Internal Review for Larson Middle School

Visit date ____May 7, 2015_______ Time ______4:00pm____

Presenting Team
Presenting Team Coordinator: Cindy Christiansen
Contact Information: cchristiansen@troy.k12.mi.us Phone: 248-823-4828
Team Member Names
Jason Fawcett (co-chair/English)

Sandy Bammel (Science)

Katie Oxendine (co-chair)

Ashley Conrad (World Languages)

Sharon Brennan & Nancy Stone (History/Soc Studies)

Suzanne Powell & Lauren Field (counselors)

Hadeel Yousif (Math)

Diane Kocenda (Assistant Principal)

Clair Murphy (the Arts)

Visiting Team
Visiting Team Coordinator: Matt Jansen
Contact Information: mjansen@troy.k12.mi.us
Team Member Names
Jessica Ashley
Heidi Rosenberg
Lori Medina-Yashinsky
Kristyn Cubitt
Adam Siismets

The Presenting Team completes this form before their Internal Review Visit and sends it to the Visiting Team Coordinator
one week prior to the visit.
The Presenting Team creates an electronic version that includes the feedback from the Visiting Team after the visit and
forwards it to the District School Improvement Coordinator (Anne Mull).

Building mission statement

The purpose of Larson Middle School is to ensure learning for all members of the school community.

Building vision statement

Larson Middle School will become an exemplary learning community that embraces innovation and is committed to
continuous improvement. Larson Middle School will be a place where a collaborative community develops
curriculum, instructional strategies, and assessment to ensure all students learn and maximize individual potential.
Building SMART goal #1
All students at Larson Middle School will become proficient writers.
Objective: 100% of all students will demonstrate proficiency writing arguments to support claims with clear
reasons and relevant evidence in their core content subjects in Writing by 06/10/2016 as measured by a common
argument writing rubric.
Which district goal (s) is supported by this goal?
All students will be college/ career ready in
Literacy

Mathematics

Science

Social studies

Reason for choosing this goal: This goal was chosen as an all-encompassing goal for Literacy, Science, and Social
Studies. Larson staff and stakeholders feel that all students must be able to read and write well based on Common
Core standards in order to be fully prepared for the new standardized assessments and ultimately their college
coursework/careers. This goal helped Larson staff and students focus on reading informational text and writing
using a claim, evidence reasoning format. Larson chose this goal with the assumption that if a student can read
and write well, they can learn in all content areas.
Work toward the goal. Provide summary of activities.
In this second year of our School Improvement goals, we:
Developed a generic rubric for all teachers to utilize. This rubric was developed by a rubric committee,
reviewed with departments, and then put into use.
Requested and received PD from Lori Ulewicz regarding writing in the content areas
Continued to utilize the common graphic organizers
Developed various graphic organizers in order to provide students with special needs with more visual
supports for organizing their thoughts/writing
Modeled reasoning and practiced being able to connect reasoning with evidence using key phrases
The Special Education department connected claim-based writing with the Language! Curriculum by
developing claim-based prompts for Language! text
Provided scaffolding and offered various levels of support based on student needs

Many teachers/departments made changes based on their experiences last year with argument writing. These
changes included:
Argument Driven Inquiry in 8th grade Science (Students conducted experiments and collected their
evidence (data), wrote claims supported by that evidence and added reasoning to connect evidence to their
claims.)
8th grade ELA and History combined to assess students post-assessment writing. History teachers scored
the content of the writing and ELA teachers graded the organization, conventions, and
language/vocabulary.
6th grade Geography continued to use CER writing with informational articles and added this type of writing
with mapping units as well.

Results of goal:
During the 204-15 school year, we benefited greatly from the prior years experiences. As a result,
Students worked on their argument writing skills in every content area
Students encountered common vocabulary, graphic organizers, and rubrics in all content areas.
Students recognized the similarities within content areas when writing effective arguments.
Teachers collaborated to discuss pre- and post-assessments in order to improve the process for students.
Teachers became more comfortable with the argument writing process and were able to make changes to
reflect content area differences.
Students improved their organization of writing with the use of the highlighting system and color-coding.
Students improved their ability to connect reasoning with evidence and think critically.
Students claim-based writing improved overall based upon data collection in school-wide spreadsheet
Next steps?
An end-of-year survey of teachers regarding the generic rubric provided helpful information that will be
utilized next year. Changes will be made to reflect teacher comments.
Teachers will collaborate and use student samples to develop standardized grading policies.
Teachers will explore Cultures of Thinking and its use in helping students organize their thinking.
Science will expand the Argument Driven Inquiry to 6th and 7th grade students.
8th grade History teachers will explore a different prompt for student post-assessments to allow for a better
counterclaim.
The counseling department will sponsor an 8th grade college exploration essay contest requiring the use of
argument writing skills.
Staff will collaborate to develop a building-wide schedule for argument writing (both pre- and postassessment) so that students are not completing these assessments at the same time in every content
area.
General Feedback from visiting team

Building SMART goal #2

All students at Larson Middle School will become proficient readers.
Objective: 100% of all students will demonstrate proficiency citing textual evidence of what the text says explicitly
as well as inferences drawn from the text in Reading by 06/10/2016 as measured by a common argument writing
rubric.
Which district goal (s) is supported by this goal?
All students will be college/ career ready in
Literacy

Mathematics

Science

Social studies

Reason for choosing this goal: This goal was chosen as an all-encompassing goal for Literacy, Science, and Social
Studies. Larson staff and stakeholders feel that all students must be able to read and write well based on Common
Core standards in order to be fully prepared for the new standardized assessments and ultimately their college

coursework/careers. This goal helped Larson staff and students focus on reading informational text and writing
using a claim, evidence reasoning format. Larson chose this goal with the assumption that if a student can read
and write well, they can learn in all content areas.
Work toward the goal. Provide summary of activities.
In this second year of our School Improvement goals,
Teachers collaborated to provide students with informational articles that provide evidence on both sides
of issues
Teachers and students continued to utilize common strategies for reading informational text, including
annotating with common annotation codes and highlighting with common colors.
Students were encouraged to go beyond simple highlighting and underlining to making connections,
asking questions, and focusing on important words/phrases as they annotate.
Teachers requested and received PD from Lori Ulewicz regarding reading in the content areas
Students practiced citing evidence with highlighting and using argument text structures in AARI/support
classes.
Students developed strategies for answering different types of inferential questions such as inferred main
idea and relationship questions in AARI/support classes.
Students practiced applying strategies for inferential questions to science and social studies textbooks in
AARI/support classes.
Many teachers/departments made changes based on their experiences last year with reading informational texts.
These changes included:
Increased number of articles in 8th grade History given over the course of several days to allow for closer
reading and annotating.
The development of articles written in English in World Language classes (None were used last year
because World Languages were thought to be exempt from this process.)
Instrumental music classes incorporating CER into everyday activities. Students listen to professional
ensembles play musical selections and compare that to their own playing. In this content area, listening to
professional ensembles is the equivalent of reading informational text.
Results of goal:
During the 204-15 school year, we benefited greatly from the prior years experiences. As a result,
Students worked on their informational text reading and citation skills in all content areas.
Students encountered common informational text reading strategies in all content areas.
Teachers worked to spread close reading instruction throughout the year.
Students with IEPs have improved in their ability to cite evidence found explicitly in the text.
Students have improved in their ability to answer inferential questions and cite evidence for them.
Students in reading support classes have shown an increase in reading comprehension levels for explicit
and implicit comprehension of non-fiction text based on the Qualitative Reading Inventory.
Next steps?
Teachers will collaborate and use student samples to develop standardized grading policies.
Teachers will explore Cultures of Thinking and its use in helping students make their thinking more visible
so that all students grow in their understanding.
The counseling department plans to conduct small group instruction that focuses on reading support for
students identified by teachers.
World Languages teachers will work to develop staff-written texts in the target language to further
students informational reading skills.

General Feedback from visiting team

Building SMART goal #3

All students at Larson Middle School will become proficient in math.
Objective: 100% of all students will demonstrate proficiency in constructing viable arguments and critiquing
reasoning of others in Mathematics by 06/30/2016 as measured by a common rubric.
Which district goal (s) is supported by this goal?
All students will be college/ career ready in
Literacy

Mathematics

Science

Social studies

Reason for choosing this goal: Larson staff and stakeholders feel that all students must be able to read and write
well based on Common Core standards in order to be fully prepared for the new standardized assessments and
ultimately their college coursework/careers by creating viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others in
mathematics. Larson recognizes that for students to be successful they must be able to explain their thinking and
reasoning as well as analyze and respond to the reasoning of others.
Work toward the goal. Provide summary of activities.
In this second year of our School Improvement goal, we
Collaborated to develop more CER problems in order to provide students more consistent opportunities to
practice these skills.
Focused on using CER problems throughout the year so that students see the applicability of this skill.
Moved away from students picking the correct answer and focused more on the process of solving a
problem.
Results of goal:
During the 204-15 school year, we benefited greatly from the prior years experiences. As a result,
Students experienced a more consistent usage of their reasoning and analyzing skills.
Students focused on more efficient processes when critiquing the reasoning of others.
Students focused on process rather than outcome.
Next steps?
Teachers will collaborate and use student samples to develop standardized grading policies.
Teachers will explore Cultures of Thinking in order to make student thinking more visible.

General Feedback from visiting team