Action Research: Tracking Charlie

Submitted by: Emily Roberts
Target Grade/ Subject: 8th English
Collaborators: Kathryn Wilson and Joy McDonald ITRT, VASCB staff
School: Hungary Creek Middle

Summary

After reading Flowers for Algernon, students expressed a desire to learn about how laws in Virginia affect persons with disabilities (like Charlie, the story’s protagonist).  As a result, Tracking for Charlie was designed as a collaborative research unit in which students track bills in Virginia’s General Assembly that will impact persons with disabilities. Students formed their own action teams, learned how to track bills with the guidance of an expert from Virginia Association of Community Services Boards via Skype, researched previous legislation, and synthesized their learning by writing a persuasive group letter to their representative in the General Assembly in favor of or against the issue. Members of each action team volunteered to tutor and support the school’s students with intellectual disabilities as a means of furthering their research and deepening their knowledge. Service volunteers kept a digital reflection scrapbook after each peer/tutoring session and reported their findings back to their group teams.  Volunteers helped the students create Powerpoints and work on daily living skills. Not only was this project a meaningful approach to teaching and learning SOL 8.7 as it gave students a chance to be directly involved with their purpose for writing, but it’s a clear example of how service learning directly impacts a student’s life.  Proud is an understatement.

TIPC Ratings

As a part of the established practice in this class, students used previous knowledge of how to determine resource accuracy/authority in order to accurately research legislature in Virginia dealing with people with disabilities.  They used a variety of search methods including Advanced Google Search, HCPS online databases, and the VA legisltative database website that is updated weekly. The teacher supported students as needed by explaining the challenging information they located, as the reading difficulty of legislation is often above the 8th grade level. As a team, they assembled all the information they found and synthesized their learning by composing a persuasive letter using Microsoft Word. Additional digital tools that allowed students to better organize and assemble their information for this project included Google docs, Skype, Primary Pad, and School Space.

Students used their familiarity of a variety of communication methods and their knowledge of the task at hand to select the most appropriate communication tools. They chose to videoconference via Skype for initial collaboration and Primary Pad for subsequent asynchronous communication with VACSB professionals. Google Docs/Presentation was chosen to reflect together on their experiences working with students with intellectual disabilities and peer editing of their persuasive letters. Students selected their own teams to write the persuasive letters and the letters were mailed and emailed on their behalf.  Students collaborated together using a Google Presentation Doc to revise and edit the letters.

This project idea was spawned when themes in the novel stirred emotions in students which caused them to generate their own research questions voluntarily. Their questions centered on social responsibility and laws regarding people with disabilities. As a result, students chose the authentic task of writing a well-informed, persuasive letter to their legislator.  Students used a variety of tools to ask questions of each other and of the experts.  They used problem solving skills to make meaning of challenging wording in bills (with teacher support as needed), to assemble the information and write a well-informed letter, and they had to think critically on how to use specific diction to make their letter persuasive.

The learning activities in this project ultimately lead to new student insights and perspectives as they connected the subject matter to an ongoing (but contemporary) issue. The flexibility afforded by digital tools such as Skype, Primary Pad, Google Docs, and School Space, supported the development of new insights. As a part of the creative process, students used critical thinking skills, research methods, and collaboration practices to create a persuasive and captivating letter to their Virginia representative.

Student Artifact

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