REFLECTION

WHAT I LEARNED FROM MY STUDY

SUCCESSES

Students gained confidence in themselves as writers
Students felt like their voices, stories, experiences were important
Support students who needed more guidance while still challenging proficient writers
Challenged myself in finding new ways to keep students motivated during the writing process
Giving students unique goals helped create a community of writers, where everyone had something they were working toward, even me
Fostered an equitable and accessible learning environment.

After analyzing the students' surveys, I realize that my instruction and the writer's checklist had some positive effect on students' writing confidence. I think expressing to them from the very beginning that they were the experts of their topic eased some of the anxiety that is present in beginning and progressing writers. I often referred to the checklist as "me in paper-form," as to encourage students to refer to this checklist to check if their essay was "good enough." By referring to the checklist while drafting and editing, self-efficient students allowed me that time to conference with students who struggled on their essays. This year also definitely challenged my own creativity. When students reached writer's block or were lacking in motivating, it forced me to think outside the box in order to keep them interested. Lastly, giving individual students unique goals helped create a community of writers. There was an understanding within the classroom that everyone had something different to work and improve on, even me. By writing alongside students (mentor text), they were able to watch an experienced writer struggle and revise multiple times. Showing them, that no matter how good you get at writing, there is always room for improvement; this helped me foster an equitable and accessible learning environment.

CHALLENGES

Interruptions to daily schedule, routine, and instruction
Finding the effective ways to teach writing to in-person and remote learners simultaneously
Not having ample data on students' due to COVID-19 pandemic
Losing writing workshop time/days to things like high school registration, snow days, and safety drills
Not being able to conference with every remote student
Rushed pacing

This year undoubtedly presented many challenges that even veteran teachers could not have anticipated. Many unforeseeable conflicts and changes made it difficult to keep learning consistent. For example, in an effort to find the best model for student learning amid a global pandemic, my district made many changes to the daily schedule, routine, and instruction. Students and teachers had to adapt to full remote instruction, a rotating in-person schedule, and then hybrid instruction (in-person and remote concurrent instruction), all within the same quarter. As a teacher, I constantly struggled to find strategies and adapt instruction in a way that was effective for both in-person and remote students simultaneously.

Also due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the amount of data I had on students was limited, making it difficult for me to really gauge student levels and abilities in order to provide necessary effective supports and accommodations for individual learners. Events like unexpected snow days, unplanned safety drills (i.e. fire drills, lockdown drills, etc.), and other interruptions like high school registration caused students to lose instructional and writing workshop days, cutting down our already limited time. Hybrid teaching affected the amount of communication I had with different students during instruction. I was unable to conference with remote students, in the same way that I did with in-person students because it was sometimes impossible to get in touch with some students. Because our pacing was already on a tight schedule, I had to move on the the next student as scheduled, even if someone had not shown up to their writing conference. Choosing to move on even when I thought many students were not ready to is one example of some the of the things that I did not want to do, but had to do in order to keep students on track.

LINGERING QUESTIONS

Would I have seen more improvement if all of my students were in person?
Could I have done things differently to better support remote writers?
Would it have been helpful to reteach certain concepts during the writing process?
Would having more time with students and their essays result in more organized and focused writing?
Where are some areas where I could have used more data to inform instruction?
Could collaboration among peers motivate more student writers?
Did the writer's checklist truly have a different effect on different ability levels?
Would remote students have grown more if they were in person to receive more hands-on support?

IMPACT ON FUTURE TEACHING

Next year, I plan to use the writer's checklist again. I do not feel like this year was a good representation of what good this writing strategy can do for student writers. What I want to do in the future is really chunk the writing assignment for students. Due to the fact that we had to rush many lessons because of interruptions to learning, I feel I didn't scaffold the writing process the way I had intended to prior to the study.

Although the checklist facilitated students' self-monitoring skills while drafting, I think implementing more effective writing strategies and then also adding the writer's checklist would result in more student growth. Overall, I want to make sure that the writer's checklist is a supplemental support for students instead of acting as my replacement. I think it may take some trial and error to find a decent balance between guidance and self-efficacy but that is what data-informed instruction is all about.

Professional Collaboration

INTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS

Content/Grade Partner
Special Education Resource Teachers
Instructional Facilitator
Colleagues

Writer's checklist was developed by my content partner and I who teach the same grade. My content partner provided us with many ideas for our successful lessons thanks to her teaching experience. She always made sure to check that we were thinking of every learner in our classrooms when I was overwhelmed or distracted by other things. We also collaborated with our special education experts to determine what was the best way to support students with diverse needs. We worked closely with our building’s instructional facilitator who was formerly an English Language Arts teacher. Our instructional facilitator offered us her wisdom regarding best practices, supporting not only our in-person students, but our remote learners as well. A member of my 8th grade team provided me emotional support and encouragement when I most needed it. My teammate used his rapport with students and gave me advice for how to reach students who usually struggled in the classroom. All of the aforementioned stakeholders assisted me in creating a welcoming and equitable learning environment for all students.

EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS

University Professors
Associate

I used material I created in my university courses and adapted it to the needs of students in my classroom. I relayed ideas from professors about best practices in writing instruction and implemented them in the classroom. University professors assisted me in brainstorming ideas for how to differentiate instruction to engage all learners and ensure that I was supporting diverse learning needs. Always having my associate to bounce ideas off of and reform my instruction was a huge factor in my reflective practice. My associate also provided substantial emotional support, often reminding me of the good things I was doing in the classroom when I did not acknowledge them. This support she provided made a great difference when it came to me bringing the best version of myself into the classroom. My associate also assisted in the creation of my data collection tools, heavily revising them until they were exactly what I wanted and needed them to be. The stakeholders mentioned above shared their experience with me, giving me the confidence I needed in order to make sure I was physically, mentally, and emotionally present for students each and every day.

WHAT I LEARNED

Action research has taught me many things about how writing instruction must be differentiated for individual students. Just because a certain strategy works with one student, there is no guarantee that it will work with other students. For that reason, it is imperative that we as teachers have a back-up plan for the back-up plan, just in case. This was especially true for my research because although the writer's checklist showed promising results for many students, there were many other students who needed extra support and alternative strategies, especially regarding writing stamina.

Moving forward, I want to continue to learn more about effective writing instruction. By having more writing strategies in my teaching tool belt, I think I will have a better understanding about how to pair the writer's checklist with those research-based strategies. I have also learned that students know more than I give them credit for, but that does not mean that they do not need me. It takes thoughtful planning to foster self-efficacy in students without throwing them into the water and expecting them to swim.

PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL GROWTH

I have gained more confidence in myself as a professional. A huge change in my thinking as a teacher has been that a lesson I create does not have to be perfect the first time. Through reflection after every lesson, I consistently used data from every class to inform instruction and modify lessons as needed. As a result of this experience, I now feel comfortable reaching out to others when I need help because I know I do not have all of the answers and I am okay with that. However, the new confidence has also convinced me that I too have good ideas that support learning, which has encouraged me to try new strategies and take risks in the classroom. I believe this experience has opened me to new learning and fostered reflective attitudes in regards to my teaching.