Inquiry Project
Introduction: Context of Study
This semester I am student teaching at Hamilton East, Steinert High School in Hamilton, New Jersey. Steinert is a school in a mostly suburban area, but with a close proximity to urban Trenton. This inquiry project is based on my United States I History classes, in particular Second Period. It is a crowded class of 32 sophomores that I teach every day for 40 minutes. All of the students are considered “A” level, which is the highest learning track for sophomore History.
In this inquiry project it is my goal to have a better understanding of students’ abilities to write a persuasive essay on a modern-day controversial issue that relates back to U.S. History. Once I have measured their abilities, it is my goal to have each one succeed in writing an effective, persuasive essay on any topic. In order to achieve this, a persuasive essay must include an introduction with an explanation of the topic with a statement of the student’s position on the issue (the thesis statement). Then they must have an essay body that includes at least three arguments or pieces of information or evidence that support their thesis. Finally, they must have a closing paragraph that reiterates their thesis statement and includes a brief summation of their body of evidence.
The reason that I have chosen this project is that students first need to improve their general writing skills. As an “A” level student, the students have made a commitment to make going to college a goal for them. On the college level they will be required to write numerous essays on a variety of topics. However, many students in high school lack the skills and experience in writing. In addition, I think it’s important for students to connect the issues that we are learning about in class to important issues we have today and to understand why learning history never ends as it helps us to make better decisions in the present.
One of the major obstacles for this project is the large size of the classroom. The high number of students makes it especially hard to focus on each one in the fullest capacity. Another challenge is the fact that most of the essays assigned are take-home assignments. Though this was done to allow students to do the full amount of research possible, it also creates room for plagiarism, as students could steal ideas from others and especially from the internet. Also, some parents might help their children to an extent in which the work is more of the parents than of the students. Finally, there is always the possibility that the students might not have access to a computer and the internet that gives their assignments the finest outcome. For those students I offer a pass to the library during their study hall period which has resources of books, magazines, and computers for internet use and word-processing, all to help them with their work.
For this inquiry project I have chosen two students, one male and one female. I am giving each one pseudonyms so they cannot be identified. The female student will be called Jill and the male student Jack. They are both sophomore “A level” students at Steinhert in my Second Period U.S. I History class.
The reason that I choose these two students was because of their almost opposite learning needs. Jill is a student who is a very hard worker. I once overheard her say to a fellow classmate, “I hate not getting A’s.” She always puts effort into all of her work. She does, however, struggle to really understand the concepts. Though she tries her hardest, she doesn’t really grasp ideas without a lot of effort and time. Jack on the other hand does understand the concept quite well and even a lot quicker than his classmates. He often knows the answer, even on higher level thinking questions. He, however, does not put effort into his work in the classroom, and outside of it. Frequently he does not do his homework, and for larger assignments he puts little effort. It is my observation that he has an indifferent attitude about school.
The Work
Samples
The assignment I used for my baseline was their first experience in my classroom of persuasive writing. It was an assignment of writing an essay about the modern day issue of immigration reform in the United States. We had been learning about immigration problems and restrictions in the country in the beginning of the 20th Century, and I wanted them to see how the issues back then still are relevant today. I assigned students their positions either for more immigration restrictions or against immigration restrictions. Then they had to write a persuasive essay arguing that position. I gave them one week to complete the essay. The directions for the essay included a rubric.
After receiving the students’ baseline assignments,
I chose to focus on Jack and Jill.
Jill’s essay was typed,
took up a page and a half, and demonstrated the effort and time that she put in.
Though she did write a lot, her essay lacked some of
the basics of a persuasive essay.
She did not state her position statement, so I was
unsure of what position she was arguing for at the beginning of the essay.
She spent most of the essay
explaining the history of immigration in the
It was quite clear from Jack’s essay that he put no effort into it. It was handwritten and less than one half of a page. He did have an introduction that stated his stance on the issue which was also for letting immigrants into the country His body only included one piece of evidence, but wasn’t factual information, just his own opinion. There were no other pieces of evidence to back up his argument and there was no conclusion. There were frequent spelling mistakes including the misspelling of “immigration” every time he wrote it.
To accommodate both of these students in addition to benefiting the entire class, I demonstrated a couple of strategies to improve their work. First I spent an entire class period doing a persuasive writing workshop. I went through the basics of a persuasive essay, clearly explaining to them what I wanted in the essay, including thesis statement, body of three pieces of evidence, and concluding paragraph. I also planned on a few ways to make the next assignment more clear for the students, which included more detailed instructions and a better rubric. I wanted to make sure that Jack, Jill, and all of my students understood the individual parts of a persuasive essay and make my expectations clear through a better rubric. The first rubric might have been too confusing for them, since a lot of students seemed to ignore it and not follow it.
I gave my first assignment during our unit on the Progressive Era in the early 1900’s of U.S. history. Again I wanted the class to use persuasive writing to tie their knowledge of the unit to issues in modern day society. They had to write an essay persuading their audience to understand why a particular issue in today’s society is a problem and needs to be addressed; I wanted them to argue as modern day Progressive. This time they got to choose any issue they wanted as long as it was approved by me. Again, they had a week to complete the essay.
For this assignment I had done a few things differently. Firstly I hoped that if the students got to choose any topic they wanted, having an interest in it, their work would be their best effort. Also the rubric was a different style. For the baseline assessment the rubric was a standard chart style, but as I mentioned previously I don’t believe many of the students even looked at it or followed it. So this time I gave them a simpler, clearer rubric. I designed it as more of a checklist for the students so they could see everything that I was looking for. In addition I told them that I would use the same checklist as my grading rubric so there would be no surprises and they could see exactly how it would be graded. Finally, I reinforced that the persuasive essay format must be followed including an introduction, thesis statement, main body of supporting arguments and conclusion.
For this assignment, Jill improved greatly. It seemed that she continued to put forth effort into the essay and its research, but also her mechanics and basics were improved from previously. This time she had a clear thesis statement at the end of her first introductory paragraph. She also had three clear arguments to support her thesis, each one backed up by a lot of research like in her baseline assessment. Finally, she had a fine conclusion paragraph that restated her thesis and summarized her main points. I was pleased by her improvement in this assignment.
Unfortunately, Jack failed to hand in an essay at all for this assignment. I reminded him repeatedly to hand it in since it was a test grade, but he chose not to do so. On the whole for this assignment I would say that most of the students improved on getting the correct format and style as Jill had done. There were a few of course that did follow the format of a persuasive essay. In order to ensure that each student got the most from the assignment, I gave everyone the option to redo their essay for full credit after I handed the papers back with their grades and my comments and suggestions. I was disappointed to see, though, that only seven students out of sixty choose to redo the essay for a better grade. Those who did redo their essay, though, succeeded in completing it perfectly the second time.
For the second and final assignment I kept much of the same format from the last essay but I changed a few things. This persuasive essay was to be completed in class, during one class period, and used as a quiz grade. My goal in this assignment was to judge my students’ writing and thinking on a more “level playing field,” as each student had the same topic, amount of time, and resources. Again I wanted them to use a persuasive essay to tie our class lessons to modern-day issues. For this unit we were learning about United States imperialism in the Spanish-American War. I wanted them to tie interventions and imperialistic efforts to interventions occurring today, particularly the War in Iraq. Each student had to analyze seven political cartoons, some from the Spanish-American War in 1898 and some from modern day, both on positive and negative commentary of interventions and imperialism. The students had to argue either for interventions or against them and use cartoons as supports for their arguments. Ultimately it was my goal to see the quality of the students’ thinking in writing in the short amount of time given.
For the essay they had to continue with the persuasive essay format, using it to convince the reader to support or oppose imperialism, with a thesis statement in their introduction, three supportive arguments using details from the cartoons and a concluding paragraph. The grading rubric format was the same checklist style that I used last time, and I even broke it down further to make sure that each student understood every part required for the essay. In Jill’s essay she succeeded in using the proper format. She argued that imperialism is a positive idea, giving three examples of its benefits using the cartoons. I would say that on a whole, the class, like Jill, understood the proper way to write a persuasive essay, and did well on the assessment.
Jack’s essay started off with an introduction, however his thesis was somewhat vague as it seemed to both support and oppose imperialism. For his three supporting arguments he also ran into some problems. In his first example he talked about the subject of the cartoon but did not say how this supported his argument, as we the readers were still vague on what this argument is. In his second example he stated that the next cartoon “say[s] imperialism is a good thing,” but he did not explain the cartoon at all or how it aided his thesis. In his final example he described the cartoon, and it would seem that he was using it to show the negative effects of imperialism, but that is not clear. In Jack’s final concluding paragraph he tried to explain that his position is in fact for imperialism during the Spanish-American War but not now in Iraq. Then he made another point about the war in Iraq that really seemed to complicate his position even more, making it further unclear.
As far as Jack’s and Jill’s progress, I must admit I felt more successful with Jill than Jack. Though I was afraid she would not understand the necessary format and how to use it properly in a persuasive essay, by the last two assessments she succeeded nicely. I would say that Jill was indicative of the progress of the class as a whole, as most of them accomplished the necessary format by the end of the assignments. Unfortunately I did not feel that way with Jack. I think part of that reason was because he chose not to complete his first assignment, so I could not use that as a way to reinforce the needed components as I did with the other students. In addition, I think that on a whole Jack writes his essays in a stream of consciousness representing his thinking rather than demonstrating organization of his thoughts into a proper writing format. I do believe, though, that he has a lot of good ideas and potential.
Conclusion
Overall I found the assignments that I gave especially useful for my goals in the class. My students finally grasped and practiced proper essay writing, particularly persuasive essays, and succeeded in getting satisfactory grades on their assignments. In addition, I found that reinforcing proper organized essay writing not only was beneficial for their persuasive essays, but also in the essay portions of their tests. By the end of the semester most of the students had used the correct format on the tests, and I saw improvement from the previous two. I do hope that they have the necessary tools now to expand their writing skills as they finish their high school career and go on to college.
In addition, I found that my understanding of teaching was expanded in trying to find the best way for students to understand writing basics and use grading rubrics effectively. I think that rubrics are especially important in order for students to perform their maximum potential. I was, however, surprised how clear and simple I had to make it for them, as I was concerned that I was “dumbing it down” too much. Even then, some of my best students still did not understand what was expected of them. I do hope that in their future they improve on their completion of open-ended assignments, especially as it becomes more vague and challenging in college.
In conclusion I do believe that the project was helpful. I truly reflected on what was the best way to present an assignment to my students in order to get them to understand it. I found that this trial and error method is sometimes the only way to learn in the profession of teaching, so a project that requires us to stop, analyze, and reflect on our practices only aids us further. I do hope that I can use this method as an outline to improve all of my teaching trials, tribulations, and successes in the future as an educator.
Work Samples at a Glance