Action Research Proposal

ADDRESSING AND IMPROVING STUDENT DISPOSITIONS

TOWARDS WRITING

Aaron Farquharson
2152211
 1. Title

Addressing and improving student dispositions towards writing.

2. Context
This research will be taking place in a category 6 school, located in a beachside
suburb in the south of Adelaide. The school has recently been changed from
category 7 to category 6, as the suburb where it is situated has become far more
culturally diverse, meaning the school population is catering for an increasing
number of students with a primary language other than English. Despite this,
the indigenous population and the population of students with cultural
backgrounds other than English is still quite low. In 2016, 9% of students were
classified as ‘ESL’ (English as a Second Language), and 3% were from indigenous
backgrounds. In 2016 there were only 6 students in the whole school with
‘NEPs’ (Negotiated Education Plans), and this is substantially low considering the
school caters for approximately 420 students.

This study will be taking place in a straight Year 7 classroom, of which there are
two in the school. In this particular class there are no students with indigenous
backgrounds and no students that primarily speak a language other than English.
There are 27 students in the classroom, with 12 boys and 15 girls. The majority
of students come from middle to upper class families, as the school is in an area
of Adelaide of relatively high socio-economic status. About two thirds of the
class are on a relatively equal level in terms of literacy skills, however two
students are below the required level quite substantially. The remainder are at a
much higher level, particularly when it comes to spelling and comprehension
tasks.

The school has a strong numeracy focus, and subsequently NAPLAN results show
Year 7 students achieving highly in this area. It has, however, come to the
attention of both Year 7 teachers that performance in writing has decreased, and
it has been hypothesized that this may be due to the heavy focus on
mathematics. NAPLAN results from 2016 showed the Year 7 results to be above
the national mean in both spelling and reading, but below the national mean in
writing. Teachers have also noticed that students are not showing much interest
in their writing, hence the research question that has been chosen.

3. Literature review
As previously mentioned, student dispositions towards writing in this Year 7
class are not overly positive. Tomlinson and McTighe (2006) suggest that student
dispositions can be improved when student learning is created by the teacher to
be related to student interest. If teachers are allowing students to connect their
learning to real life scenarios then students will have a greater field of
knowledge to build their learning from. This is also an effective mode of
differentiation in many classes (Sousa & Tomlinson, 2011). The particular
aspects of writing that will be considered throughout the researching block will
be narrative, poetry, and expository. These are areas that have been highlighted
 as a general weakness for the class. Tomlinson and McTighe (2006) suggest that
narrative writing can be easily connected to students’ background knowledge
when they are allowed free reign over what they write about. The English
curriculum is not overly restrictive in terms of defining what students should be
writing about so therefore students should be allowed to write about what
interests them. This can also be applied to expository and poetry writing.
Research has shown that students who are behind the rest of the class with their
literacy skills can write assessment pieces that are on par with their peers’
assessment pieces if they are allowed to connect their writing to a passion that
they already have (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006). This is usually because these
students have already built a field of knowledge and have a positive disposition
towards the subject matter before the topic even begins. Sousa and Tomlinson
(2011) suggest that it is always possible to differentiate based on student
interest to improve student dispositions, and this can be done most easily in the
English classroom due to the curriculum often being slightly less restrictive. This
is American research and is therefore not based around the Australian
curriculum, however it is also clear that this statement can apply to the
Australian curriculum. Sousa and Tomlinson (2011) also suggest that the
research shows students to often be struggling not with the writing itself, but
with building a field of knowledge. Sousa and Tomlinson (2011) suggest that by
providing students with child friendly, easy to understand websites, students will
find the content that they are being asked to write about easier to understand.
This contrasts to what many teachers do when they allow their students to
research topics on the internet with little guidance. Students can come across
highly academic sources that are difficult to understand in these situations and
this can immediately turn a child off of a topic (Sousa & Tomlinson, 2011). So
this research clearly suggests that interest based learning is an effective way to
improve student dispositions towards writing, however if students do have to
research an unfamiliar topic, it is recommended that teachers do heavily guide
them in finding useful and easy to understand sources.

4. Research Question
How can student dispositions towards writing be addressed by teachers to
improve students’ writing outcomes?

5. Plan for reflecting on an aspect of practice and collecting data

This research is going to be a collaborative effort that will be completed by
teachers and pre-service teachers from upper primary classes throughout the
school, however each teacher will be in charge of their own class. Therefore my
research will be a joint collaboration with my mentor. It is important to first
understand what the students’ dispositions are regarding expository and
narrative writing in particular. To understand this, a survey will be created and
given to each student to fill out. This survey will ask for students to explain their
feelings about writing as well as their interests. Knowing the students’ interests
will allow us as researchers to group students when required in a way that will
ensure groups have a shared interest to write about. For individual tasks,
students will be given complete freedom of choice in terms of their writing
topics. It would be beyond the scope of this research to also practice what Sousa
 and Tomlinson (2011) mentioned regarding student research. This is because the
majority of this planned research will take place in only a three-week block after
NAPLAN, which would only give students time to complete a single unit of work
on poetry, (which will be considered as a form of narrative for the purpose of the
research), and the poetry will be based on personal interest and prior knowledge
rather than research. Following the research, another survey will be completed
by students asking about their dispositions towards writing. As researchers we
will be looking for student dispositions to have changed for the better based on
survey responses. It is intended that both quantitative and qualitative data will
be collected. Student work samples from Term 1 can be compared to work
samples from the upcoming unit to further inform the conclusions that are made
from this research. These work samples can be de-identified and used as
evidence.

References:

Sousa, D. A. & Tomlinson, C. A. (2011). Differentiation and the brain: how neuroscience supports the learner-
friendly classroom. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Tomlinson, Carol A & McTighe, Jay (2006), Integrating differentiated instruction & understanding by design:
connecting content and kids, Hawker Brownlow Education, Heatherton, Vic.