THE EFFECT OF THE DIALOGUE JOURNAL PROCESS OF FIFTH GRADE STUDENTS\u27 WRITTEN RESPONSES TO LITERATURE

The purpose of this study was to investigate fifth graders\u27 written responses to literature in dialogue journals. Sixteen picture books from four different genres (fantasy, traditional literature, contemporary realistic fiction, and historical fiction) were read to twenty-three fifth graders. Students were asked to respond to the books in dialogue journals. Pretest and posttest writing instruments, adapted from Diederich\u27s (1974) analytical scale, were used to determine changes in writing after the dialogue journal process. Four raters scored the pretest and posttest writings, and analysis of variance was utilized to determine differences in the writings by sex and time. A significant interaction was found. Girls scored significantly higher on the pretest than the posttest. T-tests were conducted to determine significant differences between boys and girls both in the pretest and posttest. The girls scored significantly higher than the boys on the pretest. Both the pretest and posttest writings, as well as the dialogue journal entries, were examined in terms of the percentage of T-units (Hunt, 1965) of the Purves - Rippere (1968) categories of response (engagement, perception, interpretation, evaluation, and miscellaneous comments). A T-test was utilized to compare the frequency of occurrence of the categories in the pretest and posttest writings. A multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to determine any significant frequency of occurrence of the Purves - Rippere (1968) categories in the dialogue journal entries within the four different genres of books read to the children. Frequencies of occurrence were significantly different for all categories, as determined by a Tukey (1977) test. In order of frequency of occurrence, these categories were engagement, evaluation, perception, interpretation, and miscellaneous statements. This was the order for all genres except fantasy, where miscellaneous comments were fourth in order of occurrence and interpretation was last. It was concluded that the dialogue journals had been effective in eliciting more engagement responses, but students had not shown significant gains in their overall writing, as measured by the pretest and posttest