A Reflective Look at the Writing Process for Both Children and Adults: A Memoir Study

In order to teach the writing process, one must be a writer. This independent study explores the writing process from the inside out. It investigates the writing process from an adult perspective while also examines the writing process that developed for individual student writers within a second grade classroom. Over the course of three months, the students in my second grade classroom and I developed personal memoirs about a small moment from our lives. This study includes a comprehensive breakdown of lessons which scaffolded the memoir writing process. It also includes a strong reflective component which reveals how we all responded to the various aspects of the memoir writing process. My ongoing reflection gave birth to a series of questions which led me to think more deeply about what I want writing to look like in my own classroom. I have used the work of Lucy Calkins, Donald Graves, Donald Murray, Carl Anderson, Nancie Atwell and others to help me begin to answer these questions as well as to support my own views about the development of a strong writing program within an elementary school classroom