English in Every Classroom. Final Report
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REPORTRESUMES ED 016673 24 TE 000 307 ENGLISH IN EVERY CLASSROOM.FINAL REPORT. BY- MCNEIL, ELTON B. FADER, DANIEL N. MICHIGAN UNIV., ANNARBOR,COLL.OF LIT.,SCI.IART6 PUB DATE 31 NOV 67 REPORT NUMBER ORA-07215 REPORT NUMBER BR -5 -1116 CONTRACT OEC -5 -10 -290 EDRS PRICEMF-31.00 NC-310.62 261P. DESCRIPTORS- *ENGLISHCURRICULUM, *ENGLISHINSTRUCTION, *MOTIVATION TECHNIQUES, *READINGSKILLS; *WRITING SKILLS, BOOKLISTS, INSTRUCTIONALMATERIALS, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH, LOW MOTIVATION,STUDENT INTERESTS, STUDENT MOTIVATION, STUDENT NEEDS,STUDY GUIDES, TEACHINGMETHODS, TESTING, AVERAGE STUDENTS THE "ENGLISH IN EVERYCLASSROOM" PROGRAM ISPRIMARILY CONCERNED WITH MOTIVATING"GENERAL" STUDENTS,FROM PLEASURES OF KINDERGARTEN THROUGH JUNIORCOLLEGE, TO FEEL THE AND NECESSITY FORREADING AND WRITING.TO REINFORCE THEIR LITERACY, STUDENTS ARESATURATED WITH APPROPRIATE,ATTRACTIVE PAPERBACK BOOKS,NEWSPAPERS, AND MAGAZINES.WRITING ASSIGNMENTS, COORDINATED BYENGLISH TEACHERSTHROUGHOUT ALL PAPERS AND PRIVATE SCHOOL COURSES,REQUIRE NUMEROUS BRIEF JOURNAL ENTRIES, JUDGEDWEEKLY ON THE SOLEBASIS OF QUANTITY. THIS PROGRAM WAS AN EXPERIMENTALGROUP PARTICIPATING IN TESTED AND COMPAREDWITH A CONTROL GROUPAT THE BEGINNING AND CONCLUSION OF THESCHOOL YEAR FOR INTELLECTUALPERFORMANCE, PERSONALITY, AND TEACHERS' PERCEPTIONS OFSTUDENTS ATTITUDES, PERFORMANCE, AND STUDENTS'ATTITUDES TOWARD SCHOOL,LITERACY, THE PROGRAM PRODUCED AND THEMSELVES.FINDINGS CONFIRMED THAT SMNIFICANT IMPROVEMENTIN VERBAL PROFICIENCYAND LESSENED GROUP. (APPENDICES EDUCATIONAL ANXIETIESIN THE EXPERIMENTAL EXPERIMENT AND INCLUDE - -(1) DIAGNOSTICTESTS USED IN THE TABLES COMPARING THEEXPERIMENTAL AND CONTROLGROUPS' PERFORMANCES AND ATTITUDES,(2) DETAILED STUDYGUIDES ON "WEST SIDE STORY" AND"THE DIARY OF ANNEFRANK," CONTAINING PLANS, DISCUSSION INTRODUCTORYMATERIALS, SAMPLE DAILY LESSON READING LISTS, QUESTIONS, TESTS,ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES, AND AND (3) A LIST OF1000 "LESS-THAN A-DOLLAR"PAPERBACK BOOKS.) SEE ED 010 424 FOR ARELATED REPORT. (JB) y 07215-4-F ii THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN COLLEGE OF LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND THE ARTS DEPARTMENT,OFENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Final Report ENGLISH INEVERYCLASSROOM ELTON B. McNEIL DANIEL N. FADER, Project Director S. .... mi. .4 tfl .Under contract with: lie 4Z1 . Department of Health, Education, and Welfare 4)e,k Office of Education uym Contract No. OE-5-10-290 Washington, D. C. 114 Administered through:. November 1967 LI OFFICE OF RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION ANN-4RBOR v.s I THEUNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN COLLEGE OF LITERATURE,SCIENCE, AND THE ARTS Department of EnglishLanguage and Literature WELFARE U.S. DEPARTMENT OfHEALTH, EDUCATION & OFFICE OF EDUCATION RECEIVED FROM THE THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEENREPRODUCED EXACTLY AS ORIGINATING IT. POINTSOf VIEW OR OPINIONS PERSON OR ORGANIZATION REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICEOf EDUCATION STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY POSITION OR POLICY. Final Report ENGLISH IN EVERY CLASSROOM Elton B. McNeil Daniel N. Fader, ProjectDirector ORA Project 07215 under contract with: DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,EDUCATION, AND WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION CONTRACT WO. 0E-5-10-290 WASHINGTON, D.C. administered through: OFFICE OF RESEARCHADMINISTRATION ANN ARBOR November 1967 TABLE OF CONTENTS SUMMARY I. THE PROGRAM 4 A. Introduction 5 B. Writing The Journal 9 11 C. Reading 15 1. The School Library 15 a. A Philosophy of Use 17 b. Selecting the Books 18 c. The Book List: an Analysis 24 D. Guide for Teachers ofSubjects Other Than English 25 1. Reading 25 a. Use of Popular Magazinesand Newspapers 25 b. Use of Paperbound Books 26 c. Use of Written Directions 26 2. Writing 26 a. Scheduled Writing in the Classroom 27 b. Unscheduled Writing in theClassroom 27 E. The English Classroom 1. That the Approach to Literaturebe Social Rather Than Literary 29 2. That the English Teacher beEncouraged to Select and to Create his Own ReadingMaterials Within the Limits of Type and FormatPrescribed by This Program29 3. That the Teaching of LanguageSkills be Accomplished Through Organic Rather ThanMechanical or Descriptive 30 Means 32 F. Postscript: "My Evaluation" 33 II. PROJECT DIRECTOR'S REPORT: SCHOOL VISITING IN ENGLAND III. EVALUA2ION. 37 A. Preface 37 B. Acknowledgments 37 C. Research Report 38 1. The Raw Material 2. Catalogue of Tests and Measures 39 a. General Intellectual Performance 39 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS (Concluded) Page b. The Teacher's View 40 c. The Pupil's View d. Verbal Proficiency 1+2 3. Two Years of Testing 14.3 a. Attitude 14.3 b. Performance 14.9 APPENDIX A. TABLES AND TESTS B. STUDY GUIDE TO WEST SIDE STORY' C. STUDY GUIDE TO ANNE FRANK: DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL D. LIST OF 1,000 BOOKS ERIC REPORTRESUME iv SUMMARY A. Of the Program teaching English described "English In EveryClassroom," the program for the idea that reading isgood and and evaluated inthis report, is based upon Since everybody agreesthat people more peopleshould learn how goodit is. they're children, this programis particularly never learnbetter than when suitable in some measure toall sui+ed to children intraining schools and kindergarten through juniorcollege. children in allAmerican schools from primarily concerned withthe student Though Guitable toall, this program is "general," meaning all too oftenthat the whom educators haveidentified as satisfy his educationalneeds. This school system has fewspecific programs to disadvantaged and can is the same studentwho can sometimesbe identified as He is disadvantaged ifhe is more oftenbe'characterized as impoverished. He is impoverished if hedoes poor, but he maybe impoverished andbe rich. read with pleasure thenhe is not read with pleasure,because if he does not unlikely to read atall. "general" in high school, This same student, whois usually classified as perceive an immediaterelationship is also the"practical" child who needs to motivated. His questions between cause and effectbefore he can be successfully "What does it mean to me?" which about literature areoften put in terms of should I? in answer tothe demands is only a more specificversion of his "Why called English in Every of reading andwriting. The purpose of the program Classroom is to help theteachers of such studentsgive them satisfying answers to their questions. the general student with This approach to learningis designed to provide appropriate motivation for readingand writing, and atthe same time give him Its potential materials with which topractice and reinforcehis literacy. expansion of what goodEnglish significance to educationlies in its systematic to do in schools andclassrooms teachers have done, ortried to do, or wanted in all subjects thatEnglish must be everywhere: Convince their colleagues with more stimulatingmaterials taught by each teacherin every classroom--and books) than those presently in (e.g., newspapers, magazines,and paperbound common use. the chief All aspects of thiscurriculum proceed uponthe assumption that motivation. problem in teachingreading and writing isnot intelligence but to learn makes learning The program further assumesthat a student's desire probable. and of the School Members of the Departmentsof English and Psychology engaged for four yearsin of Education at TheUniversity of Michigan were of English in the W.J. Maxey shaping and testing acurriculum for the teaching The English program atthe Boys' Training School atWhitmore Lake, Michigan. under experimentalconditions in Maxey School, whichhas also been implemented Washington, D.C. and is now in use the Garnet-PattersonJunior High School in 1 in some form in forty states and three foreign countries, is the source of methods for teaching English described and evaluated in this report. Unlikely as it may seem, this is apparently the first schoolwide approach to the language problems of the general student. Equally revealing is a discovery made by psychologists who have been testing the program: Within the varied and subtle spectrum of devices invented and validated for testing literacy, almost no work at all has been done in the vast area of testing attitudes toward reading and writing. The plan for teaching English which is reported upon here, takes the child's attitude as its primary, and sometimes its sole, object. B. Of the Evaluation Our research task was to compare effects of "English in Every Classroom" at W. J. Maxey Boys' Training School with effects of more traditional methods cf. teaching English upon a comparable group of students. Subjects chosen fcr the experimental group were boys in a detention home for delinquents; the matched control population consisted of delinquent boys in another training school. Delinquent boys in training schools were chosen as subjects in order to control extraneous influences on their lives outside the classroom and to test the hypoth- eses in as demanding an environment as possible. A series of pre- and post-measures of objective intellectual performance, teachers' perceptions of students' attitudes, personality, and performance and student perception of and attitude toward school and literacy, were gathered for both experimental and control groups at beginning and conclusion of the school year. Statistical analysis involved conventional "t" and "F" ratios in making pre- and post-comparisons between groups. Findings confirm the hypothesis that the program of "English in Every Classroom" produces significant differences along a variety of meaningful dimen- sions. While results are too massive to recount here in detail, highlights can be reported in brief. The ultimate test of the program's effectiveness is tc be found in comparative verbal proficiency