Manar Alnasir
Professor MacDonald
COMP 475
Fall 2024
Research Methods Rough Draft
The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact of the RACE (Restate, Answer, Cite, Explain)
strategy on students’ writing abilities, specifically their skills in structuring responses, selecting textual
evidence, and explaining their reasoning. This research aims to identify both strengths and areas for
growth in students’ writing.
Methodology
1. In-depth Analysis of Student Annotations and Data
•RACE Method: The RACE strategy provides a structured approach that guides students through
each component of a thorough written response:
•Restate: Students rephrase the question or prompt, helping to ensure understanding and set up
their answer.
•Answer: Students provide a direct, specific response to the question.
•Cite: They identify and quote relevant textual evidence to support their answer.
•Explain: Finally, they clarify how the evidence supports their answer, demonstrating reasoning.
• Using CommonLit for Annotations: Students will annotate CommonLit passages,
focusing on identifying key evidence they can use in the “Cite” portion of RACE. These assignments help
students practice selecting strong textual support, an essential part of developing evidence-based
responses.
• Data Collection Process: Students will complete annotations following the RACE
components, and I will review these annotations to assess how effectively they apply each step of RACE.
• Examples of Student Annotations Using RACE:
• Restate: “The prompt asks why the character feels isolated. I’ll start by describing her
situation and how it makes her feel.”
• Answer: “The character feels isolated because her unique interests make her different
from her classmates.”
• Cite: “In paragraph 3, it says, ‘She felt like an outsider, with no one who understood her
passion for art.’”
• Explain: “This shows that her artistic interest causes her to feel isolated because her
classmates don’t share or understand her passion.”
• Qualitative Data Analysis: I will analyze each annotation, focusing on students’ ability to
identify relevant evidence and explain its connection to their answer. Coding for common themes will
help reveal strengths, such as accurate evidence selection, and areas for improvement, such as clarity in
explanations.
•By comparing annotations from early and later in the practicum, I will track improvements in
students’ abilities to independently construct structured responses using RACE.
2. Implementation of the RACE Strategy in Classroom Assignments - This is the one I will develop
further next week for the next research methods assignment
•Beyond the focused annotation assignments, I will implement the RACE strategy across various
classroom writing tasks. This approach allows students to practice RACE in different contexts, such as
responding to open-ended prompts, literary analysis, and thematic discussions.
•Throughout this research, I have collected samples of students’ written responses that
incorporate the RACE strategy. These samples, which will include responses from early, middle, and late
stages of the practicum, will provide a comprehensive view of each student’s progress and how well they
integrate RACE into their overall writing process.
•By reviewing students’ RACE samples over time, I will evaluate improvements in specific skills,
such as accurately restating questions, selecting and citing evidence, and providing clear explanations.
This longitudinal analysis will highlight trends in student growth and inform any adjustments needed in
my teaching approach.
•The implementation of RACE across multiple assignments and the analysis of collected samples
will allow me to measure the strategy’s broader impact on students’ writing abilities, engagement, and
confidence. Observing these samples will provide insights into how well students apply RACE
independently, outside of the annotation assignments.
