Brittany Smithkort

South Lyon High School

English Department- English 10, 20th Century Perspectives, Reading and Writing
for College-Bound Students

Goal (Writing):

During the 2016-2017 school year, non-credentialed students will improve their ability to
write an essay that rhetorically analyzes a text, ultimately improving their performance by at
least two points on the SAT writing rubric. Areas of concern include the following: identifying
fallacies/modes of persuasion, evaluating the modes of persuasion and fallacies found,
organizing their thoughts about a text successfully, and correctly using
grammar/punctuation.

Strategies:

Instructional Strategy
Using SAT writing rubric
Modes of persuasion/ fallacies instruction
Specific instruction on essay organization
Grammar instruction
Rhetorical Analysis:
RAISE activities (talking to the text, Gots and Needs)
Cultures of Thinking Strategies
Small and large group discussions
Examining multiple types of text (articles, film, op-eds, commercials, etc.)
Process: Revision/ Peer editing

AYP Focus
Teacher modeling
Conferencing
Guided/ Shared writing

Evidence to be collected:

Pre-tests
Rhetorical analysis writing pre-test (All classes)
Grammar pre-test (All classes)

Essays
Mid-term essay (Grade 10/ RWCB)
Practice SAT essays (20th Century)
In-class Rhetorical Analysis Essay (RWCB/ English 10)
Grammar and Punctuation Activities/ Tests
Grammar and Punctuation Quizzes (All classes)
Grammar and Punctuation Activities (All classes)

Reflection:

I did not change my goal for this school year, as the SAT has remained one of the
primary tests in order to gage whether or not students have grown from an academic
standpoint. Therefore, I spent a decent portion of the year preparing students for their
rhetorical analysis essays required by the SAT. In the time given, students are expected to
compose an essay that responds to an argumentative text, evaluating the persuasive
strategies used to impact readers. While my goal did not necessarily change from last year,
I did try some new ways to improve students scores, which proved to be effective for the
most part.

For my data that I shared, I used a writing pre-test for ALL of my classes (English 10, RWCB,
and 20th Century), in which I gave the students a practice SAT prompt from a book I
purchased this summer. I also used their midterm exam scores, as students were required to
do something similar with two different opinion editorials for the writing portion of the exam.
Lastly, in 20th Century, I used practice SAT essays that we conducted both in pairs and
individually in order to monitor their progress. In order for my data to remain consistent, I
not only graded the midterms according to the 6+1 rubric that is required by the district, but
I also used the SAT rubric for the non-credentialed students that I was concentrating on as
well (these scores are on my data sheet). This will not be an issue in the near future, as the
SAC committee is currently working on a rubric for writing that is very similar to the SATs
rubric. Because I also believe that grammar is a large portion of the writing rubric score
that the students receive on the SAT essay, I also used grammar pre-tests and grammar
midterm scores for all of my classes to evaluate their progress.

In my data sheet for English 10 and 20th Century, to protect the identities of students (as
this document is published on my Weebly online IDP), I assigned each non-credentialed
student that I have a designated letter, and listed their initials by this alias so that I could
remember who was who. I did the same for RWCB students; however, because teachers are
not given files of senior non-credentialed students at the beginning of the year, I decided to
focus on three students that I had that seemed to need a bit more help with the writing
process and struggle with English.

With respect to my English 10 students, a lot of them seemed to have trouble with
the analysis portion of the SAT rubric during their pre-test, as is indicated on my data
sheet. Most non-credentialed students scored a 2 or below (the scores are out of 4).
Because this portion of the rubric has to deal with recognizing persuasive strategies and
devices in the piece given, I decided to continue what I started last year and use our
coursework to help them in this area; I did this primarily during our transcendentalist unit.
Instead of simply just going over basic transcendental ideas in our transcendentalist unit, I
decided to pair older transcendental persuasive essays with modern opinion editorials that
were making similar arguments. Throughout the unit, students were expected to identify
various literary devices (metaphor, imagery, simile, personification, etc.) and modes of
persuasion (ethos, pathos, logos) in the pieces that we read. Then, as a summative
assessment, students watched the documentary, Minimalism (2016), and then were required
to write an in-class essay that evaluated the transcendental argument in the film-- I made
the prompt for this essay look like an SAT prompt on purpose. The assessment that I gave
students over this documentary can be found below. This seemed to help students with this
portion of the SAT rubric, as the data indicates that my non-credentialed students scored
reasonably higher in this aspect, and three students even scored a 4.

Figure One: The SAT-like assessment I used during our transcendental unit.

As

for areas to work on in English 10, after looking at the data, I noticed that while the writing
portion scores of the SAT rubric improved marginally, they did not improve anywhere near as
much as the analysis portion. The writing portion of the rubric deals with appropriate
organization and grammar/punctuation/spelling in an essay. Furthermore, while students
improved an average of 2.9 points on their rhetorical analysis essays, students only
improved an average of 6.2% on their grammar skills; this is an improvement from the 4%
increase in grammar last year, but still low. As a result of this, I will be placing a heavy focus
on organization and structure while we have been writing our Great Gatsby literary analysis
essays. Before we even start brainstorming, I have students go through a writers
workshop. I used Camtasia to record three different mini-lessons on writing: introductions,
conclusions, and body paragraphs. I have students choose two of these three lessons. I
share the link on Google Classroom to these lessons, and students are expected to fill out
guided notes and complete an activity that corresponds with these lessons. That way,
students can choose aspects of their writing to improve upon that pertain to their own
personal strengths and weaknesses (differentiated instruction). This will hopefully not only
help them with this particular essay, but ultimately for their SAT essays that they take the
following year. As for grammar, we have been enhancing these skills by doing some quick
warm ups regarding different aspects of grammar each week. I give them about ten
practice sentences and have them try to answer them on their own; then, we go over the
answers as a class. It is my hope that these practice periods increase students
performance on their final and the writing portion of the SAT essay exam.

As for my 20th Century and RWCB students, although their pre-test scores were a bit
stronger in the analysis section of the rubric (the data reveals that they received primarily
3s), none of the students that I focused on received a perfect score in this area. I tried to
remedy this in both courses by reviewing the modes of persuasion and introducing students
to various rhetorical fallacies. The approaches were a bit different though, as RWCB has a
rhetorical analysis unit, while we did a brief review in 20th Century Perspectives. In the unit
for RWCB and the review for 20th Century, after learning all of the key terms, we take a look
at various types of rhetoric (articles, speeches, commercials, ads, and a documentary). For
example, in 20th Century during our review, I have students read a short article on how
philosophy should be implemented in public education. The students are then placed into
different groups and assigned a particular aspect of rhetorical analysis (ethos, pathos, logos,
diction, figurative language, etc.) After they work in these groups and become well versed
in their focus, they share what they learned in a new group where each student had a
different focus. This activity not only served as a means of review for these students, but it
also allowed students to collaborate with one another in order to thoroughly assess a piece
of persuasive writing, exactly what is being asked of them on the SAT essay exam. This
activity is demonstrated below in figure two. This activity and others like it that were used in
both courses seemed to help students in this portion of the SAT rubric, as the data indicates
that students went from receiving 2s and 3s to 3s and 4s in this portion of the rubric in their
midterms.

Figure Two: Jigsaw activity used to

collaboratively analyze an argument.
 As far as areas of improvement in these courses, I noticed that while the students I
chose to focus on seemed to have improved significantly on the rhetorical analysis essays,
they only improved an average of 3.5% in grammar. Because of this, I have put more of a
concentration on grammar when we are writing our APA research essays for RWCB and when
we are writing our pieces of satire in 20th Century Perspectives. For these essays, I am
requiring students to use specific parts of punctuation and grammar in their final drafts
(semicolons, colons, and parallel structure), and underlining them. During the peer editing
process, students will be required to recognize whether or not their partner used these
correctly, and comment on their partners work. Hopefully reviewing grammar and
punctuation in a way that is directly applicable to students work will enhance their grammar
abilities. I will evaluate whether or not this strategy was successful when I take a look at my
RWCB and 20th Century students final exams.

Summary:
The Excel sheet that I shared indicated that students improved in both rhetorical
analysis writing and grammar (I placed an orange box that shows how much for each grade
on average). It seems as if the strategies that I have been using, such as the ones indicated
in Figures One and Two above, seem to improve students understandings of persuasive
strategies. On the other hand, although both grades improved in grammar, and there was a
bigger improvement from last years data, it was only marginally, especially for RWCB and
20th Century (again, indicated by the orange box on my data sheet). Therefore, in addition
to the activities that I implemented later in this school year (described above), I need to
make sure for next year that I take this data into account for the first semester. For English
10, I might give students more opportunities to focus on grammar in their writing
assignments that we do. In RWCB and 20th Century, I will make sure to not only review
grammar a bit more throughout the semester, but also brainstorm ways to improve
grammar skills while covering course material.
I plan to further evaluate the progress that students make for the goal that I set at
the beginning of the year by taking a look at my RWCB and 20th Century students final
exam essays. I will also have a rhetorical analysis-based question in the constructed
response section of the A Raisin in the Sun test that students will be taking in May that I can
look at to determine whether or not students are consistently improving. It is my hope that
what I learned in this semester will not only positively affect students during this school
year, but in future years to come as well.

Suggested Goals for the Remainder of the School Year:

During the 2016-2017 school year, non-credentialed students will improve their ability to
write an essay that rhetorically analyzes a text, ultimately improving their performance by at
least two points on the SAT writing rubric.
Analyze the 11th and 12th grade final exams and 10th grade Raisin in the Sun exam
constructed responses to further evaluate how my teaching methods have impacted my
goal.
 Brainstorm for more ways to improve grammar performance in ways that are practical for
11th and 12th grade students.