Case Study: Medium-Performance Student – “What is the Bell Curve?”
“John” – strong reader, identifies what he doesn’t know, but needs to work on
answering his questions and putting in more effort to increase his
understanding (namely, rereading and revising his written work)
Accuplacer
Reading
84
Accuplacer
Sentence
87
Paper 1
Hmk
Midterm
Project
Paper 2 Attendance as of
11/12/09
C-
11/14
76%
B
Perfect Attendance
Although has come
to class
unprepared.
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?,” John wrote: “What I
believe is expected of me in a college English course is first of all to pay attention in
class and use the skills I acquired from high school experiences. To show that I can
withstand the assignments I must complete and to be a hard-working and
determined student. Also to prove that I didn’t fool around in high school that I
mean business. Most of these ideas I have came from my previous teachers in high
school. They have given me many tips as to how to succeed in college. They have
told me that I am now moving on to the big leagues and that I will have to work
twice as hard because they won’t be there to hold my hand. High school teaches you
the basic steps to be able to move on to the bigger steps in college.”
John brings a positive attitude to class. On one occasion when I asked him how he
was, he said, “I’m ready to learn.” This pretty well characterizes John. He is
motivated and wants to do well, but he sometimes sees that as a process he has to
wait for, rather than something he can engender and cultivate on his own. This
“wait and see” approach was evidenced in his 1st paper grade, which in large part
indicated a lack of revision from the rough draft. Likewise, this pattern of not
resolving his own questions is repeated in his reading habits. He gets what he gets
and knows what he doesn’t, but doesn’t work to resolve that confusion or lack of
clarity.
Reflection on Reading
MARSI – WEEK 1
John’s overall score was a 3 (“I sometimes do this”), which pretty well typifies his
classroom performance, which often vacillates between not so good, good, and very
good. Likewise, in looking at the scores 1 (“I never or almost never do this”] and 2
(“I do this only occassionally”), these responses correspond to the areas of reading
associated either with “fix up” strategies or with checking his understanding – the
areas that John has exhibited weakness. Again, here John is able to articulate what
he’s not doing pretty accurately.
1 – I use reference materials such as dictionaires to help me understand what I read
2 – When a text becomes difficult, I pay closer attention to what I’m reading
2 – I check to see if my guesses about the text are right or wrong
1 – I use tables, figures, and pictures in text to increase my understanding
2 – I take notes while reading to help me understand what I read
2 – I critically analyze and evaluate the information presented in the text
Of these 6 responses, John has adjusted his reading to where he now takes notes on
a regular basis. Likewise, in class, he does spend time analyzing and evaluating the
information presented in the text.
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?
“I think about things off topic. But I manage to concentrate and I am taking notes as
I read. Before I used to read without taking notes.”
Name 2 things that work for you about going over the reading in small groups and
as a whole class?
“Get different points of views of the content. Share ideas and learn new ones.”
What’s difficult for each of these reading tasks?
“What’s difficult is when you don’t read and you have to talk when you don’t know
anything.”
John likes to participate in small group and whole class discussions, but he isn’t
always consistent with coming to class prepared. On occasion, he hasn’t done the
reading and/or he failed to bring his text to class.
Capturing Your Reading Process – WEEK 10 (Everything Bad is Good for You)
John had 10 minutes to reread a section of our class text and annotate it. Here are
his marks:
John defined IQ scores – “has to do with intelligence capacity of a human being”
He paraphrased the following passage: “Jensen’s research had uncovered an alleged
gap between white and black IQ scores, a gap that wasn’t attributable to differences
in education or economic upbringing.”
John’s paraphrase – “IQ scores of blacks are lease [sic] than white scores”
He paraphrased the following passage: “...Flynn decided to throw himself into the
fray and prove that IQ tests were more culturally biased than Jensen had believed...”
John’s paraphrase – “wanted to prove Jensen wrong”
John identified as evidence for Flynn’s argument – “showed a dramatic increase in
African American scores over the past half century...”
John made an inference from the text that read “As African Americans were granted
greater access to the educational system, their IQ scores improved accordingly.”
John wrote, “African Americans had bad IQ scores because they didn’t have enough
resources as the whites did”
For his analysis, John wrote: “studies showing that over the past years, African
Americans IQ scores have increased. Its important because it shows that Flynn was
able to win over Jensen’s theory”
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?
“As I was reading, I tried to absorb as much of the reading as I could. I reread the
content and I underlined important details and took notes. What is the Bell Curve.”
In evaluating John’s CRP results, John is doing a good job engaging with the text and
picking out the shifts in the argument. He worked the text using multiple strategies.
He clearly understands that there are two competing arguments and also
understands the final results. However, he’s either skipping over or is having
trouble explaining the “why?” Why did Flynn want to prove Jenson wrong? Why is
it important that Flynn win over Jenson’s theory? The lack of “big picture” analysis
could be related to the one question John raises, “What is the Bell Curve?” Without
having the background knowledge to understand this point of reference, John may
not be able to grasp the significance of Flynn’s discovery. Yet, this question does
point toward one of John’s strengths as a reader, namely, he knows what he doesn’t
know. On the other hand, it also points to one of John’s weaknesses as a reader – he
doesn’t try and resolve his own confusion.
Reflection on Writing
John’s essay writing has improved from the 1st to the 2nd paper. His 1st paper was
largely unrevised from the rough draft and; therefore, exhibited the same patterns
of error:
1) Lack of parallel construction. Although the introductory paragraph did a
great job organizing the main ideas of the essay, the body paragraphs did not
follow that order.
2) The body paragraphs were not ordered in a logical fashion and; therefore,
didn’t connect to each other. Poor use of transitions to show relationships
between ideas.
3) Body paragraph stucture needed improvement. Body paragraphs weren’t
always starting with a main idea to keep the paragraphs unified and focused.
John’s 2nd essay demonstrated much more cohesion. Although this 2nd essay was
longer and the reading more complex, John did a good job understanding the
relationships between ideas and between paragraphs. Likewise, John revised this
paper to a greater degree than the 1st essay. In John’s 1st draft, he organized his
paragraphs making a back-and-forth argument (1st talking about video games, then
T.V., then video, and back to T.V.). While the paragraphs progressed smoothly and
he used his transitions appropriately, we talked about how it may be difficult for a
reader to make these back and forth movements and how it might be easier for the
reader to organize the arguments into two sections. John followed that suggestion,
however, he didn’t revise the intro to match this new order. Therefore, parallel
construction is still an area for him to work on. Another vast improvement was in
the development of the body paragraphs. These paragraphs were unified around a
main idea. Although he included ample support, he made sure that these support
ideas were connected to the general topic. His new pattern of error would be not
ending his paragraphs with an analysis that answers the questions “so what?” or
“why is that important?” and instead either ending with a detail, or ending with an
idea that is really related to the next paragraph (so transitioning in the wrong
place).