The Panther POWER Paragraph

Today's blog post is contributed by Jennifer Stubbe, literacy coach/specialist at Princess Anne Middle School. Mrs. Stubbe has been instrumental in the launch of the POWER paragraph, an essential component of the writing portion of PAMS' literacy plan.

"See a Need, Fill a Need: The Implementation of Princess Anne Middle School's POWER Paragraph"

By Jennifer Stubbe

In 2005, Blue Sky Studios’ animated film Robots popularized the phrase “see a need, fill a need.” That phrase has taken on new life this year at Princess Anne Middle School (PAMS) in Virginia Beach, where teachers unveiled a structured paragraph writing method in response to student need evidenced in last year’s Standards of Learning (SOL) Writing results and Integrated Performance Task (IPT) results.

See a Need

In the 2013-2014 school year, Princess Anne Middle School saw room for improvement in both the 7th grade IPT and the 8th grade Writing SOL. Only slightly above 12% of our students scored proficient or advanced on the Written Communication portion of the IPT assessment. This was in contrast to our combined proficient and advanced scores on the other scored portions of the IPT assessment: 32% proficient/advanced in Critical Thinking 1 (Analyzing Credibility), 43% proficient/advanced in Critical Thinking 2 (Analyzing Sufficiency), and 28% proficient/advanced in Problem Solving. On the Writing SOL, PAMS had an 81% pass rate. This was one percentage point lower than in 2012-2013. Clearly Princess Anne Middle School could see a need in the student body: the students needed to write more often and with greater academic purpose throughout their content classes.

Fill a Need

At the outset of the 2014-2015 school year, Principal D. Alex Bergren tasked the English department with developing a paragraph structure to meet the needs recognized through data analysis from the previous year’s assessment results. Teachers knew the structure had to have an academic nature to it, and it had to be useful in all the content areas. Throughout most of their elementary school years students had been asked to write a paragraph the same way: a topic sentence, 3 detail sentences, and a concluding sentence. Quite literally in this case, the students were getting lost in the details. Their paragraphs were coming out looking like bulleted lists with very little depth of response or evidentiary support.

The English department’s response to their student’s needs was to give them POWER. They wanted to give the students an acronym they could work with to help them get into the details of academic writing a little further. Additionally, teachers wanted the students to have room to grow and develop, so PAMS created a more advanced version of The POWER Paragraph called The Second POWER which doubled the OWE elements of the original. The teachers worked through many drafts and revisions before finalizing them both to send to Dr. Bergren for approval.

While knowing how PAMS English teachers wanted students to organize and elaborate their paragraphs was an important step, of equal importance was the need for a usable and malleable rubric to help the students and content teachers feel comfortable with the structure. After consulting the division writing rubrics, the VDOE SOL writing rubrics, and the IPT rubric for Written Expression, PAMS settled on a four part rubric allowing teachers to have the flexibility to consider their own content standards as the true evaluative measure. Additionally, the rubric included a Writer’s Checklist to facilitate student use and understanding. Together, the paragraph structure and rubric create a workable model for both non-Language Arts content teachers and students allowing all to benefit from its inception. The need was filled, but how was it received?

Teacher and Student Response

Learning to write for an academic purpose effectively is a huge challenge for many students, but with the POWER format, students at PAMS are warming up to the idea of writing in all of their classes. An overwhelming number of student feedback forms indicate how happy they are to have a format they can memorize and use throughout their academic day. One student writes, “I liked how once I completed the template, [writing the] paragraph just made sense.” Another says, “Paragraphs are so much easier to write following this template.” In one form or another most of the students are excited to have an organizational structure they can remember using an acronym and template that makes sense.

Likewise, implementing effective writing lessons can be problematic for non-English content area teachers. They are not trained in teaching writing, and are often intimidated by student questions they worry they cannot answer. Using a specified format gives them the support they need to feel confident working with writing in their content. Sixth grade social studies teacher Nancy Womick writes, “I wasn't nearly as good with [the initial learning plan as the Literacy Coach], but the kids really did seem to both understand and enjoy [using] it. I did tell them that they would be using this in all of their classes for writing, and one student asked whether she could have an extra copy [of the template] to put in her binder since she had to leave the [one I gave her] glued into her [social studies] notebook.” Another sixth grade social studies teacher, Debrah Campbell, noted, “At first, it isn't easy, some steps seem a bit repetitive in transferring from the brainstorming template to the power template - BUT...practice makes the process become clearer.” The practice with the paragraph not only makes it clearer for the students, but it will also cement the process in the teacher’s minds giving them confidence to truly incorporate writing across the curriculum.

Kathleen McClelland, eighth grade English teacher, sums up why PAMS is excited about the POWER paragraph:

"I love the POWER paragraph. I think it gives students a concrete guide to use when formulating their ideas for a paragraph or essay. I know it will take some time to fully integrate this format as something that students automatically think about when a prompt is presented, but practicing a few times a week will help support that effort.

If we implement this across the board – beginning even in elementary school, by high school and on college apps, even the weakest writers should have a good understanding of how to stay on topic, provide appropriate details and introduce and conclude a well-constructed paragraph."

McClelland and other eighth grade English teachers are excited to see what using this format will do for their Writing SOL scores over the next few years. Both they and the administrative team feel the data from the next few IPT and Writing SOL results will confirm what they are already seeing in their classrooms—that ALL students, given the proper tools, can learn to write effectively and for academic purpose.