Revised Action Research Plan

A classmate suggested that I gradually transition the students to the writing prompt assignments. I should allow them to personalize their blogs and use visual elements to evoke emotions for them to describe. I really appreciate the advice because I do believe it will ease my challenge a bit to keep the students engaged. We will probably plan the first few blogging sessions around the students themselves and incorporate photos (as suggested) to keep them interested. The trick will be to lengthen their responses, which we are still working on. I will revise my action plan with regards to my initial timelines. I will allot more time for preparation of project, development of deeper understanding, and self-reflection since my lesson planning approach has changed. In addition to the shifted timelines of my action plan, I replaced step 10 with the activity to chart benchmark scores due to the conference that I had with my site mentor. 

Action Step(s)	Person(s) Responsible	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
1. Setting the Foundation – Establish 9th grade English as target population of action research.	Safirah Ibenana, site administrators and faculty	10/11	Surveys, discussions	During meetings with administrators and teachers, the issue of student writing has been identified as a major weakness on state standardized exams. STAAR test takers (9th grade) will be the focus since TAKS is phasing out.
2. Analyze previous standardized scores, benchmark scores, and various student writing samples.	Safirah Ibenana	10/11-11/11	Previous test scores and writing samples	I will look at areas of weaknesses identified by the exam. I will address those weaknesses with various writing exercises.
3. Developing deeper understanding – Interview teachers and students about the disinterest in writing.	Safirah Ibenana	10/11-5/12	Surveys, classroom time	I will poll students after research to see if they felt the curriculum addressed their concerns.
4. Ask self-reflective questions	Safirah Ibenana	10/11-5/12	Students’ reasons explaining disinterest	How will I be able to help captivate the attention of students who have been disinterested thus far?
5. Integrate blogging into the journaling and peer revision exercises of curriculum.	Safirah Ibenana, Ivy Perkins	10/11-2/12	Curriculum guidelines, previous lesson plans	Integration will be evaluated by how well the model is received by students and their responsiveness (successful completion of each weblog activity)
6. Activate weblogs for students.	Safirah Ibenana	12/11	Computer lab	Ensure that all weblogs are active through monitoring.
7. Activate RSS feeder for instructor.	Safirah Ibenana	12/11	Instuctor’s desktop	Ensure that we’re continually subscribed to weblogs.
8. Compare/contrast essays from students who blog and students who do not blog.	Safirah Ibenana, Ivy Perkins	12/11-3/12	Students’ work, assessment chart	Using assessment rubric, note growth in writers and determine if blogging was a factor.
9. Exploring Programmatic Patterns – Talk with students’ homeroom teachers and counselors to gather any pertinent information on their backgrounds.	Safirah Ibenana	10/11-2/12	Discussion points	I will monitor writing samples according to writing prompts. Especially the prompts relevant to their lives in order to identify increased engagement.
10. Chart benchmark scores	Safirah Ibenana	1/12 & 3/12	Schoolwide benchmark scores	I will post chart on main hallway for all students to see their benchmark results. Hopefully, target groups will have performed higher on English benchmarks.
11. Write formative and summative evaluations on the impact of blogging on student’s writing samples.	Safirah Ibenana	3/12-4/12	Data and comments from research, writing samples	In order to take action for school improvement, I will share evaluations with administration.
12. Share research’s impact with rest of the grade levels.	Safirah Ibenana	5/12	Data and comments from research, writing samples, and Microsoft Powerpoint	In order to sustain improvement, I can survey faculty on their thoughts of presentation. I can follow up the following school year to see if the model is adopted.