Design+Project+1

__ Project Title: __ **Text Analysis with the Rhetorical Triangle**

NEW: ** Brief explanation of the rhetorical triangle: ** The rhetorical triangle is composed of the three elements that Aristotle, a Greek philosopher in the 300s BC and a famous speaker (rhetor), identified. According to Aristotle, rhetoric is "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion." Aristotle identified those three elements as the subject, audience, and speaker. The three elements are encompassed by the context.

__ Project Description: __

__The purpose of this project is__ to design a unit of instruction that will introduce ninth-grade honors English students to the basics of using the rhetorical triangle to analyze text. __This project is needed because__ (1) rhetorical analysis is a component of the newly-adopted Common Core State Standards for English/Language Arts and Social Studies; (2) currently only 4% of the student body receives instruction on rhetorical analysis but all students will be tested on this concept for graduation beginning in 2014-2015; (3) rhetorical analysis will improve students’ comprehension of non-literary texts; (4) the analysis of non-literary texts is the are on which ninth-grade students have the lowest performance on our state’s standardized test. __The learners served are__ ninth-grade English honors students. __Implementation of this project will__ (1) create a benchmark for developing additional units of instruction on rhetorical analysis for other levels within ninth-grade English as well as other grade levels in English and other content area courses and (2) prepare current ninth grade honors students for standardized testing this year and their future academic classes that require analysis of non-literary texts.

__ Needs Assessment and Goal Analysis: __


 * Phase I: Planning**

__Target Audience__: Ninth grade English honors students

__Strategy__: Open-ended interview with several English teachers (level and department chairpersons); Open-ended interview with administrative team and Common Core State Standards Implementation Team jointly; Electronic survey of sample students; collect related data from school testing data to verify need

__Analysis__: High school students need to be able to apply Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle analysis to text because the analysis of rhetoric has become a key component of instruction in Language Arts and Social Studies in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

This is a future, expressed, and felt need. We will not have data for normative and or comparative needs until after the first PARCC Assessment (PARCC is replacing FCAT as a graduation requirement in the school year 2014-2015). Critical incident needs to do not apply to this situation.

__Future Need__: Our school does not include any instruction on rhetoric except in the Advanced Placement Language and Composition class for eleventh grade students, which means that only 4% of students currently receive any kind of instruction on this topic. The CCSS includes rhetorical analysis beginning in ninth grade. For the class slated to graduate in 2016, they will be held responsible for this analytical concept on a standardized assessment in the spring of 2015 which means that beginning in the school year for 2012-2013 ninth grade students will need to be instructed on rhetorical analysis.

__Felt and Expressed Need__: Through conversations with the head of the Language Arts Department Chair, our school’s administrative team, and my team that supports and develops the school-side staff developments for the CCSS implementation, rhetorical analysis was listed as one of the major areas of weakness for our students across all content areas.

__Participants__: Team Leader J. Metzger, English teachers, Administrative Team, Common Core State Standards Implementation Team


 * Phase II: Data Collection**

__Sample Size:__
 * Open-ended Interviews: 9 English teachers, 1 Reading teacher, and 4 administrators
 * Electronic Survey: 70 ninth-grade students
 * Test Data: 150 ninth-grade students

__Scheduling:__
 * Open-ended Interviews: conducted through email, phone and included as part of two separate meetings
 * Electronic Survey: 15 minutes during a class period
 * Survey URL: []
 * Phone Interview: 10 minutes, end of class after electronic survey
 * Test Data: not scheduled, able to be collected at any time


 * Phase III: Data Analysis**

__Analysis:__ The need for this unit of instruction is clearly supported from teacher, administrative input, student responses to an electronic survey, and test data related to the core concept.

__Prioritization:__ A goal analysis was used for prioritization of the needs being addressed with this instructional unit. See below.


 * Phase IV: Final Report**


 * 1) __Purpose__: To determine if ninth grade English students should be introduced to the rhetorical triangle for analysis of non-literary text.
 * 2) __Process__: Team leader conducted a needs assessment using data analysis from the school; informal interviews with other team members, faculty and administration; and a survey of sample learners to verify the need.
 * 3) __Results__: All teachers and administrators expressed a need for this instructional unit based on the test data, the anticipation of the new assessment for graduation, and the transition to the Common Core State Standards. Student responses to the survey indicated an interest to learn and a need for instruction.
 * 4) __Recommendations__:
 * 5) The initial implementation of an introductory unit on the rhetorical triangle should be conducted with all ninth grade honors English classes.
 * 6) Based upon the evaluation of that unit, additional variations of the unit should be created for additional levels within the English department as well as units for the content area instructions.
 * 7) In addition, a training module will most likely need to be developed for the content area teachers because rhetorical analysis is not part of their standard curriculum.


 * Goal Analysis:**

__Identify an Aim:__ To instruct students on the basics of text analysis using Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle

__Final Goals:__


 * 1) Explain Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle.
 * 2) Find examples of rhetoric in print media.
 * 3) Discuss the impact of the rhetorical triangle in examples of rhetoric in various mediums.
 * 4) Determine the difference between summary and analysis.
 * 5) Analyze examples of rhetoric.
 * 6) Evaluate the impact of audience and context on text.


 * Analysis of Learning Environment:**

__Instructional Context:__
 * All ninth grade English honors classes are held in the 1200–building of the high school. All classrooms are equipped with:
 * Promethean Boards and included Promethean voters
 * ceiling-mounted LCD Projectors
 * ELMO Document Cameras
 * VCR/DVD combinations
 * Microphones – both hand-held and one that can be worn
 * Wireless internet
 * 25 student desks, no tables: for group work students would have to move their desks
 * Teachers have access to MacBook Laptop carts that contain 25-30 laptops, but they must plan in advance to check out the carts. Laptops were updated in June and July of 2011.
 * YouTube is blocked from the Internet, so any videos will have to be obtained from another source.
 * Classes are 57 minutes from beginning to end.


 * Needs Assessment Plan Enactment and Analysis:**
 * 1) Open-ended Interviews with teachers and administrators will be conducted to determine what kind of need the study of rhetorical analysis presents. Analysis will be based on discussion of Team Leader Metzger and the participants being interviewed.
 * 2) An electronic survey will be created and administered to a sample of students (1) to determine if the need exists within the target audience, (2) to determine where to begin instruction based on the entry knowledge of the target audience, and (3) to determine common topics of interest to promote motivation through the incorporation of relevant content materials. Analysis will be based on a review of the responses depending on the purpose of the question. Several kinds of questions were included in order to elicit the three different kinds of information being sought: whether the need exists, the entry knowledge of the target audience about rhetorical analysis, and what aspects of the unit will promote the most interest among learners.
 * 3) Phone interviews will be conducted with one or more students after the electronic survey to obtain more insight about learner attitudes and learner motivation. Analysis will be based on the responses of the interviewees in conjunction with the overall survey results.
 * 4) Test data will be obtained through the school database for a large sample of students to further inform instruction based on the target audience average scores from standardized achievement tests. Analysis will be based on the percentages from a specific testing category, “Info Text/ Research,” of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. This category covers the analysis of nonfiction text which is the purpose of this unit of instruction. Comparison of various class averages from this testing category will be used to verify the need and to evaluate the beginning aptitude of students towards analysis of nonfiction text as compared with students’ aptitude in other categories of the FCAT.

__ Summary of needs assessment outcome: __

__Open-ended Interviews with Participants__: 10 out of 10 teachers and 4 out of 4 administrators indicated rhetoric analysis as a priority for immediate instruction.

__Student Electronic Survey:__
 * 0% of students were able to identify even the meaning of rhetoric with 14% of students indicating rhetorical question as the meaning of rhetoric
 * A majority of students expressed an interest in learning about rhetoric involved in advertising and listening to and recognizing important speeches.
 * All students expressed varying levels of difficulty maintaining an interest in nonfiction texts.
 * 67/70 students were correctly able to identify occasions when speeches would be made.
 * 65/70 students were able to recall with moderate accuracy a famous example of rhetoric with the majority citing Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
 * 97% of students plan on taking the SAT, which includes nonfiction text analysis.
 * 44% of students plan on taking AP Language and Composition and 33% of students are undecided.
 * All students showed varied interest in nonliterary texts (i.e. political cartoons, newspaper articles, blog posts, etc.) with 59% of students having read a newspaper article in the last two weeks.

__Phone Interviews with Learners:__ Students are likely to be motivated by opportunities for group work with peers and by opportunities to share their work with peers. Students will need to understand the relevance of the topic to their academic and personal lives. Students will be more engaged if they feel more connected to the content being analyzed. Students are hoping for a chance to “boost” their grades.

__Test Data:__ On average 57% of ninth-grade students earned their lowest scores on the analysis of informational text section of our state’s standardized test.


 * About Learners and Learning Environment:**
 * Our learners will benefit from an introduction to the rhetorical triangle because this concept is included in newly-adopted standards. Rhetorical analysis is a concept that improves comprehension and analysis of nonfiction text, which is consistently the ninth-grade students’ area of lowest performance on our state’s standardized test.
 * Our learners are motivated to learn new things when the content is relevant to their lives and when their success will be rewarded with high grades.
 * A variety of support exists to help learners recognize the relevance of rhetorical analysis to their lives: test scores are low; they must take the FCAT two more times; 97% plan on taking the SAT; 44% plan on taking AP English Language and Composition; 59% are regularly reading newspaper articles; all students have nonfiction reading assigned in other content areas.
 * The majority of students possess all the requisite skills and abilities to be successful in this instructional unit.
 * Incorporation of various activities and high-interest material will encourage positive student attitudes towards learning.
 * Learner attitudes will be more positive if they are presented with opportunities for a variety of activities and are aware of this plan at the beginning of the unit.
 * Students are interested in learning more about advertising and political speeches.
 * Students have prior knowledge of rhetoric; however, they do not know what they already know (i.e. what rhetoric is).
 * The learning environment provides most of what teachers will need in terms of physical space and amenities. Some technological resources will need to be arranged in advance on a case-by-case basis.

__ Goal Statement: __ Ninth-grade English honors students will demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical triangle through a written analysis of a contemporary speech as measured by a 75% on the rubric.

__ List of Entry Competencies: __
 * __Knowledge__: Students need to know the difference between nonfiction and fiction; various forms of nonfiction; the definition of audience and speaker.
 * __Skills__: Students need to be able to read and comprehend text within their grade level range of 8 to 10; to write complete sentences; to search the Internet; to behave in small group and whole class discussions; to participate in small group assignments.
 * __Attitudes__: Students need to be motivated to learn; to participate in small groups; to understand the relevance of the content to their lives.

__ Learner Interviews: __ Informal interviews, with one male and one female student, were conducted via telephone to assess aspects of learner characteristics of motivation and attitude towards this topic. The female student was chosen because she exhibits leadership qualities among her peers; therefore, her interpretation of the motivating characteristics might better help direct content choices. The male student was chosen based on his survey responses: this student showed the highest aptitude and interest in the subject matter based upon his survey responses. The content of the interviews was an extension of the electronic survey. Overall, both students seemed interested to learn more about rhetorical analysis as it applies to advertising campaigns, analysis of political cartoons, and analysis of political speeches because of the upcoming presidential elections. The female student expressed a desire for “more group work” and the male student expressed a desire for more opportunities to “share [his] own writing” and “talking about politics.”

__ Description of Learners: __
 * __ Attitudes __ : The majority of students approach new units with optimism and interest. The majority of students express an interest in learning.
 * __ Motivation __ : Student motivation is improved when students recognize the relevance of the instructional unit to their future academic needs. Motivation is also strongly tied to grades.
 * __ Background __ : Students are culturally diverse with an average of 3 students per class having been born outside the United States and more than 10% of students speaking more than one language at home.
 * __ Abilities __ : Student abilities vary. Student reading levels range from grade level 7.5 to 12+ within each class sampled. Students’ skills at analysis of nonfiction text is consistently the lowest scoring component of the FCAT Assessment for all classes sampled with an average of 57% of students’ scores indicating analysis of informational text being their lowest performing area out of four areas tested.
 * __ Learning Styles __ : For the group as a whole, with a wide range of students, no one learning style is preferred over others. Students will benefit from a variety of activities.
 * __ Group Characteristics __ : As a group, ninth grade students have shorter attention spans and less experience with long-term assignments than older secondary students. Peers are an important component of the group dynamic for young adolescents, so attitudes towards learning can be strongly influenced by one or two strong personalities in a classroom.

__ Performance Context and Implications for Instruction: __


 * __ Physical Elements __ :
 * Teachers have individual classrooms with 25 students and individual desks for each. There are no tables for group work. //Implication//: Students would have to push desks together when working in small groups.
 * Classrooms are small. //Implication//: Any desk configuration, besides standard rows, has to be carefully arranged and experimented with in advance.
 * Most ninth-grade students do not have their own transportation. //Implication//: Teachers should allot time in class or extended deadlines to provide ample time out of class for any group assignment.
 * __ Social __ __Elements__:
 * Student diversity is an issue commonly addressed by teachers due to a diverse student population. //Implication//: Content included should reflect a diverse audience.
 * Very few English Language Learners are enrolled in honors courses, and those who are enrolled have tested at proficient levels. //Implication//: Most students, even those classified as English Language Learners, have the ability for success without modifications; however, teachers may have to address individual concerns on a case-by-case basis through the use of the ESOL office, ESOL Aides, translation dictionaries and websites.
 * There are students with disabilities in all classes. //Implication//: Students with disabilities will need to be addressed on a case-by-case basis with individual teachers making necessary accommodations for individual students.
 * Ninth grade students are less mature than older secondary students and are strongly influenced by their peers. //Implication//: Content should include a variety of activities with opportunities for individual expression, group work for socialization, and sharing. Additionally, content should include a range of subject matter relevant to students including some humorous content.
 * Ninth grade students have limited, if any, experience with long-term assignments. //Implication//: Assignment length should be considered when planning. If long-term assignments (those lasting several days) are included, plans should include time for teachers to do individual progress checks and possible interventions for students falling behind on deadlines.
 * __ Resource Elements __ :
 * All teachers have access to wireless internet, personal laptops, overhead LCD Projectors, Promethean Boards with voters, and ELMO Document Cameras. //Implication//: Teachers will expect to use as many digital resources as possible. Internet materials should be made available on a centralized web page for all teachers and students to access.
 * The majority of the resources will be available online. //Implication//: All websites will need to be tested through the school server several weeks in advance to ensure access due to the county firewall, which blocks many sites. Should important sites be blocked, a request must be filed for access or the material should be located in another location.
 * YouTube is blocked. //Implication//: Materials on YouTube will have to be located through another source.
 * Teachers must request use of the student laptop cart several days or weeks in advance. Implication: If individual student laptops are needed, teachers need to plan the unit in advance and check out the laptop cart.
 * All teachers already have textbooks and ancillary materials for all students. //Implication//: Resources included in these books and materials can be included without concern about providing copies or making reproductions.
 * Teachers have limited access to copy machines, limited paper supply for copying, and limited time for making copies. //Implication//: Photocopying should be strictly limited to as few items as possible; as many documents as possible should be made available online or for viewing with a document camera. Content documents that require copying must be provided for teachers several days in advance.

__ Relevant Current References: __

Beckelimer, L. (2010). From Hitler to Hurricanes, Vietnam to Virginia Tech: Using Historical Nonfiction to Teach Rhetorical Context. //English Journal//, //99(4)//, 55-60. Cuff, S. & Statz, H. (2010). The Story of Stuff: Reading Advertisements through Critical Eyes. //English Journal, 99(3),// 27-32. Franklin, K. (2010). Thank You for Sharing: Developing Students’ Social Skills to Improve Peer Writing Conferences. //English Journal, 99(5),// 79-84. Frey, N. & Fisher, D. (2010). Motivation Requires a Meaningful Task. //English Journal, 100(1),// 30-36. Goebel, B. (2009). Comic Relief: Engaging Students through Humor Writing. //English Journal, 98(6),// 38-43. Joliffe, D. A. (2011a). Introduction: Analysis as "Undoing". In //AP English Language: Reading and Writing Analytically// (pp. 1-4). The College Board. Joliffe, D. A. (2011b). On Reading and Writing Analytically: Theory, Method, Crisis, Action Plan. In //AP English Language: Reading and Writing Analytically// (pp. 5-18)//.// The College Board. Keller, J. (2000, February). How to integrate learner motivation planning into lesson planning: The ARCS model approach. //John Keller's Academic Website//. Retrieved from http://mailer.fsu.edu/~jkeller/Articles/Keller 2000 ARCS Lesson Planning.pdf Kendrick, M (2010). Using Student Collaboration to Foster Progressive Discourse. //English Journal, 99(5),// 85-90. Lamb, M. R. (2010). Teaching Nonfiction through Rhetorical Reading. //English Journal, 99(4)//, 43-49. McDonald, K. (2011). Asking Students to "Play" with a Text: Teaching Analysis of Audience and Purpose. In //AP English Language: Reading and Writing Analytically// (pp. 69-78). The College Board. Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Kalman, H. K. & Kemp J. E. (2009). //Designing Effective Instruction//. United States of America: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Mulvaney, M. K. (2011). Analytic Writing in College: Forms, Sites, and Strategies. In //AP English Language: Reading and Writing Analytically// (pp.19.42). The College Board. Patterson, J. P. & Duer, D. (2006). High School Teaching and College Expectations in Writing and Reading. //English Journal, 95(3),// 81-87. Phelan, B. (2011). Teaching Analysis of Nonfiction Prose as Language Landscape. In //AP English Language: Reading and Writing Analytically// (pp. 57-68). The College Board. Rice, J. (2011). The Appeals and the Audience: The Rhetoric of Dramatic Literature. In //AP English Language: Reading and Writing Analytically// (pp. 79-98). The College Board. Roskelly, H. (2005). What Do Students Need to Know About Rhetoric? In //Workshop Materials for AP English Language and Composition// (pp. 25-31). The College Board. Roskelly, H. (2011). New Worlds in Old Texts. In //AP English Language: Reading and Writing Analytically// (pp. 43-56). The College Board. Simmons, A. M. & Page, M. (2010) Motivating Students through Power and Choice. //English Journal, 100(1)//. 65-69. Swain, S. S., Graves, R. L. & Morse, D. T. (2010). Prominent Feature Analysis: What It Means for the Classroom. //English Journal, 99(4),// 84-89. Taum, A. W. (2010). Adolescents and Texts: Raw Writing: A Critical Support for Adolescents. //English Journal, 99(4)//, 90-93. VanDeWeghe, R. (2006) Research Matters: What Is Engaged Learning? //English Journal, 95(3),// 88-91. Willingham, D. (2005). Do Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Learners Need Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Instruction? //American Educator//. Retrieved from http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/summer2005/willingham.cfm