English Learning Community-Fall 2012Mónica Tapiarené 12/21/12

Fall 2012 Project-English 100

Explanation of Project:

Last semester my English 100 students read Epitaph for a Peach by David Mas Masumoto (the story of a third-generation Japanese American organic peach farmer in the San JoaquinValley who tries to save his orchards at all costs). Two of the themes discussed in Epitaph coincided with the two unit themes read in Creating America (Joyce Moser & Ann Watters): “The Other” and “Identity.” Creating America’s third unit’s theme: “Bullying” was discussed in conjunction with excerpts from the movies “The Lord of the Flies,” “Mean Girls,” and “Bowling for Columbine” Bullying was not discussed in Epitaph for a Peach.

This semester, I want to design an entire course organized by theme-based units in order to increase student engagement and learning. I selected Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to explore the themes I discussed last semester in my English 100 class: “The Other,” “Identity,” and include “Bullying.”

Research Question:

How can I effectively design a course organized by theme-based units in order to improve student learning?

This semester, my English 100 students are reading Frankenstein. I think this is a better choice since the major themes in Frankenstein can be explored in depth and can be tied to all readings from Creating America. Students are more engaged by the story and see the connections to real life.

This project focuses on how I can better design a course organized by theme-based units and improve student engagement and learning. Students need to know how each activity is related to a major assignment and how assignments are connected to the English student learning outcomes.

I have created three theme-based units: “The Other,” “Identity,” and “Bullying.”

Methods of Investigation:

On Week 9 (Oct. 15-19) after completing Unit 1 “The Other,” I asked students to complete a survey (See Appendix “1”) about the class activities for Weeks 1 – 9 (Aug. 18-Oct. 19). My purpose in asking these questions is to discover whether students are developing and improvingthe critical reading, thinking and writing skills that are set forth in the English 100 CSLOS:

Course-Level Student Learning Outcomes (CSLOs): What abilities will the student have at the end of this course?
CSLO-A: Comprehend, summarize, respond thoughfully to, analyze, critique and synthesize college-level readings.
CSLO-B: Write clear, organized, convincing, in-depth thesis-driven academic essays which synthesize several
sources, demonstrating engagement in a full and productive reading, thinking, and writing process.
CSLO-C: Think critically at a college level (think critically as part of their own reading and writing process).

Students rated their performance stating how each assignment contributed to a better understanding of the theme and how each assignment helped/did not help them write response papers or essays.

The results of this survey will:

  1. Help me analyze how the assignments fit into the course in general.
  2. Reveal if exploring one themeand synthesizing information from different sources, genres, media (novel, movie, academic essays, newspapers, real life examples) help students “dissect” and “digest” the theme.
  3. Demonstrate how and which activities help students increase critical reading, thinking and writing skills.

I think a theme based approach can improve student learning because it helps understand the themein depth (from different perspectives, different voices, connect theme to real life/current events),increase student engagement (because theme relates to students),improve critical thinking, and help students create a better product:a response paper or essay that is focused, organized, coherent, and that presents a profound analysis of issue from different points of view. These activities will lay the ground for major assignments, like synthesis and analysis of six essays in Unit 2(“Identity”) that will culminate in an out of class essay, and ultimately prepare students for writing the research paper (synthesis and analysis).

The second survey will be distributed on Week 13 (Nov. 12) after students finish Unit 2 – “Identity”.

The purpose of the second survey is to find out if students’ skills are improving in the second part of the semester and preparing them for major writing assignments.

The third survey – Unit III – “Bullying” will be distributed near the end of the semesterI was not able to distribute the third survey because we focused on the research paper and ran out of time. The theme of bullying was the topic of their final exam.

THEME-BASED UNITS:

Unit 1 “The Other”

After reading (using the “Think Aloud” and “Talking to the Text” Reading Apprenticeshipstrategies), summarizing, and discussing three essays fromCreating America (Paul Fussell's "Type Casting " andVan Os "Propaganda on President Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor Address"and an excerpt from Wakatsuki Houston's Manzanar USA)students wrote and in class essay. The prompt was:

Write an essay in which you discuss the events and reasons that led to the internment camps of Japanese-Americans (Nisei) and their immigrant parents (Issei) during World War II and argue in favor or against the government decision to round up and send them to detention camps for the duration of World War II.

Iwas able to tie thetype-casting and dehumanizing--"the enemy as the other" theme Unit 1 presents to Frankenstein. Students wrote a response paper synthesizing information from two sources: Fussell’s 11-page “Type Casting” essay and 15 chapters from Frankenstein. Below is the prompt:

Frankenstein’s Response Paper 1 – “The Other” prompt:
“Frankenstein is a metaphorical and cultural “Other” to 19th Century Western society and the Creature’s threats were somehow relevant to the cultural hysteria of the time. Write a response paper exploring why people fear or hate people who are different (“The Other”).
Support your position with quotes/paraphrases from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Paul Fussell’s “Type Casting,” recent news, readings, observations and personal experience.

After scoring the essays, I noticed that students were able to effectively synthesize information from the sources and provide a thorough analysis of the issue. ( Success  )

After finishing Unit 1, I distributed Survey 1, so students could “rate” themselves and discover how each assignment contributed to a better “final product” – the essay. Also, students noticed how all activities/assignments tie to the SLO’s.

Survey 1 (See Appendix 1) asks students if activities helped them develelop/improve the following skills:

Reading / Comprehension

Summarizing

Synthesis
Analysis

Writing essays /response papers

Survey 1 results:

Most of the students stated that using the “Think Aloud” Reading Apprenticeship strategy (group reading and discussion) while reading Frankensteinincreased their reading comprehension and critical thinking skills; however, most students found out that “reading alone” helped them comprehend and think critically when they read essays from the Creating Americareader.

Most of the students stated that writing Elements of Fiction charts and in class journals helped them think critically and analyze the novel. Preparing summaries after each Creating America essay helped them comprehend and analyze each essay. Summarizing also helped them synthesize information from different essays when they wrote their own essays.

The majority of students stated that the Frankenstein “Quote Galleries” (quote analysis on giant post-its) (1 quote per group) helped improve reading comprehension and critical thinking skills.

Many students found the vocab logs helpful. Others did not believe it was necessary to assign vocabulary logs. Developmental students and ELL found the vocab logs increased their reading comprehension skills.

The second page of the survey allows students to reflect on their skills and notice how those skills tie to the SLOs. The questions are:

  1. What skills have improved after finishing Unit 1?
  2. What skills need improvement?
  3. What would you do to improve those skills?

Questions 4 and 5 will help me decide if I continue using all or some activities next semester:

  1. What activities were the most engaging and productive? Why?
  1. What activities were the least productive for your Why?

Please see attached Appendix 2 (Survey 1 Page 2) for students’responses.

Unit 2 “Identity”

After reading, summarizing, analyzing, and discussing the following essays from Creating America:

“Join or Die” by Benjamin Franklin (1754)

“Origin of Anglo Americans” by Alexis de Tocqueville (1839)

”A Tapestry of Hope” by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston (1994)

“The Cult of Ethnicity” by Arthur Schlesinger (1991)

”Chicana” by Martha Serrano (1994)

“American Dreamer” by Bharati Mukherjee (handout)

Then students will write an out of class essay synthesizing and analyzing all readings.

students wrote OCE # 1:

OUT OF CLASS ESSAY # 1 – “Assimilating vs. Recognizing Ethnic Diversity”
Serrano in her essay “Chicana” resists assimilation. Schlesinger in “The Cult of Ethnicity,” suggests that a focus on ethnicity, if ‘pressed too far,’ results in rejecting assimilation and integration.
Then, Bharati Mukherjee in her essay “American Dreamer,” asserts,
“WE MUST BE ALERT TO THE DANGERS OF AN ‘US’ vs. ‘THEM’ MENTALITY.”
Based on your own experience, observations and readings from Creating America and “The American Dreamer” handout, write an essay in which you argue Mukherjee’s assertion.
Support your opinion with specific reasons, examples, personal experience and quotes from
Mukherjee (“American Dreamer”), Schlesinger (“The Cult of Ethnicity”), Wakatsuki Houston (“A Tapestry of Hope”), Serrano (“Chicana”), and Tocqueville (“Origin of Anglo-Americans).

Students also wrote a response paper that tiedFrankenstein to the theme discussed in Unit 2 of Creating America (“Identity”).

I distributed the second survey (See Appendix 3), after students wrote the two essays about Identity.

Survey 2 results:

I noticed that students preferred to “read alone” the essays from the Creating America reader rather than read in groups utilizing the “Think Aloud” strategy.

The vocab log (looking up references and allusions on their own), critical thinking questions, reading-comprehension questionnaires and “Quote Analysis: Evidence/Interpreation charts (Reading Apprenticeship) helped students improve their reading comprehension, critical thinking, analysis and synthesizing skills.

Survey 2 – Page 2 questions allowed students to compare the skills they developed/improved in Unit 1 to the skills they developed/improved on Unit 2. The questions are:

  1. What skills have improved after finishing Unit 2? Look at Unit 1 survey and compare what skills have improvedin Weeks 10-13.
  1. What skills still need improvement (after 13 weeks of class)?
  1. Look at Survey 1. Did you work on the skills that needed improvement? Why? Why not?

What would you do to improve those skills?

4. We did not utilized “Quote Galleries” (quote analysis on giant post-its) (1 quote per group) in Weeks 10-13.
Would “Quote Galleries” have helped understand Unit 2 better?

The majority of students selected “NO”. Some say groups only paid attention to their quotes. Other said students did not work hard. They just copied the other groups’quotes.

Unlike Survey 1 which stated “Quote Galleries” helped understand Frankenstein

 Group work: “Think Aloud,” “Quote Galleries,” small group discussion seemed to work better when students read and analyzed a work of fiction (Frankenstein). Reading alone, summarizing, individual evidence/interpretation (quote) charts seem to work better with non-fiction pieces.

  1. What activities were the most engaging and productive in Unit 2? Why?
  2. What activities were the least engaging and less productive ? Why?

Questions 4 and 5 will help me decide if I continue using all or some activities next semester:

Please see attached Appendix 4 (Survey 2 Page 2) for students’ responses.

Unit 3 “Bullying”

Students read, summarized, analyzed, and discussed the following essays from Creating America:

“The Culture of Cruelty” by Daniel Kindlon & Michael Thompson (2000)

“Saplings in the Storm” by Mary Pipher (1994)

The final exam was based on the two essays mentioned above.

I was able to tie the themes discussed in Frankenstein to the research paper.

Research Paper prompt:

Research some of the prominent issues in present society that Mary Shelley addresses in her 1813 novel Frankenstein. You can research about organ harvesting, human cloning, stem-cell research, the Human Genome Project, genetically modified cells, gene therapy to fight diseases, DNA manipulation, DNA manipulation on unborn children, or the effects of abandonment of children whose fathers have disappeared from their lives. Make a comparison between the novel and your discoveries and discuss how society is coping with or addressing these sensitive topics.

I believe that designing a course organized by theme-based units improves student learning because students are more focused, they are able to “dissect” the issues and analyze them in depth. They are exposed to different perspectives, genres, media, and are required to synthesize information from different sources and blend them with their classmates’ ideas and their own ideas to create a final product: essay, response paper, research paper. All the activities used in these theme-based units contributed to improve the skills set forth in the English 100 CSLOs.

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