1.
I taught this strategy to a7th grade self-contained
( 8:1:1) special education class. The
students’ disabilities ranged from learning disabled, autism, speech and
language impairment and emotional disturbance.
One student in the class had a 1:1 paraprofessional to assist with
behaviors. All students in the class
showed difficulty in the mechanics, organization and generating ideas in writing
before learning this strategy.
2.
It took 8
weeks to complete the full implementation of this strategy. The strategy was taught for 30 minutes
approximately 3-4 days a week.
3.
See attached student progress chart.
4.
Before beginning the units students were
instructed to write a paragraph as a pre-assessment. Results showed difficulty adding details and
following an organized format. The paragraphs
also lacked conclusion. Students scored
an average of 60 percent. During instruction
of the strategy, students did a nice job following the instruction and identifying
the types of topic sentences and detail sentences. They had some difficulty in the area of topic
sentences when creating their own general topic sentences. We worked on just creating general topic
sentences for a few days in order to address this. Students
also had difficulty generating ideas when it came time to filling out the
paragraph diagram by themselves. They
often had trouble coming up with 4 supporting details. In order to address this I would help them
brainstorm some ideas together. They
also had some difficulty remembering to add in follow-up sentences when I didn’t
specify if it was required. The creation
of a checklist helped to rectify this issue.
In the post assessment students scored an average of 95 percent.
5.
My coach was Dotti Turner. We met in person on a monthly basis and
emailed back and forth in between. When students
struggled with specific parts of the paragraph writing strategy she gave me
some tools and tips to try. For example
when writing a complete paragraph it was helpful to have students refer
to a checklist we created to make sure
they had all the parts of a paragraph that were required. She also suggested breaking up certain parts
as needed so the work was not so overwhelming for students at once. She watched
a lesson completed in the classroomon lead off and follow up detail sentences
and stated that the students seemed to have mastered the concept. According to the pre and post assessments
students increased approximately 35 points on the paragraph writing
strategy.
