Building Better Brains through Writing Jonathan Pongco & Sarah Atwood

Current Event Activity (JP) ◎ Choose an article ◎ Articulate expectations ◎ Emphasize critical thinking and connections to the course. ◎ Student Challenges: ◉ Lack of proper context ◉ Need for clarity and focused writing ◉ 2nd Semester Seniors - Senioritis ◉ Lack of quality effort leads to poor writing.

B3 Activity Planning - Current Event Traditional Current Event 1.Students choose Econ- related articles 2.Students follow given format for write-up 3.Goal: Have students connect their current learnings to current events. 4.Assigned every 2 weeks. 10 % of student grade Improving Student performance: 1.Provide students with the opportunity to read the same article in class and discuss its content. 2.CA Drought - ArticleCA Drought - Article 3.As a class - answer each critical section soliciting student questions. 4.Students all completed a C.E. write-up on the same news article. 5.Submit to Haiku LMS

Pre/Post Assessment Observations JP Pre - B3 activities Current Event #3 ◎ 20 out of 22 students submitted work ◎ Average score 7.8/10 Post - B3 Current Event #6 ◎ 11 of 22 students submitted work. ◎ Average score 9.0/10

Anecdotal Commentary - Post (JP) ◎ Students, on average, scored higher. ◎ Fewer students submitted work 20 pre / 14 post. Pre: 7.8 average Post: 9.0 average ◎ Reviewing each category of writing as a class helped focus student responses. ◎ Overall quality of student work improved - students took more time and focused more attention to the task. ◎ Improvement ◎ Start growth mindset focus at the beginning of the semester. ◎ Provide more opportunities and time in-class to have students review each other’s work.

World History Activity- DBQs Pre-Assessment: Treaty of Versailles DBQ Activity: ◎ 12 small docs/primary sources ◎ 1 summary question per doc ◎ 2-3 paragraph response to the statement: Prove that the Treaty of Versailles created more problems than it solved and laid the foundations for future international conflict. Student Challenges: ◎ understanding context of source ◎ using multiple sources to back up opinion ◎ alot of resources to process /overwhelming ◎ grouping documents together to prove thesis

World History Activity- DBQs Post-Assessment- Pearl Harbor DBQ Activity: ◎ 5 documents/primary sources ◎ 4-5 summary questions per source ◎ 4-5 paragraph response to the statement: Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor? Improving Student Performances: ◎ Deeper not wider (Less Docs) ◎ “Bucketing” to connect docs to thesis ◎ Peer editing through Google Docs/Sheets

Pre/Post Assessment Observations (SA) Pre B3 Activities: Treaty of Versailles DBQ ◎ 16 out of 35 submitted work ◎ Average score of 7.9/10 Post B3 Activities: Pearl Harbor DBQ ◎ 16 out of 35 submitted work ◎ Average score of 25/30

Anecdotal Commentary - Post (SA) Observation 1 ◎ Same amount turned in each assignment ◎ Overall student work was better quality due to time students had to work in class and 3 peer edits Observation 2 ◎ Spent more time in class reviewing documents & context (students dissecting document for understanding ◎ Timely feedback from teacher and students through Google Drive Observation 3 ◎ Start growth mindset and effective feedback starting at the beginning of the year.

Student Feedback Summary (JP) Did they do better on the task than before?  Yes - 9  No - 13 What helped you improve?  Additional time  Class discussion  Looking at other’s work What can you do better to improve?  stop slacking - we can try harder.  manage our time better  choose articles that we actually are interested in.

Student Feedback Summary (SA) Did they do better on the task than before? ◎ Yes- 11 ◎ No- 24 What helped them improve? ◎ Time in class to ask questions & work ◎ Peer editing What can you do to better improve? ◎ Manage time better in class ◎ Try harder on the “pre- bucketing” so its sets up my paper better ◎ Actually start the paper :)