I used four criteria to evaluate these modifications for Maxwell Butterfield: How did his rough draft on the second part of the assignment compare to his first rough draft? How much did his rough draft on the second part of the assignment improve once he wrote his final draft? How did his writing compare to his fellow classmates? Did Maxwell find the strategies helpful? If the modification was a successful, there will be observable improvement in both his approach and his attitude towards his writing. Additionally, his writing should be at a similar level as his classmates.
In Maxwell's rough draft written before receiving the writing strategy packet, he obviously put enough effort into the project to get the information needed to complete the definition, but structure and cohesion are lacking. He also misuses words and creates incomplete paragraphs and sentences. For example, here is his definition of mass-energy equivalence:

Mass -energy equivalence is that mass and energy are the same thing. Also that mass and energy are not just interconvertible. Like in the way you can convert gold to dollars and vice versa.

The ideas are there, and he is even creative enough to produce a metaphor to aid in the understanding of mass-energy equivalence. However, he obviously needs help putting the ideas together to make them flow. In the rough draft in which the writing strategies were used, there are some definite improvements. He had fewer incomplete sentences, and ideas were grouped appropriately. For example, here he is writing about the results for one of the experiments presented in the book:

The results of the experiment are. It would support Einstein theory because it would prove that gravity waves move at same speed of light. The results were not what they expected the expected that would find some gravity waves but they did not find any. One form of error came from false signals due to hear energy. There was no conclusion on this experiment because they have not found any. There for it has had no effect on physics.

Although Maxwell still struggles with recognizing when a sentence makes sense, some parts of his sentences show structure, unlike his fragmented ideas in the first example, and he attempts to form transitions and conclusions in the paragraph. He starts to explain what the results were and follows by evaluating the results and the scientific expectations. His conclusion then determines whether this experiment had an effect on the world of physics. The outline aided him in giving structure to the paragraph.

The next evaluative method was to determine whether Maxwell was able to correct the paper after reading comments made by his instructors. First, here is the corrected version of the paragraph on mass-energy equivalence that was previously presented:

Mass-energy equivalence indicates that mass and energy are the same thing and that mass and energy are interconvertible. It is defined as E=mc². Where the E stands for energy, m is mass, and c² is the square of the speed of light.

Unfortunately, Maxwell took out the metaphor relating mass and energy to gold and money. I should have written down a compliment to praise him for his creativity. In any case, there is definite improvement. He added some more detail and the paragraph flowed better than his first fragmented attempt. His last sentence is awkward, but the paragraph is definitely understandable. Here is Maxwell's improved paragraph about the results from the gravity wave experiment:

After perform the experiment many times and many ways the experiment results are. The results would support Einstein theory because it would prove that gravity waves move at same speed of light. However the results were not what they expected. One form of error came from false signals due to heat energy. This gave them readings of gravity waves when there none there. There was no conclusion on this experiment because they have not found any gravity waves. Therefore, it has had no effect on physics.

Although this paragraph still has problems with word omissions, Maxwell does include more details, which add to the understanding and flow of the paragraph. Additionally, he has very few spelling errors.

Another goal of the modification was to help Maxwell be competitive with the other students in the class. Here are examples of definitions of mass-energy equivalence written by a low-performing student and a high performing student on their first rough draft:

Low-performing student
Mass-Energy Equivalence
The physical principle that a measured quantity of energy is equivalent to a measured quantity of mass.

High-performing student
Mass and energy are equal. The more energy an object has the more mass it has. An object at rest has less energy than that same object in motion, since energy is being applied.

These students, like Maxwell, were missing some details and making little attempt to write a full, flowing paragraph. However, unlike Maxwell, they automatically used complete sentences with no words omitted. Here are examples from their rough drafts written with the writing guide. These paragraphs are similar to Maxwell's in that they are relating the results of an experiment presented in the book.

Low-performing student
At the end of each flight, the clocks that had been flown in the aircraft is about 50 billionths of a second older that the ground-base clock. This confirmed the einsteinian prediction to about one-percent.

High performing student
The eastward trip occurred between October 4 and 7, including forty-one hours of flight. The westward trip occurred between October 13 and 17 and included 17 hours of flight. The observations agreed with the predictions. The eastward clock lost 59 nanoseconds compared to the master clock's time, while the westward clock gained 275 nanoseconds. Because a portable cesium clock is only so precise, the margin of error was +- 59 nanoseconds. Also inaccuracies of the flight data were factored into the error. This is another experiment that proves Einstein's genius with technology that was not available when he created the theory. If such technology as atomic clocks had been around during the man's lifetime, he would have accomplished so much more.

The difference between the low-performing student and the high-performing student seems to be a matter of effort. The high-performing student found many more details and ended the paragraph by bringing it back to the focus of the paper, Einstein. The low-performing student put a minimum amount of information in and did not end the paragraph with a conclusion. I would say that Maxwell's paragraph, although it has word omissions and sentence fragments, is more similar to the high-performing student's work. They both included details and made an effort to draw a conclusion, points missing in the low-performing student's work. I think that the writing strategies, because they focus on organizing and editing the work, does put Maxwell on a more equal footing with his classmates and enables him to write on a level closer to his grade. His attitude and effort definitely propel him in the right direction.

As a final evaluative measure, I wanted to determine whether these improvements would be long lasting and whether Maxwell would use this strategy in the future. One way in which this was determined was through a survey that I gave the entire class. Unfortunately both the low performing and the high-performing student opted not to complete the survey for extra credit. Maxwell however answered the questions as follows:

1. Did you plan, translate, and revise the first rough draft on part A that you handed in earlier?
I did a little bit of planning and revising on my part A.
2. Did you find that these steps helped you organize your thoughts and made the writing process more manageable for the second rough draft? Why or why not?
I did find these steps helped me write the second part of the paper. This is because I know what I was looking for and could get straight to the point.
3. Would you use this strategy ever again? Why or why not?
Yes I think I would because it helped me get some organization to the report.
4. What was the most helpful part of this packet? Why?
The most helpful part of this packet was to write a outline because it let you see what you where write about before you start.
5. What was the least helpful part of this packet? Why?
The whole thing was helpful because if you did not give this to me my paper would be much worse.

This reflection indicates that Maxwell is very perceptive. He was able to recognize that the strategies helped him in his organization. He was so encouraged by this that he is willing to use the strategies in the future. I have seen this occur even in his informal laboratory notebook. Here is an example of a conclusion paragraph from a recent laboratory assignment:

At the beginning the PE and KE equal zero. When the bob was raised to certain height PE was created and the KE was still zero. At the lowest point after swing the PE changed to KE and PE equal zero and KE equals the same amount as the PE at the beginning. No because PE before equaled 20.323 and KE after equaled 21.05 J. In the pendulum the kinetic energy is at its max at its lowest point and its min at the highest point. It does not make sense that KE would be higher than the max PE because ME. There is friction acting upon the ball there is air resistance. Some sources of error are mass may have been off and the height could have been off.

This example shows that he is writing more supporting details rather than fragmented ideas. He still leaves out some information that would aid in the understanding of the paragraph, but the conclusion appears to have structure. He is moving away from his usual stream-of-consciousness type of writing.
 
 

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