Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW 1

Literature Review – Lapp, Flood, and Goss

Lesli Nevarez

National University

Completed as partial requirements for TED690

Prof. Darryl Wyatt

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Abstract

Teaching Performance Expectation (TPE) 2 is Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments

for Student Learning. There are many factors that are part of a safe and effective learning

environment for every student. Two of these elements are creating a variety of learning

environments and maintaining high expectations with supports for all students. Diane Lapp,

James Flood, and Kelly Goss discuss a combination of approaches to creating an engaging

learning environment that not only supported the learning of every student, but also each students

desire to learn. In their article “Desks don’t move – Students do: In effective classroom

environments”, they discuss how they created a first-grade Writer’s Club who wrote and

performed their own autobiographies. This paper reviews some of the study and findings.
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The old classroom model of students sitting at their desks while a teacher presents a

lecture followed by students completing worksheets is seen as outdated. There is a movement in

education to focus the learning on engaging students through interactive, collaborative, and

student driven learning. How a teacher designs the classroom layout and the lessons that they

teach can change the entire environment of the classroom. Diane Lapp, James Flood, and Kelly

Goss worked to create a first grade Writers’ Club in the classroom. This was done through a

variety of groupings and activities that elicited true engagement and excitement in their students.

Lapp, et al. (2000) state that “the focus of this article is the literacy development of

children when their instruction occurs through the interaction of modeling, practicing, and

performing. We believe it is within such child-centered environments that children become

passionate, deeply engaged participants and learners.” (p. 33) To reach this end, the classroom

was setup with a teacher center in the middle of the classroom surrounded by six different student

centers. Each student center was based on a different aspect of the topic: autobiographies. These

centers included a writing center, resource center, computer center, conference center, listening

center, and viewing center. These centers used a variety of individual, paired, or group

collaboration in heterogeneous groups.

The teacher center was used for homogeneous groups and individual support. By having

the centers as heterogeneous groups and calling over the students to create a homogeneous group

based on the particular topic and student knowledge, it was easy for the teacher to change students

in and out of the various groups based on needs. Lapp, et al. (2000) noted that “Because the work

done at the Teacher Center was as motivating as the other centers, our students never seemed to

mind this individual or small-group attention.” (p. 34)

The project had several phases to move from introduction of autobiographies to students

creating their own edited and illustrated autobiographies. In the first phase students were exposed
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to autobiographies through read-alouds and asked what they would include in their own

autobiographies. During the second phase students used several questions to develop their stories

and share with a partner. In the third phase students wrote a second draft and then read their

drafts to peers who were directed to ask specific starter questions. Based on this interaction

students wrote a final draft and illustrated it. All three drafts were mounted and displayed in the

classroom. All of the students were held to writing a complete autobiography with the lower

students more closely following the teacher model.

The students invited family and friends to visit the classroom for a reading of their

autobiographies. As the students prepared for their performances, they discussed how they would

have to add to their autobiographies after the party. One student noted that their autobiographies

were like diaries and another student added that they wouldn’t end. Through this spontaneous

interaction “it was obvious that they had begun to recognize, through their experiences as authors

and the guided instruction of their teachers, the complexities of writing an autobiography.” (Lapp,

et al, 2000, pp. 31,33)

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References

Lapp, D., Flood, J., and Goss, K. (2000, September). Desks don’t move – Students do: In

effective classroom environments. The Reading Teacher, 54(1), 31-36.