Lesson study cycle 1

Over the course of this research cycle we have worked to identify ways that we can better support student acquisition of evidence based writing skills. We began by introducing students to a standard paragraph format for this type of writing (Claim/Evidence/Reason/ Evidence/ Reason/Connection). The focus then shifted to strengthening their ability to identify and utilize evidence, to not just support their claim, but also make inferences and learn how to “read between the lines.” While further exploring our team’s “research theme,” I came across Nadia Behizadeh’s “Realizing Powerful Writing Pedagogy in U.S. Public Schools,” in which they were critical of the writing instruction often utilized in U.S. public schools. According to the research compiled in Behizadeh’s article, “Writing instruction in the United States tends to focus on short, formulaic assignments that do not require criticality or connect to real-world events (Behizadeh, N., 2019, p. 261).” Upon reading this, I immediately wondered if our own attempts at developing students’ evidence based writing abilities could be considered “short, formulaic assignments?” 
The article goes on to identify a powerful writing pedagogy (PWP) as a way to remedy the shortcomings of common writing instruction practices. The author defines PWP as a set of practices that center three essential elements: evidence based practices, methods for increased authenticity, and critical composition pedagogy. Another thing Behizadeh’s research highlights is the failure of writing instruction in preparing students to navigate sociopolitical issues in their writing. While this was not a focus of our group’s research, the application of evidence based writing techniques to politically charged argumentative writing and other genres is essential for students to grasp. Behizadeh argues that “students deserve access to writing instruction that helps them write to pass tests, meet standards, and write for the world and themselves (Behizadeh, N., 2019, p. 265).”

As we prepared to launch our series of lessons, I wondered how we could best ensure that our own lesson meets these PWP standards? Students examined propaganda from WWI and WWII in our lesson, so I wondered how we could ensure that we create opportunities for students to engage with the content in an authentic way. That also give them a chance to practice application of the evidence based writing skills we had been working on thus far. In their article, “Looking at World War I Propaganda,” Chris Sperry provides guidance on ensuring authentic interactions between students and source through the use of a constructivist media decoding approach. According to Sperry, “[students] growing cognitive abilities enable them to separate their perspectives from the views of their parents, school, peers, and society— to challenge themselves to figure out ‘What do I believe?’” (Sperry, C., 2014, p. 235).They go on to propose that media decoding helps to drive this truth-seeking behavior. The use of familiar strategies and practices in the classroom to facilitate media decoding sessions will make it that much more effective. In my own classroom we have gotten into the practice of doing weekly inference training using the the New York Times’ weekly “What’s Going On?” photo. This has gotten students familiar looking at media and making inferences by examining the evidence present in the image and by sharing thoughts and questions with peers. By utilizing a familiar practice in our upcoming lesson we can reduce student confusion. This will allow for greater focus on ensuring we incorporate the three essential elements of a PWP in our lesson.