Journal 8-3

English 11

So you think I spent my day off sipping hot cocoa and watching soap operas? Not so! I used the day to compile the results from the writing survey I gave last week, and now I have some thoughtful analysis...

(Then I played 30 minutes of Lego Star Wars, washed four loads of laundry, canned some applesauce, cleaned the bathrooms and graded about 30 essays. A day well spent!)

The results:

52% of my students read novels for fun.

52% read emails, texts or instant messages.

50% read magazines.

37% read web sites and 35% read poetry or song lyrics.

11% find autobiographies or biographies difficult to read

18% dislike textbooks

16% dislike reference books

I asked students to rate themselves on a scale of 1-10. 60% rated themselves as a 7, 8 or 9. No one rated themselves as a 10, but one student did rate him/herself as a 1, and another rated him/herself as a 3. Everyone else rated themselves as a 4, 5, or 6.

53% of my students have a myspace or facebook page (0r something similar) even though I teach 16 and 17 year-olds and the minimum sign-up age is 18. hmmm....

39% of my students email, text or instant message each other.

21% and 22.5% of my students write poetry or song lyrics (respectively).

21% also write stories.

16% of my students keep to-do lists.

31% of my students have extreme difficulty with research papers. (Many wrote notes in the margin next to this question detailing exactly why they dislike research papers.)

14.5% have difficulty writing essays. I will have to count up the percentage of missing essays for my class...

Students were asked to list their all-time favorite books and only two students listed books that are taught as part of our district's English curriculum. The books chosen ran the gamut from popular teen lit (Twilight) to thoughtful adult lit (The Kite Runner, The Lovely Bones).

I asked the following question: "Writing is something you either can or cannot do well," and then asked students to either agree or disagree with the statement. The results were evenly split with exactly half agreeing and half disagreeing.

I asked students to indicate any strategies they used when stuck. 73% said they proofread and 73% said they procrastinated.

82% said they crossed things out and rearranged things.

53% doodle, cluster, map or do some type of pre-writing

48% ask someone for help.

43.5% review their audience and purpose.

24% decorate their papers with little hearts and flowers.

19% skim the internet to see what other people are writing.

52% of students chose English 11 as the class that has the most difficult writing with 31% choosing U.S. History. The rest of the students chose Spanish, Wellness, French, computer or English 12 as the most difficult class to write for.

100% of students chose English 11 as the course requiring the most writing.

I asked students to check any of the boxes that described the kind of writer they seem themselves to be:

48% of students rated themselves as "having difficulty with writing."

42% of students rated themselves as "confident in their abilities as a writer."

10% rated themselves as "not doing as well as expected."

35% of students indicated that they write when they're bored.

26% choose to write as a form of escapism.

26% also say "I do not ever choose to write."

13% describe themselves as incapable of NOT writing. They must constantly write.

I asked students to check any box that matched their opinion of the importance of writing:

3% indicated that "Writing is not that important. By the time you reach high school, you know everything you need to about writing."

63% marked, "Writing is crucial to your success in the adult world."
31% marked, "Writing is more important now than ever before."

31% marked, "Writing is less important than it used to be."

I asked students to check any box that matched their opinion of reading materials:

50% indicated that, "I like it when a book or essay challenges my beliefs, ideas or assumptions."
22.5% indicated that, "I prefer to read books that do not make me think about unfamiliar things."
37% indicated that, "I like to read in order to do things; this makes reading seem useful and valuable to me."

52% of students expected the reading they do for school to be "interesting," while 37% expected the reading to be "boring." 27% of students indicated that they found the reading done for school to be "difficult." 35% of students marked "useful."

By contrast, 50% of students expect the writing done for school to be "useful" and 39% expected it to be "boring." 35% of students expected the writing to be "interesting" and 31% of students expected it to be "difficult."

I saved the best for last!!

77% of students indicated "distractions" as the reason why they don't write as well as they could.

74% of students indicated that they had the T.V., radio or computer (or all three) on while they wrote.

73% of students blame their poor writing on "lack of time."

52% blame "lack of interest."

22.5% blame "lack of knowledge."

Observations
The goal of my study is to see how reflective writing changes students' self-perceptions about writing and this survey gives me a good baseline for where students are now. I'll give the survey again at the end of March (right before I write my capstone paper) to measure any changes. Hopefully, students will have changed how they feel about writing and feel more confident in their abilities. I have to say, though, they seem pretty confident right now. Most students rate themselves as a 7 or 8, with a 10 being the best possible writer. So, by that criteria, Hemmingway and Shakespeare are 10s and they're 7s? Are you kidding me? I rate my students somewhat lower...like around 2.

Here's another possibility: the students understood the question to be asking about students in their grade or at their ability. In that case, a rating of 7 or 8 (with the 10 being the best student writer they knew) is more plausible. Using that rating scale, I'd rate most students only slightly lower - at a 6 or a 7. My goal is to move students into the 8 or 9 range by June.

Another interesting response was that 77% of my students don't write as well as they like because of "distractions," yet 74% have the TV, radio or a computer on at their desk as they're working. I pointed that fun little statistic out to the students and light bulbs came on all over the room. I think the next essay I assign, I'll ask students to try turning their distractors off for 15 minutes while they write and then ask them how it went.

reflections
I thought this was a good survey, but in retrospect, it had too many questions. I asked students about their writing habits, their writing weaknesses and their perceptions about the writing they do for school. All of these are valid questions, but I asked a lot more questions that I didn't have to ask. In the spring, I'll ask the same questions (to be fair), but if I ever do this again, I'm taking some questions off.