MBG & Writing

8th Grade ELA

Avery Ciarrocchi

Problem Identified: The problem that I identified was that students were having difficulty identifying what kind of work constitutes each Mastery Rating. This is most prevalent when students are working on writing pieces.

Hypothesis: If I give students examples (created by me) of NY, A, M, and E writing work, then students will have a better understanding of what differentiates ratings as measured by the progress in student writing assignments.

Data Collection: The most effective data collection is through examining different essays and comparing them against the different models that were provided by the teacher. By assessing the students who specifically used the teacher models, we can see if they were at all influenced by the examples via growth in their writing.

Actionable Step: Create examples of what a writing piece (specific to our unit - Lit. Essay) would look like at each rating.

Overall Findings/Impact: I found that this was more of a band-aid fix, rather than a major improvement in the way students meet standards. I found that students began to copy specific pieces from the mentor essay and transplant them into their own writing when it was maybe not quite relevant. For some students, it was helpful to see the order in which an essay should be structured, etc.