Action Plan for Action Research

1. Action Plan for Action Research Kari Mielke Action Research for School Improvement Julian Katz July 8, 2009

2. What area of focus are you interested in changing or is in need of remediation? • Student writing • Effective writing strategies

3. What information do you have that indicates the problem? • Low student scores/grades on writing assessments in class • Teacher observations of students struggling on writing assignments • Student writing portfolios with little or no improvement

4. What are you currently doing that does not appear to address the research problem? • Due to an increased focus on MSA Reading scores, our school’s curriculum has focused more so on reading strategies for students, and less on writing • Too much reading instruction, and not enough writing instruction

5. What program/strategy will you implement? Identify the variables of the study. • I will be implementing the writing workshop model. • Independent Variable = the writing workshop model • Dependent Variable = student writing

6. Describe the program as intended for implementation. • The writing workshop model focuses on the stages of the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing, but with more teacher guidance, modeling, and peer coaching. The model can be altered to fit the needs of the teacher and/or students. • Prewriting: students will plan and organize for their writing through graphic organizers and brainstorming • Drafting: students will create drafts of their writing pieces

7. Describe the program as intended for implementation continued… • Revising: students will be encouraged to make substantial improvements to their own writing piece. Peers and others will provide feedback to the author about the writing piece as well. • Editing: Students will focus on correcting mechanical errors such as punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. • Publishing: Students will finalize their writing piece and will submit for grading.

8. My Reaction • If this program is successful, I will continue to expand in the coming year. • If this program does not work as planned, I will try to modify by identifying parts of the program that were somewhat successful and try to improve on the parts of the program that were not successful. • If this program fails in its entirety, then I will research new programs and try something different.

9. Research and My Classroom • Information from this class that I will incorporate as a classroom teacher: learning to find and use resources for answering questions or solving problems (Literature Review), creating and conducting survey research, and types of observation methods for any future action research projects in my own classroom. • I see a practical purpose for research in my classroom. Research will be used as a tool in my classroom to improve student learning and my own teaching.