Theoretical Information

Though I have cited Culham (2003) previously, a little background information on the Traits has never hurt. 

Below is an overview of the Traits.  Based on my pre-assessment data (and time constraint), I focused on sentence fluency, word choice and conventions.  These posed as the highest needs for this particular group of students.

6 + 1 Traits Overview
Ideas	Ideas make up the content of the piece of writing, otherwise known as the heart of the message.
Organization	Organization is the internal structure of the piece, the thread of meaning, the logical pattern of the ideas.
Voice	Voice is the soul of the piece.  It’s what makes the writer’s style singular, as his or her feelings and convictions come out through the words.
Word Choice	Word choice is at its best when it includes the use of rich, colorful, precise language that moves and enlightens the reader.
Sentence Fluency	Sentence fluency is the flow of the language, the sound of word patterns- the way the writing plays to the ear, not just the eye.
Conventions	Conventions represent the piece’s level of correctness- the extent to which the writer uses grammar and mechanics with precision.
+1 Presentation	Presentation zeros in on the form and layout- how please the piece is to the eye.
(Culham, 2003, p. 11-12).

Because my students are flexibly grouped, and the fact that I could find little research on strategies to utilize with higher-ability and gifted students.  Additionally, all the research done on the Six Traits showed improvements amongst lower achieving students and not so much with the higher-achieving students.

Below are the resources that I've collected to help mold my action research model into what it is today:

Albertson, L. R., & Billingsley, F. F. (2001).  Using Strategy Instruction and Self-Regulation to Improve Gifted Students’ Creative Writing.  Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 12(2), 90.

Coe, M., Hanita, M., Nishioka, V. & Smiley, R.  (2011).  An Investigation of the Impact of the 6 + 1 Trait Writing Model on Grade 5 Student Writing Achievement.  United States Department of Education.

Culham, R.  (2003).  6 + 1 Traits of writing: The complete guide grades 3 and up.  Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.

DeJarnette, N. K. (2008).  Effects of the 6 + 1 Trait Writing Model on Student Writing Achievement.  Liberty University: College of Education.

Diederich, P. B.  (1974).  Measuring growth in english.  Urbana, IL: National Council Teachers of English.

Flyte-Rettler, J. L. (2004).  Improving Fourth Grade Students’ Writing Skills with 6 + 1 Traits of Writing, Graphic Organizers, and Writer’s Workshop.  Oshkosh, WI: University of Wisconsin.

Higgins, B., Miller, M., & Wegmann, S.  (2006).  Teaching to the test…not!  Balancing best practice and testing requirements in writing.  Reading Teacher, 60(4), 310-319.  doi: 10.1598/RT.60.4.1.

Mertler, C. A.  (2012).  Action research: Improving schools and empowering educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Wearmouth, J., Berryman, M., & Whittle, L. (2011). 'Shoot for the moon!' Students' identities as writers in the context of the classroom. British Journal of Special Education, 38(2), 92-99. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8578.2011.00502.x

Conventions Update

My one conventions participant did not finish his lesson, so below is a description of the lesson itself.  It was an application of the APLUS editing technique that he previously learned.  (This particular participant moves at a snails pace in any type of activity we are completing, especially writing).

Word Choice Update

This week, students worked on improving their dialogue.  More specifically, students focused on not overusing the word "said."  After the lesson introduction, I read aloud Stellaluna and students focused on the different words the author used in place of said.  Oftentimes, I feel like I take read-alouds for granted, but my kids really enjoyed this lesson and I think it had a lot to do with the book we read aloud.

 

Students then applied the skill after we finished instruction, modeling and a read aloud.

 

 

Most students did well, however, I had a few students that did not write the amount of required sentences.  It was not that they didn't understand the lesson.

Sentence Fluency Update

This week, my sentence fluency group worked on creating "high-five" sentences, in which they were instructed on creating sentences with nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases.  Each part of speech was represented by a finger on their hands.

Many of my students are visual learners, so they were successful with this because this was a graphic organizer that would always be with them!

 

You can see from the chart that many were successful.  (The blank numbers are students not participating in the sentence fluency group).

Above is a student sample.  This student worked really hard on her sentences when applying the skills on her own. 

 

The next (and final) lesson I will be doing is from the sixth grade book, as I want to see how they respond with something higher level.

Weekly Reflection

I don't know if I will ever feel like I'm fully on track or "finished."  I often feel like these terms are overused!  I guess I would feel better about my progress with collecting data, had we not been off for a grand total of 22 days and a few hour delays thrown in there. 

My participants have been more than helpful with my research process and I'm happy to say that many of them have demonstrated gains.  However, I cannot speak too soon, as I've not given the post assessment yet, nor have my kids taken their state testing assessment yet.  I want so badly for my writers to succeed, but I understand now that was not the case.  I am finishing a research project that I implemented within my classroom that will hopefully aid others in making decisions within their classrooms.  I think that's a pretty big feat.

This week I'm grateful.  I'm terrified as to how things will turn out (for both myself and my students), but I'm grateful for the simple fact that I was able to do this with my particular group of kids.

Happy blogging,

Emily

Sentence Fluency Updates

My largest group is my Sentence Fluency birds.  Below is the pre-assessment and you can really see that the majority of my higher-functioning students struggle with sentence fluency (I expected this early on).

 

Now, here is the mid-research assessment that I had the students complete.  Some of their stories turned out pretty great they're going to use them for their portfolios.

 

 

Most of the students made gains, however, I did have a couple that haven't.  These students didn't surprise me in their non-gain, so I need to focus more closely on them and be more deliberate.

Below is a student sample about Brandon Phillips- the Reds baseball player and I just had to post this because I love him as much as my student here does! :)

 

Word Choice Updates

 The Word Choice group has also made some gains. 

 

Above is the pre-assessment for the Word Choice group.  Please pay close attention to the last number of students, as above is the entire group.

Below are the students during their mid-research application practice.

 

Conventions Update

 Here is the pre-assessment for Conventions.  Again, I apologize for the graininess of the photo, but I have really struggled with uploading photos and documents to this blog (I'm sure it's me). 

Please focus on Student 11.  This is my lone conventions bird.

As you can see, he's improving.

 

 

Data Updates

So, because I decided to do a mid-assessment to determine my lessons from there, I have added some data.  My kids seem to be growing, however, there are a few that aren't.  Moreover, I am curious to see how they do on the post-assessment.  Also, I am wondering whether their trait awareness will improve all of the Traits rather than just the one I'm instructing them upon.

You can see below the scoring rubric.  Again, I only scored them on the Trait I was instructing them upon for this mid-review.

 
 
 
 
 
This is a sample of a very odd story one of my sentence fluency kiddos wrote, however, she's really improved with her sentence fluency.  She has even improved with her conventions, as this is typically an issue for this student.

I am curious to see how the remainder of my research goes.  I am hoping this is a good sign (as well as the weather of course).

This Week's Reflection

So far, it looks like we are going to go a full week!  This is the first full week I've had since November and I cannot contain my excitement!!
However, I'm still terrified about spring (more like summer) state testing.  It's absolutely mind blowing that my kids will be expected to demonstrate everything they know in a couple months.

I decided to do something a little different.  I wanted to give them a "mid-unit" assessment, so I allowed them to review the lessons we have already done (for sentence fluency: pumping up sentences, complex sentences, and prepositional phrases; for Word Choice: figurative language, onomatopoeia, and transitional words/phrases; and conventions: commas, capitalization, and APLUS editing) and then I asked them to apply those skills into a piece of writing.  Some chose to write nonsense stories (my kids really enjoy that) and some just simply chose to reflect on the week.

I am wanting to see some gains, but, again, that's being a little bias and hoping for the best.

Do you all think that's an odd thing to do?  I will score them with the same rubric that I scored the pre-assessments with, but only the Trait area that they're being instructed within will be reported...however, it will still be interesting to see if any areas have made gains.

What are your thoughts?

Emily

Weekly Reflection

Not only am I struggling because we missed out on two days this week (I'm not even sure how many that is, but it's definitely up in the 20's somewhere now!), but because I feel like I'm not doing my lessons correctly. 

Dr. C. keeps saying that this is my study and that I am really the determining element here, which is true.  However, that still doesn't ease the uneasy feeling I have about some of my lessons.  For instance, I feel like some of these lessons, though touching on topics my kids may not have ever heard (or maybe they just haven't heard them or applied them in a while), I feel line some of them are too easy.  What do you think about me using the same type of lesson set up, but a sixth grade level book?  It's from the same company, still aligned with both the Traits and the Common Core standards, but I just wanted everyone's thoughts before I began this journey. 

For instance, I really want to pull in lessons from a multiple array of sources, like the Six Traits text by Culham (2003) and also these Getting to the Core books.  But, again, I'm afraid that's not right.  It's not that I'm changing their groups and the students are still receiving lessons based upon their level of need, as determined within their pre-assessment, but I just wanted to gather thoughts regarding how much is too much?

Conventions Update

Again, I feel as if I'm the only one that has trouble with uploading pictures onto this blog and it really irritates me.

Conventions
My one sole member of the conventions group ironically scored quite high in both word choice and sentence fluency (however, his conventions would give any teacher an anxiety attack!).  This specific participant is very disorganized (organization is also a Trait that he fell week within).  Each of the lessons varied in amounts, which determined his overall score for that specific lesson.  Like the other groups, he will be applying these skills into a piece of writing this week!

Data Updates

Sentence Fluency
My Sentence Fluency group is by far my largest group.  These are the first three lessons that I've completed with these students.  I am beginning to pull lessons from Culham's (2003) Six Traits book, which is basically the text to refer to, as Culham (2003) began this research way back when.  I'm curious to determine if there is more significant gains (or not) by using multiple sources of lessons, versus just sticking with one book. 

 I realize these are somewhat difficult to see, and I apologize.  The numbers on the x axis represent each participant involved with the sentence fluency lessons.  (If you see a blank, it is because that particular student is not in the sentence fluency group).  I also want to point out that the first and second lessons were out of 3, whereas the third lesson was scored on a 0-4 scale.  Furthermore, the students have not yet applied these skills, but I am going to have them do that prior to beginning another round of three lessons.

Word Choice
My word choice group, though smaller, has been enjoyable because I feel like I've gotten closer with them (simply because the group is smaller in size).  I apologize for the lack of data here.  Due to the snow days, I am missing some of my students' work and I didn't want to create a half analyzed table.  So, below is the first lesson that involved figurative language.

Again, if the students aren't seen with a bar, it is due to the fact that they are not involved within this group!

What I am struggling with at this time is still my amount of snow days and the lacking amount of data that I have.  I am curious to determine if or how my kiddos apply these lessons within to a piece of writing, rather than just within these lessons.

Lessons This Week

Lessons I've done this week include the following:

• Sentence Fluency
• Top Ten and Above - Students discuss the importance of prepositional phrases within their sentences to strengthen sentence fluency.  Students used prepositions that showed movement (how), location (where) and time (when) when writing using sentence starters I provided them. 
  
  
  

• Word Choice
• Sounds Abound- Students discussed the significance of onomatopoeia and created sentences using sounds.
• Writing Road Signs- Students discussed the different uses of transitional words/phrases within writing.  We wrote a story together and then students were assigned one to write using at least five different "road signs" with a topic of their choice for homework.

 

• Conventions
• Commas for a Cause- Here, my participant reviewed the different functions of a comma and then chose three he felt he needed to work on most and wrote a sentence demonstrating each of the skills.

After I have the students apply their Trait skills they've learned, I am going to re-assess (on a smaller scale than the pre/post-assessments) and determine if groups need to be adjusted.

More Updates

Coding has not been difficult for me, as my study has a great deal of quantitative data that I'm collecting, but, this could be because I'm carrying this out completely wrong. Can anyone give me some pointers in this area?

 

 

 

 

Here is an update on the Sentence Fluency kiddos.  You can see that some students are empty and that is solely because they are not sentence fluency birds!  The highest they could score was a 3 and 12 of those 14 kiddos scored at least a 2, but, again, this was NOT applying these Traits holistically into a piece of writing.  This was simply a task requiring them to write using the Trait mentioned.  Had I given them a task and not mentioned the specific Trait lessons, I'm unsure of how they would perform.  Hence why I will be more formally assessing them after every two or three lessons.

 

 

 

Updates

Here is a sample of one of the Word Choice lessons, entitled "Go Figure."  You can see how simple the homework is.  The lesson follows a typical writer's workshop format, and includes gradual release of responsibility as well.  The student defines and discusses their learning target for the lesson, I model a few examples (until the students seem comfortable), we work together, they work in pairs, and then they have an independent assignment, wherein they're required to apply the skill.  However, I am giving the students application assignments after every few lessons, to ensure (or disprove) that students are applying the Trait lessons into actual writing situations (i.e., such as narrative, informative, reflective, or even argumentative). 

So you can see in this sample, that the student made a mistake on the "hyperbole" section.  Therefore, I knew I had to go back and re-teach this particular student.

I attempted "coding: for the first time not too long ago, and I am trying to apply the knowledge that Dr. C gave me.  However, I'm still unsure if I am doing this sufficiently or correctly.  Furthermore, the coding example here is from a word choice group member and this participant makes some strong connections with real-life writing.  I was surprised how honest the students have been so far with this interviewing aspect of the action research.

This is a sample of my sentence fluency group where the students were required to build sentences using compound subjects and compound predicates.  As a whole, the sentence fluency group did well with this, but, again, I'm curious as to whether they will apply these skills into their writing.









As I reflect on this journey so far, I can see that my students are responding well to the lessons.  They like the small focal group time, they enjoy the lessons as they are designed to be engaging, and they seem very excited to be helping me (which was a complete surprise).  I do need to mention that due to the discontinuity of these lessons, I am concerned this may pose as a negative for the kids.  We have had many snow days here and there, and I know this is affecting my entire instructional output, not simply my research project.  I am eager to determine whether or not my students are applying these Traits (without me right there saying, "Use your pumping up sentences strategy..."

Other Modes of Scoring

Although I am utilizing one rubric for the official scoring, these documents are also aligned with the 6 Traits and are kid friendly.  This is especially useful for when I am collecting student samples within focal groups, and much quicker as well.

Post-its are below as well.

 

 

Sample Pre Assessment

Because my students are in 5th grade, they are tested in the areas of math, reading, social studies, and On-Demand writing.  Therefore, many of their assessments are presented in a way that they may see on an assessment.  (This one was made up by my district's curriculum coordinator and mimics those same properties as the KDE released items do).

 

This prompt is accompanied with a short passage.  In this case, the passage included tips on how to save water and why it was so important.  Students should've gathered any tips they felt they needed to score well.

 

 

Above is what the students see when they receive their pre-assessments back.  I know it's kind of hard to make out specifics, however, you can see the Trait areas that this child is scoring lower in, as well as the Traits he/she is excelling within.

 

Clarification on Data Analysis

I am really struggling with organizing this data in a way that ensures I'm gathering the most accurate data to prove (or disprove) my research question.  At the same time, I am finding it difficult to post photos, documents, etc. using this particular blog and that's adding even more to my stress levels (on top of all of the snow-days).

I apologize for the graininess of this photo, but I had to snap a picture of my computer.  You can see that the majority of my students' lower areas are sentence fluency and word choice.  Voice is also the next lowest scoring Trait.  However, Traits such as organization, conventions, and even ideas are quite the high (or average) scorers.  So I am focusing on what each particular student needs. I do want to point out that six of these students are labeled as Gifted and Talented.  These students were also placed into our higher group based upon their MAP Reading and Math scores and KPREP Scores.  For reading and math, we also utilize common assessment data.  Moreover, before moving any child, my team and I discuss their classroom performance in ALL of our areas. 

As you can see, conventions is only an issue for a few of my higher birds.

Organization is quite average, but there are a few students that require instruction upon that and those lessons will be provided after their most needed areas are instructed.

You can see that Sentence Fluency is a struggle for many of my students.  As a whole school, our vocabulary awareness is low, so I was prepared to see this type of result.

 Concurrently, many of my students in this class have a good sense of voice.  However, you can still see a few students in need of improvement.

Word Choice was my other "focus" Trait for this time due it being quite a need!














Ideas is quite the high-scoring Trait for the majority of my students as well. 






I want to clarify that all of my students are not included within this study, but they will all be receiving instruction in their area of need. 

Trait Lesson Updates

Good morning all!  I am now on my 19th snow day.  (More like ice day).  We had a two hour delay due to the rain freezing the roads last night and early into this morning.  There were TONS of accidents this morning, however, it's warming up now and I'm wishing my kiddos were here.

The text that I am pulling the majority of my lessons from is called Getting to the Core of Writing. It is completely aligned with the Common Core Standards, as well as organized by the Traits.  Therefore, I can easily pull lessons that my kids need.

 For instance, I had many students that needed improvement in Word Choice.  Here is a lesson that I am using this week (when we have school) called "Go Figure," wherein students review the importance of similes and metaphors, and also hyperbole and idioms.  They practice recognizing these types of figurative language and then apply it into their writing.

Many of my students also needed lessons on sentence fluency, which I assumed even before I began grading their pre-assessments because I know this is an issue for basically all of my kids.  There were only a select few that actually didn't need assistance in the area of the Sentence Fluency Trait.  I chose these two lessons from the text above that involves instruction on utilizing complex sentences and then another involving "pumping up" sentences.  Each of these lessons involve guided examples, practice, and then application into a piece of writing.

 

This lesson involves students using compound subjects and predicates, so I will most likely instruct with this lesson prior to the complex sentences above. 

















 One of my students REALLY struggles with conventions. However, he scored quite well in other areas (including word choice and voice, which are typically areas that I know my kids are weak in).  So, I chose this lesson to start him off with.  You may think it's juvenile, but oftentimes, his lack of conventional awareness distracts his reader from understanding what he's trying to communicate. 

 

Thick Data Description

Because I'm not having much luck with the whole uploading of documents, I am going to try my best here with my description.

Currently, all I have are pre-assessment scores.  (We have had almost twenty snow days now and they've taken away most of our spring break- which is completely fine with me!).

If you look below, you will see the rubric that I am using for my scoring purposes.

Students that scored lowest in Ideas: 2 (N=20)
Students that scored lowest in Sentence Fluency: 14 (N=20)
Students that scored lowest in Organization: 8 (N=20)
Students that scored lowest in Word Choice: 19 (N=20)
Students that scored lowest in Voice: 4 (N=20)
Students that scored lowest in Conventions: 2 (N=20)

Please note here that when I say "lowest," this means that student scored a zero, 0.5 or 1 in that particular Trait category.  When I analyzed the rubric, those Traits stood out.  Most students had two overall Trait aspects they scored a 0, 0.5 or 1 within.  However, there were seven students that achieved this score in three or four Trait aspects.

Due to the sake of time, I will be focusing on the two lowest areas, as those are their areas of NEED.  These Trait scores are difficult to compare to the MAP Reading data and KPREP Language Arts scores because this measures something completely unrelated.  However, I am curious if there is a correlation.

Furthermore, I want to point out to you that I somewhat predicted Word Choice being one of the lowest scoring Traits simply because I know this is something my students need to work on.  When I introduced the students to the Traits, it was eerie because as I polled the kids, many of them identified their personal need right off the bat.

I am anxious to see where this goes.

Emily

PS- I am having a LOT of trouble posting documents and charts on here, so I will do my best to take care of that.  If anyone has tips, I would really appreciate it.

Descriptive Statistics Part 4

Descriptive Statistics Part 3