Case Study

Case Study: Adrien

Background Information:

            Adrien is a fifteen year old sophomore from Salinas, California. She lives outside of town on a ranch with her brother and grandparents. Her mother abandoned her family when Adrien was young, and her father isn’t in the picture at all. Adrien is of Hispanic background, and she speaks English in school but Spanish while at home. Sometimes at school, since I am fluent, she will speak Spanish to me if she doesn’t want anyone else to understand what she is asking. She doesn’t like to read, but spends a good deal of time on her iPad and smart phone looking at social media. She cares a great deal of what her peers think of her as her actions show that she is socially conscious and confident in particular situations.

            Adrien isn’t learning disabled, and if she is, she hasn’t been diagnosed. She participates in class sometimes, and other times, she copies the notes from another student after the block has ended. I haven’t spoken with her about this, but she continues to do it anyway from time to time. Her younger siblings do not attend the school, so I have no way to compare their family responses to schooling. In the classroom, Adrien is responsive when she wants to be, but some days she has no desire to participate. Her erratic approach to her studies is disheartening because I know she can do well, but she chooses the days that she is going to excel. She isn’t consistent.

Informal Test Results:

Adrien has voiced before that she believes the material that we cover in class to be difficult to understand due to the high level of the textbook. As the textbook is challenging to her, she sometimes chooses not to fully read all the pages because the higher level of reading brings discouragement. As a result of this lack of reading the material, she tends to give up easily when it comes to reproducing the material during assessments. She can participate in class if directly asked a question, but more often than not, if she doesn’t understand something, she will not ask for an explanation. When doing on group work, Adrien tends to pick up the slack if the project has to do with personal opinion or creative measure; however, if the group work is more to do with answering factual questions or using academic language for class sharing, she clams up. She also only really wants to work with her friends if they are allowed to choose their own groups. Her friends are not on a higher level of learning either, and they tend to not pay attention in class. Their homework completion is sporadic, and their assessment grades fluctuate between low B’s and failing grades. Adrien’s mirror this range as well.

When it comes to assessments, her spelling isn’t great, and her writing skills are not up to the level that she should be at for her grade level. I think that she might have problems with recalling words and word grasping because her biggest problem with completing assessments is being able to recall certain vocabulary. If she has to answer a question that is “semi-vague”, then she tends to do better than if she had to give a concrete definition. For example, if I ask my class to summarize the story of being kicked out of Eden, she would be able to describe all the main points, but she wouldn’t be able to give specific names of people, places, or things. She wouldn’t be able to name Adam and Eve as protagonists or Satan as the antagonist. Also, I believe that she isn’t sure of herself in the classroom even though she is sure of herself everywhere else.

   Adrien’s home situation affects her ability to read and study for class, and I know this because she has reported this dilemma previously. I have no idea how to solve this problem because her home life isn’t a bad or abusive one; she just has a lot more responsibilities than most fifteen year old girls do. Currently she is preparing for the PSATs, and she is doing this by visiting the college counselor for tips. She is preparing in depth in hopes that she will be ready for the SATs next year and receive a scholarship for college that involves sports and academics. Since her grades aren’t overly amazing, she is heavily relying on a sports scholarship; however, she is still aware that she needs to have decent grades to achieve this possibility. I believe this is why she tries half the time and sits out the other half.