Mrs. Whiteside's 11th-grade classes conduct Study

 

"Word Up: An Action Research Study"

Societal issues such as family, friendship, fashion, body image, racism, and the environment all these and more managed to seep into Mrs. Whiteside’s English classes through extensive study, lively discussion and correlated writing assignments. Shakespeare was not left out either with the classes experiencing ‘love gone right’ in the romantic comedy “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and ‘love gone wrong' in the tragedy “Othello.” Through their course work, Collier students have shown how attuned and challenged they are with the world around them.

This school year also saw some exciting results from a study conducted with one of Mrs. Whiteside’s 11th grade classes. “Word Up: An Action Research Study” looked at the effects of direct instruction in vocabulary to improve the reading comprehension levels. At the beginning of the study, these students were not demonstrating proficient skills in a select group of 11th grade academic vocabulary words. However, through daily study and practice including the use of a vocabulary journal and the wiki site available through CHS, the students increased their proficiency skills in vocabulary by 24%. Considering that this experiment was relatively short (2 weeks), the study showed what can be achieved if given this type of instruction. We are very proud of how well the students took to this intervention and how much they accomplished.