Graduate Research Papers

Availability

Open Access Graduate Research Paper

Abstract

All students must be proficient in reading and writing, and science materials present an added layer to these skill areas. Both national and Minnesota state standards require students to show their understanding of science content through certain practices, including constructing evidence-based arguments. A common instructional approach is a claim - evidence - reasoning (CER) framework for writing scientific conclusions. While there are many sources of CER rubrics and guidelines, both commercial and non-commercial, there is a wide range of language or word choice and formatting, among other differences, and none have been tailored to the ninth grade level. By using two online tools and language analysis, a new, comprehensive rubric was developed. It replaces a rubric currently being used in a high school science department to provide consistency for the CER framework, which has many variations and irregular implementation. The improved rubric will allow teachers to work cohesively and students to receive accessible writing support. Eight published rubrics were used to create one final rubric that has an ATOS or readability value of 9.63 and a Lexile level range of 810-1000. Students entering high school will be able to utilize the rubric, as will students in upper grade levels. Now that the final rubric is completed, next steps involve introducing it to the science team to plan for implementation and necessary differentiation. Further study with the rubric would allow for pre- and post- data of student writing and anonymous grading to determine strengths and areas of weakness with teacher alignment.

Year of Submission

2025

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Science Education Program

First Advisor

Kyle Gray

Date Original

2025

Object Description

1 PDF file (54 pages)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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