Collaborate with a Teacher and Evolve Their Practice: Assignment 2

Collaborate with a Teacher and Evolve Their Practice

Assignment 2

Introduction:

When I first started teaching English 12 at my present secondary school, I was informed that it included a research paper in the form of an argumentative essay.  I was concerned as I had not taught one in past courses, but those already teaching it were willing to share their assignment.  Over the years, in working with the teacher librarians (TL), we (the senior English teachers) have altered the assignment and made it more applicable to our students and enhanced the research component of the paper.  In this past year, those teaching English 12 at our school have gotten together to alter the research assignment to accommodate a wider range of students with a wider range of skills.

Teachers involved (Names have been changed):

There have been a number of teachers who I worked with over the years to develop and enhance the research portion of the research paper assignment.  I started working with Lynn and Kim, the seasoned TLs at the time I started at my secondary school.  We then had Sally for a year, who being new to the position, did not make any changes, just tried to accommodate the teacher’s assignments that were already in place.  Later there was a new TL named Lisa who was energetic and forward thinking and was a great co-teacher.  We now have Helen as our TL. 

Helen came to us from Elementary, and has had a different perspective on some of our assignments.  She is very forward thinking, with respectable technology skills, and she is excited to help with our research paper by team teaching and enhancing our research plan.  Helen has made many changes within the last few years, and this year there will be even more.

In the last five years there have been some teacher changes, with retirements and changes in what teachers want to teach.  With that movement, there has been a change from a more traditional way of doing things, to trying more modern ways while incorporating the same information that the students need to know.  Tim and Lyla were more traditional in their way of teaching and Sharon comes to the table with their same rigor.  Anna and I are most alike in our teaching methods, and in fact often share our assignments, but find that we work really well with Sharon.  I feel that all three of our teaching methods both allow for students to learn the material, but also allow for the students to feel like they are valued.    

This year has had some big changes.  Our core group, who teach English 12, has changed significantly over the last few years, and with the retirement of Tim in June, we have another new piece to our puzzle.  Don joined us and has come with 25 years of teaching experience, many great ideas, a willingness to collaborate, and the ability to work with us “without any ego” (D. Darbyshire, personal communication, October 11, 2019). 

Previous Years:

When I first started teaching the research paper, the students received a booklet (Image 1) and had some instruction on what was expected for note taking, citations and bibliographic information.  I was “in [the] early stages of implementation and … attempting to organize and master the tasks required” (Huang), also known as the Mechanical stage of Huang’s Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM).  During this period students were directed in MLA format, (APA was being taught in the Social Studies classes).  I was just in the process of learning how to teach this assignment.  Since this first time teaching the research paper process, it has evolved, especially the research portion. 

The booklet (Image 1) the students receive has not changed a lot over the years, but the teaching surrounding it and the marking rubric has gone through some changes.  The booklet starts off with the goal, requirements and, topic and thesis statements.  It then has an inquiry question for the students to base their topic on, or they can choose one of the 22 other topics that are possible suggestions.  Next there is the outline, and a possible way to format the essay.  Finally there are the note pages and marking rubric.

2011 Research Paper

Image 1

The first year that I taught the research essay, there was no connections to other aspects of my English 12 course.  It seemed like an entity unto itself.  Over the years, as I continue to teach the research paper, things have evolved and I made more connections between the skills that I teach and those that apply to the research paper.  These years would be considered the Routine and Refinement stages of Huang’s CBAM.  I was “making few or no changes and … establish[ing], [a] comfortable pattern of use” (Huang) for a period of time before “making changes to increase impact” (Huang) and better help my students. 

As I continue to refine my teaching, I start off the year teaching students how to use quotes and write a five-paragraph essay, with their short story unit.  These both have changed over time, becoming more detailed and more structured to make sure the students learn the basics and can add the skills they learn, to their research essay.  I also teach them how to integrate quotes with transition words.  They have an integration activity that we work on, and then they are expected to integrate their quotes in the subsequent paragraphs and then essays leading up to the research paper.  This is a good starting point for them, because by learning how to do required aspects of the research paper before having to do the actual paper, is a relief in that they don’t have a large amount of new information thrown at them all at once.  It has been gradual, with the research paper being a culmination of those skills.

The TL has been a large part of the research process since I first started doing the research essay.  Each TL has co-taught the research information, such as how to use some of the research websites and how to cite information and how to create a works cited page (Image 2).  Helen, our current TL, has both expanded, yet refined the handouts on works cited and in-text citations, to be both up to date and encompass most scenarios that the students may come across.

Works Cited & In-Text Citation Handouts

Image 2

Helen has been the most involved TL; making changes to the research paperwork and making that information available to the students. 

This Year:

This year I moved on to the Integration stage of CBAM, “making deliberate efforts to coordinate and combine efforts with others using PLT … in order to have a collective impact” (Huang). In looking at the new Grade 12 classes we (those teaching senior English) learned that there was not going to be a Communications 12 course.  We were concerned about this because of some of the expectations of the Dover Bay English 12 curriculum.  We at Dover Bay think that teaching the research essay to our English 12 classes is an important aspect to our classes.  We believe that, like the American Library Association comments, that the students should “learn[] how to learn… [and] know how knowledge is organized, how to find information, and how to use information” (as cited in Riedling, 2013, p. 7).  We want to make sure that our students are “prepared for lifelong learning, because they can always find the information needed for any task or decision at hand” (as cited in Riedling, 2013, p. 7).  We also want to make sure that they can evaluate the reliability of the information they find.  In keeping with this, Helen created a handout (Image 3) based on California State University-Chico’s CRAAP test for reliability of information (H. Lyons, personal communication, October 29, 2019). She hands this out to the students when we speak to them about where they should go to get information for their paper.  It helps them take a look at whether or not the information that they are finding would be appropriate to use, and if there are any issues with it.

 Reliability Handout

Image 3

Over the years, we have had numerous students contact us after they have been at college or university to relay their appreciation for being taught how to write a research essay with citations.  With the elimination of the Communications 12 course, a course designed for students who were moving on to something other than university, this has put us in a situation that we understand could be detrimental to those students’ grades and graduation, if we do not change some of what we have done in the past. Because we want to honor all of our students we have been making changes to the research paper this year. 

With the new addition of Don, we four (Sharon, Anna, Don & I) have been collaborating with Helen, our TL, to change the way we do our research essay.  We have had several discussions and posited different scenarios as to what we could do to make sure every student can experience success with what we are teaching them.  We do not want to lose the rigor that the higher-level students need, but we don’t want to hinder those who will not need the skill of essay writing after secondary school.  We decided that what we wanted the students to learn was how to do research, and “reverse engineered” the lesson, using what we had been already doing as a jumping off point.

Helen has continued to adapt her lessons to make the resources more accessible for the students.  She has put together a “bookmark” (Image 4) that quickly and easily gives students a snapshot of how to access the BC digital classroom resources, that she deems important in doing research.  

BC Digital Classroom Resources Bookmark

Image 4

Sharon, Anna and I have spent some time refining the marking rubric for the research paper.  We three have continued to look at it and adjusted how we were evaluating the assignment.  At this time, we have a research project that is similar to the 2011 version, but has had some refinements (Image 5).  The first five pages are the same as the 2011 version, but there has been changes in the addition of another note page and the removal of the suggested keyhole essay format, as well as changes made to the marking rubric.

2018 Research Project

Image 5

This year we believed that the booklet needed to be adjusted yet again.  The topics, the note sheet and the marking rubric are all being refined, in order to accommodate the changes that we are making because of the changing curriculum and English 12 clientele.  Both the topics and the note sheet are works in progress, but the marking rubric has been adjusted.  The changes were made to better reflect the aspects of the research paper. The first page is focused on the planning stage of the research paper, which is reflective of the graphic organizer section of the new literary exam (Image 6).  It also includes a number of research elements, deemed to be important by our senior English staff.  The second and third pages cover the topics of structure, content, style, and conventions, along with documentation.  The first four being parts of all essays, and the final part being a specific skill we are trying to teach our students. 

2019 Research Essay Rubric

Image 6

Future:

There is a plan to continue adapting our research paper for those who are not as able to do it in its traditional format.  I would consider that this would be the Renewal stage of the CBAM, where we are “reevaluat[ing] … and seek[ing] ways to make [the research paper assignments] increasingly effective in order to achieve greater impact” (Huang).

Anna has a plan to help students learn how in-text citation works.  It will be in the form of an essay that has had the citations removed and replaced with numbers that correspond with a works cited/bibliographic page.  From that students will have to create the correct citations, depending on sentence placement, etc. (A. Ryan, personal communication, October 29, 2019).

The note taking process is also being refined, as we continue to discuss the best ways for our diverse spectrum of students to gather information.  Sharon had been trying our some different methods to determine what seems to work most effectively for the students (S. Laughlin, personal communication, October 28, 2019).

The senior English teachers have also been working with Helen, the TL, to gather information to create a package of information that would allow students who are not as capable of doing research as others.  We want to have high interest, lower reading level articles that would easily allow for students to gather information and quotes to add to their research paper.  

Helen has also offered to teach us how to teach our students how to do a podcast, using the information and lessons that she and Tim created last year.  We have been discussing that this may be another way for us to have our students show that they are able to do research without having to show it in an essay format (H. Lyons, personal communication, October 11, 2019. 

Conclusion:

I see the changes that have happened over the last ten years and how CBAM accounts for the changes that have come about.  I am happy that I have been moving through the stages, but also know that it is not always a quick process.  I also noticed that no teacher does it all alone.  It is very important to look to others for help and know that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.   TLs are invaluable in their knowledge, and being able to collaborate with others who are doing the same assignment as you, make things easier, and in my experience the end product is much more effective.  If you are lucky enough to work with someone who is wanting to help and able to think creatively and do research themselves, you are going to have some great assignments.

References

Huang, P. Concerns-Based Adoption Model: Levels of Use. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/ch7cbam/home/levels-of-use

Ministry of Educataion. ( ). Grade 10 Graduation Literacy Assessment: Specifications (2^nd ed.)  Retrieved from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/ GLA_10_Specifications.pdf

Riedling, A.M., Shake, L., Houston, C. (Eds.). (2013). Reference Skills for the School Librarian: Tools and Tips (3rd ed.). Denver, Colorado. Linworth.