Teacher+Interview+-+Basgall

**Teacher Research Assignment: Luann Haskins**

//Proposal: Formulate a research question that includes collecting writing/data from your own classroom.//

 Is there a difference in students’ responses when they respond by writing their answer down in comparison to talking their answer out to another individual?

//Rationale: Why is this question important to you?//

 This question is important to me because sometimes students can’t get what they are trying to write out but would rather speak what they are thinking. And the same goes for students who can’t speak their answer out loud but could write in depth the answer to a question.

//Review//: The teacher I interviewed posing this research question was Luann Haskins, an English and Journalistic Teacher at Howell High School. She was a past teacher of mine where I partook in the high school newspaper and also various English courses. Mrs. Haskins formative assessments about writing about literature involve personal journal writing where students make connections, summarize for main points and include reading guide responses where students make inferences and predictions. “I have students share orally on a regular basis in class. I also check their journals each month for written responses. I expect at least a five-sentence response to each prompt (which I do prior to reading).” Haskins ensures that her students not only are giving answers by writing but also using their voices to produce answers coherently. Journal writing, according to Placks' article //A Method for Assessing Reflective Journal Writing//, is “considered integral to professional practice. . . [and] is advocated in facilitating reflection.” Journal writing is an important practice to the daily life of a student. Plack talks about how reflection “promotes a deep approach to learning and fosters lifelong learning as students learn to reframe problems, question their own assumptions, and attend to their own learning needs,” (Plank). There might be some skepticism towards journal writing being pointless and doesn’t provide students with learning, but Plank says that this writing adds meaning to experiences and turns those experiences into practice as well as linking past and present experiences while preparing students for future practice.

 It is difficult to assess writing such as journal reflections due to the amount of freedom students have with their responses. Plank looked at 4 major theorists who developed ways and levels in which a reflection is appropriate and met a level or did not. Theorist 1: “Bourner suggested separating content from process,” Theorist 2: “Boud provided a framework understanding the stages of reflections,” Theorist 3: “ Mezirow focused on components of the reflective process,” and Theorist 4: “Schon provided a time dimension,” (Plank). Within Planks’ study they looked at levels of words, sentences, and paragraphs within journals and provided nine elements of reflection (reflection in action, reflection on action, reflection for action, content reflection, process reflection, premise reflection, returns to experience, attends to feelings, and evaluation of the experience). They also “categorized as showing no evidence of reflection, evidence of reflection, or evidence of critical reflection based on definitions,” (Plank). With Haskins she expects students prompts contain standard writing techniques used for testing and in regular essay formats where the five-sentence style is sufficient enough to provide adequate information.

In comparison with Haskins assessment and the assessment process of Planks study we can see how complicated journal responses can be. We can also learn that assessment is essential within the classroom and for every work focused on writing done within the classroom for the most part. I believe that Haskins assessment technique is a refined version of Planks study. For post reading Haskins gives some options for the students to use such as writing summaries, sketches to visualize what they read, or they may act out a portion of the reading to interpret with a group what they have read. All of these techniques are also standard and unique at the same time usually depending on context. The sketching is something different from what was provided to myself in high school and gives kinesthetic learners a chance to use a hands on approach to what they’ve learned and to be artistic as well as use their own creativity. Summative assessments that Haskins uses are essay writing, short answer essay, matching, true and false, and multiple choice. I believe that these are great for assessing writing about literature. Students are given freedom to develop their written answers with the essay responses, but these all do limit creativity in the final assessment. I would like to include a more creative approach to assessment for my future class.

There are many different ways to teach writing about literature and Haskins has several of her own ways. She spends time analyzing the writers overall techniques such as tone, diction, style, characterization where she studies the authors techniques then the students apply those to their own writing in a personal journal or narrative. As you can tell Haskins has things set up within her way of teaching all for a reason. Haskins also takes a closer look at sensory and descriptive writing when students are writing in their personal journal or narrative to get a sense of the author’s techniques and in doing so to use those techniques in their own writing. With these techniques comes assessment and Haskins likes to have her students incorporate the techniques of the author within their own writing (this is essential to her teaching). She provides an example, “In To Kill A Mockingbird, the author writes descriptively about the town and characters. I will have them describe a person or place using same elements of style.” It’s important to have students pick apart literature and look at what the author does really well and how they do so, then students can learn how to use that technique within their writing and improve themselves. Not only does she focus on teaching writing about literature but reading literature as well. She uses strategies such as making connections, inferring, predicting, etc, then having students analyze the reading and respond within a written assignment reflecting on these various aspects of reading and interpretation.

With our focus going back to the proposal question in short, asking whether writing has more benefit than talking about the answer to various questions about literature. When Haskins was asked what her thoughts were, she considered her students writing about literature verses students talking about literature they’ve read and if there was a difference or benefit to either of these, she answered with a, “I do both, but primarily focus on students writing then sharing out loud in pairs, groups or whole class.” I find this interesting that she has a process in terms of having students go from writing their answer to discussing their answer with another person, then opening the discussion to classroom size. She talks about how quiet reflection about the reading pulls together the students own thoughts, feelings, experiences, and observations about the topic. That sharing aloud then allows us as a class to see how each student’s own schema may affect his/her interpretation of reading and then the discussion leads to deeper analysis of the reading.

It is also difficult to assess students learning through discussions but they are integral within the English classroom when we need to talk about the literary text as a whole so we understand concepts and context as to have everyone on the same page, or to hear about other opinions or viewpoints about specific issues. Rick VanDeWeghe’s article from Talking Literature talks about how “studies document the positive relationship between dialogic practices [classroom discussion] and students’ abilities to engage in higher-level thinking,” (VanDeWeghe, 88). He also talks about how teachers should ask questions that have no known answers where students responses are given feedback and focused on elaborating or clarifying their answers to work out all areas and issues with what they choose to say. We should be doing more than just IRE format discussions, but ones that provide opportunity for thought-provoking discussions occur which occur rarely and when they do occur they are short lived. Overall within VanDeWeghe’s article he sees that classroom discussion only fosters learning when the discussion is thought provoking, without making students think then they are just reciting material and that doesn’t give students opportunities to develop ideas and unique thoughts.

In comparison with Planks article and VanDeWeghe’s along with Haskins input on her teaching methods, I have taken away from these three areas that both writing and discussion about literature are essential within the classroom. Assessing these areas are extraordinarily more difficult and must adhere to various types of categories and standards. Plank talked about journal reflections and how writing in journals must undergo a process and adhere to Standard English rules with punctuation and grammar. With VanDeWeghe he wrote about classroom discussion being an integral part of the classroom and that the discussions must foster learning and thought provoking content. With these two studies in comparison to Haskins teaching methods I find that it is ideal to include both writing and oral communication, as they are both pertinent for students’ growth and understanding of complex literary texts.

//Method:// Data I would gather about writing about literature, if I had a classroom in which to study it, I would have students write reflective journals and also include class discussion. I would like to focus primarily on a novel or short story and have the students write responses in relation to their own experiences within their journals. Along with the written component, I would have students speak in small group and whole class discussions where I would look closely at what they wrote in their journal compared to what they discussed with the class. __In order to gain better and more beneficial data from a classroom I would also record, with student permission, student's responses and compare them with what they have written in their journals.__ I believe that students may censor themselves if it gets personal with their journal submissions, but I believe that when it comes to understanding aspects of literary texts it is best to dig deeper in class discussion as to why something is written the way it is, or why the characters are going through the situations they may be going through. I think it is important to do this when it comes to reading comprehension also, answering questions on paper may be different and not as thought provoking as a classroom discussion may be. __I could also develop a rubric in order to classify the content that they come up with during their verbal and written responses where personal references, textual summary, textual analysis, and inter-textual references would be the primary points of focus during the evaluation of the data provided by the students. By doing a rubric of this sort I would be able to show which kinds of response, either verbal or written, produce more responses of a certain focus such as personal reference. I think it would be interesting to see what students think about the most when it comes to classifying their context in their spoken and written responses.__

//CCSS:// An example of a CCSS assessment for writing about literature would be: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">a. Introduce a topic; organize ideas, concepts, and information, using strategies such as <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">definition, classification, comparison/contrast, and cause/effect; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., charts, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension. b. Develop the topic with relevant facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">c. Use appropriate transitions to clarify the relationships among ideas and concepts. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">d. Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">e. Establish and maintain a formal style. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">f. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from the information or explanation presented. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> This standard for writing about literature fits well when it comes to Haskins teaching methods of ensuring students are using tone and style from certain texts they use within the class. By students modeling after well-written authors they find a way to develop their own writing and style themselves. Haskins also focuses on standardized testing and essay development and this standard also addresses the logistics of such testing.