Hatcher 1

Jessica Hatcher

Dr. Ruth Ferree

EDIS 5470

31 March 2018

Written Language Analysis

Introduction

For this written language analysis I will continue to look at the sixth grade student that I

wrote about for my oral language analysis, Taair. As I have continued to get to know Taair over

the past month I have continued to find him to be a motivated, lively, and excitable young man.

He continues to impress me with his love of learning and the joy that he finds being in school.

On hearing that I am writing about him, his language arts and social studies teachers both made a

point to tell me just how impressive and lovely a student they find him to be.

Taair continues to express his interest in all things sports cars, FC Barcelona/Messi, and

air planes, not to mention his enduring love of movies (and watching them during his free time).

I have also learned that he does not like to color or draw, although he was certainly happy to

show me the drawings he did when he had finished the reading SOL simulation recently. He is

definitively a cat person, and will go on and on about how he does not like dogs, even the dog

from the movie ​Coco​, which was quite the controversial statement in his language arts class. As

a whole, he expresses his opinions and his interests with boisterous, loud enthusiasm that is

incredible infectious.
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Over the course of this analysis I have primarily worked with Taair in his social studies

and language arts class. His science teacher was both out for several days and revealed to me that

she has not really assigned any writing assignments, and all of the slides projects Taair had

previously completed were ungraded and, quite frequently, of his own volition. Almost all of the

data, as seen in the appendixes, is taken from those classes.

Taair and WIDA

Given my understanding of the WIDA performance descriptors and my observations and

understanding of Taair’s writing, I would say that he has solidly entered the 3 range with regards

to his writing. The WIDA performance descriptors are fuzzy, but there are some important things

to note. The level 2, emerging stage, describes a writer who expresses ideas in phrases or short

sentences. It also describes a student who uses formulaic sentences and grammatical structures

across content.

Taair certainly writes in sentences easily when directed to do so. In Appendix 4 I

observed Taair write a do-now in his social studies class. In those notes I wrote that he, “Needed

help with concept of complete sentence,” however, now that I have some distance on that

observation I need to revise it. In that moment, I observed that Taair did not initially answer the

prompt (seen in appendix 13) in a full sentence. At the time, I was not sure that he understood

what a sentence was, but looking at his other work, I believe that Taair was so excited about

writing about being a pilot that he did not read the directions. The minute that I pointed out to

him that the writing needed to be in sentences he erased his previous writing and began again

with a complete sentence.

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Therefore I believe that, when directed to, Taair writes in full sentences with full

expression of ideas. I do think that Taair needs direction, not only because the aforementioned

episode in his social studies class, but also because of his writing samples from his language arts

class. In one writing sample, Taair wrote in incomplete thoughts in a graphic organizer

(Appendix 12). However, as I observed in Recording 1 in Appendix 5, not only were the students

not directed to write in complete sentences, but that particular graphic organizer was filled out

collaboratively by four boys, with one boy, Ez---, clearly leading. When comparing Taair’s

writing to Ez---’s it’s clear that the purpose of writing there was not to express their ideas, but to

fill out the graphic organizer for the teacher. This is also shown in the recording, wherein all of

the boys verbally express how much they do not, in fact, like dogs, and they would not want to

argue that a dog should come to the classroom.

However, all of the other writing samples show not only Taair writing in sentences, but

complex sentences, with complex expression of ideas. The third WIDA level, developing,

describes a writer who uses both short and some expanded sentences with emerging complexity

and both simple and compound grammatical structures. Taair certainly not only consistently

writes in full sentences, but they are sometimes quite complex sentences with complex ideas. In

Appendix 9, he describes what a soccer goalie must do saying, “The first thing that a soccer

goalie need is to look at the Kicker eyes because you can guess where he’s going to kick.” While

this is far from a grammatically perfect sentence it shows that there is underlying structure to his

sentences, as shown by his use of the word “first,” and that he understands conjunctions and how

to connect ideas, as shown by his use of the word “because.” The writing sample in Appendix 10

also shows this emerging complexity. In this writing sample Taair does not just use sentences but
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also transitions and ductus. He moves his reads through time and space with him as he shows

how he came to the US.

Moreover, based on my conversation with Taair in Appendix 7, I can see that he is very

intentional in trying to express his ideas. That conversation began with Taair asking me to help

him with ideas. My response was to ask him to come up with his own ideas or go back to a

discarded graphic organizer, which he had written with his group. I initially thought that he was

fishing for me to write the paper for him, but I now wonder if he was asking me to try and access

some more vocabulary. As I wrote in Appendix 3, Taair was visibly frustrated over the course of

the conversation, and even grabbed his hair and smacked his forehead at a few instances. There

was a particularly telling moment when he told me, “Nooo, I don’t want, like, any technology [in

the essay].” This indicates to me that he had a particular idea about what he wanted to express

about Thanksgiving and the video games he plays with his friends were not a part of that. I

suspect that part of his frustration was in not being able to express the idea that was in his head,

because the next slide (as seen in Appendix 8), was written quite quickly, without the use of any

translators or dictation technology.

Therefore, on the discourse and sentence level of the WIDA performance descriptors I

believe that Taair has entered the level 3 range. The only area that I am less sure about is

vocabulary. His vocabulary still seems limited. In Appendix 11, a compare/contrast essay, he

says that both Malala and Martin Luther King Jr. “fight with their mouths.” In the holiday paper

(Appendix 8) some of the meaning is confused, such as the sentence, “We care muslim people.”

In addition to missing the article or preposition, it is unclear if “care” is exactly the word that he
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means. I do not think that I could say that Taair has reached a level 3 in the vocabulary domain,

but is still a level 2.

The WIDA Can-Do Descriptors place Taair solidly at a level three, without any doubts.

The first category, recount, level 3 says that writers can produce short paragraphs, which Taair

does in both Appendix 10 and 11, and that they can write about personal experiences, which

Taair clearly does in his personal essay (Appendix 10). However, I should note that the

descriptor expects students to be using dialogue, which Taair does not. For the explain category,

level 3 says that writers can compare and contrast, which Taair effectively does in Appendix 11.

It also says that students can write descriptively, which Taair does very effectively in his soccer

slides in Appendix 9.

The other Can-Do Descriptor category is argue. I am less certain that Taair is solidly in

the 3 range in this domain. However, as shown in Recording 1 (Appendix 5), the first argument

topic was not authentic or personal. His holidays argument (Appendix 8) is not particularly

argumentative, however, he did abandon his graphic organizer and I am unsure how well the

topic lends itself to argumentation. Finally, according to an email with his teacher (Appendix

14), she believes that he is on track to do well on that paper.

As a whole, his grades are fairly high. His teacher holds him in fairly high esteem and his

grades reflect that he is a student who is gaining more and more understanding of English. While

his WIDA score from last year said that he was only a 1.6, in his own words, “We learned a lot

of English in seven months” (Appendix 14, 15, 10).

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Strategy Use, Attitude, and Control

Over the course of my observations of Taair I have seen him using several different

strategies, mainly involving technology. Taair seems to have a fairly strong L1. He can read,

write, and spell in Persian, and speaks it and several other languages. Therefore he does

sometimes use Google Translate and the Persian keyboard to find the word he’s looking for.

However, what I have seen him do far more frequently is use a feature from Google where you

speak into the chromebook to search (kind of like Apple’s Siri) (Appendix 3, 6). Google would

pick up his sentence or the word he was trying to spell and then he would copy/paste it into his

own writing. He also used Google search’s autocorrect feature on one occasion to figure out how

a sentence should be grammatically structured.

In addition to using Google tools to help him formulate his writing, he also uses

technology to aid in his expression. In Appendix 9 Taair not only used words to tell the reader

how to be a soccer goalie. He also used multimedia, including a title page, gifs of sparkles to

show how important something was, a video demonstration, and a gif of Messi waving goodbye

on the final page. This shows me that he understands structure, even if he doesn’t have the

words, or chooses not use them, to express it. I say that the multimedia makes up for a lack of

vocabulary because I saw him him and have seen him in the past use pictures to help him

communicate when his vocabulary is lacking. In Appendix 6, Taair was trying to talk about a

game that I have not heard about before. However, instead of using words to explain that it was a

video game, he used Google images to search for pictures and gifs to show me what it is and how

it works.
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Taair also uses strategies that do not involve technology. When he was working

collaboratively in Appendix 2 and 5 he was asking his friends, his teacher, and me, his tutor for

help. Whether that was help with ideas or spelling. I also noted when I helped him in social

studies that he is constantly asking for help with spelling. When he does not have the computer

to dictate to or use spell check he turns to me for every other word, even words, like “pilot,” he

dream career choice, that he should probably already know how to spell (Appendix 4, 13). He

also uses both English and his other languages, either to translate for friends or to ask for them to

translate for him.

The one strategy that I did not see him use was his graphic organizer. In appendix 6 he

had discarded the graphic organizer in favor of his own memory. I believe that this led his

writing to be less well structured and cohesive than it could have been, as seen in Appendix 8. In

fact, he even used a completely unconnected picture of a sports car for the background to those

slides, which is uncharacteristic of his normal writing. Normally he is very concerned that the

pictures match the ideas that he is expressing. Because I have seen his other writing I am inclined

to dismiss this as an anomaly. Particularly because the sophistication of the compare/contrast

essay he wrote in Appendix 11, indicates to me that he has used graphic organizers successfully

in the past.

When I asked Taair about his writing, the first thing that he expressed to me was that he

likes typing (Appendix 7). He then proceeded to type his answers to me using the Google search

box. He expressed how much he enjoys writing emphatically and offered to write me something

on the spot, asking what I wanted him to write. However, when I asked him why he loves writing

and typing he just shrugged, either unwilling or unable to express why he enjoys it. As with his
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oral language, I am not sure that he has very deep, if any, metacognitive awareness of his

language, at least not in a way that he could express to me in English, based on the questions that

I was asking him.

Yet his the joy I observe in him as he writes is consistent with what I know of him as a

student who likes school and likes learning. Taair has an extremely positive attitude. When I

observed him in Social Studies, I watched as the teacher explained the prompt as writing about

what you want to be when you grow up. He practically leapt out of his chair and exclaimed,

perhaps a hair too loudly, “Pilot!” (Appendix 4 and 13). He was excited about the chance to

write about something that he is passionate about.

I also think that Taair has a high level of control over his language. Looking closely at his

written work, particularly Appendix 10 and 11, shows that not only does Taair use language to

recount, explain, and even occasionally argue, but he also understands structure and transitions.

His correct use of words like “First,” “However,” “Thankfully,” and “After” all indicate to me

that he has a good understanding of language and how to use it appropriately, even if he

sometimes lacks to vocabulary.

Next Steps

The first thing that Taair needs is to expand his vocabulary. I think that vocabulary is his

weakest category in both oral and written language. Although it should also be noted that he has

been in this country and learning English for only about a year. He needs more time and

scaffolding to continue to build not only his academic, but also his Basic Interpersonal

vocabulary.
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I also think that he needs to begin to grow in his understanding of the difference between

a multimedia project and the essays that will be expected of him as he continues to go up through

middle and high school. His sense of how to connect images in words is very good, and I don’t

want to discourage that, but I also know that eventually his is going to have to learn how to

conclude a piece of writing without relying on a Messi gif.

Finally, I think that he needs to build a metacognitive awareness of his language. He is a

very strong and proud child. I observed that recently when I saw him fall over on the stairs

outside and, even though he was crying and breathing hard, he refused to go to the nurse. But

just because he is proud does not mean that he is not going to encounter moments when writing

that are frustrating, as I saw in Appendix 3 and 6. He needs strategies for what to do in those

moments that do not rely on asking a tutor for an idea. However, should Taair grow in these

areas, and I believe that he will, I believe that he has set himself up for a lot of success in the

future.

Appendix 1: Observation Notes 1

15/3/18

21 March is Taiir’s Birthday

The child carries bandaids w/ him….
One of the most powerful things about KP’s teaching style is that she consistently uses a quiet,
soft voice and speaks slowly.
T is engaged, he tracks the speaker, quietly answers all questions he knows the answers to, and
does notice me watching him.
Email AP to ask for writing samples?

Appendix 2: Observation Notes 2

23/3
Persuasive writing
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Collaborative work
More verbal than I normally see them.
Mix of language

Appendix 3: Observation Notes 3

26/3
English Class
T
Using google voice to transcribe then copy/paste into slides (w/ pictures to illustrate).
Looked visibly frustrated at moments
This is really hard work
Used google auto correct too
But also just typed

Appendix 4: Observation Notes 4

26/3
Social studies
Scaffolded “destiny” this time
Visible excitement
w/o tech they struggle a lot w/ spelling
They asked me to spell a lot of words for them and still misspelled words.
Very dependent still
Needed help with concept of complete sentence

Appendix 5: Recording 1
This recording is taken from Taair’s language arts class. He was working with three other
students, all Afghani with varying levels of English proficiency, En, Y, and Ez, on a graphic
organizer for a persuasive essay on why someone should be allowed to bring their dog to class.

Chorus of voices, students speaking and correcting one another: I never have, I never had, I
never had, a dog, a dog before.
JH: That’s a good reason to want to meet the dog, don’t you think?
Ez: But I know he’s cute
JH: Okay
Ez: but that’s a lie, I won’t write it. Lie, because, I never like dogs
JH: You never like dogs?
Ez: yeah
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JH: Are you more of a cat person?

Taair: I LIKE CATS
Ez: No, I’m more of a tiger person
Taair: CATS
Ez: you like cats? But you say you like cat
(Unsure) you like cat
(Group): Ooooooo!
Ez: Oh my god
Ez: Taair
JH: Okay
(Unsure): (in native language)
Ez: I have never had a dog but, he is, I think cute
JH: I like that
En: (in native language)
Ez: but what?
En: (In native language)
Ez: But I think he’s nice
Ez: But I lie. L. I. E. (in native language) L. I. E.
En: (In native language)
Ez: But I think he’s nice. Just write lie, L. I. E. next to it.
Taair: I never have a dog.
Ez: (In native language)
En: (In native language)
Taair: (In native language)
Ez: He is playful
Taair: we play with him!
Ez: No no no, he is, ah, baseball player
Chorus of laughter
Ez: BASEBALL Player
More laughter and native language
Ez: what’s that thing
JH: Like the yellow one?
Ez: yeah, yeah
JH: The yellow one is a tennis ball
Ez: Tennis ball, tennis ball
Taair: Tennis ball! He play with the ball!
JH: Yeah! Good! You throw it and they bring it back and you have to kind of get it out of their
mouth and it’s kind of disgusting
Taiir: you have to wear gloves
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Laughter
JH: you don’t have to
Ez: I DO have to
JH: You do have to? You don’t want dog slobber on your hands?
Taair: I hate dog
Lots of talk in native language
Taiir: He is smelly
Some more native language talk.
Taari: Can I write he is smelly?
JH: Is that a reason why you’d want her to bring her dog?
Taair: (rather maniacally) Ha Ha Ha Ha
JH: No! You have to pick reasons why you’d want her to bring her dog.
More native language talk
Ez: He is helpful! He help Taair too
Taair: In native language
Laughter
Taair: so he is cute, I never had a dog before, playful
Ez: I never had a dog but
Taair: playful, playful, he play with a ball
JH: okay
Ez: and then he’s helpful, help, help people that don’t see
JH: right, so he’s a guide dog
Ez: yeah
Taair: guy dog?
JH: G. U. I. D. E. Guide dog.
Ez: G. U.
En (in native language)
Ez: En---! Shush!
Taiir: G. U.
JH: Here, why don’t I write it. Here. (I wrote Guide on my paper pad for them to copy)
Ms. K (who was helping another student and has come by): oh thank you!
Ez: you’re welcome!

Appendix 6: Recording 2
This recording is taken from when Taair was writing a persuasive “essay” (using his favorite
technological tool, Google slides) on holidays. He has moved past his graphic organizer, leaving
it discarded on the floor, and is typing on his chromebook.
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Taair: Can you give me an idea?

JH: (Reading from what he already has) So we eat turkey. Yeah! We hang out together. Spend
time together.
Taair: We spend all the day. (Pause) All the day, all the day, when? We spend all the time
hanging around, hanging around, good friend.
JH: Yeah
Long pause as he types
Taair: can you give me another one?
JH: What else do you do at thanksgiving?
JH: did you celebrate thanksgiving last year? Were you here?
Taair: we did
(it’s difficult to hear for a portion -- I think the phone was too far away, but I remember Taair
said something about playing with friends)
JH: What did you play?
JH: Yeah? My family always plays board games
JH: No, other kinds of games?
Taair: I play Reblox
JH: What’s that?
Taair: Reblox
JH: What is that?
(He shows me on his computer)
Taair: Reblox
JH: What is that?
Taair: a game
JH: that looks fun
Taair: it has every kind of game
JH: So you can write about that, say we played reblox
Taair: ah no
(he then caught me writing notes and we digressed for a minute or so)
Taair: what do we do. Can you give me one example?
JH: well, what are your three holidays? You have your graphic organizer here, what did you
write on it?
(Taair was visibly frustrated at this point, putting his head in his hands. He was very resistant to
going back to the graphic organizer).
JH: hey, hey hey, don’t hit your head
JH: What’s wrong with the reblox? (he had not written anything about it, despite our earlier
conversation, which indicated to me he did not want to or did not think it was a good idea)
Taair: it’s just a game
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JH: so? One of the big things my family does every single year is play board games and card
games. My family, we spend hours just sitting around the table playing games. I look forward to
that every single year.
Taair: can you just give me an example!
JH: hey, but hey! Your family might do something different, and if you play reblox, than write
about it
Taiir: Nooo, I don’t want, like, any technology
JH: you don’t want technology? Well then what else do you do with your family? You eat turkey
Taair: we play
JH: yeah! To me thanksgiving is all about playing with your family and spending time with them
Taair: (long sigh) we play some games outside

Appendix 7: Recording 4
This recording was taken during Taair’s “free time” during homeroom/science class on the same
day as the English SOL simulation. Taair and I were just talking, so I decided to use this
opportunity to ask him a little bit about what he thought of writing.

JH: Can I ask you a question

Taair: Sure
JH: So in English yesterday morning, you were writing, right
Taair: right
JH: How do you feel about writing? Do you like writing?
Taair: yes
JH: yeah? What’s your favorite part about writing?
Taair: like the typing
JH: you like typing?
Taair: yeah
JH: I like kind of the click, clack sound that it makes
JH: what do you like to write about?
Taair: About, cars
JH: cars? Yeah? That’s cool.
(he proceeded to open up his google drive to show me some of his writing)
Taair: What do you want me to write?
JH: I’m just curious about if you like writing, because not everyone does.
(he proceeded to type his answer at me, which I believe was “I like to write”)
JH: you do like writing
(he then used his typing skills to point out his friend, who was coloring to me)
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JH: So I’m curious, cause I saw you writing on the computer in Ms. K’s class, and I saw you
writing by hand in Mr. P’s class, what’s the difference to you?
Taair: I don’t like to write by hand (more or less: the audio was a little garbled)
JH: Why not?
He shrugged
JH: you don’t know
Taair: like coloring
JH: you don’t like coloring?
JH: you DO like coloring? Or you don’t?
Taair: I don’t
JH: but you drew those pictures… Is that different? Drawing pictures and coloring?

….

JH: Taair, can you write in the language you speak at home?
He nonverbally indicated yes and proceeded to go to Google translate and type in Persian to talk
to me from thereon out.

Appendix 8: Writing Sample 1

This is from the slides on Holidays that Taair was writing during recording 2.
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Appendix 9: Writing Sample 2

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Appendix 10: Writing Sample 3

Appendix 11: Writing Sample 4

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Appendix 12: Writing Sample 5

This is the graphic organizer that Taair was writing on during recording 1. I have included Ez’s
graphic organizer for the sake of comparison.
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Appendix 13: Writing Sample 6

This writing sample was taken from Taair’s social studies class. I have included the list of words
that I spelled for him and his partner (also an ELL) over the course of the do-now.

Appendix 14 : Grades
From an email with his language arts teacher:

The paragraph rubric that she uses:

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Appendix 15: Fifth Grade WIDA Scores