And The Journaling Begins...

Today, I distributed journals to all of the students in my 3rd block class - even though they won't all be used in the study, they will all be participating in the reading/journaling process.  

I posed the following question to my students: 

What are your feelings about reading?

I chose to ask this question because I wanted to see what they really thought about it.  Although I have been with them all year, I realized that I have have never posed this question, and what better way to begin this research process than to see what's going on in their heads.  How do they REALLY feel. Fortunately, I have a great relationship with this class, and they know that they can be honest with me, so they certainly didn't feel as though they had to sugar-coat their responses to please me.  

Overall, this class has very low reading scores as indicated by the STAR test, which we take every three weeks.  According to our last assessment (1/28/15), 75% of this class is reading below the 25th percentile among similar-aged peers.  19% are reading between the 25th & 49th percentiles, and 10% are between the 30th and 74th.  

After reading their responses, it makes perfect sense why their scores are so low.  They absolutely HATE to read.  The majority of the students wrote about how boring they find it to be.  They also reported that it makes them very sleepy.  I responded to each of their responses with some form of question and plan to keep the conversation going in order to uncover more underlying sources for this hatred.  This is making me VERY excited as I feel very hopeful that this is going to enlighten me so much about them and more importantly, they are going to be enlightened about themselves through this process.

Super-Excited 18 Year Olds!

These students share their excitement because they can now sign their own permission slips! #legal

  

   

With serious excitement on his face, this student signs his own permission slip for the first time! #18

Permission Granted?

The time has arrived to speak with my kids about this project and ask for their permission to be a part of this study. They were really excited about it. It was pretty funny, however, because many of them thought that the requirement of a parental signature indicated that there would be a field trip involved! They were sad to learn that it was just business as usual - stuck in school...

I was so happy that they were  eager to help, and a number of them couldn't understand why they needed to get anything signed. They really thought that it should be their decision - pretty interesting!  
I love that I have been with this class all year, and I am really excited to see what comes of this work.  Our school just switched from trimester to semesters this year, so I think this will certainly be an advantage to have some consistency with them.  

And so it begins!

I came up with my research question during the fall of 2013, so I have had a year in-between my research and this project.  That fall, I was teaching a collaborative junior English class, and one of our primary focuses as a school was to be sure our juniors were as ready as they could be for the ACT, which would be taken in March. 

This particular class was comprised of 82% of students reading way below grade-level, leaving the other 18% on or above grade level. In addition, 95% of these students fell within our school's GAP population - and showing growth within this population has a major impact on our school's accountability, which added to the challenge to really do everything in my power to help them succeed.  

When I collaborated with my colleagues to create our first common assessment, I very quickly realized the vast difference between what they found to be acceptable and fair regarding our first test and what I found to be acceptable and fair.  The reading selections that were suggested and eventually used were on a college level, which I did not see as a fair means of assessment for the numerous students in my class with reading disabilities and struggles.  I presented this to my team and voiced that my students could easily be given the same skills-based questions, but the reading passages should be at no higher than an 11th grade level.  My attempt to differentiate was unequivocally denied due to the fact that all of our students would be required to take the ACT in the spring, which mandated that we have the same tests and readings, regardless of students' abilities.  

This stark (and unfortunate) reality sparked many questions about my plan for the year:  What could I do to quickly improve my students' reading abilities, and how could I do this in an engaging way?  

This is where the idea of reading journals came to my mind and I began the research on this subject and this project was born. Unfortunately, I did not get to begin my project that spring because my precious mom died of ALS just as the semester began. Fortunately, I am teaching the same population of students, and I am able to fairly seamlessly begin my project.  I am, however, concerned as I do not see my students every day and have found that gap between days very difficult to build momentum with my lower-level readers. 

I really didn't know where to start with this undertaking, so I decided to begin with making my students their journals. Many of my students are from lower income families, and asking them to purchase these was definitely not in my plan. Fortunately, our library is very generous with their laminating materials, and they did this part for me. Then, I took a trip to Staples to do what else? Staple!

The lady at staples was so sweet! She didn't 
charge me for my many staples!