Improving Verb Tense Usage Through Personal Narratives
By Colleen Crossley
Adult Academic Program, Winnetka Learning Center
New Hope, Minnesota
Teaching Context
This practitioner research project was conducted with the cooperation and participation of
my Tuesday and Thursday evening intermediate Adult Basic Education (ABE) students
at Winnetka Learning Center in New Hope, Minnesota. Many of the adult learners
enrolled in the classes I teach are studying to pass their General Educational
Development (GED) tests. A shared goal for many is to also complete additional trade or
college classes later on. Winnetka Learning Center offers day and evening classes for
adult and Alternative Learning Center (ALC) students, as well as English Language
Learners (ELLs). Evening classes run from 4:30-8:30, and consist of a combination of
independent study and computer-assisted, one-on-one and direct instruction.
The goal of the Adult Academic Program is to help each student find the educational
balance that works best for him or her. Accordingly, students may attend the hour-long
GED preparation classes offered between 5:30 and 8:30, or opt to remain in the basic
skills lab to work independently. Because two teachers are present at all times, while one
is conducting a class, the other is available to provide academic support to the remaining
students. Students also greatly benefited this year from the presence of an educational
assistant and regular Thursday evening volunteer. Unfortunately, budget constraints have
dictated that an educational assistant will be available half time or less next year.
Tuesday and Thursday evening students in general represent a wide variety of
educational backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, and lifestyles. The smaller GED Writing
Class, which met Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 7:30, was no exception. Participating
students ranged in age from 22 to 51 years old; most were employed full time and had
various family responsibilities to attend to during the project. While the class was not
designed for English Language Learners, students’ countries of origin included Mexico,
Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Liberia, and Cameroon. First languages spoken were English,
Spanish, Hindi, and French. It should be noted that, although the Liberian students are
native speakers of English, they speak a variety that differs significantly from the English
of North America.
Writing students began the personal narratives writing unit associated with this project on
February 12, 2009, and concluded it on April 23, 2009. Because this was my first year
teaching writing to adult students, I relied on the example and expertise of a colleague at
Winnetka Learning Center, Kristine Kelly. Kristine teaches writing to ABE students
during the day. Prior to beginning my study, I observed her writing classes on three
occasions and made note of her many best practices. Kristine also provided feedback and
practical suggestions as I narrowed down my research question and formulated my
project.
1
The Problem
New to teaching writing, I wondered where to begin with my adult students. I have
written extensively in both professional and academic settings, although I don’t have a
“grammar” background. Nonetheless, I was confident that I would be able to teach
students to improve their written expression. The question was: Where to start?
Process writing seemed to me the soundest and most engaging way to teach writing. In
addition, throughout my education and teaching experience, the importance of
authenticity in learning was a common theme, and I noticed early on that students wrote
prolifically when responding to a topic that was meaningful to them. It also seemed that
when I truly believed that the lesson I was teaching was important, students were more
responsive, engaged, and willing to write. Gillespie’s (1999) summary of writing research
implications corroborated my early hunches:
The research shows that writing is not best taught as a
linear, sequential set of skills but as a process of gradual
approximation of what skilled writers do: a cycling and
recycling of learning processes. Composition is not
something that should wait until all the basic prerequisite
skills are learned…we need to acknowledge that students
will learn at different rates and in different styles. We need
to find ways to encourage them to decide on their own
topics and purposes for writing and to see one another as
resources…Those of us who work with students who aspire
to pass the GED also need to understand the role of
knowledge-telling and narrative writing as a precursor to
the kinds of knowledge-transforming writing required of
essay tests.
Accordingly, students were asked from the beginning of the year to respond to carefully
chosen journal prompts, to which I provided written feedback. We detected grammar and
usage errors in timely news articles and interesting stories. I taught lessons on sentence
construction and paragraph organization, as well as on the finer points and expectations
of the GED essay, which I was just learning about myself. As confidence and trust within
the class grew, students read their own and each others’ written work out loud, or allowed
me to read it for them. It was important to me to assist them in finding their voices, and to
avoid overemphasizing the standard GED five-paragraph model decried by Gillespie
(1999) and others.
Through journal entries, short essays, and homework, incorrect verb tense usage emerged
as an area that seemed to require constant correction. For several weeks in January and
February 2009, I endeavored to analyze verb errors in students’ written work. I noticed,
for example, that students had difficulties keeping tenses of helping verbs and regular
verbs consistent. For example, one student wrote, “I was scam” rather than “I was
scammed.” Table 1 includes a list of verb errors detected in students’ written work over a
two-week period in January and February 2009.
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TABLE 1
STUDENT VERB ERRORS
Week of January 26, 2009
STUDENT USED
Found
Seal
Appliances was
Come in confronted with
Install
Testified
Be judge
I will feel
I question
Will return
Will have
Went to shopping
SHOULD HAVE USED
To find
Sealed
Appliances were
Am confronted with
Installed
Testify
Be judged
I would feel
I questioned
Would return
Would have
Went shopping
Week of February 2, 2009
STUDENT USED
Scam
Scam
Happened
Brother had been a victim
He had surprised me
We ate, hear music
And open presents
We make the party
We have
Unemployment persons
SHOULD HAVE USED
Scammed
Scamming
Happen
Brother has been a victim
He surprised me
We ate, heard music
And opened presents
We made the party
We had
Unemployed persons
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I subsequently met with Kristine Kelly to discuss my perceptions. While subject-verb
errors, wrong verb choice, and other mistakes were also evident in my students’ writing,
Kristine confirmed that verb tense errors occurred frequently and persistently in the
writing of her adult students also. An area that seemed particularly confusing for
students, she noted, was when different verb tenses were used in a single passage. This
resonated with me, and I decided to incorporate it into my project.
My instincts and the research pointed me in the direction of a writing unit in which
students would have the chance to write about themselves and their unique experiences. I
knew that the unit would be authentic and engaging for them, and equally important, for
me. The personal narratives unit also seemed the perfect vehicle through which to
monitor verb tense usage, as students would be writing about previous events in their
lives using past verb tenses, and would need to incorporate present tense usage into their
essays in their reflections, introductions, and conclusions. I felt it was time to challenge
students to write longer, more polished essays: little did I know that I would live and
breathe the personal narrative and it’s various components for the next two months while
working to answer my practitioner research question.
Research Question
What happens to the verb tense usage of my intermediate ABE students when I customize
instruction based on verb tense errors from a personal narrative writing unit?
After narrowing down the verb tense errors I wanted to address, I customized a personal
narratives unit as the vehicle through which to deliver instruction. I hoped to both
decrease student verb tense errors as well as attain a high level of “buy-in” as students
became engaged in the process of writing personal narratives. I first devised pre- and
post- tests that required students to be able to differentiate between different verb tenses
in a single passage, as I had discussed with Kristine Kelly. To do this, I researched the
various resource materials available at my school site. In the end, I relied heavily on verb
tense exercises found in McGraw-Hill/Contemporary’s 1993 Foundations Writing
workbook by Pamela Bliss and Virginia Lowe.
Table 2 on the following page contains reduced-size, finalized versions of the tests I
administered to students on February 12 and April 23, 2009.
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TABLE 2
VERB TENSE PRETEST
•
•
Write the correct forms of the verbs in parentheses on the lines. The verbs are listed in the order in which they should be used. As a child, I_______________________westerns (love).
Back then, westerns _______________________ _______________________on every TV channel (be,
find).
The heroes _______________________rugged and _______________________macho (look, act).
My father’s favorite T.V. program _______________________ “Bonanza,” probably because Little Joe
often _______________________into a good fight (be, run).
In movies, Clint Eastwood _______________________the “Man With No Name (play).”
To this day, his spaghetti westerns _______________________all my friends (delight).
According to dad, today’s stars _______________________weak, compared to those of yesterday
(appear).
Dad _______________________that TV shows and movies aren’t as good as they were in the old days
(complain).
VERB TENSE POSTTEST
•
•
Write the correct forms of the verbs in parentheses on the lines. The verbs are listed in the order in which they should be used. Because of directors such as Clint Eastwood, many young people ______________________westerns
again today (enjoy).
It is possible that westerns may ______________________ as popular as they
once______________________ (become, be).
My husband and I ______________________two westerns just last weekend (rent).
He also______________________an episode of the old “Rawhide” series last night (record).
“Rawhide” _______________________the career of Clint Eastwood, who later
______________________and _______________________in many other feature films (launch, direct,
star).
_______________________me if you want to _______________________over to
_______________________it later (call, come, watch).
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The tests went through several revisions as I looked at resources and weighed and
considered input from others. I thought that a narrative format would reveal the most
information about difficulties students were having in choosing the correct tenses and in
switching back and forth between tenses. I also wanted the passages to contain both
irregular and regular verbs. In the end, I was mostly satisfied with the result. If I had to
do it over again, however, I would make sure that both tests contained identical numbers
of present tense, past tense, regular, and irregular verbs.
As it turned out, the pretest required four regular past tense verbs and four irregular past
tense verbs. Three more regular present tense verbs completed the 11-item assessment.
Prior to administering the pretest, I made sure that all the students were familiar with the
meanings of two possibly confusing terms: “western” and “spaghetti western.” Like the
pretest, the posttest also consisted of 11 items: five regular past tense verbs, one irregular
past tense verb, three regular present tense and two irregular present tense verbs.
In conjunction with the start of the 10-week personal narratives unit, I visited Kristine’s
writing class on three occasions to observe her teaching style and learn by example.
During my visits on February 4, 11, and 19, I observed the upbeat and collegial learning
environment she maintained while delivering engaging and targeted instruction. Students
clearly felt that it was safe to take risks, and believed that their teacher valued their
opinions and experiences as adults. The lessons I observed emphasized the importance of
writing as a unique means of expression and communication. I was impressed by
Kristine’s commitment to preserving each writer’s voice, while encouraging students to
incrementally improve mechanics, usage, grammar and the rest. I sought to reinforce in
my evening classes, which had already achieved some of this cohesion, the same positive
learning environment.
My writing class met for one hour each Thursday evening, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Students took the “Verb Tense Pretest” on February 12, 2009. During the subsequent
seven classes (which would have been eight, except that a snowstorm forced the
cancellation of class on February 26), I used a combination of teaching methods to lead
students through the prewriting, drafting, and editing phases of writing their personal
narratives. Students were first asked to brainstorm a list of 25 significant life events,
using optional sentence starters, for possible expansion and inclusion in their essays.
Once this step was completed, I encouraged students to select between three and five of
the events and “mind map” or cluster them, making sure to include as many sensory
details as possible, and to consider the who, what, where, when, and why of each. I
followed advice provided by Beverstock and McIntyre (2001) and directed students to
then group like details together. By taking the time to implement these steps, I assured
students, they wouldn’t have to worry about what to write: the mind mapping and
grouping work would serve double-duty as an organizational plan.
While students were working on these steps, many were also reading narratives in our
Tuesday evening reading class. I asked the students to note that the most compelling
narratives revealed lessons learned by the authors, rather than those that consisted of a
laundry list of chronological life events. I called these lessons “takeaways” and advised
6
students to choose events from their own lives through which they had learned something
important that others might also benefit from.
By the end of the unit, students had learned to write more effective introductions, body
paragraphs, and conclusions through a variety of instructional strategies, including minilessons, one-on-one conferencing, direct instruction, cooperative learning groups, and
peer editing. One strategy that addressed verb usage was a simple and fun game that I
created and called “Two Nouns and a Verb.” The game required students to write
sentences containing regular and irregular verbs; they also had to switch between present
and past tense. To play the game, I prepared stacks of verb cards and noun cards. The
class was split into two teams, and each team had the task of writing sentences
collaboratively that included both the nouns and the verb in the specified tense. I
sometimes included other parameters as well, such as “no simple sentences.” The team
that followed the specifications correctly earned a point. I included unusual and funny
nouns, and drew some of the verbs from the students’ own writing. Other verbs in the
game were included based on the frequency of errors associated with them on the pretest.
Final, edited copies of the personal narratives were due, and students took the “Verb
Tense Posttest” on April 23, 2009. This was followed by a Celebratory Reading Event the
following Thursday, April 30. At this successful event, our program director, classmates,
and a beginning Adult Basic Education class listened to four students read their powerful
and memorable personal narratives aloud. Participating students enjoyed congratulatory
comments from audience members and had their pictures taken. We all celebrated the end
of the unit with refreshments and high spirits.
Data Collection
The purpose of the personal narratives unit, with a concentration on verb tense usage, was
explained to students prior to the February 12 pretest. Though fifteen students took the
pretest, only eleven of these also took the posttest. Therefore, all data pertaining to the
four students who did not take the posttest has been excluded, despite the fact that just
two of them exited the program prior to the end of the unit. The other two students
continued to attend class, albeit sporadically. Both students cited family illness as a
reason for their uneven attendance and failure to complete the personal narratives and
posttest. In addition, four students who did take both tests failed to complete the personal
narratives writing assignment, although most of them completed some of it. The
implications of this will be discussed later in this paper.
Review and analyses of students’ compositions at various stages of the writing and
editing process shaped subsequent lessons on verb tense usage, paragraph and essay
organization, sentence types and variety, peer editing, unity and coherence and other
topics. A list of websites from which additional information was available was provided
to students, including http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ and
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/. After completing the posttest on April 23, students
completed a Learner Questionnaire. I reviewed their student files to confirm past
educational experience, countries of origin, and whether English was their first language.
Attendance data for the dates on which writing classes were held throughout the project
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was also collected. The aforementioned information was subsequently tabulated into
Table 3, Hours in Class, and Table 4, Test Score and Other Data.
Data Analysis
Table 3, Hours in Class, shows the number of hours spent at school by each student
participant between February 12 and April 23, 2009. Attendance data for each four-hour
class period is displayed by date, and a final tabulation of the total number of hours, out
of 36 possible, each student attended is also provided.
TABLE 3
Hours in Class
Student
ID
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
RANGE
AVG
Feb.
12
Feb.
19
Feb.
19
Mar.
5
Mar.
19
Apr.
2
Apr.
9
Apr.
16
Apr.
23
4
2.5
4
0
3.5
4
4
3
2.5
0
1.5
3
2.5
3
0
4
2.5
3
0
2.5
3
3.5
3
3.5
4
2
0
4
3.5
0
2
3
3.5
3.5
2
0
3
3.5
3.5
4
0
4
3.5
3
3
3.5
0
3.5
0
3
3.5
4
3
3
0
3
0
2.5
0
3.5
4
3.5
3.5
3.5
3.5
0
4
0
3.5
4
4
3.5
2.5
2
0
2.5
3
3.5
4
4
3
Table 4, Test Score and Other Data, follows on page 9. The table compares students’
Verb Tense Pretest and Verb Tense Posttest scores. Students’ ages, countries and
languages of origin, and number of years of prior education are also shown on this chart.
Table 4 also includes notes regarding students’ comparative levels of motivation, goals,
health-related concerns, employment status, and any mitigating circumstances I was
aware of. These details are included in an effort to provide more insight into individual
attendance and completion rates. Information contained in the notes was derived from
personal observations and conversations, as well as class records.
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Total
hours in
class, 36
possible
20.5
22
17
21
18.5
29
35
27
21.5
17 to 35
23.50
TABLE 4
Test score and other data
Student
ID
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Pre-Test
Score, 11
pts. possible
1
2
4
5
5
7
7
10
11
Post-Test
Score, 11
pts. possible
5
6
6
6
6
6
9
9
5
RANGE
1-11
5-11
+/-
4
4
2
1
1
4
2
1
-2
Did student
complete
narrative?
no
no
no
yes
no
yes
yes
yes
yes
-2
to
+4
12
12
11
11
10
14
10
16
11
11 to
16
AVG
1.88
5.7
6.66
*North American and Liberian English differ significantly
# years
prior
educ.
11.88
9
Age
22
44
42
23
35
51
49
44
28
First
Lang.
Spoken
Spanish
Spanish
Spanish
Eng.*
Spanish
Eng.*
Hindi
Spanish
French
Country of
Origin
Mexico
Chile
Mexico
Liberia
Mexico
Liberia
Guyana
Ecuador
Cameroon
NOTES
Wrote narrative but did
not turn in final copy;
wants to earn child
development
credential; employed.
Single mother with
young daughter.
Reading score has
declined, student seems
distracted, disengaged;
unemployed.
Sporadic attendance,
teenage son has serious
health problems for
which he was
hospitalized during the
study. Wants to
advance in career;
employed. States that
she is working on and
will hand in personal
narrative.
Highly motivated
student; outstanding
personal narrative
which he is continuing
on his own initiative;
reading event
participant; employed;
wants to attend
technical college
Tired mom of two
school age children;
even when in class,
often does not complete
activities; employed.
Highly motivated
student, powerful
narrative and personal
story; worked for the
government in home
country; reading event
participant; employed
Highly motivated
student, powerful
narrative; reading
event participant;
employed
Highly motivatedpowerful narrative;
reading event
participant; battling
cancer, unemployed
Excellent student, shy,
highly motivated; wants
to become CNA,
unemployed
Findings
1. Eight out of nine participants showed an increase in the number of correct
answers on the Verb Tense Posttest as compared to the pretest. Of these, three
showed gains of four points, two gained two points, and three increased their
scores by one point. One student’s posttest score showed a decrease of two points.
2. Five out of nine participants completed the personal narrative assignment; of
these, two attended school at least 58% of the time scheduled on Thursday
evenings, and three students attended school 75% of the scheduled time or more
on Thursday evenings.
3. Among the oldest students in class, the three participants who attended school
75% of the scheduled time or more achieved all of the following: improved
posttest scores of one, two, and four points; completion of the personal narrative;
participation in reading their personal narratives aloud at the final Celebratory
Reading Event.
4. Participants’ number of years of prior education ranged from 11 to16; the class
average for number of years of prior education was 11.88, a relatively high
number.
Conclusions
Despite moments of doubt along the way, efforts to improve students’ verb tense usage
through customized instruction, as they were engaged in an interesting and meaningful
process-writing project, were both successful and personally gratifying. Not surprisingly,
the data revealed correlations between student persistence, as measured by regular class
attendance; time on task, as measured by the number of hours students attended class;
verb tense usage improvement, as measured by pretest and posttest scores; and project
completion. Unfortunately, individual circumstances, whether controllable or
uncontrollable, contributed to inconsistent attendance and participation by some class
members.
The processes of planning, implementing, and completing the project provided
unanticipated benefits to both students and teacher. Even those students who did not turn
in a final draft of the personal narrative assignment, or were otherwise unable to fully
participate, benefited from and enjoyed the components of the project that they did
complete, such as brainstorming, mind-mapping, and prewriting; peer editing; lessons
and exercises on introductions, body paragraphs, and conclusions; verb tense lessons and
games, and the like. All students benefited from participating as audience members or
readers during the final Celebratory Reading Event. Pride in their accomplishments was
evident on the faces of those who completed and read their essays out loud. Audience
members, including other writing class students, greatly enjoyed hearing four riveting
tales told through well-written prose.
Student improvement is the goal of every teacher. Good teachers also know that the battle
is half won when students are motivated and engaged. I had this in mind when choosing
the personal narratives unit. Initially, my students were eager to participate in the unit,
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and for most this attitude definitely continued, whether they completed the assignment or
not. I explained at the outset that improving verb tense usage would be a goal. However,
the students’ chance to express themselves and describe life lessons they had learned
through the medium of writing appealed as much as, if not more than, the idea of
improvement. For all, though particularly for the students who saw the project through to
the end and read their narratives aloud, the power of the written word to evoke emotion
and provoke thought was made crystal clear.
Through this project, I relearned that authenticity is fundamental to good teaching. I
learned that teaching writing not only is, but must be, nonlinear and that each student
learns according to his or her own needs and schedule. I was reminded of the power of
synergy in the classroom, and that, thankfully, students learn much from each other, as
well as via the doing, not just the completing, of assignments. As a result of this project, I
gained confidence in my ability to guide students toward improved and authentic written
expression.
As Gillespie (2001) notes, “The ability to pass the GED essay test, although important,
may not adequately prepare adults for the demands of postsecondary writing.
Moreover…adults increasingly may be required to do more writing on the job than in the
past.” I may never know whether the lessons I taught through the personal narratives unit
were lasting and transferable, although I am optimistic that they were. I do know that the
experience was an invaluable one for me both personally and professionally. And,
mindful that there is always more work to do, I remain committed to becoming a more
accomplished writing teacher in the future.
Next Steps
One of the greatest pleasures of my first year back in teaching after a four-year hiatus was
the experience of reading and hearing aloud the wonderful, moving, and courageous
stories my students told through their writing. I was reminded of my early days of
teaching, and why I went into this profession in the first place. Narrowly escaping death
at the hands of rebel factions and being forced to relocate time and again; being unjustly
treated and passed over as a result of workplace cronyism; not knowing how long or
whether she will continue to be here for her children because of the return of a mother’s
pervasive cancer: these and other stories, as well as the students who told them, touched
me deeply. I was proud and humbled to have facilitated their telling.
Next year, I anticipate continuing to use a variety of teaching methods in my classroom
and allowing best practices, in conjunction with student needs and interests, to drive
curriculum decisions. Accordingly, I will take the following steps:
1. Through journal and other authentic writing assignments, I will collect data on
student verb tense and other common writing errors from the beginning of the
year.
2. I will proactively create a repertoire of mini-lessons and assessment tools in
advance to address some of the most common student writing errors.
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3. I will retool my personal narratives unit by providing more direct verb instruction
prior to beginning the unit next year in order to free up more student in-class
writing time.
4. I will plan to teach the personal narratives unit earlier in the year in order to take
advantage of publishing opportunities. My goal is to expose the essays to a wider
audience.
5. The benefits of regular and sustained attendance are clear, and are further
supported by the results of my project. I will support the adoption of a managed
enrollment model by my program sometime in the near future.
I am indebted to the other practitioner researchers, the instructors, and colleague Kristine
Kelly for their support and encouragement throughout this project. Going forward, I plan
to share my experiences and insights via a poster session at the 2009 Literacy Minnesota
Summer Institute.
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References
Beverstock, C. & McIntyre, S. (2008). Dividing and Conquering: Successful Writing
Processes for Adult Learners. Adult Basic Education and Literacy Journal, 2:2.
Gillespie, M. (2001). Research in Writing: Implications for Adult Literacy Education.
NCSALL Publication, 2:3. http://www.ncsall.net/?id+561
Gillespie, M. (1999). Using Research in Writing. NCSALL Publication, 3:D.
http://www.ncsall.net/?id+339
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