Lindsey Hancock Warden
Qualitative Growth
Qualitative data is another important measure of student growth in my classroom. While we engage in a variety of classroom activities and assignments, it is through my students' writing that I can gain the most complete picture of academic growth. Writing is an important marker for rigor and college readiness, especially for my students who have had their writing growth addressed very little in previous years. This is due to the fact that they do not write an essay as part of our EOY achievement assessments. Since there is not an essay on the standardized test, I feel that a culture of spending less time on writing has formed at my school. As a teacher who heavily emphasizes writing in both ELA and History, I knew that assessing student writing and growth in writing would be a key focus of mine. Writing takes place in many different formats in my classroom, including narrative, informational, and argumentative writing tasks, as well as through informal writing. Writing tasks give my students an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and skill using a method that is different from merely answering multiple-choice questions or completing a worksheet. Writing tasks require knowledge across content, and the application of a broad swath of skills including spelling, vocabulary, writing conventions, critical reading and thinking, and content knowledge.
The student work samples included as evidence of qualitative growth are two term paper assignments - one from the fall, and one from the spring. The first term paper was submitted after two quarters of writing instruction at the end of Semester 1, and the second was submitted after four quarters of writing instruction at the end of Semester 2. While the research project incorporated several steps, my analysis will focus on comparing the two individual term papers that students submitted in November and May.
Table of Contents
Assignment & Rubric Overview
Semester 1 Overview
Below is the teacher-created assignment for my students' term research papers. The assignment allows students to choose a topic of their choice for research, and walks them through the preliminary steps of achieving the final product. I often use steps 1-6 to direct the teaching or re-teaching of mini lessons in class over the skills needed to complete the step. The students and I use the final product, which is the formal term paper, as a celebration of strengths at the end of each semester. We also use it as a diagnostic tool to determine what skills or knowledge points the student is still missing, and what they need to work on in a highly targeted manner in the future.
This assignment leaves a great deal of room for student choice in topic selection, which I find important for them to generate a paper of the length I am encouraging. Most of my students enter the eighth grade having written one, or maybe two, page papers, and that is really not enough practice for the rigorous length requirements of high school or college work. Few of my middle school students have had much practice with word processing before entering my class, so teaching them to format documents and create bibliographies is another key area of focus when it comes to their research papers. Therefore, this research paper assignment not only generates targeted information about a students' informational or argumentative writing abilities, spelling proficiency, vocabulary range, and mastery of writing conventions and grammatical norms, but also provides insights into their individual interests. Most importantly, the assignment gives me a picture of my students' readiness for high school, and ultimately, college level writing.
Rubric Explanation
The rubric I used to assess the term research papers is attached below. This rubric is divided into five categories:
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Introduction / Thesis: The goal is for students to write interesting introductions that clearly state the topic, and include a clear and definitive thesis.
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Content Knowledge & Quality of Research: Students are encouraged to use research from more than three sources, and the sources must relate to the thesis argument logically. Students must correctly cite their references internally.
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Content Application: This row deals with the quality of the student's analysis, and how well they supported their thesis. An exceptional paper is expected to be critical and to consistently make connections between the thesis and the student's evidence. I am specifically looking to see that students are able to interpret their evidence in their own words, rather than merely copying quotes from their sources to "stand alone" in the paper without analysis.
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Conclusion: Students should seek to summarize their thesis argument, and to try to impact the reader with some kind of lasting thought or universal truth related to their subject matter.
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Writing: The final row of the rubric requires writing that is clear and organized, with few grammatical or spelling errors. The paper must be formatted professionally and properly, with a properly written bibliography. I purposefully score grammar, spelling, and other conventions in one category because I emphatically believe that student writing is overwhelmingly a creative pursuit. I do not believe in severely penalizing my students for spelling, grammatical, or conventional mistakes because they can write excellent ideas without knowing a thing about punctuation. The rubric purposefully places more emphasis on the content of the paper, and the quality of the research and analysis.
A perfect paper would score a 75/75 according to this rubric. However, I do not grade out of 75 on the fall term paper. While I tell my students that the 15 points column is the ultimate goal, I help them work up to that point by shooting for the 11 points column. The fall term paper is therefore only scored out of 55 for purposes of the student's letter grade. This mimics the same way that our quantitative achievement assessment is scored, with a lower bar set for proficiency in the fall as opposed to the spring. Essentially, the mindset is that if my students can score in the 11 points column in the fall, they are in a good position for that particular time of year. In the spring, when we write a second term paper, students would naturally be expected to grow, so the full 75 points are available.
Semester 2 Overview
After about fifteen weeks of continuous writing instruction and practice, my students were given their second research project. This project replaced their semester course exam in English, so students were motivated to improve from their first formal paper attempts.
The only significant difference in the assignments is that students must choose a new topic, and the instructions for the steps of the 2nd semester project are much shorter given that students have had two semesters to practice researching, note-taking, and writing. I passed the assignment out at the beginning of the fourth quarter, so students had roughly seven weeks to work on and revise their submissions, though they started at different times depending on factors like participation in extracurriculars after school and personal motivation.
I use the same rubric as above to score this final term research paper, but students are expected to submit a better product than in the fall and are therefore graded out of the full 75 points.
I selected the following student samples to represent a range of students in my classroom. Sample A was the lowest scoring Semester 1 research paper, Sample B is the median scoring Semester 1 research paper, and Sample C is the highest scoring Semester 1 research paper. Students completed these final drafts after several weeks of direct instruction and check-ins along the way. However, these papers should still be viewed as students' first attempts to write a major formal paper.
Included with the student samples are the rubrics that I used to score each sample. Student feedback is included on both the writing sample and the rubric.
For this research and writing assignment, students can choose when to complete the steps of the research and drafting process. They can also choose whether and when to schedule soft looks and conferences with me to review their progress and make recommendations. As opposed to the Semester 1 paper, this assignment is a true test of college readiness in writing because it models a process similar to what a college student must engage in as they write for their higher-level classes. This assignment therefore helps me assess students' ability to research and write, but also allows me to determine how independently they can do so. This kind of assessment and the subsequent feedback is invaluable in end-of-year discussions with students and parents. It helps me really let them know what skills and practices they must target during their time in high school in order to be prepared for college and career.
Included below are my students' final research essays, my written feedback, and my rubric mark-ups. The annotations include a raw score and grade comparison between the fall and spring assignments.
Student Writing Samples
Semester 1: 35, 64%
Student A is typically a high achieving student, but he struggles with writing. He has skipped two grades since kindergarten, and sometimes takes a bit longer to master eighth grade skills.
This writing sample demonstrates an acceptable grasp of the requirements of the content knowledge row of the rubric. He structures the essay into paragraphs, and cites researched evidence to support his ideas. He is approaching the requirement that information relates to the main topic, but requires more specific analysis of his evidence and synthesis of ideas.
The main weaknesses of this paper are in the content application and writing domains of the rubric. The student exhibits an over-reliance on evidence quotations as opposed to his own analysis, and there are also some issues with writing conventions related to punctuation and capitalization. In-text citations and works cited bibliographies are totally new to this group of students, so this is a struggle for many, including this student.
The student also lost points for a thesis that is both very broad (stating that welfare has many problems) and too specific (listing a few specific problems when the scope of his paper covers more than just those).
In addition, the student needs to clarify some of his ideas within the scope of content application, particularly in areas where the paper sounds like he is making generalizations about people who use welfare. Organization in this paper is weak, which is a deficit of the content knowledge row, as the student failed to organize the content in a logical manner. Overall, he appears to have forgotten some basic items, like the title, which indicates he may have started this assignment late and rushed through it.
Semester 2: 70, 93%
Student A implemented changes from his formal paper in semester 1 to his formal paper in semester 2. On his first attempt, he scored mainly in the second to last category. On this attempt, he does not have any rubric scores in the second to lowest category, and is instead scoring proficient or higher in each section.
The student's main source of improvement was in his organization, which is scored in the content knowledge row of the rubric. This is something we worked on all year, eventually learning that the student struggled because he had never been taught a basic five-paragraph essay structure. After learning how to write using this structure, my student had a great formula to create his thesis, support it with body paragraphs, and wrap it up with a conclusion. After he had a tool to correctly organize his writing, he was able to focus his efforts on synthesizing and analyzing his evidence after gathering it through more focused research.
Another improvement was through his thesis, which shows marked improvement in that he takes a very arguable stance, and covers the scope of his paper, writing, "the medieval church obtained too much power for their own benefit, most often betraying the values of the church and the foundations of the people's political, social, and cultural system."
He additionally improved his formatting and conventions for this paper, getting the internal citations correct in several places, and attaching his bibliography correctly. This increased his score for the writing and conventions category.
Of course, I still give him ideas for improvement in my feedback. However, through improved organization, analysis, and formatting, Student A demonstrated exceptional writing growth, and is well on his way to career and college readiness.
Student B Samples
Semester 2: 61.5, 82%
Knowing that Student B dislikes writing, we doubled down to produce a quality final product in the second semester. We quickly learned that he benefits from the same five-paragraph model that I showed Student A. Again, we needed to choose a topic of high-interest for Student B, and he chose to explore genetics and evolution based on a book he read for a science project.
The strengths of this paper that were not present on his first paper are the improvements in thsis, content knowledge and application through the improved organization and very extensive, logical analysis of his source text to support an arguable thesis. In the writing row of the rubric, his editing of run-on sentences to decrease their presence in this final product. While it is not a perfect paper, it is a vast improvement over the first effort.
Student B only used one source for his research, which we had to discuss, as that would not be considered acceptable in most high school and college classes. He did promise in our post-discussion to work on this in the future, and really push himself to meet assignment requirements in writing. While he used just the one source to produce this term paper, I was still impressed with the quality of his analysis on that one source. Rather than having several standalone quotations, he explains each of them and connects them back to the thesis. Thus, I believe that the student has still shown substantial qualitative growth in some areas, as he demonstrates a better grasp of quality written analysis and the ability to form his own ideas based on the evidence he has procured.
Student C Samples
Semester 1: 62, 98%
Sample C is from a student who consistently scores at Proficient or Advanced, or in the B or A letter grade range, of her assignments. She is a self-identified perfectionist, and met with me many times to ensure that this paper was on the right track.
This paper is very strong. It is formatted correctly, and strikes a good balance between integrating outside evidence and the student's own analysis. This latter quality allowed the student to score quite high in the content knowledge and application rows of the rubric. She also has an excellent conclusion, and a thesis that is proficient, but could improve by being more interesting and debatable.
Growth areas that we identified in this sample covered lengthening some paragraphs that were too short to fully communicate the idea, and using block quotes more judiciously. The student had a few standalone quotes without analysis to accompany them, which is problematic for a full credit score in content application. The thesis, and the paper overall, read much more like an informational piece than an argumentative one. I urged her to choose a topic in the second semester that would be more interesting for a reading audience, and that gives her some ground to defend an opinion that not everyone might share. In this first sample, the origin of languages is pretty well researched and understood by scholars already, and the student never really clarifies her main controversial position, which is that different languages originate from a Biblical event outlined in the Old Testament of the Bible.
Overall, this student sample is an important piece of evidence for qualitative growth in my classroom, because it helps demonstrate that even samples that are considered proficient have room to grow. Student C was grateful to have some new targets for her next paper, and set about addressing these issues in the second semester research project.
The following writing samples reflect student work from the fall term paper (left) and the spring term paper (right). Feedback from the school year that I wrote on each paper, as well as a scored rubric for each paper may be located by scrolling to the end of the documents. An interpretation and comparison is for each sample is located in the red text below.
Student A Samples
Semester 1: 37, 67%
Student B is a student frequently finds long assignments rather distasteful, and sometimes turns in work only partially completed. He does not particularly like English, but was willing to attempt this assignment because of its importance to preparing for high school and college. I knew that, for this student in particular, selecting a topic he found compelling would be critical. He settled on gun control, which he follows closely in the news.
Generally speaking, this paper shows some evidence of less thought put into it than I would like. The Works Cited page is incorrect, and has been added to the bottom of each page in the footnotes. There some other formatting issues present, particularly in the way that the conclusion is written as a bullet list instead of in a standard paragraph.
The thesis needs to be clearer in this paper, as it merely states "gun control is bad and inefficient gun control in America is very complex." This thesis, combined with the rest of the paper, demonstrates a lack of understanding of content application, as there is little analysis connecting the student's researched evidence to this thesis. Overall, the organization, analysis of cited evidence, and quality of sources can be improved. The student lost significant points in the writing row, as there are multiple run-on sentences that need to be addressed.
However, this student did a great job in places of correctly punctuating the in-text citations, and the evidence he selected demonstrates some content knowledge as he is able to make some logical connections, and somewhat support his thesis.
Semester 2: 73, 97%
Improving Student C's second formal paper attempt was a bit challenging for both of us, because I did really enjoy her first submission and she surpassed my expectations for the assignment. We really wanted to focus on improving the debatability of her thesis statement, and to strive for a more critical style of analysis as she worked with and synthesized sources. Rather than writing over a topic that is already well-researched by academics and taking a lukewarm approach to her own thesis statement, as in the first sample, this student selects a high-interest topic (forced migration of indigenous people) and urges an arguable, controversial action in her thesis (that governments should recognize the indigenous people in their nations as citizens and immediately prevent destruction of their environments). Taking a stronger stance through her writing enabled the student to write a higher quality paper, as it frames her more of a researcher supporting her claims than a mere reporter repeating what another scholar has claimed.
For her part, my student was interested in challenging herself to double the length requirement from the first semester and to include a wider variety of sources. I feel that with this sample, the student did meet each of her goals. While her essay suffered a bit from lack of organization due to its length, it is overall a high-quality essay that contains only minor writing errors.
The raw score above reflects this student's growth more accurately than her grade. Since I assessed the semester 1 assignment on only an 11 point scale in each category, which she surpassed on the rubric, she received some extra credit on her semester 1 score. However, her raw score (consisting purely of rubric points alone) evolved from a 62 on the first term paper to a 73 on the second.
This sample demonstrates a high level of high school, college, and career readiness and serves as a good example of how I work together with my students to set goals and drive growth.
Conclusion
By comparing the work samples of my three students, it is clear that not only have even the initially lowest scorers achieved mastery at or above 80%, but all students have made significant growth gains in their formal, argumentative writing. While some students are more naturally drawn to writing than others, we were able to work together to identify skills to target and goals to set for each individual. A culminating assignment as far-reaching as a major research paper serves as a great capstone to both the fall and spring semester in my class, because it allows students to demonstrate a variety of skills, and produces important predictors of readiness for college-level writing. Due to rigorous, direct instruction and opportunities to practice, year-long conferencing with student writers, and constant goal-setting check-ins, my students leave my class knowing what they need to do in the ninth grade to be successful high school writers.