Project ACCEL 10
SECTION 1: Rationale for Project ACCEL
Project ACCEL will be designed to improve how students deal with informational content complexity, as well as to help them to access, develop, and organize information around particular literacy and disciplinary goals, content, genres and dilemmas (Hasselbring, 1997). Project ACCEL will be designed to offer a serviceable instructional model that can be disseminated to address the literacy needs of students with disabilities in the general education and special education curriculum, expanding the potential for the products of the project (information, website, materials, processes and techniques) to be used in a variety of settings. The problem addressed in this research is significant, it offers support to teachers in an underserved area of the curriculum (e.g., expository reading and writing, content area learning, informational literacy) and it serves an underserved age group (middle school). In addition, ACCEL will offer a powerful research tool for examining the efficiacy of the cognitive supports and tools for students with LD/BD. For example, strategic prompts or maps can be used in one experimental condition, or turned off in another version to test their effects on expository performance. These are only some of the many empirical questions that can be explored within the online and dynamic contexts of ACCEL.
Three research and design-based features will inform the development and implementation of the ACCEL model.
Cognitive Strategies. A solid body of literature indicates that strategy instruction can positively influence the reading and writing performance of students with disabilities (Deshler et al., 2001; Gersten, Fuchs, Williams, & Baker, 1991; Graham, 2001; Scanlon, Deshler, & Schumaker, 1996; Swanson, 1999). For middle-grade students, it is critical that cognitive strategy instruction target learning-to-learn strategies, such as accessing background knowledge, generating hypotheses, organizing information, comprehension, inferencing, summarizing, self-questioning, and monitoring performance (Scanlon et al., 1996; Englert, et al., 1989; Gersten, 1998; Goldman et al, 1996; Kolligan & Sternberg, 1987; Miller, 1985; Wong & Wong, 1996). In Project ACCEL, a multi-component package of reading and writing strategies (e.g., brainstorming, asking questions, clarifying knowledge, predicting, summarizing, and using visual imagery) will be made accessible to help students with disabilities to acquire, implement, and monitor strategy use while in the act of reading and writing expository texts. This type of strategy integration has proven a powerful intervention model for students with disabilities (Gersten et al. 2001; Morocco et al., 2002). By anchoring literacy strategies in the pragmatic and authentic disciplinary contexts of the middle school curriculum, we intend to foster strategic and metacognitive processes while students are in the act of comprehending or composing expository texts (Schuder, 1993). By prompting students to employ organizational or literacy strategies that might otherwise by unemployed, ACCEL is more likely to mediate performance by bridging the gap between what a student can do alone and what the student can do with timely technical assistance (MacArthur, 1996; Pea, 1993).
Text Structures. Another equally compelling line of research points to the importance of the structural features of informational texts to aid understanding and recall (Duke, 2000; Meyer, 1975; Meyer, Brandt & Bluth, 1980). For students with disabilities, the provision of text structure supports is especially important given their lack of awareness of common text structures that might help them arrange, comprehend, and generate topical material (MacArthur, 1996). Project ACCEL will be designed to offer mapping tools to help students with disabilities to comprehend, summarize, synthesize multiple sources, and generate written texts. These mapping tools will correspond to the common text structure schemes that underlie expository texts, including problem/solution, explanation, persuasion, sequence, compare/contrast, and enumeration (Spivey, 1999). The provision of such mediational tools has been shown to be positively linked to improved performance by students with disabilities in both reading and writing (Englert et al., 1994; Graham & Harris, 1989; 1996).
Inquiry Process. A third domain that will be targeted in ACCEL is the provision of tools that support an inquiry-based approach in the comprehension and production of expository texts. Teachers and students will be guided to apply strategies related to a multi-pronged inquiry approach to learning expository content, including Plan It (establish a purpose, preview the content, activate background knowledge, ask questions, make predictions), Read It/Mark It (highlight or mark the text, summarize the information, clarify vocabulary), Note It (make notes of the key events, vocabulary, questions, or ideas), Respond to It (go more deeply by making intertextual links, query the text, or critique the information), Map It (represent the information using one or more graphic organizers), and Report it (write a written report that is published, shared, and commented upon). Teachers will engage students in investigating a question or problem in a cycle of inquiry that will culminate in the construction and publication of reports and artifacts The artifacts of students in these various phases of the inquiry process will be annotated and entered into a cumulative learning log that is tied to a specific thematic topic, chapter or unit. In this manner, the technology can help students enact and orchestrate strategies in a patterned set of inquiry activities that are highly visible and accessible. All notes, databases, reports, and summaries can be made publicly available in order to promote shared knowledge and the development of a literacy community that respects and advances students’ roles as knowledge producers and technology experts in a manner befitting the information age (Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx, & Soloway, 1994; Peck & Dorricott, 1994).
ACCEL Strands and Strategies
In the first year, a Project ACCEL prototype will be designed. In the second year, the prototype will be evaluated by teachers and students in two middle schools in an urban area. The target population for this project will be low-achieving general education students, and students with learning disabilities and mild behavioral disorders in grades 6 through 8 who receive expository instruction in the context of science, English or social studies classes.
There are three central strands in the ACCEL intervention: (1) expository reading and writing strategy instruction (Strategy Strand); (2) text structure instruction and mapping (Structure Strand); and (3) generalization training in inquiry units and disciplinary-based informational texts (Strategy Apps). The strands and related component strategies are represented in Figure 1.
1) The Strategy Strand: The Strategy Strand will be designed to offer instruction and support in the comprehension and expository strategies of successful readers and writers in the situated context of reading challenging but skill-appropriate informational texts that afford deep engagement, higher-order thinking, and problem-solving opportunities. The rationale for this strand is based upon literacy research that suggests that students with LD/BD have difficulties using learning-to-learn strategies in situated contexts (Ellis, Lenz & Sabornie, 1987; Garner, 1990; Markman, 1981; Swanson, 1989; Wong & Wong, 1986; Wong, Wong & Blenkinsop, 1989). In school, they experience frustration not only with "paper and pencil" school tasks, but also with the demands of critical thinking and problem solving. These literacy difficulties significantly impede their academic progress. To impact performance requires a systematic and sustained effort to teach and use learning-to learn strategies in authentic problem-solving contexts (Ferretti & Okolo, 1996).
The literacy strategies in the Strategy Strands will be introduced through an interactive whole-class lesson phase using ACCEL that is led by the teacher. From our prior instructional research with technologies, we know that teachers must introduce the online environment and strategy tools in order for students to perceive the goals, purposes, and outcomes of strategy use. In the introductory phase, the teacher will model the specific online features, prompts, tools, and specific comprehension and problem-solving strategies that form the basis of effective understanding of expository texts (e.g., summarizing, prediction, questioning, sequencing, drawing inferences, understanding author’s purpose, vocabulary, etc.). The introduction will focus on at least one of the strategies listed in Figure 1, but over time, we expect teachers will provide instruction that spans a range of informational literacy strategies that at a minimum, include: (a) activating background knowledge or vocabulary and making predictions (e.g., anchoring the new strategies to real-world problems and experiences); (b) asking questions before and during reading; (c) clarifying vocabulary and concepts (e.g., identifying the “clicks” or ideas that make sense, eliciting background knowledge; and finding “clunks” e.g., ideas or words that don’t make sense, eliciting fix-up strategies) (Klingner & Vaughn et al., 1995); (d) summarizing (e.g., identifying the main idea by asking, “What’s this mostly about?”; and elaborating on the main topic by identifying “What are 2-3 details that relate to this main idea?”); and (e) going beyond the facts by reading between the lines by questioning the author and techniques (Why is this important? What’s the author’s purpose? What questions should I ask of the author? Is the author credible?)
After the introduction of the strategy, students will implement the targeted expository strategies in a reading-writing practice phase. This phase is intended to overcome literacy obstacles by promoting strategy implementation using expository texts and tasks that are developmentally appropriate. For reading activities, texts will be drawn from a resource library of expository texts that are available through ACCEL, with the textual resources being mutually contributed and developed by both researchers and teachers. We hope to use Kurzweil or Premier software to scan passages from the middle school curriculum to create word documents that can be used in strategy instruction. Following the reading of informational passages, students will engage in the key strategic and meaning-making (getting the meaning) processes by applying the strategy(ies) to the text to accomplish specific goals.
Figure 1: Strands of ACCEL Curriculum Model
· Access background knowledge
· Predict information
· Identify main ideas
· Clarify unfamiliar vocabulary
· Generate hypotheses
· Draw inferences
· Self-questioning
· Visualizing
· Summarizing
· Sequencing
· Link ideas across texts
· Monitor task performance
· Maintain task persistence
· Build self-efficacy / · Identify text and genre features
· Identify main ideas
· Adapt strategies for text and genre
· Organize information (using graphic organizers)
o Persuasive writing
o Problem/solution
o Compare/Contrast
o Explanation
o Sequence
o Enumeration
· Adapt strategies for writing purpose (e.g., summarize, persuade, compare-contrast) / Plan It
· Preview Information
· Brainstorm
· Predict
· Ask Questions
Read/Mark It
· Highlight information
· Identify main ideas
· Summarize ideas
· Self Question
Note It
· Gather information (notetaking)
· Integrate multiple sources of information
· Take notes on key ideas
· Use multiple representations
· Integrate conflicting points of view
Map It
· Organize information from multiple sources
· Record information on a graphic organizer
Respond to It
· Identify author credibility and bias
· Assess credibility and accuracy of web sources
· Query and interpret evidence
· Identify multiple perspectives
· Connect to self, other texts, world
Report It
· Generate a written report
· Communicate findings
2 Structure Strand. A second strand focuses on text structure knowledge in reading and writing. Students’ abilities to identify and construct information based on their knowledge of text structures are essential to successful reading and writing. The common text structures that underlie expository texts include compare/contrast in history or literature (e.g., comparing/ contrasting people or events); sequence or explanation in science (e.g., experiments and procedures), enumeration or taxonomies (e.g., science, geography), description in science and literature (e.g., descriptions of traits of animate or inanimate objects, people or animals, settings) and problem/solution in history and literature. The ability to recognize these text structures in expository texts is positively related to reading comprehension (Spivey, 1999), and the ability to organize ideas based on the imposition of such text structures improves students’ abilities to recall and compose expository information (Englert, Tarrant, Mariage & Oxer, 1994). On Project ACCEL, mapping tools with click and drag functions will parallel the organization of the expository text structures to support students’ with LD/BD use of text structures as part of planning, summarizing, notetaking, mapping, or composing. We see these text structures being used flexibly to help students read and write. In fact, ACCEL can make these relationships quite visible because authors and readers can share their respective maps of the same text in the online environment. This will make apparent the role of text structure as reciprocal aspects of the composing and comprehension process, and the role of text structure that underlies the effective communication by authors and readers of organized patterns of ideas.
3 Inquiry Units and Learning Logs. A third strand, Strategy Apps, involves the inquiry units that will comprise a Learning Log. For each unit of study, students will open a learning log. In the log, they can compile the following: Plan It (establish a purpose, preview the content, activate background knowledge, ask questions, make predictions), Read It/Mark It (highlight or mark the text, summarize the information, clarify vocabulary), Note It (make notes of the key events, vocabulary, questions, or ideas), Respond to It (go more deeply by making intertextual links, query the text, or critique the information), Map It (represent the information and textual resources using one or more graphic organizers), and Report it (write a written report that is published, shared, and commented upon).
Plan It involves a preparatory stage for reading and writing when students consider the topic, make plans, and brainstorm ideas. Since goal-setting and activating background knowledge are areas in which students with LD/BD are lacking (Harris & Graham, 1995), this phase will be designed to address deficiencies in strategy production that affect students’ ability to anticipate and predict central information, as well as to apply prior knowledge to engage in inferential reasoning. During Read It, students can clarify vocabulary and summarize key ideas in expository texts. ACCEL will maintain records for students of the key vocabulary, difficult concepts, and summaries they construct. Difficult words can be clarified by allowing students to directly connect to online dictionaries where word pronunciations and definitions are available. Using the text-to-speech functions of ACCEL, students can also elect to have their written responses, task instructions, or passages read aloud so that all readers can access the text meaning and identities of words regardless of reading ability.