Action Research

I am working along side a colleague at North Marion High School, while I am placed at Clay-Battelle High School. A common theme that we noticed in observations at our schools is the lack of student engagement and interest with texts. Our interest of study is focused on improving twelfth grade student performance as well as engaging students in British literature texts through stimulating their curiosity and creativity. Throughout our internships, we will research how we can most effectively implement digital media to enhance the learning process for students at the secondary level. As prospective teachers, we want to ensure that we employ the best teaching techniques in order to maximize productivity and increase student success rates within our classrooms. I will blog about the occurrences of each day...


9/8/09 - I conducted student surveys regarding to student interests levels and knowledge of Anglo-Saxons prior to Beowulf. Surveys showed that, on average, students weren't excited about reading Beowulf, nor were the students interested in British literature. I collected and saved all surveys for later references. Students weren't enthusiastic about reading the introduction to Anglo-Saxon period.

9/9/09 - Students still showed no interest in the Anglo-Saxon period. When introducing Beowulf, however, they seemed to be intrigued of the action of the epic.

9/10/19 - Students began reading Beowulf today. The students read "The Monster Grendel" and "The Arrival of the Hero". They seemed interested. The notes guide seemed to help the students keep track of the characters and plot.

9/11/09 - Students read "Unferth's Challenge" today. They still seemed interested. The notes guide still seemed to help the students keep track of the characters and plot.

9/14/09 - The students listened to the audio version of "The Battle with Grendel". All students were actively engaged with the audio version. The notes guide still seemed to help the students keep track of the characters and plot.

9/15/09 - The students read "The Monster's Mother" today. They also related Gardner's Grendel to Beowulf. The students were interested in to comparison between the two point-of-views. The notes guide still seemed to help the students keep track of the characters and plot.

9/16/09 - Students started to read "The Final Battle" today. The students showed strong interest and knowledge of Beowulf. They acknowledged the element of foreshadowing at the beginning, and they were not happy to hear that this would be Beowulf's final battle. The notes guide still seemed to help the students keep track of the characters and plot.

9/17/09 - Today, students finished reading "The Final Battle". The students were very upset when the epic hero, Beowulf, was killed in battle. Students worked on the end of story questions in class.

9/18/09 - We went over the answers for the questions for the story. Students had strong responses to most of the questions. I introduced the Digital Media Projects. The students stressed STRONG interest in creating Digital Media Projects related to the 6 sections of Beowulf. The students were eager to pick groups and sections. They also told me how "exciting" it was "to be creative and re-do Beowulf from their eyes." They discussed ideas with their groups. From just overhearing their conversations, I am very excited to see their final products!

9/21/09 - Today, we worked in the computer lab. Students were using technology to create their own "Modern Day Beowulf" story. The students showed strong interest in creating a modern day Beowulf. This was only the beginning of their tales, but I am very excited to see what they come up with!

9/22/09- We continued to work in the computer lab today. The students finished working on their "Modern Day Beowulf" stories. The students seemed to be very interested in creating modern versions of Beowulf and Grendel.

9/23/09- I gave the students their study guides for their tests today. Also, the students began practicing and filming their digital media projects for recreating Beowulf. I gave them two flip-cameras to use for the project. The students worked in their groups on making props for their skits while they practiced, as well. The students showed strong interest in filming their parts.

9/24/09- The students worked in their groups on their digital media projects. They continued practicing, making props, and filming. The groups that finished gave me their video recordings to compile in a final movie.

9/25/09- The students worked in their groups on their digital media projects. They finished practicing, making props, and filming. The groups that finished gave me their video recordings to compile in a final movie. As a class, we went over the answers for the study guide. All students seemed to know all the answers.

9/28/09- The students took their test on Beowulf.

9/29/09- The students watched both classes' versions of Beowulf. They filled out evaluations for the digital media project. They evaluated their contributions, their group member's contributions, and the over all experience. The classes loved the videos. They asked when they could do it again. The students also filled out a post-survey regarding Beowulf. The surveys showed that digital media helped encouraged the students in reading Beowulf. On average, they really enjoyed reading Beowulf. One student even asked, "If you give us a lot of homework, will that allow us to do another digital media project sooner?" I was highly excited by this response. Students were asking for more homework so they could do this kind of assignment again.




10/7/09- I conducted student surveys regarding to student interests levels and knowledge of the Middle Ages prior to reading the Canterbury Tales. Surveys showed that, on average, students weren't excited about reading the Canterbury Tales, nor were the students interested in British literature. I collected and saved all surveys for later references. Students weren't enthusiastic about reading the introduction to the Middle Ages. The students got into groups that I picked to read the information on the Middle Ages on pages 116 - 129. The students were asked to write down the important information.

10/8/09- The students got into groups again to finish their summaries of the Middle Ages. One by one, each group wrote down their summaries on the board for the other groups to copy down into their map notes.

10/9/09- The students got back into their groups for a final day to copy down each of the other group's summaries for their sections.

10/12/09-The students followed along as I lectured to a Ballads PowerPoint. The students learned about the structure of ballads and their history. The Ballads PowerPoint included modern ballads. For example, Taylor Swift's "Love Story" was a favorite among the classes. The students mentioned how they loved ballads.

10/13/09- Today, the classes learned about the life and works of Chaucer, the author of The Canterbury Tales. The students filled in a worksheet that followed along to a PowerPoint on Chaucer. At the end of the PowerPoint, the students learned about the upcoming activities for the Canterbury Tales. The students were excited when they saw that they were going to write their own tales, as well as that they were going to create digital media projects again.

10/14/09- We began reading the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales today. As a joke, I played the Old-English version that I had on tape and asked them to follow along. Instantly, they got confused with what was going on in the prologue. Then, I had the class read the more modern version. They were confused in parts, but seemed to enjoy the rhyme.

10/15/09- I gave the students a list of vocabulary words that they are going to have a test on this coming Tuesday. We continued reading and discussing the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales today. For each character, I had the students fill out a chart that told about each character in detail.

10/16/09- We continued reading and discussing the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales today. For each character, I had the students fill out a chart that told about each character in detail.

10/19/09- We continued reading and discussing the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales today. For each character, I had the students fill out a chart that told about each character in detail.

10/20/09- The students took their test on the vocabulary words. They read silently after the test and worked on filling in their character chart.

10/21/09- We continued reading and discussing the characters of the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. For each character, I had the students fill out a chart that told about each character in detail.

10/22/09- We continued reading and discussing the characters of the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. For each character, I had the students fill out a chart that told about each character in detail.

10/23/09- We finished reading and discussing the characters of the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. For each character, the students finished filling out the chart that told about each character in detail. The students were told that they are having an open-notes test on the characters of The Canterbury Tales on Monday.

10/26/09- The students took Part 1 of the Canterbury Tales character test.

10/27/09- The students took Part 2 of the Canterbury Tales character test.

10/28/09- The students were given the "Pilgrimage to Canterbury Writing Assignment" that they spent the entire class working on. In the assignment, they were to create a new character to be included in the Canterbury Tales. The creation needed to be in the format of the Canterbury Tales. There was also the requirement of having a drawn picture of the new character. Students worked diligently.

10/29/09- The class read "The Pardoner's Tale" and completed questions that followed.

11/2/09- The class began reading "The Wife of Bath's Tale" and completing questions that followed.

11/3/09- The classes finished reading "The Wife of Bath's Tale" and completing the questions.

11/4/09- The students started writing their Cee-Bee Tales, the tales about the students in the class. Each student was given another student, and they wrote a poem about him or her. The poem had to include their name, physical characteristics, and be creative and appropriate. The length requirement was only 8 to 10 rhyming lines.

11/5/09- The students finished writing their Cee-Bee Tales. (I typed all the tales into one story.)

11/6/09- I shared the finished product with the students. They laughed and enjoyed hearing the tales about their classmates. They told me they enjoyed the Cee-Bee activity.