1. Impact on Student Learning
Kelsie Brook Eckert

2. Research Question
What strategies are effective for improving student synthesis of evidence to support a thesis statement?

3. Importance of Supporting Thesis with Evidence
Thesis writing is essential for forming and defending arguments, an important skill for college and professional life. Evidence is necessary because it reinforces a point of view. As evidence is stacked and weighed against counter-arguments, the thesis statement becomes more reliable.

4. Context School: Interlakes High School Grades: Junior and Senior
Scale: 20-student class
Observation of the School:
Students have a habitual behaviors of passive learning, enforced by content-centered curriculum and a lack of emphasis on higher level thinking skills.
Student writing is poor.
Student responses typically demand knowledge-level cognition.

5. Unit Context
Essential Question: Is the United States an imperial nation today?
Enduring Understanding: At the beginning of the 20th Century, competition for economic, political, and military power brought the United States into international conflict.
Skills Used: reading comprehension, primary source analysis, discussion, and thesis writing.

6. Resources Needed Pre-Assessment Strategies Evidence Rubric
Graphic Organizers
Analysis Strategies
Evidence Rubric
Post-Assessment

7. Assessments Essay Questions from Unit Tests:
PRE: Thesis responses without a graphic organizer from previous unit
Why did the United States expand westward and what were the lasting results of expansion? Use evidence to support your claim.
POST: Thesis responses without a graphic organizer from current unit
Why did the United States become an imperial nation at the turn of the century? Use evidence to support your claims.

8. Methods Both assessments were prepared by mentor teacher.
Students were assigned a letter for confidentiality.
Mentor teacher gave students a choice on the post-test of whether they wanted to answer the short-answers or the essay question. This reduced the number of student responses for this project to 8.
This has obvious implications for the reliablity of the findings.
Additionally, students N and Q served in-school-suspension during the unit and missed 6 out of the 10 classes in the final unit. Both students are very bright but missed a lot of the necessary instruction for the results to be reliable.

9. Strategies
Different resources were used to impact student learning in regards to evidence building.
KIM Cards aim to help students to identify main arguments and evidence within their readings.
Thesis Writing Graphic Organizers aim to support students in outlining out their essay responses.
Primary and Secondary Source Analysis activities were used to practice analysis of sources for evidence.
Four Schools of Imperialism Activity (secondary source analysis)
Three Foreign Policies (secondary source analysis)
Mahan Activity (primary source analysis)
Invasion of Cuba (primary source analysis)
USS Maine (primary source analysis)
Americans in the Philippines (primary source analysis)

10. Thesis Writing Rubric Not Competent Fair Good Excellent Clarity
Thesis is unclear
Thesis is vague or loosely related
Thesis is fairly clear and relates to the research question
Thesis is articulate and it is a clear response to the research question
Evidence
Does not support thesis with evidence
Neglects key pieces of evidence
Cites some evidence
Cites three or more pieces of evidence
Reasoning
Evidence is not rationally related to thesis
Evidence is missing parts of the rationale
Some evidence supports thesis
Evidence rationally supports the thesis
Analysis
Evidence is not analyzed
Evidence relationship to thesis is vaguely considered
Evidence is somewhat analyzed showing a partial relationship to thesis
Evidence is thoughtfully analyzed showing a strong relationship to thesis

11. Data Essay Responses from Unit Tests
Using the rubric students were given a 1-4 for each of the four skills in the rubric:
Clarity
Evidence
Reasoning
Analysis

12. Raw Data

13. Raw Data Continued 8 Students -- Only

14. Results

15. Results Overall

16. Data Assessment Patterns and Insights
Overall, all but one student performed better on the post-assessment than the pre-assessment.
The two students that missed the instructional strategies used in class, suffered most in regards to reasoning and analysis. This may demonstrate the effectiveness of the instructional strategies.
Most students performed better in all categories in their post assessment.
Instructional strategies for the skill of thesis writing were effective (although data is limited to only 8 students).

17. Data Assessment Continued
Meaning for Students
The data is not very reliable given many students did not do the post-assessment. That said, it is possible that:
Graphic organizers help students to organize their thoughts.
KIM cards simplify readings and draw out the main ideas and supporting details in reading.
The activities and organizers used in class helped students to thoroughly analyze the information which aided students in writing deeper responses to the essay question.
Attendance is crucial to success in regards to skills-based assessment.

18. Data Assessment Continued
Meaning for Practice
The graphic organizers used in class were helpful for students to gain deeper understanding of the information.
Organizers should continue to be used when teaching students how to write more articulate responses.

19. Reflection
This project shows that the instructional strategies used had an impact on student learning in regards to skill-development in thesis writing.
In the future, impact assessments should be better outlined. Two major problems arose in analyzing information:
It was difficult to isolate variables to determine which strategies impacted student learning.
Too few students were assessed in the post assessment to draw reliable conclusions from the data. Students that struggled with thesis writing could have easily opted out of the post-assessment.
Student’s wrote written feedback for the student-teacher regarding the three units she taught. Several students voluntarily articulated that the KIM cards were very helpful in their understanding of the issues and history. One exchange student said the emphasis on writing helped her to learn English.