We, David Stearns and Carey Reid, are two ABE teachers with experience from basic skills through alternative diploma levels. For the past year we have collaborated in teaching the pre-GED writing class at Jamaica Plain Community Centers' Adult Learning Program at English High School. On David's side, the desire for collaborating with a veteran writing teacher was rooted in frustration with his writing class. Students were reluctant to write anything and were afraid to share what they had written with each other. Carey wanted to maintain direct contact with adult students and to try out some challenging ideas in an adult literacy writing class.

After some long discussions in local pubs and pizzerias, we agreed that we wanted the students to direct the writing process in the classroom to the fullest extent possible. We wanted them to take responsibility for developing and improving their writing skills so they could write outside as well as inside the classroom. We also wanted our reluctant writers to write every day, to enjoy writing as they came to see it as a vehicle for self-expression as well as a means for effectively addressing social needs.

Guiding Principles
To help encourage our students to "own" the writing process, we agreed on several guiding principles for our classroom planning.

1. Use "authentic materials" to encourage writing: newspaper articles, research reports, web-based documents, or public service publications relevant to students' lives.
2. Try to avoid materials written or rewritten for ABE students, because we feel these materials tend to be "dumbed down," teacher imposed, and often irrelevant.
3. Engage and support students to participate in all parts of the writing process, including assessments of progress.
4. Create a learning environment using groups, cooperation, and peer learning.
5. Teach grammar and mechanics in the context of authentic materials.
6. Continually explore possibilities for authentic writing opportunities for students.
7. Take risks as teachers, even if it means appearing unprepared or unknowledgeable about a particular subject.

Using the REEP and Other Methods for Sharing Power with Students
We needed a regularly scheduled assessment process that would give us, and the students, clear indications of their progress. We also wanted them to have information about how good writing might be evaluated. Toward both of those ends, we decided to adapt the Arlington Employment and Education Program (REEP) writing assessment as a primary learning and assessment tool. While the REEP was designed as an ESOL assessment tool, we liked it because the scoring rubric allows the assessor to analyze the elements of writing skills separately and provides a tool for evaluating progress in these skills in a somewhat objective fashion. We felt that by making our evaluation tool transparent to students they would be "in on" the process more completely and this could help them identify and make progress in a variety of writing processes.

We approached our students almost the same way as we would a group of teachers who were being trained to administer the REEP. We introduced the scoring rubric and anchor essays used to train REEP administrators to our students. We took the risk that our students could handle the task of scoring the anchor essays, and the risk paid off. Working in small groups, most of our students scored the writing samples exactly as the REEP experts did or were never more than a single point off! They might not be able to write a Level 5 essay, but they could recognize one easily enough. We felt that this recognition would help them internalize strategies they needed to practice to become better writers. Over the course of our collaboration, we did five REEP assessments using our own homemade prompts, modeled after those used for the GED writing test. Because the students had learned how to score, it was easy for them to understand scoring of their essays by teacher, peer, or self.

Our primary contribution as teachers was to help students focus on one, or at most two, writing skills for improvement before the next REEP assessment. By focusing on specific areas, students didn't feel as overwhelmed with making progress as a writer.

To work effectively in small groups and independently, students needed two other tools: guidelines for self-editing and guidelines for peer editing. We asked the students to create both of these guidelines, which are still evolving. Using the guidelines-in-progress, students began working comfortably together on writing projects, and we observed them discussing, drafting, peer editing, and revising essays.

The "Summarizing/Analyzing/ Responding" Paradigm
While we were helping students learning to write, we were also guiding students in writing to learn. To do this, we introduced students to writing summaries as a strategy to comprehend and respond to complex reading materials. Early in our fall season, we selected a complex article from The Boston Globe on the health insurance dilemma facing working people. The concepts presented were accessible, although the language of the article and accompanying charts were challenging.

As part of the preparation, students were given a minilesson on the concepts of quotation and paraphrasing, two essentials of summarizing. As a class, students picked out the main ideas of the article, which we listed on the blackboard. In this whole class setting, students were encouraged to rearrange and consolidate ideas into an outline form. Working in small groups, they then created first draft one-paragraph summaries, roughly ten percent of the source article's length. Finally, using an LCD projector hooked to a computer, the whole group collaborated to produce a final summary using the best parts of each group's work. The projector allowed us to accomplish this in real time; with a teacher at the keyboard, the students called out their suggested changes until everyone agreed on the final draft projected on the screen.

The students became adept at summarizing even the most complex materials. In the weeks that followed, students added additional paragraphs that analyzed and responded to the article, building toward more essay-like pieces. Once these processes were established in short-term projects, students willingly tackled projects that lasted a month or more.

Project-Based Activities
Most of the year, students were engaged in writing projects that extended for several weeks at a time. We designed projects that grew out of the students' own interests and experiences, which sustained their attention for several classes. We started during the summer of 2003, when the students decided to research and write about the transition to college. Using the Internet, they explored schools and financial aid information. They also wrote letters to schools and wrote a final report of their findings. Aside from the useful information students were able to obtain, this project was successful in getting students to take charge of their learning.

Sustained Projects
The longest sustained project began as a problem posing activity that explored how neighbors in an ad-hoc community group could cope with a group of teenagers who used the parking lot of the local drugstore as a place to hangout and drink. The discussions about this hypothetical problem led to a discussion about the role of elected officials, especially that of Boston City Councilors.

Based on these discussions, we used the following writing prompt for the next REEP assessment: What in your opinion are the most important qualities of a good city councilor? Please give reasons for your opinions. As it happened, the elections for Boston city councilors occurred soon after. As a summary/analysis/response assignment, the class took on a long Globe article reporting the outcome of the election, and many of the class members were delighted that two candidates with strong ties to minority communities, Felix Arroyo and Maura Hennigan, won seats. The class decided to write both candidates to congratulate them and invite them to visit the class. We treated this letter writing as a classroom activity, with small groups producing drafts and then the whole class creating a best-elements pastiche in real time with the help of the LCD projector.

When Maura Hennigan accepted the class invitation, students prepared questions in advance of her visit. She spent an hour and a half with the class, clearly enjoying her visit, which was a reflection of how well prepared and involved the students were. Students asked questions, made notes, and asked follow-up questions. In subsequent classes, students put their notes together and as a group wrote a news article reporting on her visit, which was subsequently published by The Jamaica Plain Gazette. This piggy-backing project resulted in a pile of good writing: two summary and response pieces, a REEP essay, a formal letter, a set of interview questions, a set of interview notes, and a published article.

We remained on track with our guiding principles for using (and producing) authentic materials.

By the time the article was published, the class had moved on to another cycle of REEP testing and a new project. By this time, students were used to reading long, rather complex news articles in The Boston Globe. We thought they might be ready to tackle a research article. Students were given copies of the March 2000 issue of Focus on Basics (Volume 4, Issue A,) the research-to-practice journal of the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL). They read the article, "Helping Adults Persist: Four Supports," a research report by Comings, Parrella, and Soricone. The article dealt with managing the forces that affect retention in ABE classes. Students read the article together twice as a class. Then, using all their previously acquired writing, group process, summarizing, and peer editing skills, they wrote essays applying the concepts of the adult persistence study to their own experience as adult learners.

As a result of working with the persistence research, the students decided that they needed to take even more control over setting the agenda for the class. We had assumed that projects based on a common class topic would work best, but the students argued that they could work on separate projects in separate groups. As it happened, half the class wanted to research the subject of gay marriage and the other half chose to explore the effects of violent television programs on children. We took a risk by accepting their proposal to explore two different topics, and students proved to be up to the task yet again. Both groups produced excellent essays by assigning different tasks to each other for various parts of the essays and then collaboratively assembling their drafts and working on revisions.

Final Thoughts
Using the LCD computer projector made it a lot easier for class as a whole to construct and edit their drafts. It also enhanced class participation. When we finished group editing on the screen, we could just print out drafts for everyone (with wide margins for further editing, of course!). In all of these lessons, especially after we established a few basic rules for peer support, we were impressed with the energy and enthusiasm with which our students jumped into the writing. Once they got into it, they stayed with it. They liked the whole process: drafting, peer editing, redrafting, and presenting final drafts.

References
National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (March 2000). Focus on Basics, Volume 4, Issue A. Boston: World Education.

David Stearns teaches ABE at the Jamaica Plain Adult Learning Program. He can be reached at: dstearns@aol.com