Gathering Data

This is part 8 in my series on trying to teach students to use annotations to read. The first entry was posted back at the beginning of September, titled “The Problem.”

So, a discussion of tracking and data is probably long overdue. Stupid, meaningless words. “We’d like to see some data on your kids.” Measuring student development in something as complex as literacy is like living perpetually in late November or early December and trying always to make a definitive statement about whether or not it’s winter. Of course, there’s an objective marker on a calendar somewhere that tells you the answer flat out, but even in the face of that kind of absolute idea, day to day experience kind of contradicts it sometimes. You’re pretty sure you’re in a state of becoming winter though. Some days more than others. Measuring literacy is kind of like that, I guess.

With that in mind, I decided to try to track some target students using a more narrative style. It gave me a chance to reflect on what was really happening for each student, day to day, but also to look explicitly at whether or not it seemed like this reading and annotation method was helping.

I focus on three categories – frequency of annotations in general, the extent to which the student's notes are reflecting central ideas in the text, and the potential for moving these notes from a simple summary level to a more explicative level. It's just a basic Word document with some columns, but it's easy enough to quickly throw some thoughts into or to print off for the odd administrator request or student conference.

In my English classes, I've been tracking a handful of students – mostly students with IEPs or who are ELLs, but a couple who self-selected by coming for individual help with reading comprehension early in the year – and I've just been finishing up scanning in a bunch of their work. Unfortunately, there's going to be a big gap in work because we started reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Maybe I'll get a chance to scan in some annotations or sticky notes from students later on. Maybe I'll sleep a little bit or finish another Game of Thrones book or something.

I've been trying to keep up with these narrative trackers on each of my target students. For the most part, I've been successful – it's not so much about taking the time to write in the 30-80 words per entry, which is pretty quick and painless. It's actually collecting the texts so that I can make copies. As I pointed out in the overall description of the method a while back, using student annotations the way we do is nice for real-time assessment as students are actually reading.

So, for instance, these annotations from early in the year might indicate that the student is able to decode the text on the most basic level, despite relatively high complexity. However, less central details – the description of the architecture, for instance – are left unmentioned. The student could use these annotations to summarize the story or talk about things like theme or characterization, but close-reading discussions like tone or author's craft would require a strategic rereading.