ABSTRACT
Response and evaluation melded as the support system within which the children revisited their past, studied their present, and planned their future days as readers and writers. The students, who had seen themselves as insignificant, began to value themselves, their families, their cultures. As they shared these items in their classrooms, they began to value one another. In these radically re-formed classroom environments, they began to see themselves as readers and writers. The gap between reading and writing has widened during the last decade, as other manifestations of a belief in engagement/intention have emerged. In those classrooms, students are intentionally engaged in getting high test scores to prove their ability in the areas tested by standardized tests. The teacher researchers do not have university researchers in their classrooms. They bring their own students’ work to our weekly team meetings, and they write their own research analyses/updates.
