Utilizing Interactive Note-Making
My action research project sought to aid students’ ability to use relevant textual evidence to support claims and opposing claims when writing argumentatively. After reviewing my juniors’ first argumentative on-demand essay, I deduced that my students struggled to incorporate relevant textual evidence in their writing to support claims and opposing claims. After an informal survey, I found that students felt they lacked the prewriting skills needed to collect evidence from sources to support their writing. After researching tools to assist them with this issue, I decided to teach students to use the Interactive Note-Making tool from Tools for Thoughtful Assessment (Silver Strong & Associates). Using a modified version of this tool, students became active readers as they surveyed sources during the prewriting stage of the writing process to collect relevant evidence to support their claims and opposing claims when writing an argumentative essay. The post-survey and assessment results showed that this tool had a positive impact on students’ confidence when writing and overall writing proficiency. In addition to my own students, my colleague also taught and utilized this tool with her juniors using the same instructional resources. The post-survey and assessment results from her students showed that this tool had a positive impact on students’ confidence when writing and overall writing proficiency.
Project Showcase
