Transcript “It Changes How Students Think About Themselves”: Teachers’ and Students’ Responses to a Year Long Reading and Writing Course.

“It Changes How Students
Think About Themselves”:
Teachers’ and Students’
Responses to a Year Long
Reading and Writing Course
Overview of Pilot
Evaluation:Spring 2005
• In 2004-05 both the ERWC professional
development and curricular materials were
implemented for the first time
• The CSU 12th Grade Task Force worked with
close to 700 teachers in California (as of this
presentation we’ve trained close to 900 high
school teachers)
Evaluation Questions
• Were there differences among 12th graders who
experienced at least two modules and those who
followed a traditional ELA curriculum?
• How were the ERWC materials being put into
practice in 12th grade classrooms? (And how
were they received by students and teachers?)
• How might instructional context be related to
increased student proficiency in expository
reading and writing?
The Qualitative Study:
Additional Questions
• What were teachers’ experiences of the
ERWC materials?
• What kinds of shifts did they report in their
students’ capacity to engage more
effectively in critical reading, writing and
thinking with expository texts?
• How effective were the ERWC materials for
students, especially for ELLs?
Research and Evaluation:
The Qualitative Data
Qualitative methods were used to gather these data:
• Field notes from classroom observations
• Recorded sessions of classroom interactions
• Individual interviews with teachers
• Group interviews with students
• Classroom artifacts (lesson plans, assignments and
student work)
• Field notes and recorded conversations at PD trainings
Teachers’ Views
• What Teachers told us about:
– Their own experiences and practices
– Shifts they saw taking place for students
EAP Materials Help Teachers
Embed Expository Texts into
Existing ELA Curricula
• I’m not a teacher that has used expository
articles much. I’m a literary junkie and so seeing
how helpful those were... You can come up with
any topic like that and so really seeing how I can
definitely incorporate bringing their world into
their lives especially for seniors. And so these
materials really helped me as a teacher. I can do
American Lit, but to actually teach expository
comp, this has been a challenge. This unit has
helped me so much in seeing what directions to
go. (TD, Los Angeles)
Slowing Down the Pace
for Students
• And so I see what you guys gave us was helpful in the sense
that it just kind of slowed things down, really made them
pull apart their reading and although sometimes the kids
were like okay, we’ve read this article five times now, like
we get it, I still don’t think they get that that’s what they
have to do when they go to college or when they read dense
stuff. They think peruse it once, let’s write an essay and
I’ll pull off a C and it’s all good, and it was hard for them
to slow down and make them understand this is what you
do. … [I]t just validates the fact that I’m at the right pace.
I’m not going too slow, so on my own I think I would have
moved faster because I’m more like chop, chop, let’s get it
done. So it forced me to slow down with the knowledge of
like okay, this is right. (AG, Alameda)
Students Demonstrated Increased Ability
to “grapple with text themselves”
• One of the biggest problems of high school
students is they are so used to being spoon-fed
information, and if they are just quiet, they will
get the answer presented to them. And the EAP
packets do not allow spoon-feeding. They must
get in there and grapple with it themselves and
this was the first experience many of them had
had with having to do the work, the critical
thinking, the critical reading. (JD, Bakersfield)
Teachers Reported that
Students Enjoyed Readings
• [Students] were certainly interested [in the
articles]… The discussions at the beginning were
really good. We brought in a lot of personal
experience and that really …brought about …a
big level of engagement. (JS, Bakersfield)
• They liked the articles and I think …the topics
really turned them on. (CL, Los Angeles)
• [Students] said the article topics were of high
interest to them. (PD, Santa Rosa)
Materials Helped Teachers Imagine
New Ways of Approaching Practice
• I think this really lets me understand where my
students need to be. I think that does help a lot –
to be understanding exactly what they need to be
able to do when it comes to college level writing.
(JS, Bakersfield)
• …I already had a game plan of critical reading
and helping people who don’t read well, so it was
perfect for both of those goals, and it made me
much more conscious of, and conscientious
about, introducing pieces. (MA, Temecula)
Activities Within and Across
Units Teachers Found Helpful
(In alphabetical order)
• Annotating
• Believing and Doubting
Game
• Descriptive Outlining
• Focus on Content versus
Purpose
• Discussions
• Freewrites and
Quickwrites
• Paraphrasing
• Summarizing
• Exploring Ethos, Logos &
Pathos
• Analytical Questions
• Surveying the Text
• Timed Writing
• Vocabulary Activities
Rewards of Group Discussion:
Making Critical Thinking Visible
• [Through discussions] you get to see really quickly at what
level [students] understand this material. …[T]hey’re
talking about it [at the level they comprehend]. …That’s
what’s really nice about the small group discussions.
...[T]he discussion questions are good for …helping me
understand where they’re at in the article. (JS, Arvin)
• Definitely I saw some flourishing, I did see with the topics
that when we were allowed to brainstorm and do free
writing, really heavy, heavy discussions happened which
were really great. (AG, Alameda)
Analytical Questions:
“Not Plug and Chug”
• It’s the design of the questions. They’re not plug and chug
questions, they’re actually synthesis [and] analysis
questions, and it’s the scaffolding: the previewing, the
prewriting, the prethinking. It’s getting them to look at the
text. (JD, Bakersfield)
• [S]ome of the strategies are really good. I liked the detail
with some of those questions, … [they] made the kids really
dig back into the text. (SH, Los Angeles)
• [T]he activities …where there are questions – piercing,
specific questions about the logic, the ethics, and about
emotion, really are sophisticated. I will use some of those,
and then the generic template that’s in the book is really
good, too. Very, very useful. (SH, Los Angeles)
Leveling with Students: Creating
Buy In and “giving students a
fighting chance”
• The day that I came back from the first EAP training, …I
looked through it that night and I thought, wow, this is
really good stuff and this is what seniors need …[A]t this
school I think 20% of the kids pass the EPT... We can’t let
my 70 students walk out without a fighting chance, so I
came in the next day, it was kind of close to the new
semester, in the middle of the year. The report cards had
just ended and I remember making a split decision that
evening -- like if my kids will go with me on this, we’re
starting this tomorrow... So I came into the class and I said
I was absent yesterday because I was at this conference
about 12th graders who aren’t passing exams in college and
they’re really worried.
Leveling with Students: Creating
Buy In and “giving students a
fighting chance”
• So… we need to help you learn how to write and
they want to implement this next year but I think
we should do it this year. Do you agree that you
need help with writing? And they all [said]
‘yeah, we hate writing, we’re scared of writing, it
sucks’ and I said that means we’re cramming in
six essays [before the end of the year] and they
were okay with that. So I think they just knew
that as boring as writing is to them that …going
into college they needed a little more of a fighting
chance…
Leveling with Students: Creating
Buy In and “giving students a
fighting chance”
Do you want to waste $900 on a remedial
class? I mean the fees are going up. I’m
trying to save you money here, so they
bought into it. Logically I just talked real
to them and gave them all the facts and
they’re old enough to [say] ‘like okay,
you’re right, my parents don’t want to
pay… for two more remedial classes. Let’s
try to pass the EPT.’ (AG, Alameda)
Developing Confidence
Teachers saw students developing greater
confidence in themselves as:
• Readers
• Writers
• Thinkers
• Test Takers
Changes in Students’
Reading Habits
Teachers saw students:
• “pulling things apart”
• examining text more closely
• reexamining ideas in the text
• “relooking at language”
• rereading the text with different
(multiple) purposes in mind
Changes in Students’
Reading Habits (cont’d.)
Teachers saw students:
• evaluating and analyzing the strength of
a writer’s argument
• reading more complex texts by choice
• Transferring the skills they were learning
with expository materials to literary texts
Changes in Students’
Writing Abilities
Teachers reported that:
• Student writing reflected thoughtful reading
and discussions
• Timed writings demonstrated more structure
and organization
• Students were more able to take a position and
support it skillfully with evidence
• Students wrote with more ease and confidence
Shifts in
Students’ Thinking
• One of the things that I really wanted the EAP packets to
do for them this year was to [help them] become [more]
objective thinkers. And they now can at least see someone
else’s point of view. It may not change their own [point of
view], but they can recognize that there’s a different point
of view there. …And [students] see a lot of payoff. I do this
huge amount of work and they know now which cracks me
up because I heard them talking, [saying things like] I’m a
much better writer but I still need work on my grammar.
They know that now. They had no idea what kind of writer
they were and they had no idea what good reading and
writing looked like when they came in, and I think that’s
one of the things that the EAP packet has shown them.
(JD, Bakersfield)
Teachers’ Views of Students’
Perceptions of Self
• [Students] have a tremendous amount more confidence
and more self-esteem and the young lady, Kristen Perry,
with the braids who was talking a lot [to the evaluator]
during third period, African American young lady, at the
beginning of the year, she wasn’t going to go to college and
midway through the year there were these [EAP] packets
and she had some success academically. She applied to
Northridge, so she never would have done that. (JD,
Bakersfield)
• This is material that I thought they could relate to, but it
also challenges them. [T]hese kids are not stupid but
they’ve convinced themselves they are. …This class has
made an amazing transformation… (CB, Arvin)
Benefits for English
Language Learners
The curriculum offered English Language
Learners:
• A slower pace with more opportunities to
engage in freewriting and timed writing
• More time to wrestle with text
• Concrete strategies for taking text apart
• Frequent opportunities to participate in
discussions and formulate opinions
English Language Learners
“step up to the plate”
• I think [ELLs] stepped up to the plate. …Some of
it was tough but they got through it. (SH, Los
Angeles)
• ELLs seem to do pretty well on this, because
they’re given more time and they can look at it
more methodically. [The pace works well for
them] because they have to go over something
two or three times and then listen to how other
people are arguing and so forth. (CL, Los
Angeles)
While Helpful for ELL’s,
Curriculum is of Interest to a Wide
Range of Students
• [A] lot of the second language strategies are
written directly into these units … what’s nice
about the [materials] is that [they are] not
written for a group, [but] for teenagers. Whether
you’re special ed, or ELD, or general level, or
honors, [the units are] about issues that teenagers
are interested in. While [ELLs] may have a bit of
a delay in accessing the text, they [too] have
improved with their writing skills. (JD,
Bakersfield)
Challenges to
Implementation
• Policies and practices at various levels:
– Departmental
– School
– District
• Meeting the needs of diverse students in
heterogeneous states like California
Challenges to
Implementation
• Most of our kids come from migrant farm working families.
Most of their parents have not completed high school if they
attended high school. …I’m going to say 50% – it’s probably a
little higher – are not U.S. citizens. In terms of your second
language student and the things that they’re asking you to do,
it’s very difficult. They have to have a 2.0 GPA. There are
several requirements that make it extremely hard for some of
them to get out of ELD and when they do, they get plunked
into either a general class, or sometimes a college prep class,
and they don’t do well because they’ve been in the ELD
program. (CB, Arvin)
Students’ Experiences
with ERWC Materials
• Materials Helped Students Work with Text in
New Ways and Discover New Dimensions of
Themselves as Participants in Literate Worlds
–
–
–
–
Described the nature and value of discussions
Perceived themselves as more skillful readers & writers
Made reading and writing connections
Considered the “real world” and their futures in new
ways as a result of the reading they had done and the
repertoire of textual skills they were developing
Value of Class Discussions: “we
learned more from each other”
• I think the best parts of both these packets [were]
the discussions... I mean especially with the first
packet, all the discussions that I’ve had with my
questions were like after class just like on our
own. (PD, Santa Rosa)
• It was interesting to work with a partner and
groups to read it and stop and give our opinions
because we had different opinions so we learned
more from each other… (PD, Santa Rosa)
Discussions Led to
High Involvement
• I liked how the class got involved and you got two
pretty good arguments between each other and it
got everybody involved… (JD, Bakersfield)
• The classroom discussions – the good thing about
it [is] we have a lot of like different sides to it, like
there’s a lot of different things to blend like
something like (?) fast food and so it was like…
heated ‘cause there are so many [viewpoints] you
can take... (AG, Alameda County)
Students Perceived High Interest
Topics as Relevant to Their Lives
• [T]his stuff kind of connects to us more than
what we would usually read because it has
to do with stuff that we face every day.
Like it’s pretty neat because kids would
have totally different opinions... We argued
our points pretty strongly and… we just
really discussed it a lot. (RFS, Lake
County)
High Interest Topics Relevant to
Students’ Lives (cont’d.)
• I think what kept most of us interested throughout the
whole few days that we were discussing it was that now, or
just recently, or in the near future we’re all going to be
going through that with college and getting jobs and all
that kind of stuff so I think that what appealed to us most,
whether we all know it or not, was that we’re in that
situation as we speak. So we all kind of related to it in that
aspect and I thought that’s probably one of the most
interesting assignments we had all year. (MA, Temecula)
According to Students, Accessible
Topics Heightened Their Awareness of
Real World Issues
• The packets are better if they have things to do with the
age group… they’re [directed] to. Like the Fast Food unit - I always eat fast food so we were more passionate about
it because that’s what we do like daily …so the more… it
has to deal with that age group… the better… people
respond to it. (JD, Bakersfield)
• I thought it was really interesting reading the different
articles because it made me, and I’m sure everybody else,
realize there’s a lot of things we didn’t know… a lot of the
stuff that was brought up in the articles [in Going for the
Look]… it totally gave me a different perspective. (RFS,
Lake County)
Real World Topics
(cont’d.)
• [A]bout the Racial Profiling packet, I think that is
a topic that happens daily. … maybe adults think
that we don’t care, but really we do because we
see it happen every day at school whether you’re
Black, mixed skin, White, whatever, or even by
the way you dress. It’s not just really ethnic so it
just hits like the most important issues happening
right now. (JD, Bakersfield)
• [Going For The Look] just made me really think
twice about things.
Real World Topics
(cont’d.)
• this discussion we’re having … in this
classroom … is like one of the only times
I’ve ever … been in an environment where
we discuss such a thing [racial profiling].
…[We] need more of this where we discuss
real world problems in our classrooms and
educate our kids. (TD, Los Angeles)
Topics Evoked Passion
• Well, it was nice that we were so emotional
about the subjects that we were doing …
[we] were basically yelling at the top of
[our] lungs at each other about clothes and
what’s right and wrong about it. (JD,
Bakersfield)
What Students Tell Us
They Are Learning…
• Becoming More Analytical
– Readers
– Writers
– Thinkers
Students See Themselves
Becoming Stronger Readers
• I feel that I’m a stronger reader now because I
don’t just glaze over what I’m reading. I take into
consideration the things that we learned
beforehand about pre-reading, doing the quick
writes, skimming the vocab. Making sure that we
understand everything before we read the article
actually helps a lot, and I never did that before I
would read something. (MA, Temecula)
Building Awareness of Text
Structure and Genre
• We analyzed these [articles] more and like picked
out certain sections of them and found out all the
different sections. (RFS, Lake County)
• I personally never like really knew the different
[kinds of] essays that you do – argument and like
descriptive analysis – and this was the first time
that I personally have ever explored those different
kinds of essays. (RL, Petaluma)
Consciously Reading for
Specific Purposes
• Well, it’s like if I’m reading something for a
specific purpose, like writing a paper,
…now, …because of this [curriculum], like I
can look at it and analyze it better, so I can
get a better understanding of the reading.
(CL, Venice)
Actively Reading: “just go back and
look at your notes on the side”
• [Now I] take little notes on the side – before
I didn’t do that. It was like reading and
then trying to memorize the whole book,
and that would be kind of confusing ‘cause
then your points would be in different
places. [Now] you [can] just go back and
look at your notes on the side and
[remember] your feelings. (AG, Alameda
County)
Analyzing Rhetorical
Choices
• Well, like today’s and yesterday’s assignment (Rhetoric of
the Op-Ed Page), highlighting the claims and the evidence
you can show a difference between what’s hard facts and
what the writer’s opinion is. And like today with changing
the sentences, it shows you different ways to write it, and
how certain words that you use evoke a certain emotion.
(MA, Temecula)
• I thought we were able to do a really nice job of analyzing
the articles and like figuring out what they were about -not only analyzing them structurally but also …content
wise, debating why authors chose to do the things they
did… (PD, Santa Rosa)
Analyzing Biases and
Multiple Viewpoints
• When we read … an article that has some bias in it and
opinion, you have to kind of change your mind frame of
how you’re reading it and you have to think about the
author and the situations …you have to put it together in
your mind and think of ways so you can read through the
lines and get the story besides just the opinion. (PD, Santa
Rosa)
• Within the last year I’ve learned to actually look at
someone else’s point of view and to comprehend what they
think about it, …and take note of what they’re saying and
try and figure out what’s the best way to look at the
argument. (JD, Bakersfield)
Separating Fact from Opinion:
Learning “how to break it down”
• … we had to find out what the argument was about and
how to break it down, …separate the factual information
from opinion… judging between what the writer could
back up with actual facts … as opposed to things that the
author just believed. (JD, Bakersfield)
• [Now] I analyze everything that I read, and see what the
author’s trying to [say]… Is it positive, is it negative? Is
he strong in some things? Is he weak in something else? Is
he describing both sides of the story or is he just focusing
on one? (JD, Bakersfield)
Becoming More
Skeptical Readers
• [A]s a reader I’ve become more skeptical when I
read… So like we’ve been learning how to read
skeptically like not just believing everything
everybody says. Like everything we read we
believe about half of everything, of every side of
the argument, you know what I mean? So like I
think that’s helped me a lot because … you have to
look at the world skeptically too. (MA, Temecula)
Seeing Reading as
More Enjoyable
I guess I enjoy reading now. (JD, Bakersfield)
Looking at Text (and Life) with
an Open Yet Critical Mind
• Well, [the curriculum] …taught us to look at [text] with an
open mind and look at what the author’s saying and see
bias, see holes in it, …when I was earlier in my years, like
I’d read something and I’d believe it. I wouldn’t even
question it and after reading this like now I’m starting to
question things. (MA, Temecula)
• [These lessons] helped us be more open-minded, basically
to find different points of view... (AG, Alameda County)
• …[I]t’s not so much about learning facts but about learning
to see both sides of an issue…. (SH, Los Angeles)
Students See Themselves
Becoming Stronger Writers
• … [I]t’s easier to write now and I find myself looking
more forward to writing a paper in this class than in
some other classes. (TD, Los Angeles)
• When I started out, I was a very mediocre essay writer.
…when I went into Miss D.’s class. That’s when I
really started writing essays... So I now enjoy writing
essays. Before I used to hide from them, I wouldn’t do
them, I would get bad grades, but now when I write
them, I know that I can do it, I can fight with it. (JD,
Bakersfield)
Becoming Stronger Writers:
Questioning the Text
• I didn’t [used to] like to write. I still don’t
like to write really, but… now …I realize that
when you read something you don’t have to
agree with what they’re talking about. You
can like disagree with it … and you can
write about that. (JD, Bakersfield)
Paying Greater Attention to
Process and Audience
• Makes you want to …think before you write,
brainstorm, figure it out instead of just going off
the top of your head, you have to go through and
prewrite it. (JD, Bakersfield)
• [When you write] you have to think about the
readers and how they’re going to [respond]. (CB,
Arvin)
Making Reading/Writing
Connections
• …I never would have guessed …that … making them little
comments can just really make you think what you’re
going to say…, so when you finally write your essay, it
comes out how you want it. (TD, Los Angeles)
• Personally …I didn’t used to like to read… I never picked
up a book and then like …you had to read, and then it
…made you want to read and then like the more you read,
the better your essays get… It’s like you become more
intelligent, you… start writing in the style that you’re
reading, and so that kind of works. (JD, Bakersfield)
Making Reading/Writing
Connections (cont’d.)
• …on the back of each article …we answered questions – not
just like yes or no questions. We answered [questions] in
paragraph form and for me it was helpful ‘cause I use it to
write my essays. (TD, Los Angeles)
• Annotating, that really helps because when you highlight
certain stuff… you feel is important, then when you write
your essay you go back to that highlighted stuff. (JD,
Bakersfield)
• I’m more critical when I read things. … Basically I
question everything they say. And then you’ve got to do
that in your own writing too. (RL, Petaluma)
Becoming Stronger
Test Takers
• …[W]hen we took our placement test to get
into college [having done the curriculum] …
helped us out… And then when I took my
placement test, it was like easy because
…we went over those articles and it got us
there. (JD, Bakersfield)
“Thinking for Ourselves
Out in the Real World”
• Not only did it teach us knowledge about these things, it …
gave us a way to think for ourselves once we go out to the
real world... (RFS, Lake County)
• …[T]he thing about the articles is it makes me think a lot
more ‘cause I’ve grown up in Lake County and never
really been out of this area long enough to see what the rest
of the world’s like. And by reading articles we get a look
at what the rest of the world is like – how people are a lot
different from what we’re used to ‘cause a lot of us have
grown up with each other so we’re not as judgmental
towards each other sometimes as we would be with
someone in another city... (RFS, Lake County)
Thinking Toward
the Future: College
• Like yesterday we looked in the newspaper and
read letters to the authors … and evaluated the
tone, … so I think it’ll help us when we …go to
college, it’ll help us that way. (RFS, Lake
County)
• Well, I know we’re going to be using it because
when we reach college, you’re going to have to
know how to write a proper essay …because if you
don’t know how to write a proper essay you’re not
going to get anywhere in life. (JD, Bakersfield)
“You Don’t Want to Be a Fool”:
Looking Toward the Workplace
• Well, depending on your career, like if you’re
reading stuff, sitting in our office reading stuff,
you don’t want to be taken for a fool. You don’t
want to read …things and just believe every
word… (MA, Temecula)
• [This seems like it will be relevant later] because
[with] almost every job there’s something you
have to write. Like if you’re going to be a cop,
that’s most of what they do -- they write reports.
Or if you’re a manager for a company, you have to
do a bunch of paperwork. (RL, Petaluma)
“Even if we don’t like it”:
Developing a Repertoire of Textual
Tools and Resources
• I think when I like do all these things like we
might not like when we’re doing them, it may
seem like it takes a long time and everything, but
when we’re writing … papers like in college…,
we’re not going to have to …necessarily do all that
stuff in order to write a paper, but if we get like
stuck somewhere …it’s just teaching us this is
what I can do. I can look up vocab or I can look at
the deeper meaning of things and then find out…
even if we don’t like it I guess. (MA, Temecula)
Students’ Major Critiques
of ERWC Materials
• Some activities within and across units were
repetitious (this cut both ways)
• Materials could be made more visually
appealing
• Some articles seemed too one-sided
(reflects the effects of the course)
Students’ Suggestions:
Start Earlier!
• I believe that … to help students and the teacher …
we should start this a little earlier …so by the time
they get here [to high school], they have that
passion, they have that argument, they’re not
afraid anymore and they can do it. [L]ike you can
do third grade but make it really simple… same
style, just tinier, and then make it progressive and
then, when they hit senior year, you’ll have
phenomenal writers. (JD, Bakersfield)