My findings

September, 2009

1. While I was going through the data analysis stage, I discovered that a new stage(in-writing) in the writing process( different from pre, while, and post writing stages) was born. This stage let students see the writing process as a whole entity, in which apart from creating individual drafts, students do understand that the final product implies a systematic process of writing development and enables them to conceive the importance of following specific steps to achieve the creation of a effective product. I decided to name this stage as in-writing stage. This stage was mainly studied through the e-portfolio creation taking into account the following aspects: organization, students’overall effort, creativity and usefulness.

2. My theory of action spent nearly half of class time (45%) on while-writing stage.It means a higher time that the one I had anticipated in the production and correction of students’ short stories. Less than a fifth (13%) of class time was spent on pre-writing stage and on tutorials about how to create and optimize the use of the e-portfolio. The time intended for socialization was not used in the actual time since there were some external issues which affected the normal development of the project such as state school strikes, facilities’problems, etc.

3. During the seven weeks there was a series of activities that learners had to perform in groups as a strategy to support each other’s work , but in fact, the role dominance of a student in each one of the groups was clearly evidenced.

4. Another recurrent pattern was the compromise and interest shown by most of the participants for implementing the use of the e-portfolio dossier as a learning tool. Despite the fact that the students did not have enough access to computers and the Internet service in the school, they developed most of the activities successfuly and participated actively in the improvement of their short story writing process by doing the online and digital work at home or in a café internet .

5. I also found that students moved from a pasive role in class to a more active status in which they become student-writers. It means, they were planners, builders, reviewers of their own short story writing process.