Final Thoughts

Although I am officially finished collecting data for my reading response journals, Green and Blue are not happy and in denial.  On Monday I explained to them that we were finished and they no longer had to write in their journals.  We also set a date to eat lunch as a thank you (this made them VERY excited!).  I gave them their journal to write one last response... What are your thoughts on Reading Response Journals?  Here are the responses I got:
Yellow

 Green



 Blue



Based on the responses, it is clear that as I have been saying, Blue and Green were much more involved with the RRJs.  They were able to think beyond the book and see that there was a meaning beyond writing about a character or the plot.  I am not sure whether I will use RRJs in this way again in 2nd grade unless I am using them with a reading group that is performing at a 3/4 reading level.  In 2nd grade, the content focuses on teaching students all of the skills to become a successful reader, in the intermediate, students work on applying the skills more to what they are reading.  But... in conclusion... Blue said he thought I should get an A+ on my project!  YAH!

More coding

So I have made it through all of the journal responses and have coded what came to mind.  I plan on taking a day or two off and then going back through to make sure I didn't miss anything important.  I continued with the color coding post-it notes for each student.  I also decided to number the responses and write the number in the corner of each post-it note.  See the example below for an example.

I am hoping when I begin triangulating my data (proving why I came to my conclusions), I will be able to easily refer back to my examples.  I am hoping once I begin putting the post-it notes into groups the whole process will make more sense because even after coding I still feel completely lost with what direction I am going.

So far I have focused on topics the students wrote about, and emotional involvement they had with the book.  If I am going to look at reading response journals effects in terms of emotional connection... it is not looking very good.  Green (reading on a 3rd grade level) is the only one who has had several entries with true connections to the text.  I have also seen many illustrations to go along with the entries.  This tells me that illustrations may help the students gather their thoughts?  The story may make more sense to them in simple terms like an illustration.  As I am writing this post, I also thought about the fact that the students were all reading chapter books with few illustrations, therefore, they are able to make mental images of what they are reading.  Hmmm.... I will keep on thinking about other trends I notice.

It's Time to Code!

Data is collected.  Now it is time for the next step in the process of my action research project.  I think I can... I think I can... These are the words I keep repeating to myself when beginning the coding process.  I have so much data to go through and begin post-it noting.  Overwhelmed?  Yes!  But I know that once I get going, it will all make more sense and I will get faster at it.  My goal is to use one post-it note color for each student so I can keep them separate.  I will go through all of their daily responses in the RRJs and make note of what I notice (topic, emotional involvement, length, book type, etc.).  I will use my field note observations and interviews to help triangulate my findings.  Ready, Set, Code!

I also think I will do a little something special for my 4 participants... maybe have lunch with them and bring a special treat to thank them for being my helpers.  This will also be my last chance to get any final information/ thoughts down that the students have.

Interview 2

Here is my transcribed interview…

Interview 2 (Group)

3/1/13

Start Time- 12:50              End Time- 12:56                Interview Completion- 5 minutes 49 seconds

T- my responses

 

I.           Do the reading response journals help you understand the stories that we read during small group reading time?

Blue- mmmmmmmm…. What was the question again?

T- Repeat

Blue- Yeah, because you are asking us questions and sometimes they may be hard questions and then when you answer them, you will understand better

Yellow- uhhhhhh because they (long pause)

T- Do you think they help you?

Yellow- uh huh

T- okay, how?

Yellow- ummmmm

Blue- because why

T- Green, what are your thoughts?

Green-I say yes because when you retell the story if you re read it then it will… because you always tell us if we re read the story, it will help us understand

 

II.         What do you like about reading response journals?

Yellow (laughing)- you get to write about a story and that’s all

Green- I like it because I get to do it with you.

T- What else?

(long pause)

Blue- because I like writing for a really long time and my hand doesn’t get tired

Green- I like writing too

 

III.       What do you not like about reading response journals?

Blue- mmmmmmm that’s a hard one

T- what could I do to make them better?

Blue- that’s a good one, I don’t know

T- pretend I am going to do them again next year, what should I change to make them better for the students? Or what would make you like them better?

Blue- If there was packet that you had for all year long, then you could just do that and the questions would already be there

Green- If we had time that we could write in them so we weren’t missing anything

Yellow- laughing

T- do you have anything to add Yellow?

Yellow- no

 

IV.       Should the rest of the class use reading response journals?  Why or why not?

Green- I don’t think so.  Then it would get too crowded.

T- What would get too crowded?

Green- Like if we all had to write at different times and we would all have to write something short

Blue- I don’t think so because then if we were all missing something the Chinese teacher would get a little worried

Yellow- no because if we all had to do it at reading and we all had to go to Chinese

T- Okay, what if we didn’t do it at Chinese or other specials times, should the rest of the class have to do it?  If it was part of the normal schedule

(Everyone shaking head no)

Green- because we would all have to do it at separate times

Blue- it would be too much for you to write back

 

Throughout the interview I noticed several things:

Yellow was quiet and I had to pull any answers out of the students.  Based on the findings it seems as though he does not enjoy the RRJs and is not excited about writing in them.  If I look at it from my perspective of knowing the student, I am aware that Yellow is very shy and does not talk a lot or show emotion in the school setting.  Therefore, it is going to be difficult to gauge where Yellow’s thought process is.  I think in this case, to get any substantial feedback at all, a one on one interview will be necessary so he does not have the opportunity to shy away and let the other two participants answer the questions.

One day a week when I do field observations I use the first bit of specials time so the students can write in silence… This has caused the students to relate RRJs to “getting out of Chinese”.  I tried to clear up the confusion during the interview, but I am not sure they completely understood.

Students all enjoy reading response journals, but still had difficulty explaining why they were beneficial and why they liked them.

Students did not like/ think the RRJs were good to use in the future because they had to sometimes miss activities the other students were participating in (though this interruption is kept to a minimum, it is near impossible to fix this problem because there is no down time in the school day).

Group vs. Individual Interview

After the silence I saw from the kiddos during Interview 1, I decided to attempt a group interview as my two class members suggested (thanks guys!).  After completing the interview, I am somewhat lost as to what route to take for my final interview at the conclusion of the action research.  I was hoping that the informal group setting would bring out better, more thoughtful responses from all 3 group members.  Blue and Green seemed to dominate the conversation of every question asked.  This didn’t surprise me because Yellow is very timid in the classroom setting, but at the same time, I was hoping he would be willing to give his opinion at least once without me pulling it out.  I feel as though the group interview was a way out for him not to respond at all.  Hmmm…. What do you all think?  Should I do another group interview again or go back to the one on one interview?

Excitement

Hooray!  2 of the remaining 3 students in my study are really excited about the RRJs!  Everyday they come up to me during reading group, both Blue and Green come up and ask if they can go ahead and write in their RRJ.  Fridays are normally assessment days, therefore no reading groups/ instruction. 
2/22/13:
Green and Blue: Can we have our journals to write in?
Me: We do not have reading groups today so I will give you a free pass.  We will write in them again on Monday.
Green and Blue: NOOOO!!! We want to write in them now! 
Me: Okay, great!

I am beginning to notice the excitement/ motivation that these students have towards the journals.  They also like to go to the center of the complex and write to get away from some of the classroom noice (which I do not blame them at all). 

Yesterday (2/26/13) Blue and Green were working on their RRJs for an excessive amount of time (20 minutes).  I went to get them from the center and told them they needed to be concentrating and writing rather than talking because it should not take them this long to do an entry.  They were so excited to tell me they wanted to do an extra response because they liked the book they were reading so much.

Yellow, on the other hand, does the work and gets done quickly.  He does not show any emotion (positive or negative) toward the RRJ writing. 

Sad news

I ran into my first major bump in the road last week. Our special education team has been relooking at data from the winter assessments and adding minutes to students that were making progress but still performing two grade levels below.  Therefore, one of my focus students is no longer in my classroom for Reading.  I considered keeping her in my research project, but based on the first few weeks of data collection, I had to sit with her while writing and have her verbally tell me what she had written because it was difficult to read so I do not see this being beneficial.  I also had to give her a very specific prompt for the book we were reading in small group because she was not able to simply respond on her own.  She truly enjoyed the extra attention of being one of my special reading helpers and getting to write in the journals so I will be sad to let her know we will not be continuing.  Having her participate in the first four weeks of my study did allow me to make some observations about whom reading response journals work well with and who they do not.