Date of Conferral

1985

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisor

Evangeline Geiger

Abstract

This study examined the effects of a structured -insightful approach to teaching limited-English proficient (L EP) students to express themselves in writing. It sought to determine the effectiveness of this approach with a group, with boys or girls, and with which language it proved to be most effective.

This major purpose of this study was to seek methods and techniques that were designed to assist the LEP 3 students in expressing thoughts and ideas in writing with clarity, fluency, and effectiveness.

The population for this study consisted of thirty-five fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students who attended three elementary schools in the Santa Clara Unified School District. The major languages represented by these students were Korean, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. All students in both the experimental and control groups were participants in the district’s English Language Acquisition Program (ELA).

The students in the experimental groups met three times each week to participate in writing sessions taught by the writer. These students participated in the six phases of the structured-insightful approach to writing. The control group submitted writing samples (pre and post).

This investigation took place over a six month period. During months one and six, students submitted writing samples (pre and post testing). During months two through five, the students participated in writing sessions. The students pre and post writing samples, as well as ten submitted compositions were scored by two scorers who were trained by the writer in holistic scoring. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov one sample test was employed to test the hypotheses.

The findings from this study seem to indicate that:

  1. The structured-insightful approach is effective for LEP 3 students as a group.
  2. The structured-insightful approach is effective with girls in the experimental groups.
  3. The structured-insightful approach is effective with the Vietnamese students in the experimental group.
  4. Utilizing the structured-insightful approach, all students in the experimental groups made significant gains in their ability to express thoughts and ideas in writing.

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