Action Plan Overview (Documents have been removed from the original file to meet copyright requirements for

use on the internet) AGQTP: Creating Schools as Centres of Foresight STRAND 2 Name of the Project: Spring Hill Young Writers Group Aims of the Inquiry: To enhance the collaborative writing process with a focus on providing explicit structures to support groups of students in their publication of short stories. To develop stories targeted at a particular audience and to improve understanding of narrative elements such as character point of view and plot structures. To improve student editing skills and their ability to provide peer feedback. To provide students with an opportunity to become publishers of material in an authentic online context for a variety of audiences. To increase effective group participation skills. To assess whether writing skills are improved through the collaborative writing process. Describe the context surrounding your inquiry project (Situational Analysis): This inquiry project builds on previous reflection and research about the Spring Hill Young Writers Group. The Spring Hill Young Writers Group consists of 32 students from 3 inner-city schools (AHS, St Josephs, BGS). The group is driven by teacher librarians in each of these schools, combined with the expertise of a guest author to facilitate the writing workshops. Students collaborate on the narrative elements of the stories and offer peer support to edit the stories. A wiki is used by the students to share the writing experience and to offer peer feedback during the writing process. In the previous years the stories have been published in hard copy. This year, the students will publish their individual stories in an online environment using ibook author. Overall, it is established that the collaborative writing group is a valid and valuable experience.
Schedule of Events 26 March Introductory Evening -Tuesday - BGS 6 for 6.30pm - to 8pm 27 March Writing day - 9-2.30, Terrace, Before the workshop begins. Pre-workshop Survey Part 1, Preworkshop Survey Part 2 28 March Writing day 9-2.30, AHS Group Reflection 1 Working Well as A Group, Group Reflection 4 Group Progress, Peer feedback sheet - use this sheet to provide peer reflection on the person on the list . Please also feel provide comments to help other students in your group 1 April Peer feedback on stories due end of Monday 23 April Editing Afternoon - after school, Tuesday - Terrace. 3.30 - 5pm Active Listening and Conflict Resolution for Better Group work, Dialogue and punctuation, Short story editing 26 April Stories to be completely finished by Friday, for teacher checking 2 May Publishing Afternoon creating iBooks with Terrace eLearning teacher after school Thursday Terrace. 3.30 - 5pm 3 May All writing to be finished by 3 pm for judging 13 May Presentation Evening - Monday BGS 6.30-8pm

Word length 1500 to 2000 words

Rationale for the inquiry It has been recognised that the students who have collaborated on writing short stories in previous years could be supported through a more structured approach in the writing process. It has been recognised that increased support at critical points of intervention in the group work experience would enhance the writing process further. The method of publication of the short stories was previously in printed hard copy which became teachercentred. Teacher librarians involved in the group reflected on how the process could be enhanced to improve outcomes. Questions that will guide the inquiry.
Questions 1. How can the collaborative writing process be better structured to improve the social and affective experience for students to increase resilience and confidence; and their ability to critique, negotiate and effectively participate. Project & Background Questions Background: How have other writing collaborative writing and group writing activities structured their sessions? Project: What structural improvements in the program will improve collaboration? Dates and Data Collection Research before 26 March

2. How can the peer-feedback process be more explicit to enhance writing skills and produce a better quality end product?

3. What can be done to improve the quality of the narrative elements such as plot and character point of view to engage an adolescent audience with a credible and

Background: What is the effectiveness of various feedback methods on peer writing? Project: What peer feedback processes will produce a better quality end product? How can reliance on teacher feedback be reduced? Backgound: What story writing activities improve writing quality.

Before 26 March plan the additional activities and implement them during the workshop. 27-29 March Obtain feedback on student experiences After 2 May second feedback survey to students on workshop 7 May Teacher debrief Research before 26 March

28 March to 1 April Provide scaffold for peer feedback. Allocate each student with a peer to edit their work.

Research before March 26. Discussion with author.

authentic story?

Project: How have the selected additional writing activities improved writing compared to previous years and previous writing?

4. How can the editing process be enhanced so that the students are empowered to edit their stories with skill and improved accuracy?

Background: What editing processes exist for students to improve their writing. Project: Will an additional afternoon for editing, and changes to peer feedback improve student editing and proofreading?

Before 26 March plan the additional activities and implement them during the workshop. 27-29 March Obtain feedback on student experiences After 2 May second feedback survey to students on workshop 7 May Teacher debrief 13 May evaluation of stories and writing Research before March 26.

5. How can the publishing process be changed so that students can be responsible users of technology to produce a quality end product for an online audience?

Background: What publishing alternatives exist instead of blurb.com used in the past? Project: How can students learn to publish their own stories? Will publication to a wider audience improve student writing?

Writing day 9-2.30, AHS Group Reflection 1 Working Well as A Group, Group Reflection 4 Group Progress, Peer feedback sheet - use this sheet to provide peer reflection on the person on the list . Please also feel provide comments to help other students in your group. Peer feedback on stories due end of Monday Editing Afternoon - after school, Tuesday Terrace. 3.30 - 5pm Active Listening and Conflict Resolution for Better Group work, Dialogue and punctuation, Short story editing, Stories to be completely finished by Friday, for teacher checking 7 May Teacher debrief 13 May evaluation of stories and writing Research publishing options. Investigate means of delivering this to students.

Publishing Afternoon creating iBooks with Terrace eLearning teacher after school Thursday Terrace. 3.30 - 5pm

Learning strategies 1. to provide ideas on how to improve the story writing skills and point of view; to find resources on collaborative group work; reflection activity on workshop days. To be completed prior to 27th March 2013. 2. investigate ibook and the compatible formats. Create a pre-workshop survey on collaborative skills; about their previous creative writing experiences; about their understanding of digital citizenship; previous experience publishing online. Create a post-workshop survey to reflect on these aspects of the writing group experience. To be completed prior to 27th March 2013. Data collection 1. Feedback from students using survey monkey before and after the workshop, other surveys during the workshop and reflection on editing afternoon: to question students about their experiences in group work or collaborative projects; about their creative writing experiences; about their understanding of digital citizenship; and experiences in publishing online. 2. Teacher, student and parent reflections on workshop days, group experience and publication of stories using questionnaires provided on the presentation evening. 3. Observation during workshop, afternoon events and presentation evenings 4. Content on wiki 5. Possible comparison of the writing of selected students from earlier this year to their writing produced for the workshop. Sources of information (e.g. reports, academic papers, journal articles, text books) that provide background relating to your inquiry.
1. Everyday Editing. Inviting students to develop skill and craft to writers workshop by J. Anderson This is an excellent resource that explores how student editing can be improved by inviting students to notice, to imitate, to celebrate, to collect, to write, to combine, to edit/revise. It contains many practical examples for improving punctuation, grammar, paragraphing and other aspects of writing. 2. Making Groups Work: University Students' Perceptions by Jane Burdett University students found group work highly beneficial. However obstacles were noted. Strategies to address these include more effective management of group composition, time provision, online collaboration to reduce the problems of coordinating meeting times, design of assignments and assessment practices in order to reduce the likelihood of work avoidance by some and overload for others and procedures to promote group interdependence and accountability. 3. Students Noticing and incorporation of Written Feedback: a snapshot of ESOL Writing Instructors Commentary on Adult ESOL Students Essays by Clarke Feedback must not only be corrective but needs to promote action by the learner. Research indicates that written feedback by teachers is typically ambiguous, unsystematic, and inaccessible, often confusing students; thus, the benefit to learners has been deemed questionable, and that students often do nothing with the feedback or do not understand what they should do with it. In *Ferriss+ findings, 46% of the teachers marginal comments and

47% of end comments which were written in question form, led to either no change or a negative change in the students revision. (p37) However, they also found the first debate within written feedback is that feedback is ineffective and confusing to students; however, students continuously request teachers to provide feedback. (p37) Hendrickson (1978), in deciding which errors to correct, suggests teachers consider the degree to which the error compromises the intelligibility of the learners message, the frequency of the error in a learners production, the grammatical structures being taught in class, and the generalizability of the grammatical rule. Teachers need to prioritize which errors to provide feedback on and at what stage of the writing process to provide feedback. By focusing on fewer errors, teachers may be able to limit student feelings of confusion and increase their feelings of writing competence. Peer correction and self-correction can be ways to increase learner responsibility and create a more equitable classroom. Peer correction or self-correction with teacher guidance may be a more worthwhile investment of time and effort for some teachers and learners (Hendrickson, 1978, p. 396) Perhaps the reason there is such a debate within the written feedback literature is because we have assigned too many roles to feedback. We want feedback to be able to improve our students writing, facilitate revision, and motivate our learners; however, most teachers do not change feedback strategies to accommodate these multiple purposes. They they become frustrated and say feedback is just a waste of time because students do not seem to improve their writing in response to the feedback. (p42) 4. Teaching Students to Dialogue by Angela Cunningham Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/4312457/Class-Discussion-Guidelines

5. Productive Group Work How to engage students, build teamwork, and promote understanding by Fray, N. Fisher , D. And Everlove, S. This book discusses how research shows that group work and collaboration can greatly enhance learning, but it needs the right conditions. Most students (and many teachers) have never experienced genuine collaborative learning. For a majority of us, our experience of academic group work consists of being thrown together into a group and then expected to create a product, learn a skill, or accomplish a task without additional support from the instructor. P 4 This often results in a few students doing most of the work, while sidelined students feel inadequate or unwanted. The book explores ways to create the right conditions to use group work to enhance learning. 6. Giving Students Meaningful Work: Making Group Work Productive by Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher Teachers can design group projects that consolidate and extend learning by focusing on six important indicators: creative tasks, joint attention to tasks, development of group social skills, language and organizational support, optimal group size and composition and an active teacher role. Students in productive groups need skills to challenge one another as they seek consensus, but students need support in learning how to disagree with one another in a civil way, provide evidence to persuade others, offer opinions, and change them in response to others' input. To facilitate such dialogue, teachers establish group social norms such as sharing successes and failures, making decisions collaboratively, and taking turns. There is a need to teach conflict management skills to students, such as listening to the views of others, avoiding hurtful statements about others, stating your own view without becoming defensive, identify personal concerns and acknowledge the concerns of others, accept the group's decision graciously and resuming the task.

"I think this is one of the most important life skills I can teach them," Mr Bonine says. "They're young adults who will need to work within groups all the time in college or on the job. I'm teaching them more than biology. I'm also teaching them how to work with others. 7. Six Common Misperceptions about Teamwork by J. Richard Hackman Conflict, when well managed and focused on team goals, can produce more creative solutions than in conflictfree groups, so long as it is about the work itself. The longer members stay together as a group, the better they do. Research shows changing group membership is less likely to improve results than keeping the same members. Small teams are more efficient and there is less social loafing. Teams working remotely are at a disadvantage. It is well worth the time and expense to get members together when the team is launched, during the process and again when the work has been completed. Leaders make a difference, but the most powerful thing a leader can do to promote effective collaboration is to create conditions that where members manage themselves. The second most powerful thing is to launch the team effectively. Of third importance is the hands-on teaching and coaching that leaders do during the task. Research suggests that creating a positive team environment accounts for about 60% of the variation in team performance; that the quality of the team launch accounts for 30%; and that real-time coaching accounts for only about 10%. Group success is not magical, but requires careful thought and preparation, sufficient support resources and clear group goals. 8. Social Skills for Successful Groupwork by David Johnson and Roger Johnson Students do not know instinctively how to cooperate and collaborate with others. They need skills to get to know others and develop trust, accept and support one another, and resolve conflicts constructively. Students need to value learning cooperative skills, they need to know what the skill is and when to use them, students need to repeatedly practise the skills, students need to understand how well they are using these skills, and students must persevere in using these skills. 9. Do Gifted Student Writers and Creative Writing Experts Rate Creativity the Same Way? by James C. Kaufman, Claudia A. Gentile, John Baer Peer review of student work is often recommended as a way to improve student writing, but some have questioned the quality of the feedback. This research demonstrates that, at least in the area of summary judgments of the creativity of a creative text, gifted creative writers and experts in creative writing tend to give very similar evaluations. This research did not look at all student abilities with peer judgments, only those of gifted novices in terms of creativity and not other aspects of those stories and poems, such as grammatical correctness. 10. Intragroup Conflicts during Collaborative Writing in an ESL/EFL Preparatory Programme by Santini Pathinathan Two major types of conflicts occurred during the collaborative writing; substantive conflict and affective conflict. Substantive conflict was useful as the group voiced disagreements and considered alternative ideas. However affective conflict was more conflict where group members had misunderstandings and differences due to personal views about group members. The study shows that the success of collaborative writing is highly dependent on how conflict is handled and resolved amongst group members.

11. Listening and Interpersonal Skills Review by Therese Shepherd by Julia Braham and Carol Elston Effective interpersonal functioning is supported by various different inter-related skills. High value is placed on these skills by employers. They play a key role in promoting effective. Although some disciplines emphasise listening and interpersonal skills many have neglected this until recently. This situation is changing. Some disciplines are actively developing student communication skills using role-play, video feedback and other interactive activities. However, one limitation of these initiatives is that many of the learning resources relate to specific groups. 12. Team Agreement Checklist by QUT (see Appendix 2) This checklist is a useful example of procedures at a University for increasing awareness of student responsibilities in groups. Bibliography: 1. Anderson. J. 2007 Everyday Editing. Inviting students to develop skill and craft to writers workshop, Stenhouse Publishers, USA. 2. Burdett, J. (2003). Making Groups Work: University Students' Perceptions. International Education Journal, 4(3). Retrieved from http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/education/iej/articles/v4n3/Burdett/paper.pdf 3. Clark, H. (2007). Students Noticing and Incorporation of Written Feedback: a snapshot of ESOL Writing Instructors Commentary on Adult ESOL Students Essays http://dspace.uta.edu/bitstream/handle/10106/669/umi-uta1786.pdf?sequence=1 Science Direct.com Journal of Second Language Writing Volume 10, Issue 4, November 2001, Pages 277303Accessed 15 April 2013 4. Cunningham, A. (2009, October 5). Teaching Students to Dialogue. Retrieved from http://angelacunningham.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/teaching-students-to-dialogue/ 5. Fisher, N., & Fisher, D. (2010, September). Giving Students Meaningful Work: Making Group Work Productive. Educational Leadership, 68(1). Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educationalleadership/sept10/vol68/num01/Making-Group-Work-Productive.aspx 6. Fray , N. Fisher , D. And Everlove, S. (2009) Productive Group Work How to engage students, build teamwork, and promote understanding, ASCD, Alexandria, USA. 7. Hackman, R. J. (2011, June 7). Six Common Misperceptions about Teamwork. Retrieved from http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/06/six_common_misperceptions_abou.html 8. Johnson, R. T., & Johnson, D. W. (1989-1990, December- January). Social Skills for Successful Groupwork. Educational Leadership, 47(4), 29-33. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_198912_johnson.pdf 9. Kaufman, J. C., Gentile, C. A., & Baer, J. (2005). Do Gifted Student Writers and Creative Writing Experts Rate Creativity the Same Way? Gifted Child Quarterly, 49(3), 260-270. Retrieved from University California State University: http://www.psychology.csusb.edu/facultyStaff/docs/KaufmanGentileBaer_do_gifted_student_writers_and_creativ e_writing.pdf

10. Pathinathan, S., & Yong Mei, F. (2012, November 25). Intragroup Conflicts during Collaborative Writing in an ESL/EFL Preparatory Programme. Retrieved from http://www.ijalel.org/pdf/173.pdf 11. Shepherd, T., Braham, J., & Elston, C. (2010, January 13). Listening and Interpersonal Skills Review. Retrieved from http://learnhigher.ac.uk/resources/files/LIPS/literature_review.pdf 12. QUT. (2013, May 7). http://www.studywell.library.qut.edu.au/pdf_files/WORKINGINTEAMS_TeamAgreementChecklist.pdf Retrieved from http://www.library.qut.edu.au/services/community/schools/ http://www.library.qut.edu.au/services/community/schools/fromhomeschool.jsp

Appendix 1 Resources from Fray , N. Fisher , D. And Everlove, S. (2009) Productive Group Work How to engage students, build teamwork, and promote understanding, ASCD, Alexandria, USA. Appendix 2 From http://www.studywell.library.qut.edu.au/pdf_files/WORKINGINTEAMS_TeamAgreementChecklist.pdf From: http://www.library.qut.edu.au/services/community/schools/fromhomeschool.jsp