This data reinforced that ideas, organization, and word choice/voice are key to growing students as writers. While the other traits are of value, they can be reinforced in other subjects throughout the day, and applied in writing. 100% of my students were proficient or above in ideas. From pre-test to posttest 10 students moved to proficiency in the area of organization. Only 4 students scored proficient or advanced on the pre-test, whereas 14 student scored proficient or advanced on the posttest. Furthermore, my action research pushed students who were already at or above profiency. Only one student was advanced on the pre-test. Six students wrote advanced or above grade level in organization on the posttest. This data showed that the same amount of students scored proficient in word choice and voice from the beginning of this action research to the end. More students scored below proficient in the trait of sentence fluency and conventions on the posttest. This data along with my conferencing notes help me to determine what my mini lessons in whole group should pertain to.
The data gained from my district Common Summative Assessments (CSAs) gave me objective, quantitative data and showed tremendous student growth. Analyzing this data gave me great insight. 12 out of 18 of my students (67%) scored below proficient for second grade on the informative writing pre-test, leaving only 6/18 students (34%) who were on grade level or above. The amount of students who scored proficient or above on the posttest (after implementing my action research) increased substantially to 15/18 (83%) students, leaving only 3/18 (17%) writing below a second grade level.
Furthermore, I broke down the overall proficiency scores on the CSA to see how many students scored in each category on the district rubric. The pre-test data allowed me to have a better understanding of how many students I needed to provide interventions for and how many to extend and push beyond. The data from the post test showed growth for 100% of my students.
From analyzing my students’ self-assessment surveys, I was able to qualitatively see on average, my students’ writing identities, or what they thought about themselves as writers, increased. Overall, they had a better sense of what good writers do and displayed a desire to do more writing. Except for one writing trait, all the other scorable writing traits increased, saying that they can more confidently write using each trait better. The only trait that decreased was spelling in conventions.
What do you like most about writing?
How has your teacher helped you?
How have you changed as a writer?
What has helped you become a better writer?
Analysis
My conferencing notes were great formative data and checks throughout the course of writing instruction. These notes were not a grade for the students, rather they helped track what had been talked about and guided my individualized instruction for each student. I took notes daily everytime I met with a student. This data allowed me to see trends and address them/make adjustments right there during my research. It showed me who and how many students needed extra support or reteaching on a certain trait. At the end of my action research, my conferencing notes showed how many times mentor texts were discussed. The data showed in the first week 100% of conferencing conversations were focused on choosing focused ideas that could give their reader information. This makes sense as they picked topics and found facts. The second week’s conferences progressed to conversations about focusing those topics, finding facts, and organizing those facts in a way that helps the reader. The third week showed conversations surrounding all four trait as students were far into their research reports. Everyone was on different levels and thus the diverse conversations showed that. The last week’s conferencing conversations had more focus on conventions due to students editing and revising. The data showed a great deal of focus on organization especially on week 2, 3, 4. This supported the data gained from my CSA pre-test that showed a great lack of ability to write with strong organization.
My students' writing identities positively increased in each writing trait except for organization. This is a huge success in elementary school where so often writing causes students to lose self-confidence. I believe this came through highlighting each writer's strengths.
Connections between the data from each collection method:
From the start of this action research, the CSAs, writing conferencing notes, and the self-assessment data showed gaps and areas which needed improvement and enrichment. Specifically, the pre-test CSA data showed that organization was the weakest trait for my class as a whole. Additionally, the self-assessment that my students took displayed a poor understanding of what good writers do and a low writing identity as a whole. That specific information allowed me to focus on finding strategies such as focused conferencing conversations. I used specific learning tools such as quality mentor texts to model strong organization, student-friendly rubrics to explicitly break down the skills of quality organization, and different approaches to writing instruction that met my unique groups of students where they were at.
My data showed the benefit of conferencing individually and the use of quality mentor texts; however, I believe that the two of those combined increased writing achievement exponentially. The use of mentor texts took conferencing to the next level. Intentionally choosing and implementing mentor text allowed me to go beyond just telling students what good organization looks like, but showing them and exposing them to different perspectives and authors.
One other connection was that my students writing identities grew increasingly positive during the course of my research. When I conferenced with students around their strengths and opportunities for growth they became more open to feedback and trusted me to grow their skills as writers. They are now able to take and implement feedback in order to help themselves and their peers grow as writers.
Students used similar terminology from our conversations in conferencing and from the rubric, to the data taken through interviews and post self-assessments. That allowed all students to be on the same level regarding how to think about and discuss writing as scholars.
Critical analysis of my practice:
A strength of mine as a literacy teacher is sharing my “inner voice” with students as I read. Students need to think about specific writing traits as they read mentor texts. We discussed how the authors used the traits of writing to engage their readers. For example, when an author used good word choice I would say, “Oooo! I really liked how the author used those words.” Gallagher (2014) writes in her article, Making the Most of Mentor Texts, “Having students recognize good writers’ techniques positions them to infuse them into their own compositions” (p.29).
Additionally, I model by writing in front and with my students. According to my research, educators must be writer’s themselves and show the messy process (Ackerman and McDonough, 2016, p.8-9; Culham, 2014, p. 13). Modeling writing in front of my students was also key to showing them the vulnerabilities and perspectives of me as an author. We were able to use that writing as an anchor text to refer back to and learn from. According to my research, Gallagher (2014) explains that mentor texts do not have to be published books (p. 31). They can be a piece written together as a class on anchor chart paper that the teacher or students can refer to at any time. They can be reference books made up of student work. Culham (2014) defines a mentor text as “any text, print or digital, that you can read with a writer’s eye” (31).
Furthermore, during conferencing conversations my students and myself looked at the rubric as a continuum of learning. We used the rubric as a teaching tool and an assessment tool. This supported my students by helping them to be able to critically analyze themselves as writers of where they were at on the rubic and making goals as to where they wanted to go and how to get there.
Because assessing writing is subjective, I double scored the assessments to create interrater reliability. This also removed any bias I may have.
Impact on my interactions with students:
My action research hugely impacted teacher to student and peer to peer interaction. Through conferencing and the use of the rubric, students were able to critically analyze and talk about writing as scholars. Through observation and the post self-assessment along with interviews students were able to identify areas of growth and strengths in themselves and others. As their confidence grew through conferencing and use of rubric they were able to grow the confidence of others. This helped to build a true culture of writing in our classroom. All of my students confidently view themselves as authors. The post self-assessment survey showed growth in a positive writing identity for my students. Furthermore, my students were honored to have peers in other 2nd grade classes view their work as anchor texts.
Questions I still have:
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How do I continue to gain support with writing instruction? I want my students to grow in all the traits, therefore, how do I use my professional resources to continue my growth as a writing teacher?
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How do I deepen student understanding and the use of the rubric?