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Owston, R. D., & Wideman, H.H. (1997). Word processing and children’s writing in a high computer access setting. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 30(2), 202-220.

Student writing products and processes were studied over a three-year period, beginning in grade 3, at a school where students had routine, daily access to word processors, and at a nearby comparison school that had only a few, infrequently-used computers in its classrooms. A repeated measures MANOVA revealed that there was significantly greater improvement in writing quality over the three years (p<.00005) at the high computer access school, as determined by holistic measures of writing message (meaning and content quality) and medium (quality of the form and surface features). Extensive in-class observations support the contention that the use of word processors strongly contributed to the observed differences between sites. The attributes of the word processor that appeared to explain the observed differences were a combination of the unique ways text is edited, displayed, and manipulated with the computer.

As computers become increasingly common in homes and schools, many young writers now craft their first sentences on the word processor. Some of these children have even come to rely on the technology for all of their writing, and will likely continue to do so for the rest of their formal schooling and adult lives. Yet we know surprisingly little about the how the word processor affects the development of such students' writing when they make routine, sustained use of the technology.

Most research on the impact of the word processor has focused on the quality of students' writing or on classroom processes over relatively short periods. Nor have students in these studies had unrestricted access to word processors whenever they have wanted to write. Even so, there is evidence that word processors can improve composition quality. In a meta-analysis of studies that compared two groups of students receiving identical writing instruction, but allowed only one of the two groups to use word processing for writing assignments, Bangert-Drowns (1993) found that the use of word processing enhanced writing quality in two thirds of the papers reviewed. The positive effects of word processing appear to be most unequivocal with college-age students (e.g., Bernhardt, Wojahn, & Edwards, 1988; Sommers, 1985; Teichman & Poris, 1989), whereas evidence regarding younger students is more contradictory. Several multi-class experiments conducted with junior and intermediate level students have found that word-processed compositions were rated higher in quality than handwritten papers (e.g., Dalton & Hannafin, 1987; Larter, 1987; Moore, 1987; Synder, 1993).

Various rationales have been offered to explain why the use of word processing apparently improves student writing quality. It has been argued that by eliminating most of the cumbersome effort involved in editing and recopying compositions by hand, student resistance to revision can be decreased and a more fluid and recursive writing style encouraged, avoiding premature closure (Collier, 1983: Dickinson, 1986; Hooper, 1987; MacArthur, 1988). The public nature and readability of the screen display may prompt students to read each other's efforts, and so facilitate the processes of peer reviewing and collaborative editing, which can help students develop a necessary distance from their work (Dickinson, 1986; MacArthur, 1988). Furthermore, the replacement of messy handwritten copy by neatly printed, "adult-like" documents may decrease student frustration and sense of failure, heightening their motivation to write (MacArthur, 1988).

Nevertheless, before we can accept the contention that word processing has a beneficial effect on younger students' writing, we must be able to account for the research that has found no differences in quality between on and off computer writing (e.g., Daiute, 1986; Gredja & Hannafin, 1992; Joram, Woodruff, Bryson, & Lindsay, 1992). While explaining these conflicting findings is not easy, certain trends are apparent. There is initial evidence that poor typing ability can distract students from their writing tasks (Dalton, Morocco, & Neale, 1988; Snyder, 1993). Also salient may be the type of the word processing software used. Haas (1989) found that writers using graphical user interface (GUI) word processors and mice produced longer and significantly better quality texts than those working with character-based word processing software. Classroom context, including teachers' classroom organization and perceptions of students as writers and curriculum, may contribute as well (Cochran-Smith, Paris, & Khan, 1991; Greenleaf, 1994; Mehan, 1989), although Bangert-Drowns' (1993) meta-analysis found the positive influence of the word processor to be remarkably robust across a variety of settings.

Perhaps more influential is the amount of exposure students have to the technology. Of 28 related studies reviewed, Bangert-Drowns (1993) reported that 11 to 20 weeks was the most common duration. Typically, students either had minimal word processing experience prior to the studies or received their first word processing instruction as part of the studies. Therefore, it is unrealistic to expect students to produce better quality work if they are still adapting to the technology, rather than concentrating on the writing task at hand (Cochran-Smith, 1991; Flinn, 1985). Owston, Murphy, and Wideman (1991, 1992) studied two successive years of eighth grade students, all of whom had at least a year and a half of experience in using the word processor for most of their writing at the same school, but with different teachers. They attributed their ability to replicate significant results in favor of word processing largely to students' prior word processing experience and ready access to the technology.

To further investigate this line of reasoning, that extensive experience with and ready access to word processors can lead to improved writing quality, we studied two groups of young children. One group began writing with word processors at an early age, had ready access to computers when ever they wanted to write, and continued to use the word processor for all of their writing. The other group had little or no experience with computers. In addition to investigating how the writing quality of these students compared over an extended period, we studied the processes students and teachers use in writing classrooms to help explain any observed differences in quality that may be found.

The two groups of students were studied over a three-year period, beginning when the students were in grade three. The first group, consisting of 52 students initially from two classrooms, attended a kindergarten to grade eight elementary school in a suburban area on the outskirts of a major Canadian city. This school, which will be referred to as the High Access Site (HAS), was considered a "model site" in the school district and it had literally been designed from the ground up for extensive computer use. The overall student to computer ratio was slightly less than 3:1. Initially, there was a mixture of Macintoshes and Apple IIs at the school; however, by the second year all of the latter machines were replaced with Macintoshes. In one of the classes studied (4B), all students had their own notebook-sized computer (Macintosh PowerBook) toward the end of the second year, and they continued to use the same computer in their third year. Students mainly used ClarisWorks, an integrated software productivity tool, for word processing. Some writing, especially research project reports, was done using HyperCard, Apple's hypermedia tool for the Macintosh.

The second group, from another school, served as a low computer access comparison site. Fifty-eight students were in this cohort, spread over two classrooms. The student to computer ratio at this school (the Low Access Site or LAS) was 15:1. The computers at this site, Apple IIs, were several years older than those at HAS. LAS was located in the same outlying suburban area as HAS and was under the jurisdiction of the same school board. LAS school was selected because it (1) was similar to HAS in institutional variables such as student enrollment and number of teachers and their qualifications, (2) was a well-regarded "traditional" school in the district, with few discipline problems, high achievement, and a low number of designated special education students, (3) the community it served was moderately more stable and affluent than that of HAS, and (4) district officials had higher expectations for LAS than HAS and considered it a good "school to beat" in this study. These factors suggested that LAS students would be equal to or higher achieving than HAS students. For this reason, the students' young age, and because none of the students had ever written a standardized test, pretesting was deemed inappropriate and unnecessary.

At LAS the students from the two third grade classes were dispersed into two different classes in fourth grade. Thus the students had different teachers for both third and fourth grade. At HAS, the third grade students were dispersed into three classes, one of which, class 4B, had the same teacher as class 3B in third grade. This teacher also taught some of the studied students in fifth grade, in class 5B, during the third year of the study. Another teacher taught a few of the studied students in both grades four and five. No other teacher at either site taught any student for more than one year. The subject retention rate of the study for the second year relative to the first was 75% for HAS and 83% for LAS; for the third year relative to the second, the respective figures are 87% and 79%.

We employed a quasi-experimental design that integrated the collection of quantitative and qualitative data over time (Miles & Huberman, 1994). At the beginning of the study teachers at HAS and LAS were instructed to collect all writing done by grade 3 students during April and May, and to place the items into individual folders marked with student names. The same material was collected from this cohort in the spring of years two and three, from the different classes into which the students were then dispersed.

The items contained within the folders were assessed using two types of measures. One was indexical measures of the following features: (a) number of texts per student, (b) words per text, and (c) number of texts written on and off the computer. The second measure was a holistic assessment of writing quality using an adaptation of criteria outlined in Pappas, Kiefer and Levstik (1991). In the Pappas et al. (1991) procedures, evaluation of writing is separated into message qualities, which focus on the meaning and content of a text, and medium qualities, which deal with the form or surface features of the writing. In the present study, writing folders were rated on both dimensions using six point scales, with a score of 1 representing very little or none of the quality being assessed, and a score of 6 representing a high degree of proficiency for the quality being assessed. Each year students were assessed relative to their peers on the scales--not to themselves in other years. Because of this, scores between years are not directly comparable. For message analysis, the following features were considered: general writing development (writing in the first, second, or third person), sense of audience, purpose for writing, story quality (overall meaning, unity, detail), story structure (setting, character, plot, outcome), lexical choice, cohesion (logical flow), and ability to share feelings. For medium analysis, the following features were considered: grammatical structure, spelling, usage, mechanics, and length. The rater was a retired language arts consultant with extensive formal training and experience in portfolio analysis. To provide a check on rater reliability, a second expert rater re-rated a subsample of 72 student folders. The overall correlation between the two raters scores was .887, indicating a high level of rating reliability.

The folder rating scores were analyzed using a repeated measures MANOVA procedure. This allowed us to determine if any significant differences existed between the two cohort groups with respect to the development of writing proficiency over the three-year period. Individual students rather than classes were used as the unit of analysis. This was made neccessary by the small number of classes studied, as well as the fact that after year 1, students at HAS who had been together in one class were dispersed across different classes as described above.

These quantitative data were augmented by qualitative data gathered during approximately 125 full or half day person-visits to the sites, two thirds of which were made to HAS. Data collected included field notes of classroom observations, interviews with students, parents, teachers, and the principal, school documents, and class handouts. In addition, three students were selected at each site during the first year of the study in consultation with the classroom teachers, as representing the range of writing competency ("low ", "medium", "high") in grade 3. The writing of these students was studied in detail to provide insights into writing characteristics and development at both sites.

Our analysis of the student writing folders revealed that there was a greater improvement in writing quality at HAS over the three years of the study as assessed by the two scales used. The means and standard deviations for the two cohort groups in each year of the study are given in Table 1 for the message scale and Table 2 for the medium scale. The correlation between the two scales was found to be 0.78, indicating a moderate relationship between the two scales. No further breakdown of the scales into subscales was deemed advisable, as subscales would have lacked sufficient independence from the main scales to be meaningful.

To determine if the observed differences were statistically significant, a repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance was undertaken using the two scale scores as dependent measures and year as the repeating factor. The multivariate F for the interaction between the year and the school site was highly significant (F(4, 276)=8.05, p<.00005) indicating that the differences in average student gain in writing skill across the two sites were not due to chance. The univariate results for each holistic scale were also highly significant (message scale: F(2, 139)=12.85, p<.0001; medium scale, F(2, 139)=9.98, p<.0001).

In Table 3, we present summary indices of other surface features of students' writing by class: the mean number of texts per student, mean number of texts written by hand and on computer, and mean number of words per text.

Volume of Writing

In the first year, both classes at HAS generated roughly about a half to a third the number of the texts that the students at LAS did. This discrepancy increased in grade four largely due to the exceptionally large number of texts in class 4T at LAS. Further examination of the data revealed that this outlier occurred because the teacher included all of his students' journal writings in their folders, whereas other teachers generally did not. By grade five, the number of texts varied considerably by teacher, not by site.

Use of Computers

In grade three at LAS, none of the texts composed by either of the classes were written using the computer, even though one to two computers were available in the classroom. This situation did not change appreciably in grade four; on average, only one out of two students wrote one paper using a computer that year. In grade five, about 25% of the portfolio entries were printed from a computer. Our observations revealed that in nearly all cases, these compositions were drafted first by hand, and then the final draft entered into the word processor. In 5U, the teacher entered all of the students' final drafts into a computer and printed them out at home. Parent volunteers assisted in 5W by typing final versions of students' stories.

In contrast, computers were widely used for writing in grade three at HAS. Every grade 3 student had at least one text in their folder that had been composed on the computer, although the pattern of computer use was not quite as strong in 3C as it was in 3B. In grade four, virtually all texts created in two of the three grade four classes were written on the computer. In the third class, 4E, students wrote about two thirds of their compositions by hand. In grade five, two of the three classes wrote all of their texts using word processing; in the third class, 5K, all texts were handwritten.

Length of Compositions

The average number of words per text at grade 3 was found to be approximately twice as high for one of the LAS classes (3M) relative to the other (3P). In comparison, very little variance was found in the average length of texts between the two HAS classes. By grade 4, the mean length of compositions was almost three times greater for the HAS classes as compared to the LAS controls--128 versus 46.3 words per text. The differences in text length across sites were largely maintained in grade five.

HAS

When students at HAS wrote with the computer, there appeared to be a positive attentional and motivational shift toward their work as compared to when they wrote by hand. Students focused more on the creative effort and were less prone to distraction. They would dash to a computer when given a chance to work there. They viewed it to some degree as a task "apart", a privileged time to work with high-tech "stuff" that was going to be important to them in the future. This phenomenon was observed in grade 3 and continued to be noted over the entire length of the study.

Throughout the three years, students almost universally employed a composing technique which may be loosely described by James Britton's term "shaping at the point of utterance" (Britton, 1982). This technique was adopted regardless of whether students were doing expository or creative writing, the two genres in which they wrote the most often. Typically, students would write a few sentences or words, then pause, backspace, alter text, and continue. Witness this segment taken from our field notes midway through the study of Martin (the low competency focal student at HAS discussed later) when he writes:

[Martin begins to type at 8:52 a.m.]

My best friend is Mike Smith we do alot together we have sleepovers

[Stops to change font to size 18, continues to type.]

we play BaskedBall and Sega Genesis

[Stops to put font back to original size 10 because he thought the letters were too big for the width of the page and the number of words he wanted to get on a page. Continues to type.]

we trade hockey cards, and Basball cards. Mike has black brown hair. We do school work together like math, spelling activid,

[Stops to correct spelling of "activities."]

and other stuff. Mike has a poncho I'm getting one to. Mike has long bangs that go to his chin

[Pauses to think about what to write next, changes font style, changes font back to his original font.]

[The teacher happens to come by to look at Martin's work. She asks, "What stuff? I have this thing about words like 'stuff' and 'nice'." Martin changes the text from "stuff" to "school activities."]

[It is now 9:06. Martin continues.]

And we play hockey and roller and ride bikes.

[Pauses and appears to think about what he is writing.] Mike is really helpful and cool.When I go over to Mikes we listent to muisec and watch

[Corrects spelling of "listen" and "music" with the spell checker.]

As can be seen, during this segment of just over 14 minutes, Martin composed, edited, responded to his teacher's comments, and altered his text's appearance (perhaps as a stalling tactic while he thought). Athough Martin was one of the weaker writers in the class, his style of writing is illustrative of the manner in which most students wrote. Very rarely were block movement of text observed during the first two years, even though students knew how to use this feature of the word processor. During the final year, block movements were observed more often, however they were still relatively uncommon. Also during the final year, there was less experimentation in altering text appearance.

When students worked at adjacent stations with friends, there was frequent collaboration of an informal type: checking each other's progress on the highly visible screens, offering evaluative comments and suggestions, or asking for assistance. The students seemed to be remarkably familiar with their classmate's stories. They elected to sit beside students from whom they wanted help when they were writing, or they would either call the desired partner over or go to their station to elicit their help. Witness two grade 4 boys who combined to share their enthusiasm for a product one of them developed:

Arnie: Hey Bob get this! Come here.

[Bob approaches and Arnie reads a part of the story to him.]

Bob: Awesome!

[Arnie and Bob read the story together on the screen. Arnie embellishes his story with clip art of a space shuttle. Bob returns to his chair.]

Another grade 4 girl summarized the feeling of her computer-using classmates their desire to share when she said:

We give ideas to each other all the time. It's fun. It's like partners, but not really. We all have to write our own story. We're allowed to give each other ideas. It's neat!

Thus the computer became more than just a writing tool; it was also a vehicle for facilitating the negotiation of collaboration on writing projects. Class relationships were clearly affected by the more public display of work that the computers afforded. There were less inhibitions in HAS classes as regards writing; at the same time, less attention was paid to getting perfect final drafts. Students seemed comfortable with and generally enjoyed sharing their screens and printed stories with others.

LAS

Over the three years of the study, both printed and cursive script were used by LAS students when drafting their compositions; final drafts were sometimes typed or word processed by the teacher or parent volunteers. Despite evident progress during the three-year period, certain students had clear difficulty in forming written letters and mastering penmanship, efforts which consumed much of their energy and time. It seems highly probable that this presented a serious impediment to their development of writing fluency.

The changes made by students between drafts of their work were minimal in all the LAS classes. What changes there were consisted largely of alterations in punctuation, spelling, and minor sentence reworking. With respect to narratives, no alterations in plot line or meaning would be found between drafts. Most editing was done by the teachers, although peer editing was also used in grade five. Evidence for this could be found in student writing folders--peer editors were required to initial the papers that they edited. Final drafts in grade five were typically printed or typed, although usually not by the student.

Formal collaboration among students at LAS occurred mainly for expository writing projects. Casual peer-to-peer assistance did not commonly happen. Observation indicated that students were far less likely to read others' work during the composing process, and there was less informal interaction about writing issues.

Grade 3

The teaching practices of the two grade three HAS teachers in the study were divergent with respect to drafting, editing, and writing evaluation. Comments on drafts in the 3C writing folders revealed the teacher's encouragement of re-drafting, but her remarks often focused on surface structure features such as punctuation rather than addressing the content or extending the students' information base. The teacher in 3B, on the other hand, rarely commented on student work.

In grade three at LAS, the teacher of 3P often praised work in written comments, but did not give many personal responses to the compositions of students. Although the teacher of 3M made both positive and negative comments, she did not pose any questions which would encourage students to elaborate. In essence, the comments made generally were similar to those reported by Searle and Dillon (1980). They tended to communicate the message that issues such as content and audience were not as important as issues such as correctness and form.

All teachers at both schools made use of group or partnered work at grade 3, but it was done informally and as appropriate occasions arose. The main motivation for group work around computers, particularly at HAS, appeared to be to give students more access time to the technology. It was not until grade 4 that more formal group patterns emerged.

Grade 4

The editing and evaluation practices and approaches to group work of the fourth grade teachers were more divergent than grade 3. At HAS, the teacher of 4F allowed students to work together if they wished, but set aside no particular time for composing. She engaged in very few editing conferences. The teacher in 4E, however, frequently responded to both the medium and message aspects of children's work with extended interest. She was very encouraging and positive in her interactions with students.

There was one exception to the pattern of collaboration in classes at HAS. When difficulties arose as a matter of computer/software technical expertise, the teachers expected that students would help each other regardless of grouping pattern. Indeed, some students who had particular expertise in the software program being used were sometimes considered, by teacher and students alike, as a better avenue for help than the teacher herself.

At LAS the fourth grade teachers showed less difference in their editing and evaluative methods. The teacher of 4S would initial journal entries after reading them, and would include a few words of praise in some and respond to the content in others. In the second class the teacher usually limited his response to writing to one or two words (e.g., "good work") although the content was occasionally addressed.

Group work at HAS became highly routine. Students knew, when they came into the classrooms, what the expected routine was and did not have to be reminded of it. In class 4B at HAS, the roles of team members were not pre-specified by the teacher; whereas, in class 4F, not only were the roles specified but one member of a team had to be from third grade (this was a grade 3/4 split class). The group work that was conducted usually involved two to three students entering research findings into a computer. The control over the computer was manifested in a variety of ways--students might take turns at data entry, one student (because of their better keyboarding skills) might enter data while another was the reader and the third made suggestions here and there. In class 4F, even though students could collaborate, they each had to produce their own product.

At LAS, the students were seated in groups of four to six; however, this did not mean that they were always working as a group. What typically occurred was that the teacher defined the roles and responsibilities of the students for group work. In this respect, these classes were somewhat like class 4F at HAS.

Grade 5

In grade five, editing conferences were common at both sites in all classes but 5K at HAS. The four other grade five teachers incorporated these conferences into a process writing model. They required students to work through two drafts of their compositions, and then to conference with a writing partner who would edit the second draft. Typically the partner was self-selected, although occasionally the teacher of 5E was observed to assign partners. Once these changes had been made, the student would then conference with the teacher for further editing work before writing or printing the final version of their composition. A very limited amount of peer editing was observed in 5K.

Teacher editing conferences might be either scheduled or spontaneous. All of the teachers (with the exception of the 5K teacher) modeled for students both the moving of text in the work, and the resolution of confusing semantics and structure. The majority of teacher time was spent editing for spelling, syntax, and surface structure, but more substantive revisions were also made on a regular basis. The extent to which revision was addressed in these conferences fell short of what most process writing advocates (e.g., Graves, 1983) would consider optimal, however. At HAS, the two teachers who made extensive use of the narrative form in writing assignments stressed the importance of getting ideas down "on paper" (meaning really "into the computer") before focusing on editing. One important consequence was the production by some students of stories of highly unusual length (between 1000 and 4000 words, as compared to LAS story lengths of 300 to 800 words). Neither of these teachers assigned specific writing times; students could work on stories whenever they had the time. Because of the size of student narratives, the two HAS teachers gave students extended due dates often running to two months. Verbal reminders to "spell check" drafts were regularly expressed.

It seemed to be less laborious for the HAS teachers to conference with students during the writing time because the computers kept most students occupied, reducing classroom disruptions. When a teacher was holding a conference with a student at a computer and other students needed help, they would usually go and get a peer to help them instead of interrupting the teacher.

Students at LAS in grade five had to write at least two drafts of a composition, choosing the better version for peer editing. This draft was then edited by the teacher. The teachers were attentive, communicated regularly with students as they wrote, and were directive in their teaching. In both classes, the teachers were fastidious about all levels of revisions. Much teacher-directed time was spent by students on global revisions such as paragraphing. Spelling was thoroughly checked as well. It was not uncommon to see five drafts of a piece of writing included in the folders of one group where spelling, punctuation, sentences, and global changes were meticulously marked. The responsibility for ensuring revision was carried out was assumed by the teacher to a much greater degree than at HAS.

At the grade five level at HAS, working with a partner was a common practice when students were doing expository writing. The patterns of interaction observed were similar to those seen in grade four. Student composition in genres other than expository was nearly always an individual endeavor. In the two grade five classes at LAS, there was less group or partnered writing activity overall, as there was less expository composition by students.

As mentioned earlier, three students representing "low," "medium," and "high" writing competency were selected from both schools in grade 3 for in-depth study over the course of the research. The HAS students were given the pseudonyms Martin, Julie, and Anne, who represented low, medium, and high competency respectively. The corresponding LAS students were Rex, Arnold, and Colleen. For each student, a representative text from each of the three years of the study is presented in the Appendix to provide a sense of student progress at each level of initial competence. Their scores on the holistic writing assessments for the three years of the research are noted in Table 4.

Each year of the study revealed some growth for each of the focal students. In the low-rated pair of students, Martin (at HAS) went from very sparse texts to considerably lengthier ones. (One text in grade 5 had 1135 words.) All of Martin's texts were written using the computer. He struggled with audience a little throughout the three years, perhaps assuming too much of it. His spelling moved from 90 to 95% conventional in the first year, to 89% in the second year and to 98% conventional in the third year. This move towards spelling conventionality was also accompanied by increased diversity in vocabulary. In contrast, Rex, at LAS, was a relatively strong speller from the outset, with 98% of his words spelled conventionally. Rex's first year texts were constrained by the curriculum and were written simply. In the second year of the study, half of Rex's folder contained journal entries. For some texts, Rex wrote a draft and final copy. Rex's third year of stories retained a loose coherence and had no spelling errors. All of Rex's texts, like those of the rest of his peers at LAS, were written by hand.

Turning to the average-rated students, Julie (at HAS) used the computer from the first year of the study onward, employing graphics occasionally to embellish her text. From the start, Julie's degree of conventionality in spelling was 98%, a level below which she did not drop for the remainder of the study. Her spelling errors tended to be ones which were not "catchable" by using a spellchecker (e.g., "their" and "there"). Her texts were uneven in content in the first year of the study. Her second year texts included one research report in which Julie heavily relied on research text language; while her other texts were more typical of the language of her age group. By the third year of the study, Julie was writing lengthy texts which were characterized by temporal coherence; however, Julie still needed to develop more thematic coherence. Although Julie exhibited some signs of improvement in the surface features of her writing, her relatively lackluster progress over the three years was not typical of medium level competency students in her school. Most students in her category at HAS made substantial gains averaging 2.69 points when their medium and message scores were combined.

At LAS, Arnold's writing included many sports items. Like Julie, Arnold's spelling remained above the 98% level for conventionality. In his first year his texts were characterized by relatively ordinary vocabulary. By the second year, Arnold did more characterization in his texts and his sentences became varied. By the third year, Arnold had developed all the major elements of the story. His episodic structure was solid; but Arnold still needed to work on "fleshing-out" the kernel of his stories. Arnold was typical of the students at his school who started the study with medium level writing scores. He showed no gains in combined point scores over the three years of the study.

The high-rated writer at HAS, Anne, revealed the unique aspects to her writing even in the first year of the study. She wrote both on and off the computer for the first year of the study and experimented with different fonts. Two of her texts, entitled "Goldy" and "Water Purification" demonstrated that even in third grade, Anne was aware of literary devices that authors use in writing. Anne's spelling was 97% correct in the first year and her punctuation was advanced for third grade. For the second year of the study, Anne's folder was not quite as impressive as that of the first year in that the curriculum shaped her texts. Anne generated poems which retained some of the insights she demonstrated in Year 1; however, she wrote a somewhat typical biography of her friend. A newsletter she wrote demonstrated insights into newspaper reporting style. Anne's texts for fifth grade were very lengthy and complex. Once again she rose to a literary standard in a very complex text which was the lengthiest of any reviewed (3860 words). She was typical of her group of seven high competence students at the HAS as she retained the same ratings or varied by one point over the duration of the study.

Colleen, the high competency student at LAS, started the first year of the study with many texts which were characterized by a television frame since she inserted commercials into them. She introduced characters and settings and was made frequent use of paragraphs. The spelling was 95% conventional. One feature that was unique to her writing was the inclusion of envelopes and file folders with her text that she used to involve the reader. In the second year of the study, Colleen's poetry was generally conventional in its form. She wrote short texts but these were much more cohesive than those in the previous year. Colleen demonstrated a playfulness with the language in some of her texts. By fifth grade, Colleen was using description to heighten suspense. She developed characters and played with their names as part of her text. She also toyed with the reader by keeping her text on the margins of believability even though it was a fictional work. Colleen's spelling, punctuation, and capitalization were conventional.

Colleen was not typical of her competency group at LAS as she pulled forward of her peers. Of twenty students rated high competency in her school, only she one made a gain of three points in her combined rating. Others remained about the same or lost ground.

Our study found that HAS students, who had ready access to computers and made use of them for much of their composition, demonstrated considerably greater growth in writing competency than the LAS students, who made little or no use of word processing. Both the message score (a measure of the meaning and content quality) and the medium score (a measure of the quality of the form and surface features of the writing) rose significantly at HAS over the three years of the study, whereas the average scores at LAS actually declined to some degree.

Of interest to us is the extent to which the use of computers contributed to the observed differences in writing quality. In a study of this type, there is always the possibility that a wide range of potentially confounding factors might offer a partial or complete explanation for these results. These alternative explanations must be plausibly discounted before any observed improvements in writing can be attributed to the use of word processing technology (or any attribute thereof). In our study, these factors include differences in student characteristics, classroom settings, teaching strategies and work practices, and the possibility of a novelty or Hawthorne effect (Borg & Gall, 1983) at HAS. Our analysis of these factors, summarized below, suggest that none appear to be likely alternative explanations for the observed differences between HAS and LAS.

Student Characteristics and Classroom Settings

Both sites used in the study had similar student populations. The schools were both situated in middle class neighborhoods in recently constructed suburbs of a town on the fringes of a large metropolitan area. The ethnic mix at both sites was similar. All classes used clustered desk groupings and were similar in layout. During the first two years, HAS students did most of their writing in one of two "creative applications" rooms across the hall from their home room. This room had a table arrangement similar to LAS. The remainder of HAS students' writing was done in clusters in their home rooms. In grade five, the HAS students did their word processing in their home rooms, again with clustered seat groupings.

Teaching Strategies and Work Practices

Writing Instruction and Prewriting Activities. In the grade three classes all of the teachers tended to have brainstorming discussions before students began to write. Story starters were another commonly used technique. In grade four, one of the three teachers at HAS taught a word webbing technique for developing ideas as well as a brainstorming process. This teacher would discuss the topic at some length prior to the commencement of writing. All teachers at both sites exposed students to models of writing in different genres via readings. The two teachers at LAS taught poetry forms. No other writing instruction was observed at the grade four level. In grade five, lessons on narrative character development and the use of action verbs were led by two of the three HAS teachers. Categorical frames were sometimes used by students to organize research notes or narrative ideas to aid planning and drafting. At LAS, the two grade five teachers focused on teaching basic writing skills, emphasizing mechanics and form and the procedural steps of the writing process (prewriting/planning, drafting, and editing). They did provide some instruction in brainstorming and dealt briefly with character development and the use of action verbs in narratives. With the exception, then, of the one grade four class at HAS, the differences in the teaching of writing at the two sites appeared minor.

Topic assignment. There was a great deal of variability amongst teachers in the degree to which they dictated the genre and topic choice for writing assignments. Only in grade four was there any real distinction between the two sites on this dimension. Both LAS teachers were quite directive in assigning specific topics to students; this was true of only one of the three HAS teachers. However, a second HAS teacher did tell students the genre in which they were to work. When students chose their own topics for narrative writing, similar themes were addressed in all classes, with boys, for example, choosing to write frequently about sports events.

Writing Partnerships. At HAS, all teachers made partnered work an option for nearly all expository writing assignments; however, most students would choose to work with a friend. One of the grade four teachers would assign specific students to work together, and would often specify what role each should play (i.e., who should be using the keyboard). This was due of the special nature of the class; being a split grade 3/4 student grouping, the teacher wished to pair grade three and grade four students together. In this class, unlike the others, each student had to produce their own document even though they were collaborating in their research. Sometimes three students would work together on research projects in the other two classes.

At LAS, small group work was also widely used for expository writing projects. In both LAS classes the roles and responsibilities of each student in project work were assigned by the teacher. Because partnering was used almost exclusively for expository writing, and less writing of this type was done at the LAS site in grades four and five than at the HAS site, less collaborative composition overall was done at LAS. As most writing done with partners at HAS and LAS consisted largely of the transcription (with minor changes and embellishments) of handwritten notes taken from texts and library materials, it seems unlikely that these minor differences in the amount of partnering would have any significant impact on writing quality.

Teacher Editing Practices. In grade three, teachers at both sites addressed only the surface features and form of the writing in their editing comments on children's work. In the second year (grade four), one of the HAS teachers engaged in a considerable amount of editing interaction with students, and responded to both the medium and message aspects of their work when in conference. The other HAS teachers did little editing, focusing only on surface features of grammar, sensemaking, and spelling. Editing for superficial form also predominated at the LAS site in grade four. Content was only occasionally considered.

When the students were in grade five, all of the teachers with the exception of the one in 5K engaged in regular editing conferences with students. At HAS, students were expected to first spellcheck and edit their drafts and then have a peer edit their work before bringing it to the teacher for conferencing. Because most work was drafted directly on the computer in grades four and five, the teacher would typically conference with the student at the computer rather than working on a printed version of the composition. The conferences would deal with both surface and deeper level editing tasks, including the block movement of text segments and the resolution of coherence problems. The main distinction between the teachers' editing practices at HAS and LAS is that at the latter site the teachers were more directive in their editing strategies, assuming a more direct role in the preparation of the final drafts and being very fastidious about all levels of revision in the work. Because of greater teacher input in the creation of the final piece, one might surmise that this work would be rated higher than work done at HAS without such assistance. There is certainly no reason to believe that variance in teachers' editing practices across sites are a significant determinant of the group differences found, as only one teacher in grade four showed any substantial diversion from the practices common to all the other classes in any given year.

Peer Editing Practices and Student Interactions. Peer editing nearly always took the form of proofreading for surface features and sensemaking at the sentence level. Very little attention was ever given to meaning level revision. With the introduction of the PowerBook computers in 4B toward the end of the year, students began to edit their peers' work more closely, making more sentence level changes, but there was still little in the way of meaningful revision of a deeper type. Peer editing was a common practice at both sites; its similar form at each suggests that it played no role in promoting the different rates of measured writing improvement.

The interactions among students during periods of writing were considerably different across sites. Children working on computers engaged in far more informal contacts with their neighbors, offering and receiving advice and suggestions in response to queries about how to use a software feature, or sharing unsolicited comments about each other's writing. These differences may indeed have had an indirect impact on the quality of student writing by heightening student interest in their work as a consequence of its public display. However because observation indicated that the difference in interactional patterns arose as an artifact of the screen display, it does not constitute an explanation for writing improvement that competes with the hypothesis that it is the use of the technology itself which aids writing development. Rather, the change in social interaction is a mediating factor between the technology and the writing that arises entirely as a consequence of the use of the technology.

Writing Audience and Publication. Nearly all of the student writing at both sites had but one intended audience--the teacher. Some classes did engage in letter writing activities but these were found to occur equally in both sites. At HAS, some of the printed compositions would be placed in an obscure section of the library, uncatalogued and rarely noticed by anyone. Some works were displayed on walls in traditional fashion at both sites. Most student compositions in grade five at LAS were either typed up or entered into a computer and printed by adults.

Writing Quantity and Genre. The only clear distinctions between the two sites with regards to genre was that HAS students wrote considerably more expository texts and fewer fictional texts than students at LAS. It seems highly improbable that this distinction accounted for any of the measured differences in writing quality, however. Most of the expository works written at HAS consisted of research papers that were little more than embellished reconstitutions of reference texts from point form notes. Writing of this type would be less likely to foster improvement in composition quality than wholly original efforts in other genres.

As to the greater length of the HAS texts in grades four and five, there can be little argument that a greater quantity of writing practice will assist in the development of a more mature writing style under certain circumstances. But here again we are dealing with a text attribute that is more likely a consequence of word processing rather than a competing explanatory factor.

Hawthorne Effects

The introduction of any new technology into the classroom has the potential of making those who have access to it feel special and privileged, especially when that technology is expensive and rare. These conditions can in some instances generate a Hawthorne effect. While such a potential existed at HAS, there are reasons to believe that any Hawthorne effect was minimal. Extended observation revealed that while students were generally enthusiastic about working at computers, they were quickly incorporated into their everyday world. The ordinariness of their use was brought into bold relief in the presence of visitors from off campus, in front of whom most students would make an attempt to "put on a good show for the tourists". Their behavior at these times became more sharply focused on using the computers' various features, and interactions with peers stopped nearly entirely. Away from outsiders, their patterns of work with the machines was clearly more relaxed and reflected less awe of the hardware.

Another reason for discounting the plausibility of a Hawthorne effect lies in the fact that as all of the other students in the school had similar access to computers, there was no relevant group compared to which these students could feel special. Their friends and siblings all had the same advantages, thus leveling the psychological playing field. Additionally, the HAS students were not aware that their work was being compared to that at another school, eliminating another potential Hawthorne contaminant.

Finally, if the Hawthorne effect were indeed in operation, one might reasonably expect to find some form of extinction of that response over the prolonged three year study period. Artificial inducements to greater effort on the part of children that offer only subtle psychological payoffs are not likely to maintain their effects for long. Writing scores might jump between the first two years of the study and then level off or even descend again as the Hawthorne effects wear off. But the data tell a different story: the mean scores on both scales increased by as much or more between years two and three as they did between the first two years of the study.

Thus in the absence of any plausible alternative hypothesis, word processing, as used at HAS, appears to have had a significant and beneficial impact on writing quality. There still remains, however, the theoretically important question of what attribute or combination of attributes of the word processing environment "made the difference" at the site.

Our observations at both sites suggest that writing with the word processor can be distinguished from writing with traditional writing media in several ways. They include the relative legibility of text displayed on the monitor; the amount of text available for viewing at one time; the relative level of ease of entering new text anywhere into the document and changing, moving, or deleting old text; the different motor skills required for keyboarding as opposed to writing; the ease with which document appearance can be set and altered; the relative availability of on-line aids such as spell checking; and the public nature of the text display. Although our research is not able to discern the relative contribution of each, the way children at HAS responded to and made use of these attributes appears to explain the observed differences in writing products between the two sites.

The most immediately noticeable feature of word processing is the high legibility of the text display, especially relative to younger students' handwriting. Less obvious, but also important, the typical monitor can display considerably more text at one time than a child would be able to print or write on one normal sized notebook page--usually the equivalent of two to four pages. These two elements allowed students to view larger amounts of their composition simultaneously and to read their text with much greater ease and speed than was the case with handwritten work. Students, being immature writers, have a greater need to be able to review periodically their articulated text, as they are not as capable as adults of working from a mental model of the overall text structure in shaping their utterances. For young students, the review of several pages of messy script can appear to be so daunting as to prevent its undertaking. In the absence of a refreshed understanding of the shape and direction of the text, subsequent writing is more likely to reduce the line and cohesiveness of the composition.

Observations indicated that the relative ease of text review on a display screen encouraged re-reading, providing a cognitive continuity that allowed students to keep the action in their stories focused until an effect or emotion was created. Students could more readily keep a view of the whole while dealing with the part. This promoted a cognitive de-centering from the immediacy of the point of utterance that helped them employ literary schemas for writing with more success. Thus many computer-using writers were by grade five evincing an ability to bring to bear the appropriate models to produce desired effects, creating dense text with well connected encounters and convincing events in a manageable story line.

The high legibility of the text also made errors and deficiencies in the writing more likely to be noticed because of the greater tendency to scan the screen as opposed to handwritten work. Students were thus provided with much faster feedback about their mistakes, and they seemed more willing to correct errors they had recently created than problems found later on a printed page. When combined with the ease of use of the text editing tools provided in ClarisWorks for the Macintosh, the reviewing of text was seen to promote a considerable degree of on-the-fly editing just at or shortly after the point of utterance, a phenomenon noted in other studies (Owston, Murphy, & Wideman, 1992). The removal of the impediments to revision that are characteristic of writing with paper and pencil seemed to spark an explosion of this form of editing. Students would rarely complete a single sentence before they would return to a word to correct a spelling, change a verb, or rework a phrase. These edits were nearly always at a localized surface level. As Klonoski (1994) has noted, this form of revision is often scoffed at, but editing for local fluency is an important part of any serious composing. It may be that computer-based writing even for expert writers involves less macrostructural revision and a more pliant, evolving text than is typical of handwritten work (Lutz, 1987). However as students moved through grade five more of them were perceived to make substantive changes in the content and organization of their narrative stories at the computer, including the movement of blocks of text. Editing at this level without a teacher present was very rarely seen at LAS. The organization and re-organization of draft ideas, notes, and sentences, excruciatingly onerous when done with paper and pen, became relatively effortless, and by grade five certain students could be observed sorting and shifting meaningful units of text around in what could be characterized as an informal planning process that flowed into drafting.

The high degree of computer text legibility, both on-screen and in printed form, had a more subtle psychological effect. Students using computers demonstrated a much greater willingness to allow neighbors and others to view their work than was typical at LAS. They would often call others over to look at their work, and frequently their expressions revealed a high level of satisfaction in such sharing. Informal collaboration, involving the give and take of suggestions and evaluative comments, was commonplace. By avoiding the social stigma and any personal sense of inadequacy associated with messy, childish handwritten script and presenting text in a pleasing way, the use of word processing appeared to leave students freer to take pride in their work and reduced their inhibitions about sharing it with others. No longer could their efforts be immediately identified as that of a child by appearance alone. There is little doubt that the "adult" appearance of their text empowered students with a rewarding sense of being competent and "in control". Computer use in general provided these students with a rare opportunity to experience being in control of a sophisticated "adult" tool. The sense of accomplishment engendered in students seemed to foster more effort at the keyboard, which in all likelihood contributed to the greater improvement in their writing as compared to that of the LAS students. It is also possible that the relatively objective and impersonal look of computer text may elicit a distanced point of view on the part of the student towards his or her own writing, a view in which the writer sees him or herself as just one of many readers and so writes with a greater expectation of an audience. Developing a sense of audience has long been known to play an important part in learning to write (Graves, 1983).

The use of a "personal" computer offered students a means of personalizing their work that could only be accomplished by hand with considerable difficulty. They could choose from a broad range of text fonts, styles, and sizes, as well as hundreds of clip art objects that they could use to illustrate their work. Nearly all students took advantage of these features, and their interactions indicated that these customizations of their work were a source of pride. Many students also appeared to enjoy a sense of control that making these changes generated, independent of the final effects on their document, for these children would spend considerable time making repeated changes in the document's layout and text characteristics. Students also appreciated the ease with which spelling checkers allowed them to rid their work of embarrassing gaffes. While they sometimes needed to be reminded of the requirement for their use, they offered little resistance to it and frequently initiated spell checking on their own.

A simple but important feature of word processing is the ease with which text can be entered. Although these students were far from being touch typists, and keying may have taken as much time as writing by hand for some students (especially in grade three), the search-and-peck procedure was clearly preferred to hand drafting. Several students who were having difficulty with penmanship showed a dramatic improvement in the quality of their compositions after using computers for a year. The facility with which writing can be entered, read, and edited on the computer, along with the ability to bypass any messy looking text display, goes a long way to explaining the greater length of student narratives in grades four and five amongst those using computers at HAS. The work of Anne, the high competency student at HAS, illustrates clearly the relatively unimpeded flow of writing that word processing can foster under the right circumstances and with a suitably prepared student. Even limited and adequate writers demonstrated increasing flow which led them to a better ability to structure a story. The length and depth of many of the students' computer-written narratives bears testimony to the ability of the computer to facilitate persistence in writing and the confidence to undertake complex structures.

This study compared the writing of two groups of students over three years beginning in grade 3: one group made daily, habitual use of the word processor, the other made little or no use of the tool. Our observations suggested that only minor differences in students characteristics, classroom settings, and teachers' strategies and work practices existed. Yet, at the end of the study period, the quality of the writing students produced at the high access site was superior in both its deeper structure and surface features.

In the absence of any plausible competing explanations, we concluded that the use of the word processor contributed to the increased quality of student written products at HAS. The elements of the word processor that explain these differences appeared to be a combination of the unique ways text is created, displayed, and manipulated on the computer. Further study is needed to delineate the relative contributions of these attributes to changes in writing process and outcomes.

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Holistic Writing Scores on Message Scale by Site and Year

		HAS				LAS
Year	Mean		St. Dev		Mean		St. Dev
One	3.50		1.23		4.05		1.43
Two	3.76		0.96		4.38		0.95
Three	4.38		.85		3.94		1.35

Table 2

Holistic Writing Scores on Medium Scale by Site and Year

		HAS				LAS
Year	Mean		St. Dev		Mean		St. Dev
One	3.60		1.11		4.11		1.03
Two	4.00		0.92		4.24		0.89
Three	4.38		0.99		4.00		1.14

Table 3

Mean Number, Medium, and Length Of Texts by Class

Class	Number of students	Mean no. of texts per student	Mean no. of on-computer texts	Mean no. of off-computer texts	Mean no. of words per text
Grade 3
LAS
3M	21	18.7	0	18.7	136.6
3P	17	11.3	0	11.3	65.9
Average	19	15	0	15	101.3
HAS
3C	16	8.8	4.3	4.5	82.0
3B	18	5.7	5.1	0.3	75.5
Average	17	7.3	4.7	2.4	78.8
Grade 4
LAS
4S	22	18.9	0	18.9	57.9
4T	16	90.3	0.9	89.4	34.6
Average	19	54.6	0.5	54.2	46.3
HAS
4E	9	9.7	3.1	6.6	125.8
4B	18	5.0	4.8	0.2	153.8
4F	7	6.0	5.7	0.3	104.3
Average	11.3	6.9	4.5	2.4	128.0
Grade 5
LAS
5U	17	18.8	3.6	15.2	182.9
5W	21	6.3	1.4	4.9	193.5
Average	19	12.6	2.5	10.1	188.2
HAS
5E	17	4.2	4.1	0.1	240.0
5B	8	9.0	9.0	0	490.4
5K	9	14.4	0	14.4	167.9
Average	11.3	9.2	4.4	5.1	299.4

Table 4

Holistic Scores for Focal Students

	Year 1				Year 2				Year 3
Student	Message	Medium		Message		Medium		Message		Medium
HAS
Anne (high)	6	5		6		6		6		6
Julie (med.)	4	4		4		4		4		4
Martin (low)	2	2		3		2		3		4
LAS
Colleen (high)	5	4		5		5		6		6
Arnold (med.)	4	5		5		5		4		5
Rex (low)	3	4		3		3		3		4

Author Note

All names of persons described in this article are pseudonyms. The authors wish to thank Sharon Murphy, Peter Rothe, and Reta Smith for their assistance with various aspects of this research.

Grade 3

There's A whale and ha's in jail and he has to get bailed with a pail. He's in jail and

his baby whale has to bail him out with a pail......STOP Whale Time OH.OH.OH OH.

OH.OH OH.....STOP collaborate and lisson whales back with the bran new

Advention.....STOP Whale TIME OH. OH.OH OH. OH.OH.OH OH Spray that

funky music...spray that funky music..Fluk to fluk the oean's packed..ssspray

That funky music!!!!

Grade 4

I

wonder why Junk food is so popular?

I bet every one in this room has ate junk

today.

The advertizing on camershals there so

exciting interesting loud and have brite

colours.

For instans on a Hoastas Patato Chip

camershal how its so brite colourful

exciting.They go to Dillpikle curcus and sour

cream and onion festival etc,etc.

Or on a BUTTER FINGER camershal when Bart Simsons in

the lunch room and he says: Nobody lays a finger on

my Butter Finger!

Or an other thing junk tasts good!

There not boaring square and round there wierd shaps

different coulors. There there shaped as different

objects. Like Monkeys or, Feet etc, etc.

I think junk food is so popular because theres lots of

shuger in it? And lots of people eat it because it tasts

good!

I wonder why people like to buy it?

Maybe because they like the package, Or because it tasts

good. Or maybe people just like buying it for the fun of

it. Some kids like to buy it because they like to play with

it and they eat it

I bet people buy it because they like the tast of JUNK

FOOD. I like Junk Food for the tast, and the package.

Some times I go out to the corner store and buy some

candy and I play with it and my mom says not to play

with my food!

O.K Thats the end of my speach and I hope you dont fill up on junk food that much

Grade 5

Except for a window the room is darkened. I feel alone and hungry. Mildew is in the air I breath. Again, I begin to think of being held captive. From the window I see a shimmering... Purple alien and he said, Hi Jim do you want to be my friend! Oh sure but first take this BOOM! Jim hit Grendel in the head with a basketball and falls out the window and screams ahhhhhhhh each! Jim grabbed his bike and scooted off into the darkness.... Grendel got into his space ship and blasted off after Jim. When Grendel was in the space ship his Baby Libya said Hi daddy And Libya said Daddy daddy look out. there was a cat on a fence, Libya said, What is it I don't know said Grendle, HASTE LA VISTA BABY! BOOM! It's dead daddy it's dead. HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Jim saw the blown up cat and said cool! Jim biked by his friends hones a2nd his friend said" I SEEN EM"Seen who said Jim t-them Who's them the aliens Oh them! I SEEN EM TO there after me Look out Jim here they come See you later Adam see you Jim good luck!

Jim road his bike to a corner store and all of a sudden he heard a racket out side all of a sudden he saw a humungous space ship and it flew out the other side. Jim saw the big creature climb out of he space ship he started to run but the Grendel kept up with him Grendel grabbed Jim and Jim said who are you I am Grendel. Grendel brought Jim into the space ship Grendel chained Jim up . Grendel hung the key not far away from the chamber. Jim had some string and a paper clip he tide the string to the paper clip and threw it to the keys ,Aw man I missed Grendel said, What are you doing you stupid kid! Nothing! Then shut up! Jim tried again yes! Jim said in a whisper. When Jim got the keys he pulled them off very slowly they landed the space ship and Jim quickly grabbed the keys and un locked the chains and when Grendel opened the doors Jim ran out but when he reached his house he was there and I walked up to him he was gone and I saw Adams dead body on the ground Jim said noooooooooooooooooooooooo! Jim turned around and there was Grendel Jim said you scum sucking alien you killed my best friend. And Grendel disappeared into the darkness .And Jim started crying......

On friday he went to Adams funeral very very upset and he had know idea were that alien was and "I'm glad, but if he shows up I'm ready he said",Jim pulled a bee-bee gun out of his pocket. They drove down to a cemetery down on eighth line it was an open casket funeral all he saw was his best friends body He wanted to say good bye but he couldn 't when he was saying a prayer he looked up and saw his body disapeer and then he saw Grendel and "he said look everybody there's an alien" they said its just the minister they couldn't see him so Grendel must have possessed the minister so he took out his bee-bee gun and shot him right in the heart and Then they could see Grendel.

When they saw Grendel they all ran and drove off though did he know that Grendel was on the top of the car when we got home he jumped from the top of the car and Jim said run mom,Jim ran into his house ran up stairs and locked the the door to his room Jim wiped the sweat off his head and sighed of relief and all of a sudden there was a smash the window broke but nobody was there.......

Then behind Jim there was Grendel, Grendel "said, lets see you take on my baby Lobo" Jim "said OK unless you want to see your baby get his but kicked" Go fight him Lobo" OK daddy" Lobo took out a knife come on Lobo lets fight fare and square, ok in two seconds Jim wiped Lobo out the window and he landed in the mail box Grendel "said, your dead" Grendel jumped up and disappeared But a laser was left laying on the ground and Grendel was behind Jim so Jim picked up the laser and Grendel slashed Jim on the leg and Jim screaming in pain and "said, say bye bye" and Jim shot him with the laser~and he "said, ill be back" and shot Jim with a transalizer dart and Jim fell asleep and Grendel was dead, for now..........

Four years later Jim and his mom and dad moved to California and they were Painting there house and his dad said "please get the paint" so Jim went down stairs and got the paint and when he was coming back up the stairs he saw the alien again he said "I must be having a nightmare I killed that alien" But he wasn't dreaming it was real and then Grendel said "I TOLD YOU l'D BE BACK"..........

Jim was playing basketball with Paul and their friends in California . Then Jim said "hey Paul lets go to my house" and when they got there they went up to Jims room and played Nintendo then Jim heard a noise and said" Oh I hop he's not here," and Paul said "who?" Jim said "There's this alien that chased me all around town in Oakville so that is why we moved to California". Paul said" that happend to me to". And then Jim and Paul heard a big BANG! And Jim and Paul got scared and said" Lets go down stairs" said Jim in the basement" said Paul so they did and when they got down there there was Grendle and his friend Broxlom and they grabed Jim and Paul and they jumped down a hole and we were all gone......

Grade 3

Wednesday April 3, 1991

When I was swimming it was okay,

There was not very much chlorine though

The people in my group were Jeff,

Jay, Andy Tom Allison, Bryan

Peter's Dad cam to help.

Grade 4

Rubber band O One day Rubber band was flying

over the city.He is from the planet Zar dip. On his planet

he had meutagen poured on him.

Bad guys were in the city and hijacking a tank truck .In it

was the word's bigest gem, and he had to get it back.

The bad guys went after Rubber

band o in a plane. It was shooting at him . He was

flying fast .

Rubber band o got away. He got

bigger and bigger, He knew what was in the tank truck and

he had to get it back.

He saw the and went after it. Down

and down he went untill he got to the tank truck .

He ripped it open and got the gem

And he flew away. The world is safe now thanks

To

RUBBER BAND O

THE END

Grade 5

SNOW BROTHERS

Once, not so long ago, this may have happened.

"Look Migeo" called Linquine, "look at the headlines in the Snowboy Magazine. They said 'ICE PRINCESS KIDNAPPED BY SUN GOD!'." We have to save her" said Migeo. "But the Sun God lives in Skyland, we would have to cross Ice Land". So off they went. They did not know that the Sun God had an army waiting. The first guard they ran in to was Grogg. Now Grogg is 3' 2"", red and green but chubby and he threw the hardest lightning bolts ever. They fought Grogg and Grogg fought back. Finally they froze him after 20 snow balls.

The next creature they met was Wallaroo. Wallaroo is brown, part walrus and part kangaroo with fearsome fangs. So Wallaroo was stronger After a long time of fighting they won. They continued to travel to the Sun God's Palace fighting and freezing various creatures leaving a forest of frozen bodies.

At the palace gates they met Cyrone the Armadillo. Because the Sun God's Palace is in Skyland you have to have a hot air balloon to get into the palace. Cyrone blows up the balloons and Wimble the spider gives out the string but Wimble doesn't like his job. He said to Migeo"I'll do anything to get out of here. Will you take me with you when you go?" "Anything?" said Migeo. "Anything!" said Wimble. "OK! Will you go to the dungeon and tell the Princess we are coming to save her". So off Wimble went.

Meanwhile, Migeo took both balloons and started on his way up. When he got to the dungeon the Princess was waiting for him. She jumped in to his arms and they started on their way down. As soon as they hit the ground off they went. Wimble was waiting at the edge of Skyland and Ice Land. As soon as they were in Ice Land they walked home.

THE END

Grade 3

Hi My name is Julie, I am a 8 year old girl. How old are you?

And are you a girl or a boy? I like to collect buttons and stickers.

Do you like to collect anything? What is your name?

What is your favourite colour? My favourite colour is blue.

I like to dance. Do you like to dance? I was born 1982 October 4

When were you born? What do you like to do in spare time?

I like to write letters and make art things in my spare time.

What is your favourite sport and game? My favourite sport is

basketball and my favourite game is Nintendo.I go to

[HAS] and my teachers name is [Miss Teacher].

What is your school names and what is your teachers name?

Do you like your teacher? Because I like my teacher.

Do you have any friends? Because I have lots of friends.

Would you like to be my friend? I like animal's do you like animals.

From Your: Julie

Grade 4

My Best Friend

My friend Adonia has dark brown hair and dark skin and is very very

very pretty and she has braces.She makes you laugh when ever you are

sad especially me.

Adonia is a very funny person and she always makes everyone laugh.

Adonia loves pulling pony tails,and she is a very creative person I like

that.Adonia loves to play on the key board,and she loves to tell lots of

jokes,and she likes being a crazy person expecially.Adonia likes to play

basketball and swimming and loves to bug people.Adonia likes school

and she likes to read really interesting books like novels.Adonia loves t

o run she runs really fast in short distance and she runs pretty good

for long distance.The things that we have in common are we are both

fast runners,both creative,both like swimming,both like bugging each

other, both like playing basketball,and we both like playing with each

other at recess.

Grade 5

We were going up to the planet Mercury and this black bumpy moon was right in front of us and we were trying to put on the breaks when it started making this squeaking sound but the breaks wouldn't move so ffinally we got it and it broke. We were heading for the bumpy moon and we crashed. Luckly nobody got hurt but when we looked out the porthole we saw these little aliens and critters. Ahh!

After everybody had calmed down we decided that one person should get out of the spaceship and try and see where we were. So we had to pull strings to see who be the person to go and see where we were and it ended up to be me so I went outside and I found that the aliens were coming for me and I ended up banging on the spaceship but they wouldn't let me in so I gave the mega big gigantic alien a chocolate bar that I had left in my pocket since three days agc it was all smushed but that was the only thing I had left, so I gave it to him and he grew around five metres. Then I asked him what his name was and he said his name was Crepi then he said he wanted more chocolate. Then I said I don't have anymore chocolate bars then he stamped his foot on the ground and Crepi shook the whole entire city in Mercury and especially the Alien Inn. After the big alien was just about to go to his cave in the planet Uranus the owner of the Alien Inn said you crashed our whole entire hotel so you must charge for that so the big monster did end up paying the Alien Inn Hotel after Crepi had paid he stamped all the way home and when he had gotten home his mother Pep started screaming at him because he was stamping home and he used up all his money on the Alien Inn Hotel.

When he got home and finally got his mother Pep to quiet down Crepi told his mother how he had to use all his money up for the Alien Inn Hotel. Anyway the only reason why people like Pep is because she's very nice and she always gives people money especially the poor people that live on the same planet as them. Anyway enough about the aliens, when I started walking around the planet I had seen what Crepi had done to the place so I started praying to myself that Crepi would never bug me again.

While I was praying I could hear these roaring sounds and I looked behind me and the spaceship was leaving so I started screaming but the roaring sound was just to loud for anyone to hear me. After the spaceship was long gone I started to have tears in my eyes I tried to stop crying but I just couldn't stop. I turned around and the whole entire place had changed so I started screaming,and I was sweating all over when I felt a spike or some kind of sharp thing go into my back I realized that it was all just a bad dream because I was left at this planet called Mercury all by myself.

I tried to think that I was with somebody on this planet or something like that but it just wouldn't work. So after I tried to imagine that I was at my house reading a book quietly and just ready to have my bedtime snack "which is usually a peanut butter sandwich" and after that I went straight to my bed which felt as though I was lying down on a prickly bush that was brown.

It was twelve o'clock at midnight and my best friends in the yellow and red spaceship had still not realized what had happened to me. Just as I heard this big BOOM! I turned around quickly and there I saw this police officer dressed normally but he had a long nose that was about as long as a comet. It was funny he had put his gun up to a computer and was trying to threaten this computer who was practically doing nothing I don't think.Time was running out because there was a old saying that if you were on Mercury for about 2-3 days you could get this disease or you could get a very very very bad cold and you would have to

go to this special shooting star "which is really a special hospital" and get stunned by a needle as long as a keyboard and where ever you got stunned by the needle it would bleed and bleed and bleed. I was just hoping so bad that someone would just come and pick me up and I would never have to go back to this eerie,frightening, weird place ever again.Anyway I tried to get up but it was just impossible to get up after I had tried about fifty times to see if I could get up for the 56th time and I finally got up thank goodness for getting up. I was just getting ready for walking through this amazing planet again when I stepped in this slimmy oozy stuff and I fell I got up again and I couldn't move my foot out of this stuff and I tried and I tried, and I tried but it just wouldn't work. Finally I got out and Crepo came over saying you stepped in my syrup for my pancake now I am just going to kill you to death so I started runing for my life and I finally got away from Crepo so I turned around just to make sure he wasn't there because he maybe still there. So I turned around and there he was the big ugly thing staring at me in the pupil of me eye I started to run my fastest but I couldn't run it was like I was running in air so I stopped and I was being lifted off of the ground so high that I was just about to faint but when I fainted I was lying on this bumpy sortove hollow thing I was lying on. I looked up and there I had saw Crepo the one and only monster that had picked me up buy his big strong hand and was just about to put me in his mouth that was about as long as a car. Right when he put in his mouth I started to hang on to his toncels like a monkey who was swinging on his favourite rope or at least something like that.

After a little while I was trying to find a way to get out of this dumb place but there was no use of getting out Crepo's mouth especially because he hadn't even opened his for about three and a half hours now. I had been in Crepo's mouth now for about ten hours. So I had thought that he would be asleep by now at least I was tired so I just dropped dead and fell onto Crepo's gigantic slippery, wet, dirty tounge.

When I had woke up and I had saw that I was lying on this gigantic, slippery, wet, dirty tounge I was looking at Crepo's tounge while I was inside of his tounge and I was going on a hiking trip because his teeth were full of lots of junk food and his teeth were so bumpy.

So I went on the hiking trip and I got stuck in one of Crepo's teeth because he had been eating some oowey wooey gum. So I pushed down with my hands to see if I could sortove jump or do soomething like that but it didn't work. I just ended up with my hands now stuck to the gum. I had tried to reach my right hand pocket because I had had my spare knife and spare pair of scissors if I ever needed it. In this case I needed bad really bad. I tried and tried to get my hand into my pockets but it just wouldn't work so I finally had gave up. While I was resting I was trying to think this whole thing was just a dream by a mistake I sneezed and all this yucky stuff went all over the place from my nose at least I think. When I sneezed right away my hands were free from the gum and so were my legs and so was the rest of my body I was finally free from the gum monster at least that's what I like to call it. Right when that happened Crepo's mouth just opened right away I couldn't even see that his mouth opened.

As soon as that happened I just ran out of Crepo's mouth in just the right time because Crepo had woke up and snapped his mouth shut. When I jumped out of his mouth I was a about to faint because I was about 200 feet high from the ground. After that a mysterious space shuttle was flying by right at the time I was about 50 feet away from the ground and the space shuttle just had caught me before I had fallen.

When I fell into the space shuttle it was a cold freezing place with one little small alien that had this tremendous repulsive face he had said l QUIETTTTTT! I'm trying to get some sleep. Right when he said that his voice started changing and at first it sounded like a girl's voice then it started like a boy's voice and he or she started hrinning at me as he was going to do something to me .... like kill

Before I could jump out of the space shuttle the alien grabbed me by the shirt and whispered don't you ever come back or else. . . I tried to think what to do because the space shuttle was just a little under the alien and I. So I jumped out, I think I broke my ankle I wasn't exactly sure? I started lumping away trying to run so I could get away from this alien or creature. When I turned around I could see a space shuttle commg rlgnt at me but I wasn t sure why this creature wanted to come after me so much? Right when I turned my head it was about 3 feet away from me. I ducked my head and the space shuttle stopped instantly.

The creature came out of the space shuttle and said" greetings my enemy" and I said "enemy what do you mean by enemy I have been left here on this planet with you peoople, I will not harm you please don't harm me". After he started to understand why I was on the planet with him and he started to tell me why he was on the planet too. He told me that his mother was dead and he was the master of the whole planet because he had tooken after his mother's place. The alien let me come into his space shuttle so I could what was inside and so I could see what kind of food he eats. The alien told me all about his self as if we were best friends that have known each other for years and years.

I tried some of the food he had but it didn't taste the same because they were pills but they still tasted good I guess. I went for a ride in his space shuttle and I looked down and when I looked down I felt so sick because I was so sick from being high.

The alien went back on the ground because I was feeling sicker than I was before when we were up in the air before. He tried to make me feel better for some reason and he was my enemy. When he tried to pick me up I ran a little because I thought that he was trying to cut off my head or trying to do something to me. The alien was trying to tell me something he said" I be your friend" and I said friend you want to be my friend.

I was trying to understand what he was saying because he was saying all this stuff about his old friend he used to have. The alien showed me some of his pictures of his long lost friends that he had lost in some kind of a storm or earthquake.

The alien had said something about some bad guy that makes this earthquake or storm. He said that the bad guy makes this big storm every century and makes a gigantic earthquake.

In that time of the century everybody was hiding in their caves or homes so he doesn't hurt them. I wanted to help these animals or creatures so they wouldn't be harmed by the bad guy which his name is Crepo. Right when I heard the name Crepo I started to scream because I thought that Crepo was a nice creature but he did almost swallow me but I bet that he didn't even know that he did mean to eat me. I didn't want to hurt Crepo if he didn't do anything but maybe he did and that maybe means that a do need to do something to Crepo. The alien and I went for a long walk to look for Crepo but he was no where to be seen. We looked all over the place we looked in caves, homes,tunnels, and all kinds of places. For some reason it didn't make any sense because the size of Crepo. There was one little place that we hadn't looked in yet it was this huge forest kind of thing that had some kind of foot in it we went inside to see what it was for sure it was Crepo. The usual big ugly thing lying on the dirty ground.

Crepo was sick, he was grasping for air. I went to go find some people to help me and my best creature friend Crepo. I got all the people I could and I finally got Crepo to start breathing right again. I and the other creatures that helped me get Crepo to breathe again helped Crepo get up. The planet started to shake I started to slap Crepo because I really thought that Crepo was making all the earthquak's and storms. Crepo kept on saying I'm not doing anything then this little small raindrop came crashing down a path and I was wondering how a little raindrop could make the whole planet shake. That was it ! That little raindrop was making the storms and earthquakes. Everybody must of thought it was Crepo because when ever he came near the creatures and aliens the storms and earthquakes would start. I had found out the mystery now the other mystery was how would I get back to my own home.

Well Crepo found the solution to that. Crepo said he had this great big space shuttle that he had for seven years and that he never told anybody. I got in the space shuttle and Crepo told how to use the space shuttle after that I was half way home it was still another hour 'till I got home but I was so excited I was jumping out of my seat like a maniac. Right when I got home I could hardly move I was so excited I plopped right down into my bed and said "Mommy I'm home ! I just slept over at Nick's house

(NOT).

Julie is 10 years old and has a brother who is 4 years old. Her brothers name is Justin. Julie is in grade 5. Anyway it was very exciting for Julie while she was putting this story together, especially the exciting or adventures parts. Julie lives in [Town] on [Street]. Her phone number is [Number]. Before I stop talking about Julie she wanted me to tell all of you that CRASH WHERE THE ALIENS ARE is a great book. And everybody I think will love it especially you.

Grade 3

We have a new teacher today class.

His name is Mr. Cloverdale. Here he is now. Today

we will learn some math. Okay said the class.

1 + 2x3=17 2-1=0 3÷1=1. Boring. But Just for protectin

I have a M16 outside in the parking lot. So you boys

each get a machine gun. Radical man.You girls each

get a machete. Cool. Lunch time here take $100 for

the snack bar. Rad. Story time. Swamp Thing. Free

time. Let's go outside for free time. home

time. today was the best day ever. The End.

Grade 4

Once there was a brave boy named Gavin who wanted to go to space to see if he could find aliens. So he went to his garage to get materials to build his space ship. Then Gavin started to gather up his materials. Then Gavin went to the woods to get some logs for the inside of the space ship. Gavin started to build his space ship. So Gavin put the jeters on first. Then Gavin put the body of the space ship on, then he stuck the jeters on. The space ship was finished. Gavin flew off in to space. Gavin fell asleep in the space ship. He crashed on a plant. Gavin woke-up from the crash. Gavin looked around, he saw the American flag. Gavin knew he was on the moon, Gavin had bruises all over his body. Gavin put bandades on his body. He walked, walked and walked. Gavin saw another aircraft on the moon. Just then a alien popped out and froze Gavin into solid ice. The Alien took Gavin to his hide out and unfroze him. The Alien put Gavin in a big cage. Gavin took his laser gun out and freed himself. Then Gavin ran back to the other aircraft and flew it home.

Grade 5

There once was a little puppy dog named Joey. Joey was a nice little puppy who lived in a big house with his master.There was only one problem. Joey loved to chase cats, especially the cat down the street. The one who would always wake him up when Joey was sleeping outside in the doghouse. One day Joey went for a walk with his master to the supermarket four blocks down. When they got there the master went into the supermarket and left Joey outside to wait for him. The master was in for about ten minutes, but in those ten minutes that cat he loved to chase walked by and Joey was off chasing the cat around the town. Soon the cat went into the alleyway and disappeared over the fence and into the shadows. Joey went back to the supermarket and did not find his master. Joey got scared as the sun started to set. Soon it was night time and Joey was getting hungry so he went looking for food in the streets. Later Joey found some old bones in the trash cans. Joey was getting sad and worried about his master and his doghouse. All the thinking about his master and his doghouse made him fall asleep.

The next day Joey went to the supermarket, a man passed by and went inside for about five minutes. When the man came out of the supermarket he was wearing a mask over his face and a gun in his pocket. Joey started running after the man and realized he was a robber. Joey chased the robber and finally got him with a bite on the leg. Joey was a hero!

The next day Joey decided to take a walk around the town. He met a nice man in the streets that wore a black hat and a brown jacket. Joey thought they did not match but he didn't care at all because he was a nice man. He gave Joey a piece of meat he had just bought. Joey was getting tired so he had a little nap. When Joey woke up he decided to go to the barber shop to watch the people get their hair cut. Then Joey went to the movie theatre to see the movie "The Monster That Ate New York." After the movie was over Joey went for a walk in the park. He watched the children as they played on the playground. Joey went to the trees and layed down under their nice cool shadows. When Joey woke up he went for a stroll in the city and found a car that looked just like his master's, but then he saw that it was not his car because different people went into the car. Then Joey saw that cat again and started running after it. Soon Joey lost the cat, but then he saw he was back at home at his old doghouse.

Grade 3

"Hi Gillda! How are you doing?"

said Goldy , the gold fish. Gillda is a guppy,

Goldy and Gillda are best friends.

"I'm real tired" said Gillda.It was Wednesday

in Sea Land.Gillda was walking to school and

she had stayed up very late and now aws

very tired.

"I'll walk the rest of the way with you"said Goldy

"O.K"said Gillda.When they got to scool

Miss.Water way, their teacher, was giving out re-

port cards.

"Your late!"she said.

"We're sorry." they both said,at the same time.

"Well, heres your report cards."said Miss.Waterway.

Gillda and goldy both had their fingers crossed,

and they both couldn't wait to see their marks.

"WOW! I got an A+!!!"said Gillda. "What did you

get?"

Goldy hadn't openned hers yet,because,even

though shewas excited, she was very nervouse.

Slowly, she openned the envelope,

"What did you get,what did you get?!"said Gillda

excitedly.

"I-I got a.....B!!! How could I get a B!!!"wailed

Goldy"Iwanted to get a A+,like you, Gillda"

Gillda and Goldy were best friends , but for

some reason Gillda suddenly changed.

"Don't be such a cry baby,Goldy. Besides I'm

just smarter than you."snapped Gillda. This made

Goldy even more upset than before How could

her best friend do this to her? The next day

Goldy didn't walk with Gillda.She didn't even

think about talking to her.

"I told my family about your B.And they said

that you're at the level you should be," said

Gillda.But Goldy still did'nt pay any attention

"I don't see what the big deal is......" Before

Gillda could finish her sentence ,Goldy had

swam off. That night Gillda felt offle , what had

she done to her friend?Gillda didn't get much

sleep that night, but she finilly figured out what

she had done.Now the problem was to get

Goldy to for give her.And even when Gillda had

figured out what Goldy was upsst about,she still

felt offle.She didn't want to hurt Goldys feelings.

The next day,Gillda tried to be confident.If she

didn't get Goldy to forgive her,she'd just die!!!

"I'm going now!"she called as she walked out

the door.At the same time,Goldy walked out.

"Ah.....Hi!"siad GIllda ,tring to sound cheerful.But

Goldy didn't pay attention.Oh no!!!I'd better try

again,thought Gillda.

"Ill walk with you?"she said.

"Well...O.K, I wanted to talk to you."mumbled

Goldy.

"I know what you're upset about,"started Gillda

"I really didn't mean to hurt your feelings

I should of thought about how you felt firstI'm

sorry."she said

"Oh.....it's O.K,I shouldn't have gotten that upset. "

said Goldy, alittle shy.She was glad to get that

out!

"I don't blame you for getting mad,and I'll never,

ever brag again!"

Grade 4

My friend, Ginger, is very, very, pretty. She has short, dark,

brown hair, and a pretty face.She is a very nice person, and I

really like her. Ginger is funny, and helpful, and always enjoys

pulling hair. Ouch! Ginger and I have lots of things in common,

because we both like running, sleepovers, parties, and blue

jeans. Ginger can run fast. Ginger takes piano lessons, and so do

I, only she hates them, and I like them. Ginger laughs alot.

Ginger and me have lots of fun together, like when we kept

screaming at each other,

"Hi, Ginger!".

"Hi, Anne!"

"Hellooo, Ginger!".

"Hellooo, Anne", very loud.

We like screaming at each other, outside. Sometimes we just

crack up over nothing!

Gingers birthday is on November 11th. She is 9, now.

Gingers favourite colours are purple, white, black and blue.

Purple, and blue, are two of my favourite colours, too.

Ginger and me are very silly together. Ginger is one of my very

best friends.

Grade 5

Except for a window, the room is darkened. I feel alone and hungry. Mildew is in the air I breath. Again I think about being held captive. From the window I see a shimmering light. I slowly edge closer to the window. I can see the moon, it looks alone, like me. I crawl away from the window again, my leg still hurting from being thrown into my new prison. The ground is cold and slippery, with a layer of dust. I felt something crawling up my arm. I scream and brush it away. I slowly stand up, and limp over to the window. There was something comforting about it. I stared out into the darkness, feeling to confused and scared to think. Tall shadows of trees stretched out across the bare land, that seemed to carry on forever. They seemed so free. A cool breeze scurried the dirt, and lifted the hair on my shoulders. I closed my eyes. The comfort was gone. The muffled sound of restless leaves, sounded like slow, dragging footsteps. I shivered. I moved away from the window, unable to shake off the fear, the fear that wouldn't go away. I walked over to the far corner of the room, and sat down. I felt something brush against my face. I shuddered, and wiped away a cobweb, and saw a shadow scurry away under my hand. I held my knees close, and backed further into the damp corner.

I'm tired, but I can't go to sleep... I didn't think I'd ever sleep again, or ever see the sunlight, or feel it beating down on my back. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, I'm staring at the ground. I could feel a cool breeze rolling down my back. What happened? All I could remember was closing my eyes for a few seconds and now I'm lying on the floor. My head hurt, but I couldn't figure out why. Someone must of hit me over the head. A stream of sunlight shone through the window space. I reached out through the window and felt the cool, damp, morning air. I wanted to be out there, in the sunlight. In hear, I felt totally alone, and hungry. I sank to the ground, feeling confused and scared. I've got to get out of here, I thought. I heard a click, and the door opened. I saw the shadow of a man walk slowly over to the opposite corner of the room. He was carrying something, but I wasn't sure what it was. He lay it down on the floor, and then he left. I stared after him, and stayed where I was. Then I slowly crawled over to the corner where the man had dropped whatever it was he had. I realised it was a piece of raw meat, and I immediately tore off a piece with my teeth. It tasted dry, and raw in my mouth. When I was done, I wiped my mouth with the corner of my shirt. I was still hungry, and very thirsty. Outside, I heard the beating of the rain falling on to the roof. It started to pour, and I stuck my hands out the window to catch the droplets of rain. I brought my hands back in through the window, and drank the rain water out of my palms. Then I licked them dry. The rain formed a puddle by the window, and I scooped up some water in my cupped hands. The water tasted gross, and polluted. Then I walked back to the far corner of the room, and held my knees close. I shivered, and waited for the rain to stop. When at last it stopped raining, I could see the sun slowly dipping down into the horizon. I watched it disappear, and then I lay down beside the window and went to sleep.

The next morning, I found another piece of meat by the door. I ate it, and then walked back over to the window. The sun was just coming up, and the whole sky

was a bright pink. The sun looked like a huge orange ball in the sky. It looked so beautiful. I took a breath of the morning air, and for a while, I forgot about being held captive. But the fear and hunger soon came back to me. When I suddenly realised that I could crawl through the window space! I pushed my foot against the wall, and grabbed the window ledge. Pulling as hard as I could, I pushed my other foot against the wall. Still weak from hunger, I fell hard on the ground. The wall was slippery, and damp, with grime. I felt hopeful for the first time, knowing that I would be free soon. Desperately holding on to that one comforting thought, I tried again. After a while of unsuccessful attempts, I had to stop, realising the ledge was too high, and to slippery to get a good grip. But I wouldn't give up. I had to get out. It was getting dark out, and suddenly all the fear and hunger came back to me. I went back to the window and took a deep breath of fresh air, feeling almost sick from the taste of mildew and dust. I longed even more than ever to be free again. I closed my eyes, and than snapped them open again, remembering I couldn't go to sleep. I jumped, startled, from the sound of scraping, almost like a dog scraping at the locked door. I felt my insides knot, as a low growl came from behind the heavy door. I backed into the corner, my eyes still glued on the door. I felt a cobweb brush against my face, but I continued backing up. A cold breeze came through the open window, and sent chills down my back. I shivered and sat down in the corner, pulling my knees close to my chest. I couldn't stop trembling. My hands were shaking wildly, as if I had no control over them. I squeezed my hands together as tight as I could. The growling and scraping behind the door continued. What was it? After several minutes of deciding, I stood up, unfolding my aching legs. Taking a deep breath, I approached the door. The growling stopped for a moment, and I let out a deep sigh, realising I wasn't breathing. I crept closer to the locked door. I could hear a faint growl starting again, but I kept going. I hesitated as I reached the door. I slowly reached out for the nob. It made a clicking sound as I turned it from side to side. A sudden bark came from behind the door, and I jumped back. Sweat broke out on my forehead. I could hear the animals footsteps retreating. I tried the door nob again. If only I could get it open, I kept thinking, over and over. I pulled harder and harder, almost shaking the door. Bang, bang, bang! I pounded on the door with my fists. I have to get out, I thought, I have to get out. Suddenly, I stopped pounding on the door, and slid to the ground. It seemed hopeless....

Waking up to the sound of scratching, I opened my eyes, and walked over to the door. I put my hand against it. The scratching stopped, the animal, which I assumed was a dog, started to whimper. He sounded lonely. I forgot about being scared, I felt sorry for it. I pressed my ear against the door, when suddenly, it opened! I fell to the hard cement. I felt a strong hand on my arm, and it pulled me to my feet. Dragging me behind him, the man took me to another room, and threw me in. Then he closed the door. I couldn't let him lock me in again, so I got up and ran to the door. I reached for the nob, and held firmly. I heard a faint click, and he moved away from the door. I waited a while, my hand still on the door nob. Then I turned it. Pushing the door open, I let out a huge sigh, and my heart gave a little leap. I was almost free!... if I could find my way out of here. That was the hard part. I remembered about being hungry once again. Feeling a little faint, I fell to the ground. No, I couldn't give up now. Forcing myself to my feet, I looked around. There was only a long corridor, leading to darkness. I hesitated as I took a few steps into the darkness. I reached out, so I wouldn't hit anything, when I felt something cold and wet. My hand jerked away, and I covered my mouth, muffling a scream. Then I reached out again, and ran my hands over the...the thing. It was furry, and damp. The dog I thought. My first instinct was to run, but I held back. It didn't bark, but instead, licked my hand. Feeling happy for the first time, I bent down and pet him. It felt good to have a friend. Then, remembering where I was, I got up. Beckoning to the wild dog, I continued further down the corridor. He followed me, and I felt a little safer to have a companion. I was no longer alone.

Hours went by, and my legs started to ache, but I continued on. I could see the dog was also getting tired. I decided it would be smart to rest a while, but where? I felt along the damp walls surrounding me. After a few minutes, I found a bump in the wall. It was a door nob. I slowly turned it, unaware of what could be behind the door. To my relief, it was empty. There was a rather large crack in the wall, where sunlight streamed in. I walked over to the hole and took a deep breath of fresh air. The dog stayed where he was, growling deep in his throat. I called to him quietly to come in. He wouldn't come and I felt a little uncertain about the room. But I shook it off and walked over to the dog. I gave him a light shove into the room, and he relaxed after a while. That night, in the room, I gave him a name. I named him Coal. "Good night, Coal." I said, before I fell into a deep sleep.

I jerked awake, realising where I was. I awoke Coal, stroking his back gently.

He didn't seem to want to go, but I knew that the man, whoever he was, would notice I was gone, and I didn't want to be around when he did. I was really hungry now. My mouth felt dry and sore around the edges. I tried to forget about the hunger, but it wouldn't go away. I started to feel dizzy, and sat down. Coal licked my hand affectionately, and I reached over to pet him, when I heard footsteps. My heart stopped. Oh no! I thought. I struggled to my feet, and gave Coal a tug on his collar. " We have to go. " I whispered. The footsteps sounded closer. I started to run, with Coal running along beside me. The footsteps started running too. I could hear them getting closer, and I ran faster. But he was too fast. I felt his rough hands seize my arms. He slapped me hard across the cheek. Pushing me forward, we headed back to the room where I was first held captive. I tried to look back at Coal, but the man slapped me across the face again. My cheek stung from the blow, and my right eye started to water. I heard a growl, when the man stopped. He looked back and saw Coal. " Stupid dog," he said. Coal pounced at the man, scratching at his thigh,. Then he bit at his ankle. The man screamed in agony, and released his grip on my arm, clutching his ankle. Quickly I ran to Coal, but he wasn't done. Again he bit the man on the arm. The man sank to the ground, his arm and leg surrounded in blood.

Coal and I continued on our journey, through the long dark corridor. I couldn't shake off the uncomfortable feeling that the man was still following us. I could see Coal was uncomfortable too. He kept looking back, stopping occasionally to listen. I was getting tired, but there was no place to rest, so I continued on, Coal trotting along beside me. Suddenly I tripped over a bump in the floor. My knee hit the ground hard, and I winced, rubbing it. Then I crawled back to where I fell, and studied the bump in the floor. It felt like a door nob in the floor. I tried to turn it, and when I pushed down, it opened. I noticed there was a ladder, leading down a dark tunnel. I told Coal to stay, and I slowly climbed down the ladder. I could almost see the bottom, when my foot slipped. I lost my balance, and fell down, hitting the hard ground with a thump. My leg hurt, and I couldn't get up. Looking around, I saw a door on the other side of the deserted room. I slowly crawled across the slippery floor to the door. I couldn't reach the nob from the ground, so I grabbed a bump in the wall, and pulled myself up. Holding onto the bump for support, I tried the nob. It seemed to be stuck. Pulling harder, I tried again, but it wouldn't budge. I was stuck. I didn't think I could get up the ladder again, because my ankle hurt so much. I crawled back over to the ladder, and pulled myself up. My ankle gave out, and I collapsed. I tried again. This time I managed to pull myself up to the second step, dinging to the ladder. I heard Coal growl above, and I slowly climbed to the next step. Coal started barking, and I climbed faster. I almost reached the top when I lost my grip, and fell to the cement floor. Coal barked again, and I began to feel nervous.

I limped over to the door again, when I heard a thump, followed by a loud bark. Coal was lying by the ladder, barking loudly. I looked up and saw the door close. "No!", I cried. It was too late. We were trapped.

That night, I couldn't sleep. I felt hungry and cold. Coal was restless all night, too. I tried the door on the other side of the room. Still, it wouldn't open. Coal started scratching it. I could tell that he too wanted to get out. I noticed for the first time, a box in the far corner. When I limped over to it, it felt cold, and hard. It looked a little like a freezer. I opened up the top, and to my surprise, it had frozen food, stashed away in the back. I reached in and pulled out a piece a meat. It smelled good, as I tore open the plastic packaging. I tore off a piece, and lay it down in front of Coal. He immediately ripped off a piece, and crunched away on the frozen meat. I let mine sit for a while to thaw. When finally it did, I chewed away at it happily. The raw meat felt good, once inside of me, although it didn't taste as good as I had hoped. I'd have to find a way to cook it later on. I helped myself to another piece, and gave half to Coal. We both enjoyed the meal. Finally full, I lay down on the cold ground to sleep. Coal lay down beside, and I felt his wet nose brush against my arm. His fur kept me warm through the long night.

In the morning, I tried the door again. It budged a little, but not much. I scraped away some of the dirt under the door. Through the space came a bright light. I hesitated, not knowing if it was another room, and someone was in it, or if the light was actually the sun, before I tried again. It opened a crack, but not enough for me to see through. I closed the door again. Coal came over and looked at me curiously. He seemed to want to know why we were still here. "We'll get out." I told him, but I wasn't so sure. Later on, I tried to make a fire, but it wouldn't burn in it's damp surroundings. "Looks like we'll have to eat raw meat again today," I said. Coal flattened his ears and looked mournfully at me. But he still gobbled up the meat, after all, it was the only thing we had to eat. After the meal, I got up to look around. I found a deserted corner in the back of the room covered in cobwebs and dust. I brushed away some of the webs, and found a large, furry mat. Most of the pile had come off, showing bear pieces of torn material underneath. I stood up and shook off some of the dust and dirt. That night I slept on the mat, with Coal sleeping cozily beside me. But still, I had a restless sleep. I knew the meat would soon run out, and we couldn't eat raw meat every day anyway without soon getting sick. I, we, had to get out. In the morning, Coal seemed more restless than ever to get out. For most of the day, I spent a lot of my time trying to open the door. The light had continued to shine through out the night, which meant it had to be another room. I felt like I was in a maze of endless traps. Each room lead to another trap, and I began to wonder if I would ever get out alive. I tried to pushed the thought out of my mind, and continued to try to open the door. It seemed to be getting a little loser, and I could see the figure of a man moving around in the room behind the door. I quickly closed the door again so he wouldn't see me. When I opened the door again, he was gone. Where could he have gone? I asked myself. Unless there was another door. I looked again to see if there was, but I didn't see anything. I pushed on the door, and heard a sudden screech! I pushed again and heard the same thing. I realised there must be a chair or something that was keeping the door shut. Coal came over to stick his nose through the crack a take a little sniff. Suddenly I heard a crack, and the door swung open. I fell to the ground, when the door opened. When I looked around the room, I saw a beat-up old couch in one corner, and a desk, beside the door. There was also a closet opposite the desk. I went over and inspected the closet. Inside was covered with dust and cobwebs. There was also a box hidden away in the corner. I opened the box, but found nothing. There were a few hangers, one with an old coat hanging o on it. I dusted off the old coat, and felt something flat and hard in the pocket. I pulled it out, and realised it was an ID card. It had a crease down the middle, and the name had worn off. I could only make out a J at the beginning of the name. It must belong to the man. I slipped the jacket on over my cold arms. The old jacket came down to my knees, and sent a shiver down my back. I quickly took off the jacket, and carefully slid the card back into the pocket. I hung the jacket back up in the cl