Abstract
Statement of Problem
The problem is a majority of students in Placer County as elsewhere across America are below the "proficient" level of writing (National Commission on Writing, 2003). The purpose of the project was to determine if graphic organizers improved student writing motivation and student writing. It is clear that writing instruction needs to improve if students are to learn to be better writers. The secondary problem was that students who are not motivated to write, such as many of the students in my own classroom, need appropriate teaching strategies in order to support their development of the drive necessary to write academic pieces. The relationship between writing instruction and motivation to write is complex; as the review of the literature will discuss, a sense of self-efficacy as a writer is crucial to foster the persistence and diligence students must demonstrate in order to accomplish good writing. Self-efficacy is enhanced through effective instruction. The purpose of this project was to implement graphic organizers as a teaching strategy to increase student writing motivation and writing achievement in my fourth grade classroom. The end result will be a handbook of graphic organizers for the teaching of writing. The two main factors that I considered were as follows: (a) student writing motivation, and (b) student writing achievement.
Sources of Data
This study consisted of qualitative research. The two sources of data used were student pre and post surveys and teacher observations.
Conclusions Reached
Overall, the participants in the study stated that using writing graphic organizers as a prewriting strategy helped them write, and the researcher would recommend using writing graphic organizers to Upper-Elementary and Middle school teachers to improve writing motivation and writing.