Describes ethnographic classroom research. Documents process approach to teaching of writing. Classroom teachers and researcher discuss (1) scheduling first-grade writing activities to improve transition from home to school, (2) using journals to encourage writing processes of second graders, (3) sharing as a motivation for writing, (4) approaches…

Presented in this report are the results of a three-year case study designed (1) to document what happened in the classrooms of 10 teachers who were trained in a process approach to the teaching of writing, and (2) to provide those teachers with occasions to deepen their understanding of the process approach, by collaborating with them in the…

Observing writers in isolation, pulling them into research settings in neatly designed studies will reveal nothing about the circumstances that enable people to write. Context, or the setting in which writing actually takes place, may be the most enabling circumstance. Many first grade teachers believe their students cannot write or even spell.…