Writing for the Global History Regents

Exhibited by:

• James Smith

PLO Attended:

• New Directions in Global History & Geography, 9-12

Coached by:

• Marc Lapointe

The goals of the project were as follows:

 Preparing for the shift to the Common Core Social Studies Exam within the context of diverse high needs population.

 Getting struggling writers to express their thoughts more through Social Studies themes.

 Using author’s reasoning to develop claims and connections using the Agency by Design Protocols.

 Implement a set of writing protocols across the Social Studies Department.

The project took place in three phases:

Start:

 Student pre-assessments were disorganized and descriptive

 Students were reluctant to write and had trouble writing more than a paragraph at a time

Implementation:

 Structuring Writing - Using the because, but, so protocol for topic sentences

 Developing Analysis - Using the Agency by Design protocol to respond to complex texts

 Skill Development - Task Analysis

Next Steps:

 Organizing: Working on organizing content in an essay across paragraphs

 Organizing: Training students where to put general and specific statements

 Behavioral: Students are able to sustain writing for at least two paragraphs on average

 Empowerment: Getting students to use their voice even though they may not know all tier 2 and 3 words

Experience in professional learning cycles and social studies community:

 What mattered most? The rapport that was built. This was done by first going over the new Global History Common Core test then by both Marc Lapointe and Guy Rouchon working with me inside the classroom and during training sessions. What mattered most was that it is a long term solution to improve student engagement with regards to writing.

 What is mattering the most now?

o Building teacher teams across schools

 What stood out? Targeted training around the new common core shifts specifically in reading and writing around Social Studies. During each meeting we worked on content specific tasks, always analyzing different documents with other social studies teachers. This helped not only improve my content knowledge, but it gave me perspectives outside of the four member department I have in my school.

 What changed the way you think? Marc said “I don’t know” to many questions and consistently asked about reasoning with “Why do you say that” and it helped further reasoning. This along with the Agency by Design protocols enhanced student analysis of primary sources and to deepen their thinking to strengthen their learning.

 What reinforced something you already knew? Struggling writers need targeted and specific protocols for writing and need consistent practice through teacher implementation. In Global History students must access not only tier 3 curriculum words but also tier 2 words and basic essay organization to express their thoughts.