Erin+Motley+DWI+Portfolio

Name: __Erin Motley__

Grade Level/ Content Area: __7th/ Science__

District: __Colonial__

FINAL THOUGHTS AND REFLECTION: OCTOBER 2013

According to my research with various journals and references, evidence from student data over my teaching career, and conversations with my Professional Learning Community, I chose to focus my lessons on improving the use of scientific evidence in developing a clear coherent scientific explanation (WHST 6-8.2, WHST 6-8.4, WHST 6-8.9). From my experience as a science teacher, I have found students truly enjoy the inquiry and investigations that go along with experimental activities, yet the enduring benefits from them are not resourced until that student can provide a written explanation of their implications. When a student can construct their own explanations from their evidence, he or she may gain a deeper understanding of the content. That student might also see more relevancy in the lesson, therefore leading to further engagement or questioning.

Teachers can benefit from seeing student misconceptions and adjust a lesson accordingly. Writing can also support the development of a community -in my case, I found my class became more of a scientific community when students shared their written explanations and ideas. Communicating evidence and understandings developed from science investigations leads to further scientific discoveries in the "real world", and I think the classroom is an ideal place to model that. There were so many benefits from focusing on the strategies involved in supporting written explanations from textual and other formats of evidence, that in reflection, I would not change my overarching goals for my students after completing the Delaware Writing Institute Workshop.In fact, from the overall trends my data showed, I plan to continue to improve their written explanations and consistently emphasize the importance of not only using evidence to support a claim, but writing about the meaning of that evidence as well.


 * C-E-R: CLAIM-EVIDENCE REASONING**


 * September 2013: The Pre-tests**

After viewing the pre assessments given to the students I teach, and understanding a little about what was previously taught to them, it helped me confirm what I predicted. I would be required to teach them how to develop a scientific explanation and provide a great deal of structure and scaffolding to do so. Our students have been "trained" to succeed on DCAS-style tests, and choose the best answers, but the ability to WRITE about their choices was not taught. Writing has been, and is not currently ( our school interests are focused on Reading Strategies now) emphasized in our district due to the prioritization of DCAS instructional lessons. In my time researching for a possible approach to do so, I focused on the "C-E-R" format: CLAIMS-EVIDENCE-REASONING.

To make it "student friendly" I explained it like this: CLAIM is what you know or what you want the reader to understand. The EVIDENCE is how you know that. What data do you have or information from a text have you found that proves it? The REASONING is based upon the scientific principle; why or how does the evidence support the claim?


 * Breaking down the C-E-R:**

I used a graphic organizer different from my first intended organizer that made the C-E-R approach more clearly broken down. Teaching the claim was easy and I used the same ideas as I originally intended coming into the school year. I also added to them using examples from "Skechers Shape-ups Sneakers", bringing in my own rolling heeled sneaker shoes, and using evidence taken from scientific data to disprove the Skechers' marketing claim that they helped burn calories or make a "butt tighter". Students enjoyed these lessons and I felt they understood the concept quickly .Teaching the evidence portion of the writing structure was a bit more of a challenge. Students struggled with using transition words to introduce their evidence, then use direct examples from texts to use in a written response. They tended to generalize ideas, which was understandable, since a great deal of summarizing strategies have been placed into their ELA curriculum. I was looking for a student to use exact evidence, data or examples in their evidence portion of a written response, however, and generalizations were not appropriate in this case. I tried to compare writing scientifically to being a detective and a detective needs direct and exact evidence before he or she can make a conclusion. Conclusions based on inferences are acceptable, but there must be evidence clearly communicated first.

The lessons involving how to connect the claims to the evidence was even more of a challenge. It definitely escalated in problems for me as a teacher. Teaching and communicating HOW to write the "reasoning" of the response was a quandary I still struggle with. I made and performed a rap, I supported students with another graphic organizer format, I reviewed and broke down each section of a response once again, and I still found students struggled. I felt responsible for not being as successful as I had hope to be. In reading about the C-E-R teaching approach, it sounded so simple and easy. I think I still will use it, however, I have learned that TEACHING it or feeling confident about teaching it is not the case, especially when I am also responsible for making sure students understand the CONTENT knowledge they need to understand for science.


 * The Instructional Coach's Views:**

As I interacted with my students and left the comforting nest of the D.W.I classroom, I realized I was delving deeper into unknown territory in terms of instruction. I am proficient in teaching CONTENT to students, but the skills involved in writing about content knowledge are not my strength.it is not enough to simply love to write. I love writing, and found the class this summer personally rewarding because it made me recall how much I did enjoy the activity. It is not about ME, though, it is about the students and their growth as writers.

I went to my school's Literacy coach for advisement. She went over my lessons and suggested I remove the " voice" strategy. Voice was a skill not explicitly taught or assessed on our seventh grade learning maps or standards. It was not logical or advised to further create misconceptions in students as informative writers, and I should not emphasize it in the unit. I understood her arguments and knew it would also place me further behind in pacing with my fellow seventh grade teaching colleagues. I did not evaluate student work for " voice" in my rubrics and only mentioned it briefly, with the intention to possibly keep students motivated to write. In my student work samples, I also saw evidence of our coach's stand-point: it did confuse some struggling writers and did not benefit classes as a whole.


 * What went well and what did not:**

Overall I found the entire experience rewarding from a statistical standpoint and instructional perspective. My students improved their scores, ability to communicate information, and use text to help them progress through learning our unit's content. These skills will help them further down the road of their educational experience. Instructionally, it helped me prepare for upcoming requirements from our Common Assessments and Smarter Balanced Assessments. I felt more confident in guiding my students through the process of writing a valid scientific argument using their claim, disseminating evidence and using the evidence to form a written well reasoned closure.

In reflection, I see I am falling more and more behind in teaching the __content__ of my science curriculum because of my emphasis on the writing process. This concern makes me see how important it is that our educational institutions support the writing process more. My school does not have a formal reading program. The English Language Arts teachers have to teach everything, and I respect how much they are responsible covering! I also feel that as a result, my initial consistency in taking time to model and show student work examples has declined. This is not helpful in effectively teaching skills over a long term period. As a result of this reflection, it is helpful for me to formulate some solutions: possibly stagger out formal written responses more often or embed the C-E-R strategy as much as possible. However, balancing the time in teaching content in science with the time to effectively teach the process of writing is an art I have yet to master!

__I welcome thoughts or help in making sure students stay proficient in scientific argumentation!__

Sometimes, I wish I could return to Ms. Cebula's and Ms. Howton's nurturing world of writing. I truly felt l was a member of a Writer's Community and I admire how that was developed over a short amount of time with us in the Institute. Hopefully, I will be able to foster that feeling within my own classroom. It is a struggle to be comforting and supportive sometimes in the world of data-driven-instruction, setting up and taking down labs, following safety rules, and common middle school drama. I think writing can be a support to those challenges by developing relationships. This seems to be what Howton and Cebula did this summer. I hope to try to make at least come students feel like they made me feel in my experience as a Fellow in the Delaware Writing Institute this summer. Overall, I am so fortunate to have been a part of this experience, and hope to pay that fortunate feeling forward to some of my colleagues and many of my students! I want them to take their pencils and use them to fly on their own, just as I am trying to do now.
 * Closing and Leaving the Nest:**


 * STUDENT WORK EXAMPLES PRE vs. POST WRITING:**


 * I am including written submissions from the same individual students. From an outsider's perspective, I understand it is not relevant to view all my students' writing, as interesting as I personally feel it might be!**




 * First: a FINAL REFLECTION (Written after Summer Experience)
 * Writing Activities



Please read the document in order to gain some background information on my unit and personal objectives for implementing it within my classroom.
 * Background/Purpose :




 * Acquisition Lesson Plan and Resources

//Important Information for reader:// Presentation While one might view the presentation link to be a bit juvenile, the point I would like to make is that this website might be a valuable resource for a teacher. The site is a very student-friendly platform that supports literacy and student-created story boards.

KUD and Standards for Lesson:

Pre-Assessment:



Acquisition Lessons 1 and 2: Student sheets for A.L.P 1:



Student Sheets for A.L.P2:



KUD and Standards for Lesson:
 * Extended Thinking Lesson and Resources

Student sheet for Extended Thinking Lesson and Post Test

Post Test Rubric:

Delaware Science Standards


 * Letter to Principal

The following files are links or resources for assessment that integrates writing within the content area:
 * Related References



-CLAIMS-EVIDENCE-REASONING : Presentation from NSTA

Students lack the ability to WRITE about their science data:

Delaware Department of Education Rubrics:

Resources for Writing In Science This article explains ways a science teacher can show students about writing's importance and HOW to instruct it in a classroom.

This article was the inspiration for my A.L.P. It makes a clear point why argumentation is so valuable and identifies ways students can see a connection between writing in ELA and writing in science.



I loved this article. It explains how very important it is to create a safe environment to instill students to __want t__o write in science. It is similar to what our instructors did in the class: they created a supportive environment that made us feel comfortable to take risks and write ourselves.