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ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR 9TH GRADE ELA STUDENTS

Analyze, Evaluate, Succeed:

Analysis and Evaluation Strategies for 9th-Grade ELA Students

Camryn Kidney

Manhattan College
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ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR 9TH GRADE ELA STUDENTS

Abstract

In the spring of 2020, I observed two ninth-grade English-Language Arts classes in the

Bronx for four weeks. During these scheduled observations, I found that students struggled to

exhibit proficient text analysis and evaluation skills. The teacher expressed to me on multiple

occasions that on tests and written assignments, the students’ analyses of the assigned texts

typically included little more than basic summaries or opinions like, “I didn’t like it.”

Additionally, during whole-class reading sessions, the teacher often encouraged students to

answer questions that required them to use analysis and evaluation skills, but to no avail. The

problem soon became clear: while it was evident that many students had read the assigned texts,

they were unable to generate any level of analysis or evaluation because nobody had taught them

how to do so. Additionally, an absence of proficient text analysis and evaluation skills is

particularly problematic for students in the twenty-first century. These are students whose future

teachers may expect them to excel at these skills, but, perhaps even more importantly, they’re

students whose future careers will demand proficiency in text analysis and evaluation skills.

These students may become journalists, scholars, and literary or media critics. They may even

become educators themselves. In fact, young adults must deftly and confidently analyze political

and social narratives in the media every day. Analysis and evaluation skills are crucial

dimensions of critical thinking, but when nobody teaches students how to use them, students

struggle. To address this problem, I aim to implement a two-day plan in which students learn

how to create a thoughtful, intelligent analysis of their assigned text. This plan dictates that after

receiving a lesson about a post-reading analysis activity called the Discussion Web, students will

apply this strategy to their assigned reading, and the following day, they will repeat these steps

with another post-reading strategy called Mind Portraits. The purpose of this study is to discover
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ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR 9TH GRADE ELA STUDENTS

which, if any, strategies significantly improve students’ ability to analyze and evaluate a text.

This study also seeks to explore which strategy/ies students find useful and/or practical. Finally,

this study seeks to add data to the pool of existing research about the effectiveness of post-

reading analysis and evaluation strategies, in the hopes of ultimately providing every student

with the tools to successfully analyze and evaluate texts.

Keywords: Analysis, Evaluation, Post-reading, Discussion Web, Mind Portraits, 9th-

grade, English-Language Arts

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ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR 9TH GRADE ELA STUDENTS

Analyze, Evaluate, Succeed: Analysis and Evaluation Strategies for 9th-Grade ELA Students

Identifying the Problem

The year 2020 will undeniably be remembered by history as the year of education in the

midst of crisis. Between virtual classes, modified curricula, and collective panic, teachers are

learning to incorporate new educational strategies into the online classroom to maximize student

engagement amid a crisis that drains students of energy and creative inspiration. Our knowledge

of these new educational strategies can inform our research of the effectiveness of our in-person

engagement strategies, as well. What are we, as educators, doing to engage and motivate students

in both the online and in-person classroom?

One particularly notable obstacle is that students often disengage when they don’t have

the skills or strategies to engage with a certain subject. Students may be expected to understand a

particular concept or complete a certain task that they’ve never been taught how to approach.

When this happens, students frequently disengage from the subject matter, as they believe they

aren’t endowed with the talent or knowledge to complete it.

Such was the case for Mrs. McAuliffe’s period six ninth-grade English class at the

Academy of Mt. St. Ursula. In this class, students were never taught proper text analysis and

evaluation skills, which notably affected their ability to provide meaningful commentary on their

assigned text, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. They struggled to analyze and evaluate

this text verbally and in writing, which took an immense toll on their test performance, their

writing assignments, and their class discussion. Mrs. McAuliffe showed me examples of
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ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR 9TH GRADE ELA STUDENTS

students’ tests, which displayed students’ lack of understanding about how to properly analyze

and evaluate texts. The students often received D’s and F’s on these tests as a result.

Because the students lacked a skill that was critical to success in the class, they developed

a sense of helplessness, disengaging from the class because they thought they were incapable of

succeeding. Many educators expect proficiency in these skills, but few teachers actually teach

them, so students often must navigate through challenging English classes without it.

What Do We Know About the Students?

The Academy of Mount St. Ursula in the Bronx, NY is an all-girls Catholic high school

comprised of 59.2% Hispanic, 23.4% Black, and 17.1% students of other races, including White

and Asian students, as well as students who identify as more than one race. I observed Mrs.

McAuliffe’s sixth-period ninth-grade English-Language Arts class for 90 minutes per week for

four weeks, and over those four weeks, the teacher showed me examples of students’ inadequate

performance on tests, quizzes, writing assignments, and in class discussion.

At first, it seemed possible that, perhaps, students’ poor performance was due to low

motivation or insufficient class preparation (failing to read assigned texts, failing to study, etc.),

but after substantial discussion with Mrs. McAuliffe and with the students, as well as deliberate

and scrupulous observation of each class period, I learned that students’ performance fell

particularly short when they were required to respond to open-ended, textually analytic and

evaluative questions, and it became evident that the source of the problem was not that students

were lazy or unmotivated, but rather that nobody had taught them how to analyze or evaluate a

text in an ample or meaningful way. 

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ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR 9TH GRADE ELA STUDENTS

“These kids do just fine when they have to answer multiple choice questions about the

readings. I know they did the readings. They just don’t know how to do any kind of deeper-level

critical analyzing of the text. That’s what’s the hardest.” -Mrs. McAuliffe, on her students’

biggest academic challenges

“It’s just not exciting. I don’t feel like it has to do a lot with my life so I don’t think about

it after the tests.” -Student X, on her level of engagement with and intellectual analysis of the

assigned readings

Review of Literature

In their 2017 study, Linda Kucan, PhD. and Annemarie Sullivan-Palincsar, PhD., detail

the success of the implementation of a strategy called the Text Analysis Tool (Table 1), which

provides students and teachers with a set of guidelines to facilitate students’ development of

thoughtful text-based analyses in the classroom. Kucan and Sullivan-Palincsar sought to address

students’ struggle to perform well during class discussion because of a lack of tools to create and

organize textual analysis. Addressing this problem is critical because textual analysis is a crucial

aspect of the critical-thinking process.

To test the effectiveness of their Text Analysis Tool, the researchers taught twelve

certified teachers how to use it, then prompted them to use it with a variety of texts suitable for

students in grades 3-6 for 45-60 minutes at a time. After a semester of frequent use of the tool,

the teachers evaluated its effectiveness in improving students’ text analysis skills. Kucan and

Sullivan-Palincsar write that all subjects of the study found the Text Analysis Tool helpful to

their understanding of the texts. More specifically, participants noted that the use of such a tool
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ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR 9TH GRADE ELA STUDENTS

allowed them to more accurately discern which texts are meaningful to the discourse within a

particular discipline (2017, p.10).

The limitations of this study include that the time it took to conduct this textual analysis

may have discouraged teachers from implementing the tool thoroughly. Additionally, this study

displayed that the researchers’ Text Analysis Tool was effective in improving young students’

text analysis skills. A logical next step would be to conduct research on how text analysis

strategies work with older students. Overall, this study illustrates the potential usefulness of a

textual analysis strategy within a classroom.

Table 1. Text Analysis Tool.

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ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR 9TH GRADE ELA STUDENTS

In addition, Richard Correnti, Lindsay Clare Matsumura, Laura Hamilton, and Elaine

Wang find in their study that though the ability to evaluate texts is crucial to academic success in

all disciplines, many students lack “the ability to analyze texts” (2013, p. 1), and that these

students “often struggle in the secondary grades and/or are likely to find college-level

coursework too difficult to complete” (2013, p. 1). For this reason, it’s critical for educators to

teach students these skills before college.

Furthermore, in her study, Amy L. Boelé proposes that when students use post-reading

evaluative strategies, like Questioning the Author or Specific Text-Dependent Questions, they’re

able to engage in true critical thinking (Boelé, 2016), bringing informed, evaluative meaning to

the text. This process of questioning an author’s choices and perspectives through analysis and

evaluation, Boelé argues, is truly important because through questioning, readers can and do

incite change (Boelé, 2016). By teaching these students these analysis and evaluative skills,

educators give them the tools to create this change (Boelé, 2016).

Creating a Plan

After careful observation and discussion with Mrs. McAuliffe, I began to create a plan to

explore the effectiveness of post-reading analysis and evaluation strategies. First, I decided to

use the tests and writing assignments Mrs. McAuliffe had showed me as a pre-assessment, as

both Mrs. McAuliffe and I agreed that they accurately represented the students’ ability to analyze

and evaluate texts. Then, I planned to provide students with a lesson about what evaluation and

analysis are, and why they’re crucial to one’s understanding of a text in every discipline. Then, I

would gather information from students about which post-reading analysis and evaluation
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ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR 9TH GRADE ELA STUDENTS

strategies, if any, they currently use independently or as a class. I would gather this information

by giving students a questionnaire that asks them the following questions:

1. Do you currently use any post-reading text analysis or evaluation questions

independently? If so, what strategies do you use?

2. Do you currently use any post-reading text analysis or evaluation questions as a class? If

so, what strategies do you use?

3. Which strategies, if any, do you fine helpful to your ability to analyze and evaluate texts?

Next, in response to their low ability to effectively analyze and evaluate assigned texts, I

planned to implement two post-reading analysis/evaluation strategies over the course of two days

and test their effectiveness in promoting students’ understanding of how to analyze a text.

Day 1

I will teach the students how to use the Discussion Web strategy (Figure 1), then they

will be prompted to independently read the narrator’s March 6 journal entry in Flowers for

Algernon by Daniel Keyes. Following this independent reading time, students will be prompted

to independently complete their Discussion Web, which they’ve been instructed on how to use.

Then, students will engage in a group discussion about the text, using their Discussion Web as a

discussion guide. Finally, students will independently complete a written reflection that prompts

them to contemplate and rate the effectiveness of the Discussion Web strategy. This written

reflection will include the following prompts:

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ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR 9TH GRADE ELA STUDENTS

1. On a scale of 1-5, how well did the Discussion Web help you analyze and evaluate

the assigned passage (based on what you now know about text analysis and

evaluation)? Why?

2. How does this strategy compare to other strategies you may have used?

3. Would you use this strategy again?

Day 2

Day 2 will follow the same format as Day 1, but students will use a different post-reading

evaluation strategy: Mind Portraits (Figure 2). First, I will begin by teaching students how to

complete the Mind Portraits strategy. Then, I will prompt students to begin reading the May 18th

journal entry from Flowers for Algernon. Once they’ve finished independently reading the

passage, they will independently complete the Mind Portraits activity, and, afterward, use it as a

guide to facilitate a class discussion. Finally, students will complete the same reflection they

completed on Day 1, but they’ll reflect on the Mind Portraits activity, rather than the Discussion

Web. After each day, I will collect students’ post-reading activity and observe and take

qualitative data from the class discussion to assess the effectiveness of these post-reading

analysis and evaluation strategies.

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ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR 9TH GRADE ELA STUDENTS

Figure 1: Discussion Web

Figure 2. Mind Portraits.

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ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR 9TH GRADE ELA STUDENTS

Expected Results

I expect that these strategies would improve students’ ability to analyze and evaluate

texts. Based on previous research, other post-reading analysis and evaluation strategies have

proven quite effective in improving students abilities. Of course, this would likely not be the case

for all students, but I predict that many of them would see improvements if they regularly

implemented this strategy into their reading routines.

Limitations of This Study

This study only examines how these strategies work for one classroom at one school, so

the results may not be representative of how the strategies work for any other set of students.

Additionally, this study will hypothetically take place over only a few days, and students may

find the strategies much more useful if they were to use them over a much longer period of time,

for example.
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ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR 9TH GRADE ELA STUDENTS

References

Boelé, A. (2016). Text-Dependent Questions: Reflecting and Transcending the Text. The 

Reading Teacher, 70(2), 217-220. Retrieved April 17, 2020, from 

www.jstor.org/stable/44001426

Correnti, R., Matsumura, L., Hamilton, L., & Wang, E. (2013). Assessing Students' Skills at 

Writing Analytically in Response to Texts. The Elementary School Journal, 114(2), 

142-177. doi:10.1086/671936

Kucan, Linda & Palincsar, Annemarie. (2017). Text analysis: Critical component of planning

for text-based discussion focused on comprehension of informational texts. Literacy

Research and Instruction. 1-17. 10.1080/19388071.2017.1400612.