Running head: IAAL REFLECTION 1

I As A Learner: Project Description and Narrative Reflection

Maya L. G. Steinborn

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Author Note

This paper was prepared for CIL 621: Assessment in Literacy taught by Dr. Chyllis Scott.
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I As A Learner: Project Description and Narrative Reflection

Project Goal

For this I As A Learner project, I aimed to prepare my 200 10th-grade students for the

standardized end-of-course (EOC) writing exam. I chose to focus on test preparation because of

the high-stakes nature of this exam; administrators informed me that the EOC determines

whether 10th graders advance to 11th grade and counts for 10% of their course grade (Paul, 2017).

The EOC tests students on a variety of “college and career readiness anchor standards”

(NVDOE, 2014). Though I provided a lot of writing instruction to my students in the fall

semester, I used this project to strengthen my writing pedagogy and structure more intentional,

standards-aligned instruction in the spring.

In addition to my own instructional goals, I wanted to provide my students with intensive

writing remediation to improve their below-grade-level writing and comprehension skills. My

students have been systemically underserved at their current and previous schools; though 65%

of them are English Language Learners (ELLs) and over 90% receive Free and Reduced Lunch

(FRL), they have not received effective classroom interventions from Title I programs (Bortolin,

2017). Most of my students read and write about five years below grade level, and only eight out

of my 185 students are at the college and career readiness levels tested on the EOC. I wanted to

work on this problem by implementing writing interventions that would help them succeed on

this high-stakes standardized test.

Methodology

To meet this goal, I designed three writing-focused lesson plans in line with the standards

purportedly tested on the EOC. I had time to use two of these lessons with my students and could

not implement the third because the EOC was spontaneously scheduled to be proctored one week
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after the second lesson. The first two lessons required students to write a full practice essay, one

about an expository prompt and one about an argumentative prompt. Later, I developed a third

lesson focused on peer review so that students would gain skills for writing in addition to

speaking and listening (CCSSI, 2018a). I measured the effectiveness of my teaching over the

course of these lessons by having my students complete brief Google Forms surveys.

Results

I facilitated Lesson #1 from February 6-8, 2018 after the students had spent one month

reading the memoir A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. They needed to explain how the

memoir depicted the author’s love for his home country and appreciation for his childhood. I

purposefully chose an odd excerpt from the book to prepare students for the mismatch they

might experience between prompt and text on the real EOC. Though we read many passages

from the book that very clearly detailed Beah’s love for Sierra Leone and his idyllic countryside

childhood, I wanted students to see how those elements were reflected in a more macabre section

of the book. Students received a graphic organizer and sentence starters to aid their writing

process. Over half the class (51.8%) agreed or strongly agreed that this prompt made them feel

more confident about taking the EOC. About 67% of students reported confidence levels

between 5 and 8 (on a 1-10 scale) when surveyed about their completed essays, with less than

20% of students feeling extremely negative (between 1 and 4) on the same scale.

After grading all the completed essays I received for Lesson #1, I facilitated Lesson #2

from February 20-22, 2018. This assessed students on their comprehension of Persepolis by

Marjane Satrapi (the film version of which we watched in class), their capability to write an

argumentative essay, and their understanding of the political subtext in the film. We discussed

the historical context of Persepolis by reading a variety of informational texts about the Islamic
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Revolution in class. Unfortunately, only 45.8% of my students reported completing this essay,

leading nearly 30% of students to rate themselves a 1 (terrible) on the confidence scale. Fifty-

three percent of students, though, rated themselves between 5 and 8 on the confidence scale,

maintaining my conclusion that students saw themselves as average, competent writers. The

same percentage of students felt adequately confident about taking the official EOC on March 7th

and 8th, just one to two days after completing the survey.

I surveyed my students on March 9th, the day after they finished the official EOC writing

portion. Only 87.6% of students completed their essay in the time provided, with 12.3% of

students having been absent or not having completed their essay. I was happy to see that 70% of

students reported feeling fine or good about their essay; this percentage told me that student

confidence did not decrease in face of the official test prompt. I inferred from this that a number

of students may have actually felt more confident about their skills on the real test than on

practice essays. Forty percent of students felt the practice prompts were similar to the official

EOC and 50% felt the strategies they used on the practice essays helped them on the EOC,

telling me that the project was worthwhile from students’ perspectives. The number that most

stuck with me from the post-EOC survey was that 67% of students felt English 10 overall

prepared them for the exam.

Discussion

Reflecting upon the practice essays that students produced during this project, I found

that students effectively met standards and made progress with their writing. Survey results

showed that students saw themselves improving over the arc of the lessons, which translated to

high performance and self-confidence during the official test for which they were preparing.

These positive outcomes, paired with anecdotal feedback I received from struggling students,
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helps me “determine what I will teach next (as well as how, and to whom)” (Sloan, 2009, p.

189). For example, Practice Essay Sample #5 showed me how that student needs assistance with

reading and understanding writing prompts so his answer is aligned with the task. Sample #2

showed me that students need instruction in paraphrasing so they can use information from

experts without plagiarizing those sources. When preparing future students for their EOC, I hope

to assist students with these individual areas of need by facilitating “writing workshops” in the

form of “a dialogue, a sharing of ideas, which ultimately nudges the writer forward” (Sloan,

2009, p. 199).

Conclusion

The issues that led me to this project—notably, that “children in U.S. urban schools have

significantly more difficulty than the overall population [with literacy achievement and

writing]”—will persist with each cohort of 10th graders I teach, and standardized assessments

will continue to inadequately measure or bolster student skills (Teale, 2008, p. 358). To

constructively engage with this issue, I will continue teaching writing in a rigorous, standards-

aligned manner so that “each… dimension of a child’s developing literacy knowledge and skill is

part of the assessment plan” (Teale, 2008, p. 360-361). I may not receive feedback about my

student’s writing from the Department of Education—and I may not even receive their scores—

but I can and will continue to adjust my instruction based on the successes and areas for growth

in their writing so they can gain the college and career readiness skills that will help them

achieve their goals beyond the classroom.

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References

Bortolin, G. (2017). Title I school improvement grants helping student achievement. Retrieved

from

http://www.doe.nv.gov/News__Media/Press_Releases/2017/Title_I_School_Improvemen

t_Grants_Helping_Student_Achievement/

Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). (2018a). English language arts standards »

Speaking & Listening » Grade 9-10. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-

Literacy/SL/9-10/

Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). (2018b). English language arts standards »

Writing » Grade 9-10. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/W/9-

10/

Nevada Department of Education (NVDOE). (2014). Nevada academic content standards for

English language arts grades to be considered for inclusion in the grade 10 end of course

examinations. Retrieved from

http://www.doe.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/nde.doe.nv.gov/content/Assessments/End_of_Cour

se/ELAIISelectedStandards.pdf

Paul, B. (2017). Grades 7-13: end of course examinations (EOC). Retrieved from

http://www.doe.nv.gov/Assessments/End_of_Course_Exams/

Sloan, M.S. (2009). Into writing: The primary teacher’s guide to writing workshop. Portsmouth:

Heinemann Publishing.

Teale, W. (2008). What counts? literacy assessment in urban schools. The Reading Teacher,

62(4), pp. 358-361. DOI:10.1598/RT.62.4.10