College of the Canyons -- Title III
The Institute of Teaching and Learning
Instructional Innovation Classroom Research Proposal
Title:  BSP05S
Number Of Students: 35 students
Level of Stipend: Level One


In the space below (attach additional pages if necessary), present a statement of your proposed research project (approximately 500-1000 words), including a description of the scope and nature of your project, the design or the outline to be followed.  Include objectives, activities, timelines, evaluation methodology, and/or benchmarks that will provide progress measures for your project.  

The goal of my research project is to determine whether the use of a Writer’s Memo enhances the “shadow curriculum” for both students and instructor.  The question I hope to answer is, “Do students who use the Writer’s Memo show more signs of accepting responsibility for their writing process and the product of it—their papers—than students who do not use it?”  And, “Am I, as an instructor, affected by the Writer’s Memo?  Do I feel more empathetic toward students who describe their writing difficulties and successes that toward those who do not?”

My project will take 8 weeks, starting in Week Four when the first paper is due and ending in Week 12 when the final paper is due.  The course I will be focused on is English 091, a composition course one level below freshman composition.  I am a co-coordinator of the course and am teaching three sections of it, so I have a great deal of interest in what works well.  I propose to use the Writer’s Memo in one or two of the courses, leaving the other/s as a control group.

The procedure I will use is to ask students to write a memo after they have completed the final draft of the paper.  They will answer such questions as:  
What do you think are the strengths of your paper?  
What do you think are the weaknesses?  
What worked well for you in the process of writing the paper?  
What problems did you have and how did you solve them?  
If you had more time, what would you change?  
What one aspect of your paper would you most like feedback from me on?

At the end of the 8 weeks, I will ask my students to respond to the following questions:
What effect, if any, did the Writer’s Memo have on your writing process?  
Did your process change from what it was at the beginning of the semester?
Do you think reflecting on your writing process in the Writer’s Memo had any effect on the success of your papers?

What teaching strategies/learning concepts/pedagogical theories/technology skills did you gain knowledge of through the Institute of Teaching and Learning courses that you will apply to your classroom research?
The concept I am working with is called the “shadow curriculum.”  I learned about this concept in Education 082, Community College Teaching Techniques, an Institute of Teaching and Learning course I took in the fall of 2002.   In the course, we were asked to visit a Houghton Mifflin web site, “The Invisible Curriculum.”  According to Dr. Skip Downing (On Course, 2nd ed. Houghton Mifflin), “there are 7 choices successful students make”:
1.    Accepting personal responsibility,
2.    Discovering a motivating purpose, characterized by meaningful goals and dreams,
3.    Consistently planning and taking effective actions in pursuing their goals,
4.    Building mutually supportive relationships that assist them in pursuing their goals,
5.    Maximizing learning by find lessons in every experience they have,
6.    Actively creating a positive experience of life, and
7.    Believing in themselves.

He goes on to name “seven domains of influence in our teaching” that we can use to “help students become successful and make wise choices.”  Two of these are classroom activities and homework assignments.  I hope by my use of the Writer’s Memo either as a classroom activity or homework assignment, I will be able to help students in four of those areas: (1) to accept personal responsibility for their writing process and the written result, (2) to plan and take effective action as a result of their reflection, (3) to maximize learning by finding lessons in reflection, and (4) to build a supportive relationship with their instructor.

What do you (as an instructor) hope to learn from your research?

My assumption is that this reflective process helps students to accept responsibility for their writing process and the product of it—the essay.  Instead of simply writing the essay and handing it to me so I can tell them how they did (in effect handing the sole responsibility for the grade over to me), they take some responsibility for the grade.  For example, if their reflection indicates they procrastinated on writing the paper, they see that that was probably not an effective way to ensure a good grade.    If their reflection shows they did all the prewriting assignments I asked them to do, they see that they have increased the possibility of a good grade.  Without the reflective process, they tend not to see the part they played in the grade they receive.   As Mandy Grantz states in her article, “Locus of Control and Its Impact on Education,”  “Students who believe that their successes and failures are due to outside controls, such as luck or fate, have an external locus of control and tend not to succeed.  I believe this assignment contributes to an internal locus of control.  

The Writer’s Memo also helps students find a lesson in the paper-writing experience.  If they have done the paper assignment conscientiously, writing the memo will most likely make them feel good about the commitment to their education they have demonstrated.  If they haven’t, writing the memo is likely to make them aware of that.   It gives them the experience of analyzing their behaviors, thus increasing “their capacity for self-regulation . . . generating motivation from within.”  Instead of my telling them what they should or shouldn’t have done, they will have reflected and figured it out for themselves.  I believe this assignment affords students an opportunity to learn a lesson about responsibility and commitment that extends beyond the immediate assignment.  

Finally, the Writer’s Memo affords shy students an opportunity to communicate with their instructor in a non-threatening, non face-to-face situation.  Writing me about their strengths, weaknesses, and problems, and asking me for feedback helps “build a mutually supportive relationship that will assist them in pursuing their goals.”

So, that is what I hope to learn.  Have students who used the Writer’s Memo changed their writing process after reflecting on it and its success or failure in producing a good paper?