My capstone project was centered around 75 sixth-grade students. These students showed a lack of organizational skills and struggled to turn in assignments on time. As of May 2018, there were 747 students enrolled in the entire building. In the 2017-2018 school year, 42.09% of my school’s students were minorities and 73.49% of my students were part of the free and reduced lunch program. Within my classes, I had 20 students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) and three students on behavior plans.

​The data I collected from my students showed that their work completion and turn in rate was very low. I had ten students that never turned in their large summative assessment from our first unit of study. Of those ten students, none of them received a grade higher than a C on their first-semester report card due to their lack of organization.

Turning in their graded bellwork sheets was also a challenge for many students. By the end of the first semester, 47 bellwork assignments were not turned in. This trend was not as evident at the beginning of the school year. The first two assignments only had nine total missing, compared to the rest of the semester with 95 missing assignments. The total missing assignment number for the entire first semester was 104. By observation, I noticed that at the beginning of the school year students were more meticulous with organizing their binder due to the ‘newness’ of middle school. However, as the semester progressed students did not keep up their organization habits. I observed that students started folding papers and shoving them into the pockets of their binders rather than opening up to the correct tab and clipping assignments, notes, and bellwork sheets into their binder.

The information gained from this study was important, because student organization needed to improve so that more assignments would be turned in. Making this change helped students be more successful in my classroom. Upon reflection, I wanted to focus on this area, because the number of missing assignments from my students did not reflect the success, engagement, and potential of my students. I desired for all of my students to be successful and reach their highest potential in my classroom, and I believed organizational strategies helped them be successful.

Transitioning from an elementary setting to a secondary education setting causes many students to be overwhelmed with changes. Students making this transition are often expected to move from class to class and understand how to use a locker without ever being taught. One of the new aspects of transitioning to secondary schooling is learning how to stay organized when students have multiple teachers, numerous subjects, and more assignments than elementary school. Often, this causes students to come to class unprepared and have many missing assignments (Anday-Porter, Henne, & Horan, 2000). Developmentally, many of the students making the transition into secondary education do not have the brain development that they need to organize their binder, locker, or backpack on their own (Anday-Porter et al., 2000; Ness, Sohlberg, & Albin, 2011). Teaching organizational strategies for students coming into middle school prepares them to learn organizational skills that are necessary for secondary education and future careers. There are different organizational strategies that are specifically tailored to middle school students and their success in a secondary education setting. The purpose of this literature review is to find scholarly research on effective organizational strategies that can help my students have fewer missing and late assignments. During the first semester, I noticed that my students had numerous missing and late assignments, due to their lack of organizational skills. This literature review describes and evaluates the following research-based organizational strategies using the homework completion model: Homework, Organization, and Planning Skills (HOPS); Completing Homework by Improving Efficiency and Focus (CHIEF); and how these strategies are adapted and implemented in a middle school classroom.