of automate. Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment, 8(6), 1-42.
14. Harris, F. (2002). There was a great collision in the stock market: Middle school students, online primary sources, and historical sense making. School Library Media Research, 5. Retrieved on 18 April 2014 from http://www.ala.org/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/slmrb/slmrcontents/ volume52002/harris
15. Horkay, N., Bennett, R. E., Allen, N., Kaplan, B., & Yan, F. (2006). Does it matter if I take my writing test on compus? An empirical study of mode effects in NAEP. Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment, 5(2). Retrieved on 18 April 2014 from http://ejournals.bc.edu/ ojs/ index. php/jtla/article/view/1641/1488
16. Kinzer, C. K. (2010). Considering literacy and policy in the context of digital environments. Language Arts, 88(1), 51-61.
17. Krucli, T. E. (2004). Making assessment matter: Using the computer to create interactive feedback. English Journal, 94(1), 47-52.
18. Landauer, T., Lochbaum, K., & Dooley, S. (2008). A new formative assessment technology for reading and writing. Theory into Practice, 48(1), 44-52. doi: 10.1080/00405840802577593
19. Lankshear, C. & Knobel, M. (2006). New literacies: Everyday practices and classroom learning. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press.
20. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
21. Lee, S. (2008). Beyond reading and proficiency assessment: The rational cloze procedure as stimulus for integrated reading, writing, and vocabulary instruction and teacher–student interaction in ESL. System, 36(4), 642-660. doi: 10.1016/j.system.2008.04.002
22. Leu, D. J. & Kinzer, C. K. (2000) The convergence of literacy instruction with networked technologies for information and communication. Reading Research Quarterly, 35, 108-127.
23. Levstik, L. S. & Barton, K. C. (1996) They still use some of their past: Historical salience elementary children’s chronological thinking. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 28(5) 531-76.
24. McCarthey, S. J. (2008). The impact of no child left behind on teachers' writing instruction. Written Communication, 25(4), 462-505. doi: 10.1177/0741088308322554
25. McKeown, M. G. & Beck, I. L. (1994). Making sense of accounts of history: Why young students don't and how they might. In G. Leinhardt, I. L. Beck, and C. Stainton (Eds.), Teaching and learning in history. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
26. Moje, E. B., Ciechanowski, K. M., Kramer, K., Ellis, L., Carrillo, R., & Collazo, T. (2004). Working Toward Third Space in Content Area Literacy: An Examination of Everyday Funds of Knowledge and Discourse. Reading Research Quarterly, 39(1), 38-70. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.39.1.4
27. No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (2002). Pub L No 107 – 110, Statute 115, Stat. 1425.
28. Nicolini, M. B. (2006). Making Thinking Visible: Writing in the Center. Clearing House, 80(2), 66-69.
29. Oravec, J. A. (2002) Bookmarking the world: Weblog applications in education. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 45, 616-621.
30. Rao, K., Dowrick, P. W., Yuen, J. W., & Boisvery, P. C. (2009). Writing in a multimedia environment: Pilot outcomes for high school student in special education. Journal of Special Education Technology, 24(1), 27-38.
31. Tarasiuk, T. J. (2010). Combining traditional and contemporary texts: Moving my English class to the computer lab. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(7), 543-552.
32. Tharp, T. L. (2010). Wiki, wiki, wiki, - what? Assessing online collaborative writing. English Journal, 99(5), 40-46.
33. Vygotsky, L. S. (1962) Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.
34. Warschauer, M. & Matuchniak, T. (2010). New technology and digital worlds: Analyzing evidence of equity in access, use, and outcomes. Review of Research in Education, 34(1), 179-225. doi: 10.3102/0091732X09349791
35. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
36. Wineburg, S. S. (1991). Historical problem solving: A study of the cognitive processes used in the evaluation of documentary and pictorial evidence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(1), 73-87.
37. Wolsey, T. D. & Grisham, D. L. (2007). Adolescents and the new literacies: Writing engagement. Action in Teacher Education, 29(2), 29-38.
38. Wolsey, T. D. & Witte, S. (2007). That's online writing, not boring school writing: Writing with blogs and the Talkback Project. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(2), 92-96.
39. Williams, B. T. (2003). What they see is what we get: Television and middle school writers. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 46(7), 546-554.
40. Wissick, C. A. (1996) Multimedia: Enhancing Instruction for students with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 29, 494-504.
41. Correspondence: Matthew Ulyesses Blankenship, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Curriculum
42. and Instruction, University of South Florida, Tampa, United States