In my 9th grade English class the students have shown repeated evidence of grammatical errors at the sentence level. In order to correct these mistakes for their next papers, and their educational careers going forward, we returned to the most basic form of communications, the sentence. In doing this they will need to understand not only what constitutes as a complete sentence, but how to punctuate it correctly as well. At the end of the lesson students were expected to identify and create complete sentences with 80-90% accuracy while punctuating those sentences with 70-80% accuracy. Because punctuation is finicky by nature the expectations that students learn and retain all of the rules associated with them is unrealistic so the expectations are lowered to best accommodate their abilities. The standard addressed for these lessons was: Standard: 3. Writing and Composition 3. Writing for grammar, usage, mechanics, and clarity requires ongoing refinements and revisions a. Demonstrate command of the conventions of Standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing. (CCSS: L.9-10.2) i. Identify comma splices and fused sentences in writing and revise to eliminate them ii. Distinguish between phrases and clauses and use this knowledge to write varied, strong, correct, complete sentences In order to evaluate students ability they were given a pre and post-test on their abilities to identify complete sentences and place punctuation in the correct places in a block of text that was provided. All capitalization and punctuation was omitted from the text so students needed to read it and fill in the punctuation in order to make the text readable and to clarify meaning. The text chosen came from To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, a text the students had been reading in class before the lessons. In order to be proficient students needed to add the correct punctuation indicating the end of a sentences within 80-90% accuracy. Complete sentences were something that had been covered the period before, and periods, question marks, and exclamation points have been covered every year since kindergarten. Because of the exposure students have this section was evaluated much higher. The other part of the assignment was to place other forms of punctuation, such as commas, in the correct places to create clarity within the text. Because the nature of these elements have many rules, some that could not be covered in class, or are different because they are stylistic and optional, like semi-colons
and dashes, they will not be evaluated as harshly with 70-80%
accuracy to be proficient. Section B: Diagnosing Student Strengths and Needs: Pre Student Name Assessment- Pre AssessmentPost Daisy High Low- Comma Macee High Low- Comma Emily High Expected Alex High Expected Joseph High Low- Comma Sophie High Expected Brie High Low- Comma Aidan Expected High Grace Expected High Addie Expected Expected Sam Expected Low- Comma Cassidy Expected Low- Comma and Sentences Parker Expected Expected Logan Expected Low- Comma Max Expected Low- Comma and Sentences Alec Expected Low- Comma Dylan Expected Low- Comma Clover Expected Low- Comma Taco Expected High Chris Expected Low- Sentences Antonio Low Expected Irelan Low Expected Hadrood Low Low- Comma and Sentences Leo Low Low- Comma Out of 23 students 16 students, or 70% of the class, scored less on their post test than they did their pretest. Pretest Low- 17% Expected- 56% High- 31% Post test Low- 60% Expected- 30% High- 10%
When sorting students I looked at the number of sentences and
the number of commas in the section. For example, if there are four sentences and five commas in the passage a student can incorrectly identify one sentence and/or two commas to still be proficient or expecte. Students who missed more were considered low and students who missed less were high. Obviously, when looking at the data it is clear that this assessment was faulty. I have several theories about why this may have happened seeing as so many students went down a grade. My first is students, after hearing that the first assessment was not going to be counted against them, decided to not take the second assessment as serious. Many students who received a low assessment did not include commas or had one of two when the instructions clearly said there were five in the passage. Students did not have the same amount of time to complete the second assessment as the first. I did not plan for the correct amount of time in my lesson for the second assessment. Because of this students may have not had enough time to work with the text to properly show their understanding. The last theory I have was something I noticed while evaluating the students work. The first passage had more flexibility. Depending on how the student read the text there were three or four ways they could have evaluated the punctuation while being grammatically correct. The second passage did not have this flexibility. The point of all this is I know the evaluation was faulty. I will not base the students ability on the results of this assessment alone. Section C: Identifying Instructional Next Steps: As stated above the assessment was faulty for a number of reasons. However, I noticed a few patterns that can influence the instruction going. While looking over the post-test evaluations there were two areas that 70% of students missed, one was using commas to separate nonessential information, and the other was separating two sentences in the correct location. Incidentally both of these aspects were found in the same sentence. Many students did not use commas at all or placed them in the incorrect location to offset the nonessential information, and/or put a period in between the subject of the sentence and the predicate. Because so many students missed the same few things I know that this section needs to be covered again with a focus on those elements. Going forward I would have a mini lesson for nonessential information with targeted practice on when commas are needed. For the error with the sentence I would return to complex sentences and show students how to identify the parts of the sentence (the
independent clause, the dependent clause, and the subordinating
conjunction). Without these errors 75% of the student who received a low assessment would have been expected or high. For the students who had plentiful errors in other places I would pull them aside for an extra mini lesson to reestablish how to use commas in a general sense, such as how to avoid comma splices, as well as the lesson for the whole class. These students need more support that can be provided with a small group or one-on-one. In order to give the high students a chance to excel I was thinking about having them teach their peers in groups. This way they have a chance to show their mastery of the skill while helping their peers along the way. Different thinking is required to teach a concept rather than to perform a task. These students could find examples of sentence structure and punctuation in the text they are reading and show their peers how it is working, or could walk around and help their peers like a teachers assistant. Perhaps another way to challenge advanced students could be to have them find a way to punctuate the text a different way than they first time they did it. This activity would work perfectly for the first text provided. (Would this count has making them do extra work? I see it more as challenging them to think a different way, but I can see how it seems like more work.) What it boils down to is the way the lesson was taught and the way the students were assessed was not the most efficient way to convey this information. Going forward I would revamp the instruction completely. I would teach mini grammar lessons for a few weeks, focusing on one area and allowing students to practice each component. This way students will have more exposure to more elements instead of getting a survey of them all at once, and not having the opportunity to practice all of the elements.