Effects of Using a Graphic Organizer, Research Proposal Example

Introduction

There is evidence that students with learning disabilities in expressive writing skills have significant difficulty completing schoolwork involving writing and using writing in everyday situations, not because they have difficulty with producing letters on paper, but because they cannot use words to express organized and complete thoughts in their writing. Students with learning disabilities in expressive writing are at least as intelligent as their peers. These students may appear to be lazy, but they are just overwhelmed by writing tasks. They are often concerned about their disability and avoid writing. Uninformed teachers, students, and other adults may see them as less capable, when they are actually very capable and bright. These students will work hard with the appropriate instruction and accommodations. Some students understand much more than they are capable of expressing on paper, and others have receptive language disorders as well.

It is important for the student in adult life to have adequate writing skills as it is valued in the 21^st century. People are required to communicate their needs and wants in life. Therefore, preparing students with diverse needs for success within the general curriculum and in their post-secondary lives is much more likely as a result of the newly adopted implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) across the nation. The ability to write reasonable arguments based on substantive claims, sound reasoning, and relevant evidence is a cornerstone of the writing standards, with opinion writing—a basic form of argument—extending down into the earliest grades (Common Core State Standards). These rigorous standards provide increased exposure and access for all students to improve content knowledge and skill acquisition, especially in writing. Unfortunately, students with disabilities in the area of written expression, written analysis can be a daunting task. As a result, teachers need strategies that will provide additional support to address the needs of these diverse learners. Ineffective strategies implemented by the teacher may limit student progress. Researchers contend that graphic organizers help students communicate more effectively. Writing instruction that includes using graphic organizers to help structure focused projects, brainstorm for the writing process, and/or plans research is a solicitous practice that is emphasized throughout the standards and benefits all learners, including students with disabilities. As a result, the effects of the use of graphic organizers to improve opportunities for grade-level writing proficiency, as measured by standards, is justified in the need for continued study.

Literature Review

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have been adopted in 45 states, and a focus on improving and developing writing skills is a fundamental component of these standards. Graham and Harris (2013) assert that Common Core can be advantageous for learning disabled (LD) students. Because the majority of LD students are taught writing skills in the general education classroom, Graham and Harris posit that the implementation of Common Core standards must therefore be conducted in a manner that serves the needs of both general education and LD students. Among the most significant areas of focus in CCSS writing standards is the ability to develop and organize ideas and present information effectively in text. According to Graham and Harris, CCSS does not “tell teachers how to teach,” but rather “help(s) teachers build the best lessons and environment for their class” (2013). With this in mind, there is a significant body of evidence demonstrating that the use of graphic organizers is an effective means by which LD students can learn to meet the expectations of CCSS and improve their wiring skills in the context of the general education classroom.

Egan (1999) asserts that graphic organizers “can be used to male learning more meaningful.” Graphic organizers provide a visual representation of ideas and concepts, and can be used as a framework for organizing those ideas. Egan offers several guidelines based on her experience in the classroom using graphic organizers to assist the development of writing skills in LD students. Egan suggests that teachers familiarize themselves with specific graphic organizers to ensure their applicability; use graphic organizers to promote interaction among students in pairs and small group settings; use graphic organizers with “discrimination (i.e.- ensure that they are not overused); and use graphic organizers for instruction in other disciplines (such as math and science) when appropriate as a means of developing familiarity and comfort with their use among students.

Much of the extant literature about the use of graphic organizers emphasizes the contemporary context of the learning environment for general education and LD students. LD students are typically expected to develop their writing and other academic skills in the general education classroom; as such, teaching strategies must be designed to serve the needs of students with a broad spectrum of capabilities and skills. Baxendall (2003) offers evidence-based principles for the development of graphic organizers that emphasizes the importance of making them simple enough to be broadly understood while also being broadly effective. According to Baxendall, graphic organizers should be used “coherently, consistently, and creatively;” this is in keeping with other research about graphic organizers that notes their effectiveness when used in a variety of subject areas for the purpose of developing students’ familiarity with their use (Egan, 1999).

There are a number of ways that graphic organizers can be used to assist LD students with the development and improvement of writing skills. Sundeen (2007) provides a simple, effective set of guidelines for the use of graphic organizers based on the model “Three Biog Ideas.” In this model, students are encouraged to develop a topic about which to write, and then brainstorm individually or in groups to come up with “three big ideas” that support or clarify this topic. These three main ideas are then arranged into the framework of a graphic organizer, and then additional supporting ideas are developed and placed into each of the three main sections of the graphic organizer. This approach helps students to develop their understanding of standard 5-paragraph essay writing, with the three “bid ideas” serving as the foundations of the body paragraphs. Additional components of this type of graphic organizer can be used to assist students with developing introduction and conclusion paragraphs (Sundeen, 2003).

Mush of the extant literature about the use of graphic organizers is divided into two particular categories: first is the body of literature devoted to discussions about the specific structures and applications of graphic organizers; the second focuses on research and studies about their effectiveness in promoting writing skills among LD and general education students. A 2004 synthesis of research conducted by Ae-Hwa, Vaughn, Wanzek, and Shangin offers some positive conclusions about the use of graphic organizers for improving the writing skills of LD students. This synthesis examined a broad cross-section of different types of graphic organizers, and found “overall beneficial outcomes across all studies” (Ae-Hwa et al, 2004). Other research has determined that graphic organizers are particularly effective for use in classrooms with both general education and LD students (Horton, Lovitt, and Bergerud, 1999), and the evidence from the extant literature on the subject of graphic organizers has demonstrated that they can provide a means by which LD students can keep pace with the rigorous demands of CCSS in the general education classroom.

Methods

Participant

The participant will be a female student designated by the initials WJ. WJ transferred to her current school district in March 2012 from a nearby school district. WJ has been designated as an LD student. WJ exhibits difficulties in reading, writing, and mathematics as observed and reported by her elementary school teacher prior to her advancement to middle school. WJ has also exhibited a number of behavioral issues; among these issues are tendencies to blurt out responses and make inappropriate comments during class time. WJ also exhibits an excessive need for attention and ongoing correction and responses to her behavioral issues. WJ’s peer interactions are marked by immaturity as compared to her peers. WJ has a tendency to interrupt both her classmates and her teacher. On the positive side, WJ is friendly and generally responsive to correction, though the length of time she will exhibit appropriate behavior after being corrected is often brief, especially as compared to similar circumstances involving her peers.

WJ’s elementary teacher has expressed a number of specific concerns related to her writing skills. According to the teacher, reviews of WJ’s essays and other writing exercises indicate that WJ has significant shortcomings regarding basic grammar, spelling, sentence structure, subject-verb agreement, and organizational skills. The student does not take the time to review her work, and her writing often exhibits inappropriate or incorrect word choices, a lack of focus and organization, and unsupported or incomplete expression of ideas. The concerns expressed by her teacher indicate that WJ has not mastered age-appropriate language skills that must be synthesized in writing. She exhibits difficulty processing and organizing thoughts and ideas and demonstrates a lack of understanding about how to shape writing to meet intended readers. WJ’s teacher has encouraged her not to rush her work and to take time to review her word choices, grammar, and essay organization. The teacher has recommended outside tutorial and educational support for WJ. An initial IEP meeting was scheduled for May 2012 to discuss concerns related to WJ’s academic progress; her parents were not in attendance, but they had signed the necessary documentation granting permission for the evaluation and intervention planning.

Setting

The study will be conducted in the general education classroom for seventh grade English at ________ Middle School in _______. This classroom operates under a co-teaching model, with a general education teacher functioning as the classroom lead instructor with the support and assistance of a special education teacher. The special education teacher is Sandra Hill; Ms. Hill is a Graduate Student/ Special Educator of Co-taught English Language Arts Classroom Setting; 6^th year of instruction as NC Licensed Exceptional Children K-12 (General Curriculum). Ms. Hill works with the general education teacher to develop instructional plans and to coordinate interventions and supports for LD students as needed.

Experimenter

The special education teacher, Sandra Hill, will function as the primary experimenter, observer, and data collector. Ms. Hill has a solid background in theory and practice in the use of graphic organizers to provide academic interventions and support for LD students. There are a significant number of different types of graphic organizers available for use with academic interventions, and Ms. Hill will be responsible for selecting an appropriate graphic organizer for use in providing support for improving WJ’s writing skills. Ms. Hill also has a solid background in developing strategies and support frameworks for LD students on an individual basis, in pairs, and in small group settings. Ms. Hill is also familiar with the appropriate methods of observation and data collection pertinent to monitoring and assessing the efficacy of using graphic organizers for academic support and intervention for LD students.

The general types of graphic organizers in this context are those that are designed to help general education students, LD students, or both to improve their writing skills. While there are a wide variety of different graphic organizers used to improve writing skills, Ms. Hill has primarily worked with the type that will be used in this study. The experimenter has used such graphic organizers both in training and education contexts and in the classroom; this will be her first effort at using them in a study of this nature.

Materials

The primary materials used in this study have been derived from the SpringBoard educational-resources website. SpringBoard has developed a variety of tools for use by educators in the general education and special education classrooms; these materials are grade-level specific and the materials used in this study have been developed for use in 7^th grade Language Arts classes. The materials and support provided by SpringBoard are specifically designed to adhere to CCSS. The SpringBoard site provides the following descriptions of their Language Arts materials that have been developed to help students improve their writing skills:

Writing:

“(Materials to help improve) Writing Strategies are embedded within the instructional activities to encourage best practices and sustain independent student learning. Guided instruction for writing arguments, informative texts, and narratives Mode-specific Writing Workshops, open-ended prompts and Embedded Assessments with Scoring Guides. Emphasis on Purpose and Audience Formal and Informal Writing Tasks. Multiple opportunities for short and extended student research. A wide range of research-based writing strategies.”

Language

“Grammar support and instruction in the context of actual reading and writing. An emphasis on style analysis that transfers to students’ own use of language. An awareness of language as a flexible tool that can be adapted for specific contexts. A direct and integrated approach to vocabulary instruction that includes in-context and academic vocabulary, Greek and Latin roots, multiple-meaning words, and literary terms defined at point of use.”

SpringBoard Assessment and Intervention

This study will utilize a specific assessment and intervention from the SpringBoard educational materials. The assessment is entitled “A Personal Narrative about Choice;” it is a timed writing assignment wherein the student or subject writes a brief essay. The purpose of the essay is for the subject to describe an event or experience during which he or she was faced with making a choice. The scoring guide for this assessment includes four categories: Ideas (explain the consequences of the choice that was made, and reflect on the consequences of the choice); Organization (effective introduction, body, and conclusion), Use of Language (effective descriptors and imagery); and Conventions (spelling, grammar, sentence structure, paragraph structure). This assessment is a timed writing assignment with three stages; typically subjects will complete a first draft of the assignment, receive feedback from the instructor, and then complete a revision of the essay based on the comments and suggestions given in the instructor’s feedback.

The intervention used in this study will be the personal narrative organizer included in the Springboard materials. The personal narrative organizer is a worksheet that contains prompts and blank sections aligned with each prompt wherein the subject writes words, phrases, and ideas for inclusion in the completed essay. This form of graphic organizer is based on a 3-paragraph essay format (Introduction/Beginning, Body/Middle/Conclusion/End). The first section contains spaces for the subject to write a brief summary of the event (What Happened?, When?, Where? Who Was There?), followed by a section for the details for each section of the 3-paragraph essay. The format and style of this graphic organizer are general enough to be applicable for a variety of different essay types, including the “Personal Narrative about Choice” assessment used in this study.

The subject for this study, WJ, will be given the first-draft component of the assessment as a timed writing assignment. After completing the first draft, WJ will be instructed on the use of the graphic organizer, and will be assisted by the instructor in filing it out. She will then be prompted to use the graphic organizer and the ideas she wrote in it to complete the revision of the essay.

Data Collection Procedures

The data collection for this study will be conducted by the primary experimenter, Ms. Hill. The single dependent variable being examined in this study is the acquisition of improvement in the writing skills of the subject as measured by the post-intervention assessment of the subject’s personal narrative essay. The existence of an improved post-intervention outcome will be determined according to any noted improvements in the four components of the scoring guide.

Interobserver Reliability

To establish interobserver agreement about scoring the assessment (both pre- and post-intervention) the primary experimenter will provide an overview and training on the use of the SpringBoard assessment and intervention components of the study. Having established such agreement, each of the two experimenters will provide individual and independent scoring of the personal narrative writing assessments both before and after the intervention with the graphic organizer.

After the subject has completed the first assessment, the intervention, and the follow-up assessment the experimenters will score the revised version of the essay independently. Once this post-intervention assessment has been independently scored the two experimenters will compare and discuss the results. This study is an inherently qualitative examination of the subject’s writing skills and improvements thereof; with that in mind, however, it will be possible to develop a combined score for the pre-intervention essay and the post-intervention essay based on the individual results. A noted improvement in any or all of the components of the scoring guide will be considered to show that the graphic organizer was a successful intervention for use in improving writing skills for the subject of the study.

Experimental Design

This is a single-subject experiment. If the results of the study are positive that will serve as the basis for introducing the intervention to further subjects.

Procedure

The Baseline for this study is the personal narrative essay assessment. This is a timed writing assignment with a standardized timing for all students engaged in the assessment. The Intervention is the Personal Narrative Organizer. The baseline data is collected by the general education teacher for general education students and for LD students in the general education classroom. This particular assessment is only offered once; subsequent essay-writing assessments will be offered on different subjects. Generally, students who score poorly o this assessment are eligible for intervention; in the case of the subject (WJ) the intervention is to be offered irrespective of her score on the first draft of the essay-writing assessment.

Intervention

The graphic organizer intervention will be offered by the special education teacher, Ms. Hill. The procedure for implementing the intervention is open-ended; it involves discussion and interaction with the subject. It will be up to the experimenter to determine when the intervention is complete and when to move on to the second stage of the assessment.

The intervention will be used a single time for the purpose of this study. If it is deemed a success it may be used for further interventions or for interventions with other subjects. The method for providing feedback during the intervention will be to discuss with the subject her score on the first draft of the assessment, to explain the purpose and use of the graphic organizer, and to assist the student in understating and completing the graphic organizer.

Generalization

If the intervention is deemed successful for use with the subject it may be used for further interventions with other students. Procedural reliability is determined according to the application of the first component of the assessment, the use of the intervention, and the completion of the second draft according to the specifications of this study. Because it is a single-subject study, the qualitative scoring of the pre- and post-intervention assessments will be comprised of the combined average score developed by the two experimenters. Marked divergences in the scores developed by the individual experimenters may be an indication of unreliability; if this circumstance arises the study may be refined for future application.

References

Ae-Hwa Kim, Vaughn, S., Wanzek, J., & Wei, S. (2004). Graphic organizers and their effects on the reading comprehension of students with LD: A synthesis of research. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 37(2), 105-18.

Bexendall, Brad W. (2003). The three C’s of graphic organizers. Teaching Exceptional Children. 35, 3, 45-63.

Egan, M. (May 01, 1999). Reflections on Effective Use of Graphic Organizers. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 42, 8, 641-45.

Graham, S., & Harris, K. R. (February 01, 2013). Common Core State Standards, Writing, and Students with LD: Recommendations. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 28,1, 28-37.

Horton, S., Lovitt, T., & Bergerud, D. (January 01, 1990). The Effectiveness of Graphic Organizers for Three Classifications of Secondary Students in Content Area Classes.Journal of Learning Disabilities, 23, 1, 12-22.

Sundeen, T. H. (June 06, 2007). So What’s the Big Idea? Using Graphic Organizers to Guide Writing for Secondary Students with Learning and Behavioral Issues. Beyond Behavior, 16, 3, 29-34.