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Building
Writers is committed to
assessing student performance to be certain that our methodology
yields tangible improvements in students' written communication. To
this end, we
are conducting a multi-year action-based research project.
Our research from the classroom level is presented below. We
look forward to expanding this research to the building level as we
work with partner districts during the 2009-2010 school
year. Research
Summary: We
implemented the Building Writers program with two cohorts during
the 2007-2008 school year at Weymouth High School. Weymouth
High School is a large suburban school of over 2,000 students.
The first cohort was a class of seniors enrolled in AP Modern
European History. The second cohort was a United States
History II class, comprised of at-risk juniors; over 40% of
students in this group have IEP's. Cohort
1: AP Modern European History
The College Board exam provided an excellent benchmark by which to
compare those who received the Building Writers program during the
2007-2008 year,
with the previous class, which did not receive Building Writer's
instruction. While AP history exams measure content knowledge in history,
a full half of
the exam's score is based on expository essays, requiring students
to express their content knowledge through cogent and organized
writing. The
class size, content instruction, and instructor remained unchanged
between the two years. The only significant difference was the
implementation of the Building Writers program. The 2008 AP Modern European
Exam scores document a clear improvement in the quality of students'
expository writing.
The 2007 class, which did not receive the Building Writers program,
obtained a mean score of 3.5 with 16.7% scoring a 5 and 33.3%
scoring a 4. This alone is quite respectable since the national mean was 2.84 for 2007 and
only 11.1% scored a 5 and
18.9% scored a 4. However, the 2008 Building Writers cohort
obtained a mean score of 4.0 with 30% scoring a 5 and 53.8% scoring
a 4. 
Cohort
2: United States History II
Building
Writers was initially developed for the AP level, however after
working with it for some time, we realized that its simplicity would
make it even more effective with struggling writers. In
January of 2008 we implemented the program with two classes of
at-risk Juniors. While there is not standardized test data for
this cohort, and the content instruction did change,
the means of assessing student writing remained consistent. After
implementing Building Writers, we witnessed an increase in students'
overall averages. 
Even
more promising, while Semester 1 saw three students take home an F
on at least one of their term report cards, no student failed a term
under the Building Writers Program. Anecdotally, students were
more attentive in class and far more engaged in the materials.
We both noted students reaching a deeper level of analysis as students actively tried to
construct their responses.
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