Memo #9: Coding and Themes

Throughout my research and experience as a teacher at the program, I have come across several major themes. As a special education program that services girls in DCF care ages 12-22, the program often has students with limited or interrupted formal education, students with emotional and behavioral disorders, and students with PTSD-related disorders. As such, certain themes and codes pervade the teaching, planning, disciplinary, and teacher research processes. These themes present themselves on a daily basis in my classroom, and have become more glaringly evident throughout the process of research and data triangulation.

Theme 1: Student Ability

Students in the program have a wide range of ability. Ability pertains to both academic and cognitive potential. Students’ ability is impacted by one or more of the following:

• Level of cognitive functioning
• Impairments
• Interruptions to formal education
• Emotional and behavioral disorders
• Frequency of dysregulation
• Prior instruction / background knowledge
• Self perception
• Other factors

Student ability is often identifiable through triangulation of several data points: student performance on a variety of clinical assessments (e.g. Woodcock-Johnson), academic records, IEP and Progress Review updates, classroom performance, and formal and informal teacher assessments and observations. Throughout the timeframe of this study, student ability is unlikely to change substantially, but nuanced changes may be observed through careful triangulation using writing samples, survey forms, and formal writing assessments.

Theme 2: Persona and Self Perception

Self perception is a major factor in students of all ages in any setting. Students in the program have typically negative perceptions of themselves. Much of the work with clinicians at the program is geared towards improving self perception and self advocacy. As part of the treatment aspects of the program, students’ self perception is tracked through a variety of assessments. The data is tracked in students’ case files and is accessible by teachers and other pertinent staff members. In the classroom, self perception is often displayed in students’ attitudes towards their writing. As part of the research for this course, I have implemented a survey that gauges students attitudes towards writing and their perceptions of their own ability as writers. At the conclusion of the study, I will administer the same survey to see whether intensive writing instruction has an effect on students’ self perception. Data will be triangulated based on results of the above assessments. Ideally, I would have liked to administer the survey at the start of the school year and again at the end, though I hope to have measurable results even in the condensed time frame of this study.  

Theme 3: Students’ Personal Experience

One of the earliest lessons I learned as a teacher of writing is that drawing from personal experience is often the most effective way of getting students engaged in the writing process. One of the drawbacks of teaching in the program is that having students write about personal experiences is expressly discouraged. Because so many of the students have had substantial physical and emotional trauma, writing that involves personal experience can often be triggering. It can be challenging having students separate themselves from that trauma and personal experience by finding topics that are personal, yet safe, given the program’s population. Nevertheless, student identity and experience work their way into writing in a way that generates measurable data, and there are some safe topics (e.g. pets, weekend outings to the movies, daily chores) where students can express themselves. I will work to continue navigating the often treacherous topic of personal experience by building in prompts that tease out non-triggering responses.

Theme 4: People with Disabilities

The program falls under the umbrella of FAPE, and several students have moderate disabilities ranging from learning disabilities to physical impairments. Data is pulled from areas such as reports on present levels of academic functioning, clinical assessments, IEP reports, student work samples, and formal and informal teacher observation and assessment. Students with disabilities are the beneficiaries of differentiated instruction at the program, yet are held accountable to high standards. Data from students is calibrated to to take into account the various disabilities present in the survey group.

Memo #8: Data Collection to Date

Data Collection Tool #1: Student Writing Journals

    Up to this point in the study, the student writing journals have been the most valuable source of data for measuring results. The journals store all writing lessons’ notes and student writing samples. The writing in each of the journals shows the development and growth (or in some cases, lack thereof) of the students’ writing ability. They have been collected periodically to analyze for breadth, quality, and clarity of writing across a variety of prompts. Unfortunately, there have not been as many entries in these journals for several of the students, as the rigmarole of daily academic demands have cut into the time dedicated to writing. Additionally, due to the constraints of the program (specifically, in how irregularly students transition into and out of the classroom) each student has not had ample time to craft and organize the journal as it was intended: as a safe and familiar space for building writing skills.

Data Collection Tool #2: Daily Teacher Researcher Journal

    The Teacher Researcher Journal has been a useful way to track the development of my research project and the daily challenges and opportunities within the program. The entries in the researcher journal had been primarily summaries of daily lessons across all content areas, but I have begun only writing about topics that pertain to ELA and my research study. The journal has been a useful tool in tracking the daily progression of the ELA curriculum, especially the work done with writing. It has been a challenge to make meaningful entries every day, as the demands of teaching across all content areas often take time away from focused journaling. Nevertheless, compiling notes on individual students’ progress will produce valuable data for continuing the research project.

Data Collection Tool #3: Student Writing Samples

As part of my research I have been collecting student writing samples. This is a tool I have used throughout my position at the program, as writing samples are invaluable when writing academic progress reviews and measuring student growth. At the beginning of the research process, I collected writing samples from several students. Many of them were handwritten, so I typed them and stored them digitally. I plan on comparing student samples from the beginning of the semester to writing samples that will (should) be completed by the end of this week. Samples will be analyzed for observing qualitative growth to gauge the efficacy of my writing instruction.

Data Collection Tool #4: Student Writing Attitude Surveys

    Last week I had my student take an opinion-based writing attitude survey. They responded to questions about writing by circling a response from 1-5 (or from “not at all” to “a whole lot”) that demonstrated their feelings about writing. The questions ranged from their feelings about academic writing to their own self-confidence as writers. Ideally I would like to have given this survey at the beginning and end of the school year, but both the constraints of the program and this course prevent such a timeline for research.

Data Collection Tool #5: Informal Assessment

    Having the same few students throughout the entire school day has its few perks. One of these advantages is being able to observe student writing across all content areas. In the small-group special education setting, I can track and monitor student progress in ELA, science, history, math, and elective courses. I can also blend writing instruction into each of these areas, and gauge students’ growth.