Introduction
How does writing look when writing templates are used, modified, or removed?
The question above has guided my inquiry into my teaching practice over the last few months. Along the way I have gathered piles of student work, interviews, questionnaires, reflections, pictures, notes scrawled on scrap paper, drawings, books, articles, websites, journal entries, and other detritus that have the combined effect of documenting the evolution of my inquiry. I have sorted through these artifacts, gathered a selection in the tabs above, and analyzed relevant pieces in the narrative spanning this website. In order to provide a frame of reference for this project, I have first sketched out my personal and professional context. I next describe the development and execution of the curricular unit that forms the basis for the artifacts central to this inquiry, a feminism unit for an English IV class of 26 seniors. In this section I also explore the use of fairy tales in high school English curriculum. I explain the origins of my interest in the writing template used in my school placement in the section introducing my inquiry question, and explore my early reactions to the template in the next section. My artifact analysis is organized according to categories that emerged from my study of student writing: failure, misinterpretation, completion, addition, modification, and application of the template. In the final section, I posit possible implications this study may have on my future teaching. Ultimately, this website documents only a window in time in what will likely be a lifelong inquiry into writing and learning.