In past projects in my 12th grade English classes, students have been most engaged when I give them opportunities to pursue their own course of inquiry, and when they have voice and choice in their work. To help my students prepare for the demands of college coursework, I teach strategies to help them improve their independent reading and writing skills, as well as help build their confidence and proficiency in designing their own projects.
I took this research project as an opportunity to develop a curriculum that demonstrated the best of project-based learning and writing, and that also pointed to a student’s mastery in English at the end of high school. My goal was to develop the curriculum for a capstone project that would help my students develop independence in academic inquiry and goal-setting, demonstrate an ability to write in multiple genres, and refine their project management skills before graduating.
The 10-week project tasked students with choosing a research topic, reading a nonfiction book related to the topic and conducting additional research, and writing in different genres informed by this research. The final deliverable consisted of 10 documents, including 5 pieces written in different genres as well as commentaries and citations, that illustrated and reflected upon multiple perspectives on the student’s topic.
This action research project thus had the following three research questions:
How, if at all, do high school students develop their mastery in setting and achieving personal learning goals as they engage in a capstone multigenre research project?
How, if at all, do high school students develop their writing skills throughout the process of engaging in a capstone multigenre research project?
How, if at all, do high school students develop their project management skills as they engage in a capstone multigenre research project?
My objectives for this action research project were as follows:
I will design, implement, and review a curriculum for a nonfiction multigenre research project to serve as the pilot for a capstone project for 12th grade English at our school during the spring semester of 2020, allowing for several iterations of project implementation and associated modifications along the way.
I will implement a project-based writing framework in the classroom to help students develop independence in project management and the writing process.
I will research and implement best practices in workshop-style reading and writing instruction that are tailored toward the unique genres that my students create, as well as how to effectively conference with them throughout the writing process to provide real-time feedback on their work, especially those who require extra support.
Reflections on self
Describe and explain the impact your action research has had on your thinking about yourself as a professional educator. During my past five years as an educator, I have tried (with varying degrees of success) to make my instruction as data-driven as possible. I am fortunate to teach in a context where I have been granted a lot of autonomy in what content I teach and how I teach that content, but I have found that I need to be constantly collecting, analyzing, and informing my instruction with data on my students' progress in order to be as effective as possible in my practice as an educator. This action research project provided me with the opportunity to make data collection the driving force behind the most ambitious project I have ever set before my 12th grade English students.
I seized the opportunity to have my students reflect on their progress constantly, and I took the time to read those reflections, learn from them, and adjust my practice accordingly. The data collection and analysis was sometimes tedious work (for both me and my students!), but in the end I think we have all come to understand ourselves as learners so much better. This process helped me get a better grasp on my students' actual skill levels in writing and project management, and also helped me understand their strengths and struggles with greater empathy.
At the end of this project, I am brimming with new ideas and possibilities. I see the need to create a vertically aligned framework for teaching project management skills in my school across the curriculum. I see the opportunity to help future generations of students become more independent and in charge of their learning, and to make the writing process fun even for students who struggle in literacy. I see the possibility of sharing our school's best practices in project management with a wider audience. This project has helped me see myself as a professional educator with a growing potential to learn and contribute to the discourse of best practices in education.
Reflections on learning
Describe and explain the impact your action research has had on your thinking about how your students learn, particularly considering the diverse abilities and backgrounds of students in your classroom. As I shared in the context section of my project proposal and action research brief, I teach a diverse group of students with regard to race, socioeconomic status, language proficiency/lexile level, and learning ability. I love the multigenre project because it is inherently differentiated: students choose a topic that is interesting and accessible to them, read books and references at their preferred lexile level, and write in a variety of genres that they find interesting and challenging. Many of the students shared that this was the most challenging project they had ever tackled in their high school English classes, but that it was also one of their favorites, as they had so much creative freedom as well as rigorous expectations to deliver a strong final product.
In future projects, I feel even more compelled to offer as much voice and choice to my students as possible to help them learn, remain engaged, and master core English/Language Arts skills. That agency and independence also helps them build their project management and self-directed learning skills, which will hopefully inspire a propensity for real-world, lifelong learning after high school.
Reflections on teaching
Describe the impact that your action research has had on your ability to design more thoughtful instructional strategies and assessments to strengthening student learning for all students.
As a senior English teacher, my biggest hope is that my students walk away independent, confident readers and writers who can use their literacy skills to advocate for themselves and for others. As part of that journey, I challenge my students to set goals for themselves in building their skills— not simply do what it takes to get an A, but to focus on honing their craft and developing executive functioning skills. At the end of the project, one of the most gratifying findings to review was their reflections on their personal learning goals for writing and project management, and their growth in both of these areas.
According to the data, most students made progress towards or achieved their personal learning goals: according to their responses in the final project survey, nearly 90% of the students believed that their final project showed at least basic evidence of achieving their personal writing goal, along with 84.78% who believed their work provided basic evidence of completing their project management goal. They saw growth in themselves, and they celebrated this growth and were encouraged by it. As an educator, I took that as a win.