News: QR and ER Incorporation

Sergio Peralta

Advisor: Jessica Davis

ER/QR incorporation

18 January 2012

Workshop plans

                        My senior thesis is creating a poetry/autobiography writing workshop. I will help develop my student's autobiographical skills through poetry. My target group is mainly 9th graders because they are the ones that have the most trouble with writing elaborate autobiographies. In the senior year one must have 100 pages of their autobiographies, so starting with 9th graders will give them a head start.  The workshop will work closely with different literary devices and sensory details. These aspects are both seen in poems and in autobiographies. By mixing the two the students will improve their creative writing skills. Unfortunately, I do not have my ER and QR data yet. I will have my data when I start and finish my workshop. It will be data that will be collected throughout the workshop.  Both of these learning goals are taking place during the workshop. I am going to have a before and after exam that will test the student's knowledge on literary terms and sensory details. Then compare it with an exam at the end. I will also check their autobiographies and see if there was any improvement in their writing because of the workshop.

Problem Statement:

My essential questions are the following:

• How do I make and organize my lesson plans and my curriculum? I managed to get help from Yadira and Jessica. They helped me create my lesson plans and curriculum. My plans consist of a minute 45 minute period on Tuesdays and Thursdays during LTI time.

• How can seeking peace and Pen in the Classroom be used in my workshop? For this I used the Seeking Peace workshop as a mood for my workshop. I want my workshop to have that feeling of being a family and trust. This will ultimately make students share out loud and discover their voice. I grabbed some of the activities and lessons used in the Pen USA program. I will use the ones that can benefit student's with their areas if difficulty.

• How can students use poetry as a way to improve their autobiographical skills? The activities I chose and made are revolved around the rubric. I chose the activities and poems because some are more concentrated in certain areas more than other poems.

Data:

• I will find the data by conducting two quizzes before and after the workshop starts. The first assessment will measure what level the student is at in the beginning of the workshop. The quiz will consist of various questions dealing with sensory details, poetic terms, the autobiography rubric, and literary devices. As soon as I get the results I will add up the average percentage all the students in the workshop. The second assessment will determine whether or not the workshop was a success or not. I well compare the percentage overall scores from both the assessments and see if there was any change. I will show my findings by creating a chart showing the increase or decrease of the scores. I will also do the same with their autobiographies and see how their autobiographies improved or not. I will compare the past autobiographies and the new ones they make. They will be scored by their advisor I will use the data and create bar graphs. I think I will also compare the people who took the workshop with the students who did not take it. To see if the workshop could have an overall effect on most of the students in the class.

Hypothesis:       

• Once I collect all the data I think my workshop will have a significant impact on the student's writing. It will show how compared to the other students who did not attend the workshop, the sage students will show improvement in their autobiography skills. I think the workshop will prove my theory that students who write poetry will ultimately become better at writing autobiographies.

EX: This is an example of a double bar graph. I will do something like this by comparing the sage students and the students who did not attend the workshop and see if there was any change to their writing. The categories would be based on the autobiography rubric. I am going to use the data from their autobiographies that they will write after the workshop.