UNIVERSITY COURSE-BASED PRACTITIONER RESEARCH - 4 STUDIES ON JOURNAL WRITING CONTEXTUALIZE THE PROCESS

This paper addresses the problems and possibilities in the development of practitioner research stemming from a semester-long masters level research course. The context is provided by four single classroom stud ies hat independently examined journal writing in elementary single gr ade and multigrade classrooms. The teachers explored the use of: (a) a mascot for whom home adventures were recorded, a revised schedule for journal writing and shaving, and conscious attention to teacher model ing and conferencing, (b) self-selected vs. provided topics and topic selection by gender, (c) Draw-Before-Writing, a variation of Think-Pai r-Share, and Dialogue Journaling, and (d) different music conditions. The paper presents the course context; outlines the four studies; expl ores commonalities among the studies; shares conversations among the r esearchers on issues of systematic inquiry, ownership, collaboration, and professional shaving of the research; and problematizes inquiry re search as part of masters level coursework.