Embedded Files
Qualitative Growth Introduction
Qualitative Growth Introduction
In addition to quantitative growth, it is crucial to measure qualitative literacy growth, especially in an ELA classroom. In terms of literacy, this looks like gains in writing, speaking, and listening, since iReady data explicitly measures reading literacy. I measure the combination and intersection of these skills through examining student writing samples, keeping personal and class level data for student achievement on formative and summative assessments, and tracking student participation and self confidence in speaking and listening. This framework allows my students to demonstrate their growth to me aligned to each pillar of literacy throughout the day, week, unit, semester, and year. It also explicitly ties student learning into literacy growth in each class period, which is a helpful incentive and mechanism to keep students focused on long-term academic goals.
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents:
Student Writing Samples: Beginning of Year
Student Writing Samples: End of Year
6th Grade Achievement Tracker
6th Grade Participation Tracker
Personal Growth Reflections
Conclusion
- Student Writing Samples: Beginning of Year
I created and implemented this assessment at the beginning of the 2020 school year. This acted as a unit assessment that asked students to incorporate conventions of grammar, the plot pyramid, character development, and theme into their own fiction writing. Students completed outline graphic organizer templates, but did not have a graphic organizer for their final submission. I intentionally left the final submission open ended to ascertain students' structural writing skills and ability to use paragraph breaks as a component of grammar knowledge. Each student received individualized feedback on their writing which is attached with the rubric on the last page of each Google Document. Pairing each assignment with direct feedback and an attached rubric allows students to reflect on clear targets for academic improvement and allows me to track those skills and create individualized instruction plans.
A student-written narrative exemplar with teacher feedback provided for students. We discussed this example in class and why it received a perfect score. Students noted that there was a clear lesson that was not directly stated, there were not any significant grammatical errors, characters are clearly developed through their thoughts, emotions, and actions, and there is a clear differentiation between each part of the story.
Student 1's BOY sample. Student 1 is a gifted student who cares deeply about their learning and is consistently motivated and engaged to complete writing tasks. Student 1 excelled with dialogue and incorporation of the theme, however they stated it directly at the end, which the rubric explicitly directed against. This student also demonstrated understanding of grammar conventions, but overused exclamation points and capital letters. Finally, this student's grasp of the parts of a story was strong aside from the list of character introductions that existed in place of a paragraph style exposition. Student 1 received a 17/20, or an 85%, on their BOY writing sample.
BOY sample for Student 2, who is a student with a 504 who prefers to share their thoughts in written form over verbal participation in class. Student 2 performs on grade level in reading and writing. Student 2 excelled at character development and adding detail, but failed to break their writing into paragraphs, which compromised both the flow and structure of the story. This made it difficult to discern the parts of the story and also resulted in a lower score on the length and grammar component of the rubric. Student 2 received a 17.5/20, or an 88%, on their BOY sample.
Student 3's BOY sample is shown above. Student 3 is a student who is one year behind grade level and typically finishes assignments quickly and meets, but does not exceed, expectations in their writing assignments. Student 3 had little to no grammatical errors but was teetering on a fine line of very short paragraphs. Student 3 also did well developing characters through actions and dialogue, but rushed the end of their story and did not provide a meaningful resolution that left the reader without lingering questions. Student 3 received a 17/20, or an 85%, on their BOY writing sample.
2. Student Writing Samples: End of Year
2. Student Writing Samples: End of Year
The end of year writing assessment focused on incorporating the elements of the plot pyramid, character development, and an understanding of point of view and protagonists and antagonists. Students were asked to rewrite one of our anchor texts of the unit, either Thank You Ma'm by Langston Hughes or Valediction by Sherman Alexie from the antagonist's perspective. Students needed to retell the events of the story from the antagonist's perspective while demonstrating understanding of key events and details as well as the way perspective and point of view would impact the way the antagonist would tell the story. The writing samples included below for students 1, 2, and 3 look at the growth aligned to initial rubric components of the beginning of year samples. Feedback is attached with the rubric in each student work sample. I provided a graphic organizer to help students organize their three paragraph writing samples and used a rubric that graded students on each paragraph. Though this sample had a shorter length requirement than the BOY sample, it measured similar writing components as well as new, unit-specific knowledge. This was done intentionally, as students should have been building upon previous writing skills as they added new skills throughout the year. Compared to their BOY assessments, each of these three students demonstrated growth and understanding of new topics as well as the ability to refine skills targeted in their BOY samples.
Greenberg's Thank You Ma'am by Langston Hughes.pdfThank You, M'am
Valediction by Sherman Alexie.docxValediction
A student-written exemplar provided for students. We discussed this example in class and why it received a perfect score. Students noted that this student clearly changed the perspective of the protagonist in the story, told the story consistently in first person, rewrote events in the original story from the antagonist's point of view while also adding new details and not plagiarizing, and clearly included each part of a story.
In this piece, Student 1 has demonstrated clear understanding of point of view, plot elements, and character development through dialogue and actions. Additionally, this student does not have any grammatical errors in their writing and has honed in on professional styles of writing, leaving behind the exclamation points and capitalized words we saw in their initial work. Student 1 received a 100% on this writing assignment, clearly demonstrating growth in the rubric categories that were weaknesses in their BOY sample, particularly in grammar and length conventions and attention to creating clear transitions between the parts of the story. This growth is dramatic because it demonstrates new skills and knowledge aligned to content and the ability to implement those skills and knowledge in this student's own writing. This also demonstrates a dramatic level of growth over time, increasing in each of the above rubric descriptions by a growth margin of 20% to receive a perfect score. Overall, this student grew dramatically from BOY to EOY in their understanding of grammar and length conventions and the ability to properly write a story that incorporates each part of the plot pyramid.
Student 2 struggled with the point of view aspect of this writing assessment. This student wrote their piece in third person POV instead of first person form the antagonist's perspective. That said, this student excelled at retelling events from the original text with nuance and creative detail. Additionally, there is clear improvement in this student's ability to use paragraph breaks to help the structure and flow of their writing, as the student added paragraph breaks within the graphic organizer as they went over the length requirement. Student 2's overall EOY score was an 80% which was due entirely to this student's misunderstanding of the point of view element and expectation of the assessment, which resulted in a loss of three points. This is why it is particularly important to look at this student's qualitative writing growth, as opposed to their quantitative numerical scores. This student's BOY sample exceeded the length requirement (which is not a bad thing) and did not have any paragraph breaks, making their writing structurally below grade level standards and difficult to follow as a reader. This student demonstrated dramatic academic growth in the length and grammar rubric descriptor by implementing clear paragraph breaks at points in the story that help the reader understand the plot as well as the transitions between exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. This growth is dramatic and represents a numerical growth of 20% aligned to the length and grammar rubric descriptor. This skill is a crucial building block of writing and a skill that this student will need to refer back to for the rest of their academic and professional careers. In sum, this student exhibited dramatic growth in the span of time between BOY and EOY writing samples by refining their structural writing skills to demonstrate an understanding of paragraph breaks as tools to create plot and flow within writing pieces.
Student 3 has demonstrated clear understanding of point of view and perspective in this writing piece. This student still struggled a bit with adding robust details to their exposition and resolution, as was included in their rubric feedback. Additionally, this student lengthened their paragraphs and added more descriptive detail compared with their BOY sample. Student 3's overall EOY score was an 80% which was due to not adding a significant amount of detail to the exposition and resolution of the story. This was a rubric category that this student struggled with in their BOY sample as well. That said, this student demonstrated clear understanding of point of view and theme, as well as the intersection between the two, which was not evident in their BOY sample. This demonstrates growth of 20% aligned to each of these rubric categories. This demonstrates dramatic academic growth in the theme/character development rubric descriptions by clearly incorporating point of view as a tool to enhance character development and theme in writing, which was not evident in this student's BOY sample. This student demonstrated clear growth over the course of the year in their ability to develop characters and theme in a text through point of view and other story elements.
3. 6th Grade Achievement Tracker
3. 6th Grade Achievement Tracker
I also track qualitative achievement for my current students alongside their iReady scores in an achievement tracker that is shared with me, my co-teacher, and our counseling and administrative team. This helps ascertain students overall growth throughout the year on assessments such as their grammar diagnostics and writing samples. This is broken down by assessment and color coordinated depending on the grade level that students' scored at. Students have only completed their initial assessments at this time, but this is an example of my ongoing commitment to measuring and tracking dramatic academic growth for my current students.
The grammar diagnostic aligned to 6th grade standards that I am using this year. This diagnostic was then selected by the ELA department as a stellar option to use as a grade-wide formative assessment to study 6th grade achievement. Students who scored a 100% on the diagnostic initially will retake the same diagnostic to have an comparable data point, as well as have an extra exercise to complete to provide options for differentiation and learning extension so that all students have the opportunity to demonstrate dramatic academic growth.
4. 6th Grade Participation Tracker
4. 6th Grade Participation Tracker
I also use a participation tracker template that was recommended by a colleague to gauge students' growth in speaking and listening. This helps me monitor student behavior as well as have a system to track which students are becoming more comfortable and confident in the classroom and which may benefit from individualized instruction or teacher-student conferences. This tracker template does not penalize students for being absent and also allows me to designate the points value for each class depending on student actions, which are included on the right. I added the notes column to keep track of any ongoing student concerns I have. This format of tracking growth is aligned to the speaking and listening pillars of literacy and allows for an analytical approach at measuring students' abilities to demonstrate clear gains in these areas.
5. Personal Growth Reflections
5. Personal Growth Reflections
Finally, it is important that I work to build student self confidence as a tool for enhancing students' capacities to demonstrate dramatic academic growth. I want my students to feel pride in their learning and also be able to target specific moments that made them feel proud of themselves. This is a routine in my classroom created through quarterly reflections and student-teacher conferences where I have time to celebrate students' individual successes in a private setting that is authentic and filled with positive praise for their learning and growth throughout the quarter. Students first submit their own personal growth reflections and then we use that as a jumping point for our discussion. I go into each conference with bullet points prepared for what I want to celebrate and applaud for each individual student.
Student personal growth reflections included below:
6. Conclusion
6. Conclusion
In sum, it is clear that each of the three students included in this section demonstrated clear growth aligned to 7th grade skills and targets, as well as the specific skills that were highlighted in their beginning of year samples. I will continue to collect and include data from my 6th grade classroom as it becomes available and evidences the same pattern. It is also important to focus not just on formative and summative data, but also on the ways that students are gaining new speaking and listening skills. This is especially important for diverse groups of learners such as my ELL students who have specific goals and can do targets for my classroom aligned to their current WIDA scores. These alternative means of scoring and tracking growth also provide students with goals for each class period and build their understanding of literacy as a multidimensional and lifelong pursuit.
Page updated
Report abuse