April Blevins – Professional Inquiry Project
Background:
In recent years, with the increased emphasis on on-demand test scores and strict prescriptive methods for teaching writing, I have noticed many students have developed an overwhelmingly negative attitude towards writing in general. Additionally, I noticed that students were put through so many mock on-demand writings, that when it came time for the real on-demand test, many of them did not take it seriously. When questioned about their lack of effort, many, students said that they had written so many 3.5 essays that they were sick of writing them and didn’t want to try on another one.
Problem:
The on-demand writing is an important accountability assessment piece, and so educators must prepare students with the skills needed to perform well on it. However, current preparation methods seem to be doing more harm than good when it comes to students’ attitudes about writing. I wanted to know if taking a more creative approach to writing would prepare students for the on-demand writing assessment without having a negative impact on their attitude towards writing as a whole.
Method:
During the 2015-2016 school year, I taught two sections of Juniors. These classes both had similar demographics when it came to ratio of male to female students and students without IEPs to students with IEPs.
I chose one class as my control group. For this class, I continued to follow the same rigid, prescriptive method of teaching on-demand writing as I had followed the previous year. This included having “On-Demand Friday” in which each Friday was dedicated to deconstructing On-Demand writing prompts, labeling situation, purpose, audience, and mode, and ultimately writing several mock on-demand essays.
The second class would be my experimental group. I decided to approach writing instruction in a completely different way with this class, following many of the lessons and ideas that I learned while participating in the Morehead Writing Project Summer Institute. This included “Start the Day off Write,” creative writing mini-lessons, and other fun and positive writing exercises which were incorporated throughout the curriculum instead of having stop and drop writing days.
At the beginning of the year, I took a sample of both groups of students’ writing to get a baseline understanding of their current writing skills. I also took notes throughout the year on how students in both groups reacted to writing instruction. Near the end of the year, I took a second sample of both groups of students’ writing to measure improvement and also asked students to take an online survey with questions geared to measure their attitudes towards writing.
Findings:
From the research I gathered, it seems overwhelmingly true that the experimental group of students outperformed the control group of students. Their overall improvement from the first writing sample to the last was significantly higher than the control group. In addition, the experimental group of students answered with a higher degree of favorable responses on the survey than the control group. I also noticed that in my notes, the experimental group typically made positive comments about writing exercises, whereas the control group was more likely to complain about writing exercises.
Implications:
All results of this experiment suggest that the prescriptive and rigid method used for teaching on-demand writing in the past does little to improve student writing ability and may damage student attitudes towards writing in general. It is my recommendation that we forgo our current methods of teaching on-demand writing in favor of a more creative approach. This will achieve our goal of preparing students for the on-demand writing test in addition to helping students achieve growth as writers overall. Furthermore, student attitudes about writing can better be fostered through these means than through our current means of teaching on-demand writing.
Background:
In recent years, with the increased emphasis on on-demand test scores and strict prescriptive methods for teaching writing, I have noticed many students have developed an overwhelmingly negative attitude towards writing in general. Additionally, I noticed that students were put through so many mock on-demand writings, that when it came time for the real on-demand test, many of them did not take it seriously. When questioned about their lack of effort, many, students said that they had written so many 3.5 essays that they were sick of writing them and didn’t want to try on another one.
Problem:
The on-demand writing is an important accountability assessment piece, and so educators must prepare students with the skills needed to perform well on it. However, current preparation methods seem to be doing more harm than good when it comes to students’ attitudes about writing. I wanted to know if taking a more creative approach to writing would prepare students for the on-demand writing assessment without having a negative impact on their attitude towards writing as a whole.
Method:
During the 2015-2016 school year, I taught two sections of Juniors. These classes both had similar demographics when it came to ratio of male to female students and students without IEPs to students with IEPs.
I chose one class as my control group. For this class, I continued to follow the same rigid, prescriptive method of teaching on-demand writing as I had followed the previous year. This included having “On-Demand Friday” in which each Friday was dedicated to deconstructing On-Demand writing prompts, labeling situation, purpose, audience, and mode, and ultimately writing several mock on-demand essays.
The second class would be my experimental group. I decided to approach writing instruction in a completely different way with this class, following many of the lessons and ideas that I learned while participating in the Morehead Writing Project Summer Institute. This included “Start the Day off Write,” creative writing mini-lessons, and other fun and positive writing exercises which were incorporated throughout the curriculum instead of having stop and drop writing days.
At the beginning of the year, I took a sample of both groups of students’ writing to get a baseline understanding of their current writing skills. I also took notes throughout the year on how students in both groups reacted to writing instruction. Near the end of the year, I took a second sample of both groups of students’ writing to measure improvement and also asked students to take an online survey with questions geared to measure their attitudes towards writing.
Findings:
From the research I gathered, it seems overwhelmingly true that the experimental group of students outperformed the control group of students. Their overall improvement from the first writing sample to the last was significantly higher than the control group. In addition, the experimental group of students answered with a higher degree of favorable responses on the survey than the control group. I also noticed that in my notes, the experimental group typically made positive comments about writing exercises, whereas the control group was more likely to complain about writing exercises.
Implications:
All results of this experiment suggest that the prescriptive and rigid method used for teaching on-demand writing in the past does little to improve student writing ability and may damage student attitudes towards writing in general. It is my recommendation that we forgo our current methods of teaching on-demand writing in favor of a more creative approach. This will achieve our goal of preparing students for the on-demand writing test in addition to helping students achieve growth as writers overall. Furthermore, student attitudes about writing can better be fostered through these means than through our current means of teaching on-demand writing.