Beginning AR

My AR proposal needs a few tweaks such as formative assessments made along the way and how/what I plan on collecting as reflective questions for myself.

My students are learning a new strategy a day on a text that I pull from their AP English class.  On one essay, they will complete 2 or 3 strategies over the course of a week, no more than one new strategy a day.

Upon practicing that strategy on the text, they write a reflective piece that contains the following responses:

1. Explain "Questioning" to a friend.  How would you tell them to do this strategy?
2. Is the strategy Questioning used effectively in all paragraphs?  When is this strategy best used?
3. Provide three examples from your reading today in which you used the Questioning strategy.

This formative assessment allows me to see if they understand the strategy, have found ways to best apply using this strategy (evaluation) and their best examples of this strategy in action.  

If they are successful in applying this strategy, the only question then becomes if they actually use it on an assessment to have success in answering AP English multiple choice responses and/or essays on the reading.  This will come at the end of the implementation phase to best assess effectiveness.

My reflections consist of implementation of the content themselves, and to see if there seems to be confusion on how I instructed them to write in the margins.  Again, I am not a reading teacher by trade but I am trying to expand my abilities to help my students.  I am trying not to assign so many strategies that none are executed correctly, and give time to practice the strategies before we move on.


Tomorrow, we will begin reviewing the strategies as needed and see how they judiciously decide to apply what they are learning.