Klevens – Jumpstart 102 Fall 2009
Case Study: Strong Performing Student – “English is not my first language”
“Sue” – ESL student who puts in extra work to understand the text and
articulate her thoughts clearly. Attends office hours and is always prepared
for one-on-one conferences with additional writing and questions. When
given time, is able to think through her problems and find answers.
Accuplacer Accuplacer
Reading
Sentence
Paper 1
63
A
55
Hmk
22/22
Midterm
Project
Paper 2
90%
A
Paper 3
Attendance as
of 12/10/09
Strong
Rough
Draft
Missed one class, but
emailed for work.
Always prepared.
In response to the opening-day questions “What do you think is expected of you in a
college English class? Where did you get your ideas about this?,” Sue wrote: “After
taking English course, I expect I can improve my reading/writing skill, especially
writing an essay so I can get a very good grade from an English course.” In
describing her past schooling and work experience, Sue wrote: “I graduated from
college back in Indonesia 15 years ago. Yes, this is my first English class at a
community college in U.S. My high school English was pretty good in grammar. I
didn’t take any ESL courses, because I took assessment test and I should take ENGL
102. My past working experience were in banking industry and retail industry,
which I believe will contribute/help me in this course. My strength are I’m very
determined, punctual and very organized. “ In describing any concerns she may
have about this course and her ability to do well, Susan wrote: “I have concern in
my reading/writing skills, because English is not my first language so I may find
difficulties to find the exact meaning of the words in reading and also how to explore
in writing an essay.”
Sue’s self-reflection is very predictive of her class performance. Sue was one of two
students in class outside the median age of 19 and the only “older” student to
complete the course. Her past schooling experience also sets her off as an outlier in
the class of first time college students. Sue IS “determined, punctual and very
organized.” Her concerns about her English language skills were mitigated by a
continual reflection on her reading and writing work and the patterns of error
(subject/verb agreement and dropped articles) were not predominant in her
polished take-home assignments. Likewise, Sue reaches out for help. When our
class moved from our 1st text to our 2nd, Sue discussed with me the difficulties she
was having with the increased challenge of this new text – in large part due to the
advanced vocabulary, the technical language, the frequent use of examples (graphs,
explications etc.) She came to my office and we worked together on clarifying
confusing passages and setting a purpose for reading (namely, how to organize this
text). Sue also utilized the drop-in peer tutoring services in the WRAC Center and,
like many ESL students, brought a dictionary to class. Unlike many ESL students,
Sue is not afraid to speak or read aloud in class. Likewise, she’s taken a leadership
role in her group project for the course. In both of these arenas, I think her maturity
and past work experience contribute to her active participation.
Sue’s end of year reflection to the prompt “Now that we are at the end of English
102, what do you think is expected of you in a college English course?” she wrote:
“This class ENG102 is a good start for “Jump Start” program for students in order to
prepare for the next English 1A. Because this class gives a lot of exercise how to
expand, explore the ideas of writing, by knowing the rules of how good writing is
supposed to be. This class very useful and help students do better in writing.”
While Sue’s free-writing continues to display the same patterns of error, what’s
different is her attitude. She describes a firm understanding of the expectations of
college-level work and the process and development of student skills. Her
impressions of “expanding” and “exploring” characterize her approach to the class
and will serve her well throughout her college career.
Reflection on Reading
MARSI – WEEK 1
Sue’s overall score was a 3 (“I sometimes do this”), and the majority of her
responses (24 of 30) were 3 or below – 2 (“I do this only occasionally”) and 1 (“I
never or almost never do this”). For the 30 items, Sue never responded 5 (“I always
or almost always do this”). However, 5 of the 6 items for which Sue responded 4 (“I
usually do this”), are either “Problem-Solving Strategies” or “Support-Reading
Strategies”: reading slowly and carefully, adjusting reading rate, reading text aloud
when the text becomes difficult, taking notes while reading, and using a dictionary
or other reference materials to aid understanding. The only “Global-Reading
Strategy” she frequently uses is setting a purpose for reading. Otherwise, the
strategies she feels she sometimes, occasionally, or never use have to do with
activating prior knowledge, making and confirming predictions, previewing text,
making decisions on what to read closely, using context clues, using text structure,
using other textual features to enhance reading comprehension and then critically
analyzing and evaluating information and checking her own understanding.
Additional support strategies she “sometimes, occasionally, or never” uses are
paraphrasing, visualizing, and asking questions.
Sue’s initial MARSI results indicate a familiarity with “working” reading. Sue’s “4”
responses, seem to indicate that she puts in effort to understand her reading –
whether it means having to read more slowly and purposefully, taking notes, or
looking up difficult vocabulary. This could be because Susan is bilingual and knows
mastering a new language requires a lot of engagement while reading. Likewise, the
majority of her “lower” ranked responses fall into the “Global” category, and many of
these strategies are the key to navigate different kinds of texts. Previewing,
predicting, making decisions, and multiple items related to text structure, are
valuable strategies to move between different types of texts. This was precisely the
difficulty that Sue articulated as we switched from class text #1 to class text #2.
CAT on Reading – WEEK 5 (Surviving Justice)
What are you doing/thinking about as you read? Is this at all different from the start
of class until now? How so?
“underline the sentence --- making a summary and try to get the main idea/theme”“I
learn a lot/change how I read a passage”
Name 2 things that work for you about going over the reading in small groups and as
a whole class?
“We can share the ideas, a lot of talking, more easily to get point in the
reading”“class discussion is more fun”
What’s difficult for each of these reading tasks?
No response
In this 5 minute response, Sue indicates she’s now summarizing and evaluating her
reading. On her initial MARSI survey, she ranked these two strategies a 2 (“I do this
only occasionally”). She also indicates she prefers whole class discussion to small
group discussion, which assist her in “getting the point” in the reading, namely,
checking her initial understanding. She doesn’t indicate why she prefers whole class
to small group, but it could be related to the instructor navigating the conversation
in the whole class work, whereas in small groups, the students do this.
Capturing Your Reading Process – WEEK 10 (Everything Bad is Good for You)
Sue had 10 minutes to reread a section of our class text and annotate it. Here are
her marks:
She identified the topic sentence (main idea) as being “ investigating the history of
IQ scores”
She put a question mark over “The Bell Curve”
She underlined: “Jensen’s research had uncovered an alleged gap between white and
black IQ scores...in education or economic...” and paraphrased it as saying “the gap
bet. black & white IQ score”
For her summary, she wrote: “IQ tests were culturally biased, thus making racial IQ
gap by product of history not biology”
For her analysis, she wrote: “African American IQ scores increase over past half
century. Means: Now African American were granted greater access to education
system so the IQ scores improved. American Americans getting smarter because of
education.”
What kinds of things were happening in your mind as you read this? What did you
do to help you to understand the reading? What questions or problems do you still
have in understanding this essay?
“About the gap between black and white IQ scores. Read slowly – understand finally
make connection between the sentences. What is the Bell Curve?”
How easy or difficult was this essay for you? How well would you say you
understood this piece?
“Not too hard. Pretty well”
In evaluating Sue’s CRP results, Sue is doing a good job picking out the subject of the
passage – the change in African American’s IQ’s over time and its relationship to
education and not to “biology.” However, she doesn’t track the competing
arguments presented in the text – one from Jenson and the other Flynn and;
therefore, misses the significance of Flynn’s findings. In reflecting on her thinking,
she says, “finally make connection between sentences,” which, I think, suggests her
difficulty tracking the back-and-forth arguments in the passage. When she
underlined the main idea, she wanted to quickly set a purpose for the reading, but
then had difficulty navigating the paragraph, which didn’t stick to one point.
Likewise, she’s missing the author’s allusion to The Bell Curve, yet understands a
need-to-know this “clue” to the reading.
MARSI – WEEK 17 (Outliers)
For her 2nd MARSI, Sue’s overall mean was a 4.53. 20 of 30 items she scored 5 (“I
always or almost always do this” and only 2 of 30 items she ranked a 3 (“I
sometimes do this”) No responses indicated a 2 or 1. Therefore, 28 of 30 items she
ranked at a 4 or 5. Her mean scores across categories were no longer imbalanced:
“Global Reading” = 4.46 “Problem Solving” = 4.5 “Support Strategies” = 4.6
Problem solving and support are still higher than global, however, not by much.
More important than analyzing the individual items themselves, the portrait made
by this upward trend could indicate a more general belief in her reading
effectiveness. Whether or not Sue “always or almost always” uses these strategies,
her positive self-evaluation seems to suggest that she reads more facilely and with
increased confidence.
Reflection on Writing
Despite the increased challenge from text 1, to text 2, to text 3, and the increased
demands of the essay assignments, Sue’s essay writing continues to be welldeveloped, well-written, nicely organized, and complete. She successfully adjusted
from making arguments about a narrative text, to producing arguments about an
expository text, and finally, incorporating both in her 3rd essay. Sue made really
great use of drafting, completing each homework assignment, where she had the
opportunity to shape arguments related to the texts, and get feedback from me.
Likewise, she incorporated more complexity in each essay, developing longer and
more sophisticated papers over the course of the semester, 4-6 pages progressively.
Sue’s greatest asset in her writing is her willingness to reflect and revise. She
doesn’t choose simple arguments, but rather is skilled at pulling out the most salient
points and shaping them over time.