Reading for meaning (World Civilization sources analysis)
For my action research plan I chose to use the reading for meaning tool. The tool focuses on helping students break down excerpts by utilizing claims and counterclaims. The various claims are meant to help students better understand the text by forcing them to think more deeply about the underlying meaning. The reason I chose this tool over others is because I believe it will best help address the issues I find in my classes. The issue is students struggle to understand primary sources when presented during instruction. The KSA test also presents students with numerous questions concerning sources and excerpts, so it is important that students know how to analyze sources and infer answers to questions when they encounter them at the end of the year.I chose my 10th grade World Civilization to implement my action research plan. Two of my classes would receive assignments using the RFM tool. Two other classes would receive the same text excerpts but their assignments would not incorporate the RFM tool. I conducted my research over the course of two units, World War 1 and World War 2. I began by giving the students larger excerpts from various speeches from WW1 and WW2. Towards the end of my research I chose to use multiple source excerpts about specific subjects concerning the world wars. Each excerpt would have three claims that students had to either confirm as true using evidence from source, or counter the claim using evidence from the source.
