student replies

STUDENT REPLIES

Reply to classmates’ threads, each reply must be 200 words. Use references to support your assertions, using citations in current APA format.

Student Reply 1 (Samantha)

The problem is that, although English Language Arts teachers are expected to ensure students’ mastery of standard English grammar, teachers’ metrics, and resources by which to measure such mastery are limited. Over the last two academic years for which scores are available, more than a third of Fayette County High School students failed to score at least “proficient” on the end of course tests for Ninth Grade Literature and Composition and American Literature and Composition (GaDOE, 2019).  As a result of this problem, I, as an English teacher with fifteen year at this school who chose this profession and field because of my love for helping others as well as language and how it works, examined the status quo at my school and asked the following question:  How can English Language Arts teachers’ inability to gauge the efficacy of grammar instruction be improved at Fayette County High School in Fayetteville, Georgia?  In collecting data to see what groundwork existed to guide me in completing a research-based, data-supported study to answer this question, I set the following purpose to keep myself focused:

The purpose of this study is to provide recommendations to the leadership team at Fayette County High School with possible solutions to the problem of English Language Arts, or ELA, teachers’ inability to track the efficacy of grammar instruction against performance on College and Career Ready Performance Index, or CCRPI, indicators including Georgia’s End of Course Tests, or EOCTs, in Ninth Grade Literature and Composition and American Literature and Composition.  By comparing students’ baseline and benchmark scores on the current grammar instruction platform in use at my school, the standardized test scores in the area of grammar from the last few years, conducting interviews with the subject area lead teachers for the different grade levels in my English Department, as well as surveying students and teachers on their perceptions of grammar’s importance, their mastery of its use and/or instruction, and the efficacy of grammar instruction at FCHS, I hope to be able to make doable, reasonable, effective recommendations which satisfy the purpose of my study.

I decided on the title, Recommendations for Improving ELA Teachers’ Ability to Teach Grammar Effectively, for my study.  I specifically worded it as “improvement” as I want to emphasize from the outset that it is not my intention in this endeavor to blame teachers nor to disregard their efforts and selfless and tireless efforts to teach, support, and improve the situation of students.  As I have begun collecting information to inform my study and complete my literature review, I came across the following quote from Berger’s (2020) affirmation of the importance of grammar and the work of English teachers:

But English is first a code, a code we have to share in common if it’s to make sense to anybody. That code has to rest on uniform spelling, punctuation, and grammar standards. Otherwise, the code breaks down, and our written language remains a foreign language, a degenerate collection of indecipherable marks on a page.  I want to inspire my students. But my duty is to teach them the code. Otherwise, they will be in the dark forever.

References

Berger, P. (2020, November 30). Poor Elijah’s almanack: Grammar instruction’s fall from fashion.  The Middletown Press. https://www.middletownpress.com/opinion/article/Poor-Elijah-s-Almanack-Grammar-instruction-s-15763159.php#item-85307-tbla-1

Georgia Department of Education. (2019). 2019 College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI): Fayette County District: Fayette County High School: Content Mastery. http://ccrpi.gadoe.org/Reports/Views/Shared/_Layout.html

Student Reply 2 (Megan)

Minority students are typically underrepresented in academically advanced classes. This is a clear example of the persistent achievement gap found in many schools. All students deserve access to a high-quality and rigorous education. Addressing the problem of low enrollment of minority students in advanced courses may help in the effort to close the achievement gap. All students should experience and achieve academic success. However, achieving educational success has often eluded many students, especially minority students. Nganga et al. (2019) noted that, when educational systems do not reflect the experiences and contributions of all groups, the excluded groups are more likely to decline participation, especially in courses considered exclusive, such as honors and advanced placement. Recent data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed that minority students exhibited fewer increases in the percentage of students who completed a rigorous curriculum by the time they completed high school than their non-minority peers did (Olszewski-Kubilius et al., 2016). Disparities in academic performance based on race continue to be a problem that the school must address. Increasing access to higher-level, more challenging curricula can enable more students to qualify for advanced academic programs.

Study Title:

Recommendations for Solving the Problem of Low Enrollment of Minority Students in Honors and Advanced Placement Courses at Wren High School

Statement of the problem:

The problem of low enrollment of minority students in honors and advanced placement courses at Wren High School needs to be solved in order to improve the academic opportunities for these students and close the achievement gap. Participation in advanced academic courses has been shown to increase student achievement and college readiness. Students who participate in advanced coursework while in high school are more likely to enroll in college, have a higher-grade point average (GPA), and graduate from college in four years (Kettler & Hurst, 2017). There are also immediate benefits from participating in advanced placement courses such as an opportunity to earn college credit, a weighted GPA, and access to higher-quality teachers. Despite the known benefits of participating in honors and advanced courses, there is a distinct ethnicity gap in participation across the United States. Minority students do not participate in honors and advanced placement courses to the extent that their non-minority peers do. This disparity is evident at Wren High School and adds to the existing achievement gap.

Purpose Statement:

The purpose of this project is to solve the problem of low enrollment of minority students in honors and advanced placement courses at Wren High School in Piedmont, South Carolina and to design intervention strategies to address the problem. It is important to solve this problem because minority students are underrepresented in advanced-level courses.

Study Question:

How can the problem of low enrollment of minority students in honors and advanced placement courses be solved at Wren High Schoo in Piedmont, South Carolina?

References:

Kettler, T., & Hurst, L. T. (2017). Advanced academic participation: A longitudinal analysis of ethnicity gaps in suburban schools. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 40(1), 3-19. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162353216686217

Nganga, L., Kambutu, J., & Han, K. T. (2019). Caring schools and educators a solution to disparities in academic performance: Learners of colors speak. SAGE Open, 9(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019841923

Olszewski-Publius, P., Steenbergen-Hu, S., Thomson, D., & Rosen, R. (2017). Minority achievement gaps in STEM: Findings of a longitudinal study of Project Excite. Gifted Child Quarterly, 61(1), 20–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986216673449