Written Inquiry Plan

Final Written Inquiry Plan Kelly Alexandra Trotta University of New England Connecting Reading and Writing for Success: EDU 743

Written Inquiry Plan

I wonder how many of our highly motivated, clearly exceptional teachers in this program were in honors or accelerated classes when they were in school. These titles used to mean something in education. At least in my experience, the students in these classes deserved to be there. Parents could not dictate where their children ended up placed; students test scores, aptitude, drive, and overall performance decided placement. Many teachers talk about the many ways in which our world of education is changing, but I have not heard a lot of talk regarding this issue. Though discourses in differentiation constantly debate whether homogeneous-ability groupings are in students best interests, especially at the honors level, these sorts of courses continue to be used in order to provide support for struggling students and to allow students who are able to move at a faster pace and accomplish more in the classroom. There are thirty-five students in our eighth grade, divided into two groups. At the beginning of the school year, the grades were split homogeneously based on their math abilities. Though students were happy and largely blissfully ignorant, this grouping was highly contested by the parents, so our administration decided to regroup students heterogeneously as of the third week of school. This meant that all students would be taking Algebra I, which is technically the math class usually offered in freshman year of high school. Parents of our students insist that their children be eligible for Geometry, a sophomore class, in ninth grade. After disastrous results on the midterm, even the parents recognized that the groups needed to be rethought in order to have any success. For this reason, we restructured the grade into two homogeneously grouped sections, once again based on math ability. This gives us one group of so-called accelerated students and one group of on-level students. These titles are deceptive. All of the teachers agree that the vast majority of this accelerated group can barely handle standard eighth grade level work much less anything above; the math teachers struggle with the fact that only
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Written Inquiry Plan

five students are truly ready for Algebra I, even in this accelerated group. There are always a few very bright, talented youngsters, who are able to handle more, and we have that handful just like any other school, but to call nineteen out of thirty-five students accelerated really does not speak to the truth of the situation in math nor in any other subject. Understanding this framework will help justify why I chose the following inquiry project. When we regrouped these classes in mid January, students had very dramatic and negative reactions. Many of the students in the lower class have their parents berating them at home for not making it into geometry class for high school, and theyre not even there yet! That said, they are coping quite well in school. They happen to be the more outgoing, enthusiastic, happy-golucky of the thirty-five students. They also get along well, support one another, and feel excited to be finally learning at their own pace in math. I teach this group during eighth period every afternoon, and they are a joy. They discuss, share, and participate actively. I quickly realized that, believe it or not, this would be the easier class to work with and move through the curriculum in a timely fashion. The so-called accelerated class is like pulling teeth. They are great kids and when mixed with the other students they did beautifully. Since the regroup, however, they have become silent, pompous, and interested only in memorization and regurgitation. Oh, and being the best; suddenly it is all about knocking each other over and being the smartest. As a faculty, we are much more concerned about this group. For this reason, I chose to work on my inquiry plan with my nineteen accelerated eighth graders. I chose to apply the theories of oral and written conversation to our study of changing U.S. foreign policy in the late 19th/ early 20th century. I also decided to pull in several current events tie-ins and writing projects to apply things I studied in Wilsons text (2006) and Routmans text (2005). While I cannot form a completely separate unit based strictly on these
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Written Inquiry Plan

kinds of writing projects or theories, I can incorporate them in my usual classes, improving the courses through them, and still accomplish what the curriculum mandates. The overall goal is to spark class discussion, rekindle enjoyment of the material, and establish a positive class identity for these newly struggling students. Other goals include developing an awareness of the importance of conversation, whether oral or written, plays into the learning process for most students. I also would like students to be able to form connections and articulate them through a variety of means, including formal presentations. My subject outcomes for these lessons include exploring the foreign policy concepts of isolationism, expansionism, imperialism, and moral diplomacy and discovering how each policy impacted national identity. I will be employing my instructional theories and methods based on my textual studies throughout this unit, which will last from February 1st through the 24th, for a total of twelve lessons to take place during thirteen forty minute class periods. Each lesson will provide students with a different partner to work with or a new small group. They will find out their partners identity through many varied means (i.e. stickers, colored post-its, numbers, etc.). Students will read and study text, employing different means of conversation and accomplishing different activities. Written reflections, self-evaluations, partner scoring, and class presentations will all be assessment opportunities. To further explore modern connections in these lessons, students will be preparing and giving a class presentation using current events. One of the most academically challenging portions of this study will involve learning how to complete a DBQ, or document based question. We have been working toward this goal since the end of second quarter, but the higher level thinking skills of synthesis and application needed to appropriately address this sort of question have taken a while to develop.

Written Inquiry Plan

The challenge provided by this activity will further necessitate positive group interaction, a main goal of my inquiry project. Though this is, in name, a homogeneously mixed class of accelerated students, differentiation is still necessary. The flexibility of all partner groups and the fact that they change on a daily basis provide an excellent differentiating opportunity. Students will also have choices, toward the end of the unit, of different newly learned methods and practices to utilize based on what they believe works the best for each of them and their individual learning styles. This class is also ideal to work with because of their unique understanding of their own learning styles; I began the year with my eighth graders studying Gardners theory of multiple intelligences. These thirty-five students frequently make reference to their own styles and have explored strategies to help them achieve to the best of their potential based on this information. They are also ideal because their language arts teacher and I have worked very hard throughout the year to build an interdisciplinary writing course between our two classes. We work together every week to build on the writing program for the eighth grade. Sometimes I teach a writing style that is employed in her class and sometimes it happens in the opposite way; being as I am a language arts specialist, I am able to, in essence, expand their reading and writing instruction through our social studies classes while still covering the necessary historical material. I will utilize resources that we have at our disposal, such as our classroom SMART board, upper school laptop cart, and student materials (textbook, composition notebook, and binder). Our students are extremely innocent and very young in mentality, so I will spice the lessons up through the use of colored pens, markers, post-its, stickers, and other fun materials. Small prizes like Dum-Dum Lollipops and fun packs of Swedish Fish and Sour Patch Kids will act as incentives to encourage participation and increase motivation early in the unit. Students
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will also make use of current periodicals to complete their current events connection. I have made the rubrics and self-evaluation sheets that will aid them in completing this unit. I am choosing this inquiry project because I am very interested in discussion, conversation, and collaboration within the classroom, as well as in writing across the curriculum and forming modern connections within historical lessons. My choice to use this particular class as opposed to one of my five others has everything to do with the recent regrouping of the eighth grade class and their negative affect as a group since that point. It is my hope that this project will not only be successful for me as a professional study, but also successful in drawing them out and creating a more positive atmosphere for learning.

Written Inquiry Plan

References Routman, R. (2005). Writing Essentials: Raising Expectations and Results while Simplifying Teaching. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Wilson, L. (2006). Writing to Live. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.