IntroductionYour current submission cites research from 1996 (cl.docx

Introduction
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1 G. J. Giddings, “Afrocentric Jay-Z…” 2018
Afrocentric Jay-Z: Africanisms in Black Culture
G. Jahwara Giddings, Ph.D.
Central State University
Introduction
“Do you fools listen to music or do you just skim through it?”
Jay-Z & Eminem 2001
“I don’t know what you take me as, or understand the
intelligence that Jay-Z has.” Jay-Z 2003
Mostly disparaged because misunderstood, Hip-hop needs to be
analyzed for its positive

role in Black and American cultures. As arguably the most
accomplished Hip-hop emcee, Jay-
Z’s body of works illustrates the most compelling, yet
misunderstood, feature of Black American
culture – its Africanisms. Explored herein are Jay-Z’s 20 studio
album oeuvre which places him
in the pantheon of African-American creative cultural agents,
which includes Winton Marsalis,
Toni Morrison, Sonya Sanchez, and August Wilson, et al. In
fact, Jay-Z enables a new
framework for analyzing and understanding the value of
American Hip-hop, based on Black
cultural nationalist theories advanced by Larry Neal (2000),
Amiri Baraka (1991), August
Wilson (1996), Melville Herskovits (1959), Maulana Karenga
(2008) Kariamu Welsh-Asante
(1993), Marimba Ani (1993), and G. Jahwara Giddings (2003,
2010).
An artist of Jay-Z’s stature as the most accomplished –
wealthiest and the most decorated
emcee ever - naturally shapes how we see and understand this
art sustained through generations
of innovation. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie
Holiday’s musicianship and cultural

authenticity made them immortal Jazz innovators; Charlie
Parker’s conscientious genius
innovated and forged Bebop; Sam Cook, Ray Charles, Aretha
Franklin, Otis Redding, Marvin
Gay, et al. generated rhythm and blues through Gospel music;
then Bob Marley’s revolutionary
pan-Africanism passed the torch to his Jamaican compatriot
Kool DJ Herk (Clive Campbell),
who helped create the Hip-hop genre which spawns cultural and
market forces across three
generations while sustaining Africanisms or African culture in
America.
Although geographically vast and very diverse with some 2,000
languages, there is
surprising cultural unity among the 1.2 billion people of
Africa. The migration of Bantu
speakers from West Africa, moving south and east helps explain
why 75% of Africa’s 2,000
languages belong to the Niger-Congo linguistic family, with the
other 25% belonging to just
three other linguistic groups – Nilo-saharan, Khosian and Afro-
Asiatic. The cultural unity of
Africa is illustrated by widely shared traditions such as high
value or veneration of ancestors,

elders, and motherhood, the Queen Mother political office,
inseparability of spiritual and secular
realms, matrilineal family organization, bride-wealth practices,
and oral record keeping, and
dynamic communication scripts such as Adkinkra and Kente.
(Diop 1989, Some, 1994) Malcolm
Gladwell’s (2011) analysis of the Scott-Irish roots of a ‘culture
of honor” among many
southerners, concludes that “cultural legacies are powerful
forces” with “deep roots and long
lives,” persisting through generations.
Similarly, core cultural impulses, or epic memory, compel many
African descendant
artists to inherit, negotiate, innovate, and perpetuate
Africanisms or African culture across
generations. In Hip-hop, these impulses are expressed through
imperatives and questions such as
“are you keepin’ it real?,” “who killed Hip-hop?,” and “are you
an artist or entertainer?” as Hip-
hop is pushed and pulled in many directions by fans, critics,

markets, and evolving norms. These
tensions are essential for understanding the significance of Jay-
Z to Black or African American
cultures. Since we assume here that Black culture is a derivative
of African cultures, let us admit
too that Africa is a conceptual invention, and thus subject to
ongoing innovation. In fact,
historian James Sidbury (2007) argues that the idea of “Africa”
was created by socio-historic
efforts of earnest African descendants within varied areas of the
vast African Diaspora. The
reality of Blacks africanizing the U.S. is well documented and
continues today in several ways,
including Hip-hop, where Jay-Z’s artistry is an exemplum.
Jay-Z’s stature places him at the center of debates on how Hip-
hop helps to sustain
African culture in America. Consciously or not, Jay-Z’s twenty
two albums oeuvre engages
themes, concerns and conventions that are at the heart of
Africanist cultures in Black
communities. Jay-Z’s talents, professionalism, and fidelity to
Hip-hop aesthetics beg for
analysis of its relationship to Black core cultural
traditions/values or Africanisms, which

Giddings (2003) coined as oral, communal, spiritual and
matrifocal. These Africanisms help us
to at least begin exploring Jay-Z’s place in the pantheon of
African American cultural agents.
Chief among barriers to appreciating the importance of
Hip-hop in general and emcees
such as Jay-Z in particular, is white America’s alienation from
Black life and culture, as seen in
the myopic mass media critiques of Bill O’Reilly, Bill Cosby,
and the late C. Delores Tucker.
Whites are not “woke” to Black realities and culture due to the
legacy of American segregation,
the dynamics of which Toni Morrison (1993:4) illustrates in her
sketch of a pre-1960s Black
community, where a white “valley man” entering such a
segregated world, as an outsider, to
collect insurance premiums or such, might:
…see a dark woman in a flowered dress doing a bit of a
cakewalk, a bit
of black bottom, a bit of “messing around” to the lively note of
a mouth
organ. Her bare feet would raise the saffron dust that floated
down on

the coveralls of the bunion-split shoes of the man breathing
music in and
out of his harmonica. The Black people watching her would
laugh and
rub their knees, and it would be easy for the valley man to hear
the
laughter and not notice the adult pain that rested somewhere
under the
eyelids, somewhere under their head rags, …somewhere in the
palm of
the hand, somewhere behind the frayed lapels, somewhere in the
sinew’s
curve. He’d have to stand in the back of Greater St. Matthews
and let the
tenor’s voice dress him in silk, or touch the hands of the spoon
carvers
(who had not worked in eight years) and let the fingers that
danced on
wood kiss his skin. Otherwise, the pain would escape him, even
though
the laughter was part of the pain … that could even describe and

explain
how they came to be where they were. (author’s emphases)
WORD!
“They’re few writers in my cipher” Jay-Z, 2009
“If I can’t live by my word, then I’d much rather die” Jay-Z,
2009
Of the Black core values carried from Africa, preserved within
a once segregated and still
somewhat self-contained African-America, the most familiar is
the oral tradition. This
preference for oral (over written) communicative forms finds
axiological expression in hip-hop
aesthetics. (Giddings, 2003) Jay-Z’s emcee prowess, and
preference for free-style even at
recording sessions, illustrates the oral tradition. Free-style
facilitates sincerity, spontaneity,
improvisation, realness, truth, and even spiritual engagement.
Commitment to free-style allows
Jay-Z to convey sincerity and authenticity. His relaxed style or
swag even makes his claim of
having the ‘hottest chick in the game” seem more than mere
emcee braggadocio. Still, beyond

his blessings of a sustainable power marriage and growing
wealth, Jay’s unique swag is seen also
in his gift or knack for spiting phrases which in the mouth of
most other emcees would not land
the same, especially so in a career where coolness is currency.
Few rappers can get away with
gushing over their mother’s cameo on their album, especially
cooing about how at age four,
“Shawn … taught his self how to ride a bike – a two wheel at
that, isn’t that special?!” And at the
end of which Jay (2003) exclaims, “Mom, you made the album,
how crazy is that” Such an
unusual, yet matrifocal, expression is par for the course with a
litany of maverick emcee phrases
and references such as:
… Jaybo …welcome to Jay-Z’s poetry readin’ … sounds so
soulful, don’t you agree? …
actin’ all nonchalant ‘front of an audience … this is a public
service announcement … I
mastered my aesthetics/I know you often heard me was poetic
… this an unusual musical
I’m conducting … l’album noir … am the Sinatra of my day, old
blue eye my Nigga, I did

it my way!… in layman’s terms … James Dean ... dyin’ young,
leavin’ a good-lookin’
corpse … you got a daughter, gotta get softer... foreplay in the
foyer … ain’t trying to be
facetious …faux nigga …she’s a lesbian/had to pretend so long
she is a thespian … with
that in the egg shell …nothing succeeds like excess… thanks
everybody out there for their
purchase … you’re far too kind … meteoric rise …
This seems part of Jay-Z’s unique manner of operating within
Hip-hop’s imperative of an emcee
or MC, as a “microphone commando” who “moves the crowd,”
in keeping with conventional
master of ceremony’s clear, authoritative, and effective speech
events. As such, the free-style
oral tradition demands honesty, sincerity and authenticity. To
effectively explain this tradition,
Marimba Ani (1993) expanded the conceptualization of
aesthetics to include kugusa mtima (“to
move the heart in Ki-Swahili) as more appropriate for Black
peoples’ creativity and beauty.

Fittingly, Jay-Z (2004A) brags that: “first I snatched the streets,
then I snatched the charts/First I
had their ears, now I have their heart.” In fact, Jay-Z’s attention
to audience is well illustrated in
his MTV Unplugged (2001) live album, where he periodically
gauges, on a 10 points scale, his
audience’s energy level throughout the performance, even
directing the crowd’s energy by
instigating each side of the room against the other, and reveling
in his violation of an MTV
broadcast rule, all in the name of maximum improvisational
connection with his audience, who
karaoked his lyrics which they know by heart.
Expectedly, live concerts and ciphers are ideal venues for
seeing the oral tradition in
action. Born of conventions, protocols, and practices that
facilitate classical non-literary
communication, the oral tradition also facilitates new
expressions that still affirm West-African
grammar kugusa mtima values. Such conventions include
rhyming, repetition, tonal play,
compression, contractions or minimalism, and other means of
aiding memorization,

improvisation and efficacy. Allsopp (1997:xlvii)) describes the
“[c]reole economy of expression
which maximizes the use of the stock of vocabulary … by the
device of functional shift or
‘conversion.’” For example, the creation and use of transitive
verbs serve the goal of minimalist
and efficient wordsmithing as follows:
Everybody’s like, “He’s no item, please don’t like him,
He don’t wife ‘em, he one-nights them!” (2002, “Excuse Me
Miss”)
…too old to be frontin’ what am feelin’
Denzelin’ and actin’ like you not appealing when you are
Stepin’ like you not my only girl, when you are (Pharrell 2003,
“Frontin’”)
I ain’t a new jack
nobody gon’ Wesley Snipe me, (2009, “Change Clothes”)
Till we all without sin, let’s quit the pulpitin’ (2007, “Ignorant
Shit”)
Ya’ll think small, I think Biggie! (2017, “Family Feud”)
These oral tradition conventions are at Hip-hop’s aesthetic core.
Jay-Z’s poetics, replete with

masterful humor and irony, employ, innovate and thus sustain
this kugusa mtima legacy. A small
sample of Jay’s wordsmithing reveals this mastery:
I sell ice in the winter, I sell fire in hell
I am a hustler baby, I'll sell water to a well (2001, “You Don’t
Know”)
Cats all feta, cause I got a little cheddar …
Bird ass niggas, I don’t mean to ruffle y’all
I know you waiting in the wings, but am doing my thing.
(2001, “Heart of the City/Ain’t No Love”)
Love, let's go half on a son,
I know my past ain't one you can easily get past,
but that chapter is done (2002, “Excuse Me Miss”)
My name is Hove, H to the OV
I used to sell snowflakes by the Oz (2003, Public Service
Announcement)
It’s inevitable,

Now you’re (falling)
When you should’ve scaled back,
Now you’re (falling)
Right into their lap …
Now you’re tumbling, it’s humbling,
you’re falling, you’re mumbling
under your breath, like you knew this day was coming (falling)
Now let’s pray that arm-candy
that you left your Ex for, stay “down” and come in handy
(2007, “Falling”)
No am not a Jonas
brother am a grownup
No am not a virgin
I use my cojones. (2009, “On to the Next One”)
Niggas make the same shit,
Me, I make the blueprint
Every year since, I’ve been on the next shit
Traded in a gold for the platinum Rolexes
Now a Niggas’ wrist match the status of my records (2009, “On

to The Next One”)
I said, save the narrative that you savin’ it marriage
Keep it real ma, you savin’ it for carriage (2007. “I Just Wanna
Love You/Give it To Me”)
For some immigrants
Build your fences, we diggin' tunnels
Can't you see, we gettin' money up under you? (2011, “Otis”)
Jay-Z (2009) conscientiously asserts a Griot or Djeli swag and
status in claiming he is the
“only rapper to re-write history without a pen/ No I.D. on the
track, let the story begin.” Here, he
evokes, via double entendre, the ephemeral, ethereal, character
of the oral tradition by alluding to
an untraceable owner or authorship. Of course, effectively
affirmed here is the communalism of
ambivalent ownership of such entities as words, rhymes and
beats which are often borrowed,
sampled and collaborated, and in this case that of producer No
I.D. Also apparent from the list
above is Jay’s mandatory assertion of Djeli-like authority, but
which might be seen only as mere
emcee braggadocio. But a closer and critical afrocentric

reading suggests the Africanist legacy
at work.
THE HOOD
“…hold your applause, this is your song, not mine” Jay-Z 2007
“…I’m tryin’ to give you a million dollars-worth of game for
$9.99” Jay-Z 2017
It is the communal core value which breaks through any barriers
to optimal engagement
between emcee and the audience. It is also this African cultural
imperative to view and value the
self as extended (and thus dynamic) as opposed to nuclear (and
static) that grounds Hip-hop.
Specifically, let us resist the inclination to limit our search for
communal expressions only within
Jay-Z’s socially conscious lyrics. Perhaps because Jay-Z is not
known to be as woke as Kendrick
Lamar, Common, Naz or even J Cole, he is a perfect subject for
investigating the pervasiveness
of Africanist communal values, because he’s often not even

trying to be woke. In his Black
Album self-professed “moment of clarity [and] honesty” a
seeming self-conscious Jay-Z (2003)
admits to dumbing-down to audiences for optimal profit, and
explains or rationalizes that:
If skills sold, truth be told
I’d probably be lyrically Tablib Kweli
Truthfully, I wanna rhyme like Common Sense
(but I did 5 mil)
I ain’t been rhyming like Common since!
When your sense got that much in common
And you been hustling since
Your inception, fuck perception -
Go with what makes sense!
Since I know what I’m up against
We as rappers must decide what’s most important
And I cant’ help the poor if I’m one of them,
So I got rich and give back
To me that’s the win win …(“Moment of Clarity”)

Here, Jay-Z’s (2003) win-win pragmatism suggests commitment
to an extended self. Sharing the
same social or “street” milieu as Biggie Smalls, Jay-Z is
compelled to “keep it real” about the
conditions of his “hood.” In fact, Jay-Z recognizes the
dominant influence of mentor and
predecessor, The Notorious B.I.G./Biggie Smalls, whose “Ten
Crack Commandments” track is
bitingly profound street pedagogy. As self-professed heir to
Biggie Smalls’ legacy, Jay-Z builds
on community awareness and business skills honed during days
as a drug dealer and as mentee
of both Biggie Smalls and Jaz-O, to achieve the career
successes of which Biggie Smalls was
tragically cut short.
Jay-Z is aware of obligations to embrace the role of emcee as
street-representative (2003)
and is upfront that “Marcy [projects] raised me; whether right
or wrong, streets gave me all I
write in the song.” In the following justification of his thug
actions, this Brooklyn
Representative emcee spits that:

When your options is none and the pen is all you have
… there’s limits on the Ave. …
Mr. President, there’s drugs in our residence
Tell me what you want me to do, come break bread with us
Mr. Governor, I swear there’s a cover up
Every other corner there’s a liquor store – fuck is up?
(“Justify My Thug”)
In this activist-artist role, success requires Bob Marley like
social commitment. Amiri Baraka
observes that development or critique of society is the focus or
driver of African or Black art
expression. Fittingly, another cultural agent, Jazz impresario
Wynton Marsalis describes novelist
Ralph Ellison as the unsung ‘political theorist’ of the mid-20th
century Civil Rights movement.
Perhaps conscious of the reach, limit and imperative of his rap
representative, or culture agent,
role Jay (2003) admits that he is “far from a Harvard student,
just had the balls to do it.”
In addition, glorification of roots is essential for any
representative, traditional or street.

U.S. Congresspersons represent local district constituencies and
similarly Jay-Z (2009) proclaims
his “New York’s Ambassador” status. In addition to addressing
the plagues of poverty and
drugs, Jay-Z takes on the flawed educational system, much more
diplomatically than Dead
Prez’s (2000) provocative “They Schools.” On a 1999 pop
single with Mariah Carey, Jay-Z
complains that “school made me sick, teachers said I was too
crazy.” However 10 years later,
and in the Obama era, Jay-Z criticizes a system where research
suggests that white teachers have
less expectations than Black teachers have of Black students’
potential:
I felt so inspired by what my teacher said
Said I’d either be dead or be a reefer head
I’m not sure if that’s how adults should speak to kids
Especially when the only
thing I did was speak in class
I’ll teach his ass! (2009, “So Ambitious”)
Also in tune with the communal value is the seeming obligatory

collaborations with fellow
artists, and Jay’s include:
Notorius B.I.G, Pharrell (Williams), Kanye West, J. Cole, Kid
Cudi, Beyonce, Alicia Keys,
Rihanna, Beanie Sigel, Bilal, Ne-Yo, Sterling Simms, Usher,
John Legend, Chrisette Michele,
Gloria Carter, Memphis Bleek, Timbaland, Young Chris,
Scarface, Lenny Kravitz, Paul Anka
(that’s right Paul Anka, go figure!), Big Boi, Killer Mike,
Twista, LaToya Williams, Sean Paul,
The Roots, Jaguar Wright, Q-Tip, R. Kelly, DJ Clue, Snoop
Dogg, Scarface, Missy Elliott, Amil,
Juvenile, Mariah Carey, Jermaine Dupri, Foxy Brown, Big Jaz,
Babyface, Lil’ Kim, P Diddy,
and Mary J. Blige.
A notable collaboration is the “Renegade” track with the highly
acclaimed Detroit emcee
Eminem, who is racially white and perhaps significantly from
the blackest city in the U.S. where
he internalized hip-hop culture. In fact, Eminem’s skills
arguably eclipse Jay’s on this track and

represents the dynamics and diversity of community. Black
American communities draw
diversity (10%) from immigrants who hail from the Caribbean,
African and Latin America, and
even the birth of hip-hop is credited to Cool DJ Herk (Clive
Campbell) who was born in Jamaica,
which the leading source of Black immigrants in the U.S. This
communal value or posture
allows Hip-hop to benefit from the diversity offerings around it,
be it immigrant, queer, or even
white.
SPIIRT
“If you don’t give me heaven I’ll raise hell. Till it’s heaven.
Jay-Z 2003
“Spread love to all my dead thugs, I’ll pour out a little Louie
‘til I head above.” Jay-Z 2003
Notions of transcendence, religiosity and ethics pervade African
origin cultures, from
Haitians and Londoners to Carolina Sea Islanders and New
Yorkers. And art (song, elocution,
dance, etc.) is a natural conduit for conjuring up spirit.

Specifically, Hip-hop’s communal
practices such as the free-style ciphers are chief means for
engaging and manipulating, indeed
“riding” the spirit. Perhaps no single Jay-Z track engages
spirituality more than “Lucifer.” Here,
Jay (2003) theorizes that “money and power is changing us and
now we’re lethal, infected with
D’Evils …” Also, community concerns are painted as a “holy
war” effectively shifting the
discourse on Ghetto realities from simple economics to ethics,
in the manner that Maulana
Karenga (2010) recommend we examine America’s vexing
socio-economic inequities.
Whenever such issues as inequitably funded schools are framed
in economic terms and
abstractions only (i.e., property demographics, liabilities, and
taxes) culpability is anonymous,
making needed political action out of reach. However, when
social injustices are framed in
ethical terms (i.e., social-contract, collective responsibility,
shared ethics and fairness)
culpability is clear and tangible solutions are perhaps more
easily attainable. Recognizing that
street violence should be contextualized, Jay-Z (2003) explains

and necessarily complicates what
is often seen as simply sinfulness:
“I’m from the murder capital, where we, murder for capital”
Lord forgive him
He got them dark forces in him
But he also got a righteous cause for sinning
Them a murder me, so I gotta murder them (“Lucifer”)
…
Don’t mean to be facetious, but vengeance is mine said the
Lord.
Furthermore, Jay-Z’s diction here reflects traditional African
American use, including
Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam (Black Muslim) theology
of conceiving whites as
metaphorical “devils” as a means of grappling with the “moral
monstrosity” (Karenga 2010) of
the enslavement holocaust and racism. Conscious that devilry
can assume the “form of

diamonds and Lexuses,” Jay-Z (1994; 2003) employs this
familiar metaphor to chase Lucifer
“out of Earth.” It’s compelling that on just two of Jay-Z tracks,
one finds such proliferation of
spiritual and religious references as:
God forgive me for my brash delivery … forgive me I can’t be
held accountable, D’Evils
beating me down … we all have sinned … blame it on the sun of
the morning …
‘vengance is mine’ said the lord … introduce you to your maker
… bring you closer to
nature … reading your psalms … paying your tithe, being good
Catholics … wet you
with holy water … like a Semitic … Don Bishop …lift up your
soul and give the Holy
Ghost … when I perish … the meek shall inherit the earth …
bright light lead you …
memorial services ...somebody want their soul to rise …gone
but not forgotten … love to
all my dead thugs …ashes after they cremate you … I’ll pour
out a little Louie ‘til I head
above …
In his “No Church in the Wild” collaboration with Kanye West,
Jay (2011) spits of:

Lies on the lips of a priest
Thanksgiving disguised as a feast
… I’m wondering if a thug’s prayers reach
Is Pius pious ‘cause God loves pious?
...Jesus was a carpenter, Yeezy he laid beats
Hova flow the Holy Ghost, get the hell up out your seats,
preach!
Beyond what is written and therefore explicit, it is in the cipher
and other live
performances where one witnesses spirituality in fullest effect.
Jay-Z’s (2001) recorded
performance of his “Song Cry” blues song begins with a sort of
cipher among himself, Jaguar
Wright and the Roots. Jay-Z’s conventional rift of “…uh, uh,
uh …” just behind and interlaced
with Wright’s own crooning, gets him into the grove and to
spontaneously exclaim, “this is so
[mutafuckin’] soulful!” With invocation achieved, Jay-Z (2001)
begs the music to do his
bidding: “can’t see it coming down my eyes, so I gotta make
this song cry” to tell a confessional
tale of love lost to machismo pride. All the while Jay is

sustained by Jaguar Wright’s blues
croons of minor notes that Jay rides all the way to epiphanies.
In the end of this performed
confessional, and after arousal from a sort of post-coital stupor
where Wright and Roots had
lulled him, Jay professes: “I got lost for a second, I ain’t gon’
lie … I was in my own thoughts
for real!”
Whether or not Jay-Z actually got lost in his own thoughts
before an audience, he
certainly lays plain the sincerity cues hip-hop audiences expect.
The great Jazz vocalist, Billie
Holiday (1957) mastered this improvisational convention and
humbly defines the Blues
dynamics:
The blues to me is like being very sad, very sick, going to
church, being very happy …

there’s two kinds of blues, there’s happy blues and sad blues …
don’t think I ever sing
the same way twice, don’t think I ever sing the same tempo, one
night it’s a little bit
slower, the next night it’s a little bit brighter, depending on how
I feel. I don’t know, the
blues is sort of a mixed up thing, you just have to feel
it.[author’s emphasis]
This spontaneity aesthetic, as informed by fidelity to context,
mindfulness of audiences, and
one’s own mood and whim, affirms the established tradition of
viewing, embracing and engaging
creativity as a collective/communal process. This aesthetic is
popularly witnessed on any given
high-noon-on-Sunday (possibly still the most segregated hour in
American life), where Black
preachers, saints, and musicians lean and build on collective
shouts, songs and dances to call,
mount, ride, taste and feel the spirit.
Also, a tradition of personifying such spiritual forces as evil,
affirms the Africanist
spiritual value of recognizing reality as not only tangible but
also ethereal or even illusive. As
such, devilry is not just abstract, but also often very real and

personified. In addressing the
“driving while Black” phenomenon, on the “99 Problems” track,
listeners can deduce the Cop is
white, not only by Jay-Z’s mimicking his voice, but also by Jay-
Z’s reference to him as a devil,
“… pull over the car or bounce on the devil, put the petal to the
floor!” Lyor Cohen (Healy
2006: 288) perhaps unwittingly recognizes this orientation in
Jay-Z’s personality by assessing
that “Jay-Z doesn’t have a [presumption] of what’s good and
what’s bad. He doesn’t feel like
anything is out-of-bounds for him to witness and experience”
and as such Cohen celebrates Jay-
Z’s disposition or worldview as “an incredibly valuable thing
for hip-hop.” Jay-Z is merely
mirroring a larger spiritualist orientation, manifest by Africa’s
cultural persistence in America.
James H. Cone (1992: 71-77) uses the musical Blues tradition to
explain Black theology, and
Toni Morrison (1993: 90, 118) paints a pre-1960’s Black
worldview similarly:
In their world, aberrations were as much a part of nature as
grace … nature was never
askew – only inconvenient… There was no creature so ungodly

as to make them destroy
it … a full recognition of the legitimacy of forces other than
good ones …They knew
anger well but not despair, and they didn’t stone sinners for the
same reason they didn’t
commit suicide – it was beneath them …The purpose of evil was
to survive it.
One of Jay-Z’s favorite producers, Kanye West (2010), puts it
this way: “we love Jesus, but you
done learned a lot from Satan.” Indeed, a unique people dealing
with the devilry of racism
produced a unique theology of oppression and expectedly also
other unique ways of navigating
life, including essentials of the important dynamics of gender
relations as we will explore in the
final section of this essay.
MA
“Ladies is pimps too …” Jay-Z 2003

“Took my child to be born, see through a woman’s eyes” Jay-Z
2017
“Bitch Bad, Woman Good, Lady Better, … Misunderstood”
Lupe Fiasco 2012
In recognizing the importance of various women in his life,
W.E.B. DuBois (1920)
describes the ‘mother idea’ as one of Africa’s important cultural
gifts and legacies to the world,
and recognizes its continuity in African America. This
matrifocal principle, conceptualized by
Giddings (2003) as the appreciation of women’s unique,
indispensible and complementary
role in relationships, family, community and society, is very
much manifest in Hip-hop, yet
Hip-hop is often simplistically dismissed as misogynistic music.
The Hip-hop tradition of
referring to women endearingly as “Ma” complicates this
charge. Further, one of Hip-hop’s most
natural links with its R&B forbearer, or cousin, is the emcee’s
dependence on vocal hooks,
typically in feminine complementary voice generating,
lubricating and guiding melodic tracks
for effective emcee flow.

Jay-Z’s (2001) “Song Cry” performance exemplifies this
conventional assignment of
women to the role of crying and crooning, on his behalf, as his
machismo, in this case, does not
allow him to see tears coming down his own eyes. In this
confessional Blues song, Jay-Z offers
his masculine apologia, but he also takes a gender-
complementarity approach. Although, to the
casual eye this seems a double standard, Jay-Z seems sincere.
His thoughtful reflection on
coming to terms with repeatedly disrespecting by cheating, and
consequently losing, his woman
is unequivocal:
How many time you forgiven me?/How was I to know you was
plain sick of me?
I know the way a nigga was livin’ was wack/ But you don’t get
a nigga back like that! / Look, I’m
a man with pride …
You don’t just pick up and leave and leave me sick like that/
I gotta live with the fact that I did you wrong forever! (“Song
Cry”)
Jay (2017) later called on this trope again relative to his marital
infidelity, admitting, “took me

too long for this song, I don’t deserve you” and relieved that he
did not “go… Eric Bennet.”
This process of working out male-female romance issues is also
attempted in Jay-Z’s
(2001) seeming misogynistic “Girls, Girls, Girls” which further
complicates his relationship with
the matrifocal principle and gender complementarity.
Collaborating with three other legends, Q-
Tip, Biz Markie, and Slick Rick, this track affirms Black
Womanism, popularized by Alice
Walker (1983) as culturally distinct from white feminism. Here
Jay-Z brags, or fantasizes, about
romantically conquering the following twelve “chick”
caricatures: Spanish, Black, French,
Indian, Peruvian, Chinese, African, young, project, model,
paranoid-hypochondriac, and
narcoleptic. Beyond its chauvinistic comedy, this rap rant seems
to affirm the matrifocal value in
highlighting through satire, behaviors antithetical to
conventional, complementary women’s
roles, which includes primary-care providers, educators of

children, and husbandry of the home.
For instance, about the “model chick”, Jay-Z complains that
though “she dress her ass off and
her walk is mean/only thing wrong with Ma she’s always on the
scene/God damn she’s fine, but
she parties all the time,” and “don’t cook or clean.” Here, Jay-
Z’s satire on women’s place is
within the same tradition of Brand Nubian’s (1990) “Slow
Down” and Chaka Demas’ (2002)
“Murder She Wrote.” Indeed, one gets a sense of Jay-Z’s
artistic socio-political satire, if the
surface chauvinism can be ignored. What then are we to make
of Jay-Z’s (2003) gender
egalitarian assertion that, not just men but “ladies is pimps
too”?
What possibly saves “Girl, Girls, Girls” from dismissal as pure
misogyny, is Jay-Z’s
engagement of the “cash connection” dynamic of male-female
romantic relations. (Karenga
2010: 279) Jay-Z’s (2001, 1999) asking his “Indian Chick”
which tribe she is from, “red dot or
feather” is met by her “dough fetish” retort that “… all you
need to know is am not-a-hoe and to
get with me you better be chief lots-a-dough.” Such

engagements of the “cash connection”
enlightens the discourse on video vixens and other
pornographies and economic traps into which
some women fall, in a society where matrifocal ideals are not
mainstream values and where too
many female, Black and poor bodies are commodified. 50
Cent’s “Candy Shop” affirms this as
Olivia, his female collaborator, boasts “I’ll have you spending
all you got!” On his “Snoopy
Track,” Jay-Z (1999) is cognizant of this dynamic and salutes
“…chicks who get dough for
takin’ off their closes, … money-makin’ honies that slide down
the poles, all my educated chicks
whose grade is 4.0, all my baby mamas across the globe.” Jay-Z
(2011) concludes that
“everything’s for sale …am never going to jail” and Drake (DJ
Khalid 2016) even wonders out
loudly, “is it just me or is this sex so good, I shouldn’t have to
fuck for free?”
Among Jay-Z’s supposed conquests, and in addition to the
Indian chick, his “Black” and
“Project” chicks too are of particular interest to the matrifocal
value because only these three are
given voice to respond, and thus engage in a Womanist

discourse with him. Jay-Z’s (2001)
complaint that the “Black Chick” “don’t know how to
act/Always talking out her neck, makin’
her finders snap” is met by her assertion that “listen Jigga man,
I don’t care if you rap/You better
R-E-S-P-E-C-T me!” She asserts that neither Jay-Z’s status nor
rap’s misogyny gives him the
right to disrespect her or the sisterhood. Jay-Z’s use of this
Black woman’s anthem, as
popularized by the “Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin, suggests
some thoughtfulness. Further, as
an original recording of R&B pioneer Otis Redding, the use of
this womanist “anthem”
underscores the very discourse Jay-Z engages with his female
caricaturized subjects. As a son of
Brooklyn’s Marcy housing projects, Jay-Z (2001) is
communally compelled to hold in high
regard, his “Project Chick, that plays her part” and about whom
he concludes “…if it goes down
y’all that’s my heart.” Earlier, on the “Do It Again,” track Jay-Z
(1999) collaborates with, and
thus engages, female co-emcee Amil (All Money is Legal) using
classical call-and-response
format, where she playfully stands her ground against his

bravado:
Jay-Z (Amil) Amil (Jay-Z)
12 am, on the way to the club
1 am, DJ make it erupt
2 am, now I’m getting with her
3 am, now I’m splitting with her (splitting with who?)
4 am, at the waffle house
5 am, now we at my house
6 am, I be diggin’ her out (who?)
6:15, I be kickin’ her out (what?)
7 am, I’m a call my friends
12 am, we gonna do it again …
12 am, on the way to the club
1 am, about to shake the butt

2 am, now I’m checkin’ the mix
3 am, now he buyin’ me drinks (what u drikin’ on?)
4 am, exit the club (let’s go)
5 am, think he getting some butt (that’s right!)
6 am, nigga still ain’t bust (what?)
6:15, nigga will get up (what?)
7 am, gotta tell my friends
12 am, we gonna do it again…
Beyoncee too holds her own, or is assertive, relative to the
cash-connection romantic
relationship dynamic when asserting in song that “when he
fucks me good, I take his ass to Red
Lobster.” The matrifocal principle is certainly at play in “Hello
Brooklyn, 2.0” where Jay-Z’s
(2006) beloved borough of Brooklyn is personified as a
nurturing woman, and after whom he
would name his future daughter, “Brooklyn Carter.” This 2006
collaboration with younger
emcee Lil’ Wayne, suggests a passing of this aesthetic tradition
on to the next generation of
emcees, and fans too. This alone should warrant looking

beyond Jay-Z’s surface misogyny if
one needs evidence beyond Jay-Z’s (2002) assertion that
“Sisters love Jay cuz they know how
Hov is, I love my sisters, I don’t love no bitch.”
CONCLUSIONS
“You can’t kill me. I’ll live forever through these bars.” Jay-Z
2003
Well beyond an expose of Jay-Z’s hip-hop mastery, I have
presented a framework for
viewing Hip-hop as a contemporary keeper of Africana aesthetic
traditions. Jay-Z’s acclaimed
oeuvre points to a theory for understanding Hip-hop in Black
culture-nationalist and historical
terms. In fact, Jay-Z’s self-confidence in engaging non-
conventional rap references and
concepts, illustrates the authority of a cultural agent. An
important aspect of cultural leadership
or mastery is consciousness of one’s relationship to surrounding
cultural forces. Apparently
aware of connections to legacies, Jay (2003) admits that he did
not “invent the game” and as a
metaphor for both the hustle and leadership, he thoughtfully

explains:
I put my feet in the footprints left to me
… the ghetto’s got a mental telepathy
Man my brother hustled so, naturally
up next is me …
Shit I know how this movie ends … (Jay-Z, 1993)
Jay-Z seems to know also the complex cultural leadership
landscape, littered as it is with rows
about relevance and realness. He says “I’m like Che Guevara
with bling on, I’m complex” and
“never claimed to have wings on.” (Jay-Z 2003) Indeed,
seeming to sense his eldership status as
younger emcees emerge while he still has much to contribute,
Jay-Z (2006) compensated that
30s is the new 20s, recalling his own recording contract debut at
age 26. Also, concern about
relevancy perhaps prodded Jay-Z’s orchestrated 2003 Black
Album retirement, a bold and

unprecedented act in an industry where artists typically just
fade to black. This facilitates the
issue of passing the mic from the hip-hop generation (born
between 1965 and 1984) to what
might be called the Neo-hip-hop generation, who might not
appreciate Hip-hop’s founding
pillars such as break-dancing, but whose reach beyond
conventional limits of blackness might
have played some role in the election of President Barack H.
Obama, who offers a new role
model for Black youths and many others. In cultural agency
terms, Jay-Z capitalizes on his
maturity, painting the following braggadocio as earned status:
That's another difference that's between me and them
… I'm smarten up, open the market up …
Was born to dictate, never follow orders (2001, “U Don’t
Know”)
I'm in the hall already, on the wall already
I'm a work of art, I'm a Warhol already …
Niggas compare me to Biggie and Tupac already. (2009, “All
ready home”)
Pound for pound I’m the best to ever

come around here …
I went plat a bunch a times
Times that by my influence on pop culture
I supposed to be number one on everybody’s list
We’ll see what happens
when I no longer exist! (2003, “What more can I say”)
How can you falter, when you the Rock of Gibraltar
I had to get of the boat, so I can walk on water
This ain’t a tall order, this is nothing to me
Difficult take a day, impossible takes a week
… I do this in my sleep! …
Am not a businessman,
I’m a business, man!
Watch me handle my business, damn! (West 2004, “Diamonds
from S.L.)
Mark Healy (2006: 288) justifies Jay-Z’s braggadocio by
observing that “[t]he world
knows that if [Jay]’s doing it, wearing it, backing it, it’s
probably worth a second look.” Actor

Gwyneth Paltrow (Healy 2006:288) too weighs in, that “there’s
a generosity and self-assurance
that makes him super, super cool. Something just went right …
he just has it all.”
Still, Jay-Z (2003) knows his paradoxical status as a rich Black
man, whose “99
problems” include navigating a racist justice system which
could impose “half-a-mil for bail
‘cause I’m African.” Indeed, Jay-Z’s oeuvre inspires further
investigations into the dynamics of
Black culture and the potential, and imperative, of Black artists
to forge a functional cultural
philosophy (a system of norms … that create institutions and
policies that prod effective cultural,
socio-economic and political development among African
Americans). (Cruse 1967) By more
conscientiously engaging such a cultural purpose and goal, Hip-
hop can avoid the seeming faith
of its predecessor, Jazz, which was criticized shortsightedly
from many middle class African

Americans during its formative years in 1920-‘30’s – perhaps
understandably so as African
American leaders strived to assimilate into U.S. normative
culture. But today’s artists and
executives, such as Jay-Z, should learn the lesson of Jazz and
better nurture the new and crucial
cultural craft of Hip-hop.
As a crucial American musical genre, an offspring of Jazz, Hip-
hop struggles to avert a
much prophesized death. Jay-Z, Eminem, Naz, Wu Tang Clan,
Lil’Wayne, Mos Def, J. Cole,
Kendrick Lamar, Kodak Black et al., illustrate that Hip-hop is
hardly dying, and is in fact
thriving. Still, Jay-Z (2004: 75) fans this prophetic flame by
attributing his 2003 retirement to
being “honestly … bored with hip hop” and “…feeling
uninspired.” His quick return from
retirement with Kingdom Come smacks of intentional
provocation and a response to somewhat
messianic calls to save Hip-hop from the faith suffered by its
elder grandparent, Jazz. Whatever
the motive, it has been illustrated herein that Jay-Z can be
viewed as a Black cultural agent who
passes on core kugusa mtima values and traditions to

subsequent generations with faith that they
can and will sustain African culture here in the U.S.
This exploration of Jay-Z’s oeuvre should help us understand
some dynamics of Black
cultural agency or Black intelligentsia. Jay-Z speaks to at least
two generations of fans while
amassing and directing wealth and influence the like of which
predecessors such as Billie
Holiday, Duke Ellington, Sam Cook, Aretha Franklin, and
Shirley Caesar only hoped to achieve.
With such influence, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, J-Cole and others
have tremendous cultural
opportunities in their hands. Imagine then, how much more
understanding of Black culture can
be garnered from a more comprehensive cultural biography that
includes music theory analyses
of Jay-Z’s work and the Hip-hop genre more broadly. Such a
comprehensive study could
elucidate the relationship between Africans and “African
origin” communities particularly in
light of a diminishing baseline of culture between Africa and its
Diaspora, as argued by Ronald
Walter (1997)

(In this current era where “racism” is indeed a ruse, or
distraction from the real problem
of perpetuating greed and denying human dignity, it is
important to address the issues of culture,
through which (real) power may be harnessed and employed via
critique, motivation, pedagogy,
inspiration, wealth building and such. Jay-Z’s leadership and
philanthropic approach is that
“…financial freedom’s my only hope …I’m tryin’ to give you a
$1,000,000. worth of game for
just $9.99.”
REFERENCES
Allsopp, R., Allsopp, J. Dictionary of Caribbean English
Usage. New York: Oxford University Press,
1996.
Ani, M. The African Aesthetic and National Consciousness. In
K. Welsh Asante. (Ed.) The African
Aesthetic: Keepers of the traditions. (pp. 63-82). Wesport:
Praeger, 1993.

Baraka I. A. Blues People. In W. J. Harris. (Ed.). The LeRoi
Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader. (pp. 21-33).
New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1991.
Brand Nubian’s. All For One. Elektra Records, 1990.
Chaka Demas & Pliers. Ultimate Collection: Chaka Demas &
Pliers. Hip-O Records, 2002.
Cone, J. H. The Spirituals and the Blues. New York: Orbis
Books, 1992.
Cruse, H. Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Historical
Analysis of the Failure of Black Leadership.
New York: The New York Review of Books, 1967.
Diop, C. A. The Cultural Unity of Black Africa: The Domains
of Matriarch and of Patriarch in
Classical Antiquity. Longdon: Karnak House, 1989
DuBois, W.E.B. The Damnation of Women. In Darkwater:
Voices from within the veil. (pp. 109-113).
Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1920/1999.
Giddings, G. J. Contemporary Afrocentric Scholarship: Toward
a Functional Cultural Philosophy.
Lewiston, New York: Mellen Press, 2003
Gladwell, M. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York:
Little Brown and Company, 2011

Gucci Mane (with Neil Martinez-Belkin) (2017). The
Autobiography of Gucci Mane. NY: Simon and
Schuster.
Healy, M. Jay-Z: Renaissance Mogul. Gentlemen’s Quarterly.
New York: Condé Nast Publications.
286-289, 357-358, 2006
Holiday, B. “The Sound of Jazz.” Seven Lively Arts Series.
New York: CBS Television, 1957.
(http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1072753
)
Karenga, M. Introduction to Black Studies (3rd Ed.). Los
Angles: University of Sankore Press, 2010.
DJ Khaled. “I got the Keys.” Major Key. Epic Records, 2016.
Jay-Z. Reasonable Doubt. Roc-A-Fella Records, 1996.
… In My Lifetime (Roc-A-Fella Records, 1997.
…. Volume 2: Hard Knock Life. Def Jam, 1998.
…. Volume 3: Life and Times of S. Carter. Def Jam, 1999.
… The Dynasty. Roc La Familia, 2000.

… (2001). The Blueprint . Uptown/Universal
… (2001). Jay-Z: Unplugged. Def Jam
… (2002). Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse. Def Jam
… (2003). The Black Album. Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam
… (2004). Hova and Out. Vibe. New York: Vibe/Spin
Ventures. 72-80.
… (2004A). “Never Let me down.” In Kanye West. College
Drop Out. Roc-A-Fella Records
… (2006). Kingdom Come. Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam
… (2007). American Gangsta. Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam
… (2009). Blueprint(3). Roc Nation/Atlantic
… (2013). Magna Carta: Holy Grail. Roc-A-Fella, Roc Nation,
Universal
… (2017). 4:44. Roc Nation Records.
Jay-Z and Beyonce. (2018). Everything is Love. Rock Nation.
Jay-Z and Kanye West. (2011). Watch the Throne. Roc-A-
Fella/Def Jam
Karenga, M. (2008). Kwanza: A Celebration of Family,
Community and Culture, 2nd Edition. Los
Angeles, CA: University of Sankore Press

Kitwana, B. (2002). The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks
and the Crisis of African-American
Culture. NY: Basic Civitas Books
Lupe Fiasco. (2012). Food and Liquor II: The Great American
Rap Album, Part I. Atlantic (1st and
15th)
Morrison, T. (1993). Sula. New York: Alfred A. Knof
Morrison, T. (1970). The Bluest Eye. New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston. (2000, Knoff )
Pharrell. (2003). “Frontin’.” Arista Records
Sidbury, J. (2007). Becoming African in America: Race and
Nation in the Early Black Atlantic.
London: Oxford University Press
Some, M. (1994). Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and
Initiation in the Life of an African
Shaman. New York: Penguin
Timberlake, J. (2013). The 20/20 Experience. RCA Records
Walker, A. (1983). In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens:
Womanist Prose. NY: Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich
Walters, Ronald (1997). Pan-Africanism in the African
Diaspora: An analysis of modern Afrocentric
political movements. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Welsh-Asante, Kariamu (1993). The African Aesthetic: Keeper
of the tradition. Westport: Praeger
Kanye West. (2005). Late Registration. Rock-A-Fella Records
Kanye West. (2004). College Drop Out. Rock-A-Fella
Records
Kanye West. (2010). My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
Rock-A-Fella Records
Rose, T. (1994) . Rap Music and the Demonization of Young
Black Males. In T. Golden’s Black Male:
Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art.
NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (Whitney
Museum of American Art)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYg6Sl6dxx0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYg6Sl6dxx0

ED 504 Techniques of Educational Research FA19
MAJOR ASSIGNMENT 1: DATA GATHERING/ANALYSIS
Candidates will gather data previously collected at the
classroom, school, or district
level to justify identification of a topic for study.
OBJECTIVE: This study’s second goal was to determine
whether 1:1 Technology also effects
student motivation to learn.
RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING PROMPTS:
1. Summarize an introduction to your topic.
This work was a comprehensive analysis of Central Illinois,
utilizing 4th grade
participants from a Title 1 elementary school. This research
sought to evaluate how one-to
- one technology (1:1 will be used hereafter) actually affects
and enhances students '
academic achievement. The second objective of this research
was to evaluate whether 1:1

technology also has an impact on student desire to learn.
2. Identify the problem/weakness to investigate (research
problem statement).
School officials and educators have tried all sorts of
approaches to promote pupil
participation and academic performance, including the
implementation of instructional
technologies. The No Child Left Behind Act has aimed,
according to the U.S.
Department of Education (2002), to eradicate the digital divide
and to have children
digitally literate by the end of the eighth grade, independent of
age, socioeconomic
1
2
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-04T07:18:34-08:00
How are you proposing to measure one's desire to learn?
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-04T07:19:59-08:00
What does "all sorts of" mean? Remember, this research
proposal requires strict technical writing.
status, geographic location and impairment.

3. Describe how you determined this was a problem or
weakness?
I am currently working as a Teacher in 4th grade and
being a millennial myself, it
has come to my attention just how much things have changed
ever since the introduction
of the internet. Things are very different from the way they used
to be 10 years ago and
they are only bound to keep on changing. The way we interact
has changed, the way we
learn has changed the way we gain information has changed. It
will be sheer insanity to
assume that the nature of education will remain unchanged in
such an era of drastic
change. Furthermore, it came to my attention through a recent
study that the attention
span of the human population especially children is reducing at
an alarming rate. This is
due largely to the proliferation of technology in our day to day
lives. Surprisingly, little
has been done to investigate this phenomenon and the resultant
negative ramifications

that may befall this generation if we decide to sweep this under
the rag on go on with
business as usual. On the other hand, technology has made
access to information simpler
and more efficient, creating a more informed public and by
extension student population.
So which one is it? Is technology a necessary evil that is
impeding and stunting the
intellectual growth of our children, or is it a weapon of
knowledge and enlightenment
here to shed light in a rather dark and uncertain world?
4. Construct a graphical representation that allows for easy
analysis of your
compiled data that highlights your problem or weakness.
Identify the source of
the data and discuss its credibility.
3
4
5
6
7

Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-04T07:20:57-08:00
You writing needs to be targeted and specific. Avoid words
such as "things."
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-04T07:21:12-08:00
What is your data source for this assertion?
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-04T07:21:43-08:00
What is "sheer insanity"?
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-04T07:22:19-08:00
What is your data source for this claim or assertion?
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-04T07:23:07-08:00
The text is difficult to follow. Please rewrite paragraph for
clarity and conciseness.
5. Analyze the data to confirm that a problem or weakness can
be addressed that is
appropriate to the scope of the required program.
The purpose of this study was to decide whether 1:1 technology
has effects on academic
achievement and encouragement of students. 1:1 Innovation
applies to the technical

development of every infant in the family, in the community, in
the school district, etc.,
possessing a laptop in the classroom to use and to know. 25
students enrolled in the
analysis in the 1:1 Integration Classroom, whereas only 22
students participated in the
traditional classroom. The differences between the number of
participating students may
distort or misinterpret the data being collected and evaluated for
this analysis. The
collected data was then translated into tables and statistics to
assess if 1:1 Integration has
a real effect on academic achievement and engagement of
students. For this analysis the
motivational dimension was calculated using the student
attendance records. The school
that took part in this study splits the entire day of school into
Periods 1 and 2.
6. Connect the problem or weakness to trends or patterns
represented in the data.
Based on the research used and the data obtained from this
report, 1:1 Innovation is a

trend that school districts across the state and nation are
exploring and implementing at
high rates to help students achieve a higher standard. To order
to use the technologies
properly, school districts will look at two major components
when it comes to tea
preparation and tea teaching for children. To order to implement
technologies effectively
from an educator's point of view, professional development and
collaboration must occur
before, during and after deployment to help improve their newly
acquired teaching skills
(Anderman & Sayers, 2019).
7. Explain how the problem or weakness might have impacted
student achievement.
Although technology is being implemented at a rapid pace
across the state and country, it
should be borne in mind that the tool used for student learning
in the classroom can not
merely be a replacement for best practices in teaching and
learning for the students.
Thanks to the technology in place in the classroom, teaching

doesn't actually get harder.
Innovation was not a single factor in higher Topic Test scores,
outcomes of the
Discovery Education Evaluation, and student attendance records
in this report. There
8
9
10
11
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-04T07:24:50-08:00
You should not start a sentence with a number.
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-04T07:25:45-08:00
How does student attendance relate to motivation?
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-04T07:26:09-08:00
Where is your proof?
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-04T07:27:27-08:00
The text needs to be clear and concise. Please rewrite.
are some instances where technology seemed to have affected
higher scores, especially
in Discovery Assessments A and B, but overall the evidence
does not support the theory

that technology will improve student academic achievement and
motivation. To produce
the best teaching methods and incorporate technology that
works with their classroom
and the specific needs of their students, teachers have to strive
to be learners themselves.
What teachers decide to bring to the classroom has to "hook"
students and make them
excited to learn, so the programs, materials and projects that
have been made should be
meaningful to the students.
When this is done properly, school districts will see the product
of higher levels of engag
ement, higher levels of student achievement, and a desire to be
at school to learn.
8. Identify the research methodology that you plan to use.
Data was collected from students taking part in this
research through the
Pearson enVision Math sequence using subject assessments, the
outcomes of the
Discovery Education Test, and the attendance records being
used (Spears & University

of West Florida. Department of Instructional and Performance
Technology, 2012).
12
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-04T07:27:59-08:00
The text needs to be clear and concise. Please rewrite.
References
Anderman, L. H., & Sayers, R. (2019). Academic motivation
and achievement in classrooms.
In Visible Learning Guide to Student Achievement (pp. 166–
172).
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351257848-26
Spears, S. A., & University of West Florida. Department of
Instructional and Performance
Technology. (2012). Technology-enhanced Learning: The
Effects of 1:1 Technology on
Student Performance and Motivation.
http://paperpile.com/b/UNKkG8/YVhA

Writing Components
CATEGORY Unacceptable
(0 points)
Revisions Required
(1 point)
Target
(2 points)
Are the focus and purpose clear? Missing thesis; confusion
about or misunderstanding of
topic; no sense of purpose
Simplistic and unfocused ideas;
limited sense of purpose
Developed thesis; represents
sound understanding of the
assigned topic; focused

Is the writing structured and
well organized?
No paragraph structure; or
single, rambling paragraph;
or series of isolated
paragraphs
Organization structure is present,
but is confusing or disjointed; weak
paragraph structure; transitions are
missing or inappropriate
Clear organizational structure;
easily followed; includes
transitions; structured format
Is correct sentence structure
and proper mechanics
utilized?
Contains multiple and serious
errors of sentence structure:

i.e. fragments, run-ons;
unable to write simple
sentences; numerous errors in
spelling and capitalization;
intrusive
and/or inaccurate
Formulaic sentence patterns or
overuse of simple sentences; errors
in sentence structure; contains
several punctuation, spelling, and/or
capitalization errors (up to 6);
errors may or may not interfere
with meaning
Effective and varied sentences;
errors (if present) due to lack of
careful proofreading; virtually
free of punctuation, spelling,
capitalization errors (no more

than 3); errors do not interfere
with meaning
punctuation;
communication is
hindered
Are vocabulary and word
usage varied and
appropriate?
Vocabulary is
unsophisticated; or subject
specific vocabulary or
sophisticated vocabulary
used incorrectly
Proper, but simple vocabulary used;
subject specific vocabulary used
infrequently
Vocabulary is varied, specific

and appropriate; uses subject
specific vocabulary correctly
Is APA format followed? There are significant format
errors present ; multiple (more
than 6) of APA formatting
errors; in the reference list
and/or in-text citations;
Fewer than 6 APA format errors
are present in the reference list in-
text; citations; header; headings;
page numbers; etc.
There are virtually no APA format
errors present in either reference
list in-text; citations; header;
headings; page numbers; etc.
Content Components
CATEGORY Unacceptable
(1 points)

Revisions Required
(5 points)
Target
(10 points)
Source of data is credible and
data is representative of the
scope requirements for the
The source of the data is
ambiguous or lacks
credibility; data does not
The source of the data is clear
and credible; data does not
allow for problem/weakness
The source of the data is clear and
credible; data allows for
identification of an of a

advanced degree being sought
(InTASC 6, 9; CAEP A1.1)
allow for problem/weakness
identification appropriate for
required project scope
identification appropriate for
required project scope
classroom, multi-classroom,
school or district level
problem/weakness appropriate to
the required project
scope
Graphical representation
of compiled data allows
for easy analysis
(CAEP A1.1)
Graphical format does not

present the data in a clear
manner; data is only partially
presented
Graphical format(s) is
appropriate and clearly presents
all the collected data
Graphical format(s) is appropriate;
clearly presents all the collected
data; highlights visible patterns
or trends
Identified problem/weakness
is supported by trends or
patterns seen in the data
(InTASC 6, 9, 10; CAEP A1.1)
Problem/weakness is not
clearly identified or does not
align with the trends and
patterns identified in the data

Problem/weakness is clearly
identified; aligns with the type of
data collected, but connections
between the trends/patterns in the
data are not clearly
described in the narrative
Problem/weakness is clearly
identified; aligns with the type of
data collected; clear connections
between the trends/patterns are
drawn in the
Narrative
Major Assignment 1
Comment Summary
Page 1
1. How are you proposing to measure one's desire to learn?

2. What does "all sorts of" mean? Remember, this research
proposal requires strict technical writing.
Page 2
3. You writing needs to be targeted and specific. Avoid words
such as "things."
4. What is your data source for this assertion?
5. What is "sheer insanity"?
6. What is your data source for this claim or assertion?
7. The text is difficult to follow. Please rewrite paragraph for
Page 4
8. You should not start a sentence with a number.
9. How does student attendance relate to motivation?
10. Where is your proof?
11. The text needs to be clear and concise. Please rewrite.
Page 5
12. The text needs to be clear and concise. Please rewrite.
Running head: IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON EDUCATION
1
Impact of Technology on Education

Signature Project Stage 1 Chapter 1
Victoria Scott
University of West Alabama
IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON EDUCATION 10
Abstract
This work was a comprehensive analysis in Central Illinois,
using 4th grade participants
from a Title 1 elementary school. This study aimed to determine
whether one to one technology

(1:1 will be used hereafter) really impacts and impacts students
' academic achievement. The
second objective of this research was to determine whether 1:1
technology also has an impact on
student motivation to learn (Orey et al. 2009).
Chapter One: Introduction
School officials and educators have tried all sorts of
approaches to promote pupil
participation and academic performance, including the
implementation of instructional
technologies. The No Child Left Behind Act has aimed,
according to the U.S. Department of
Education (2002), to eradicate the digital divide and to have
children digitally literate by the end
of the eighth grade, independent of age, socioeconomic status,
geographic location and
impairment.
Technology is the functional tool that people make use of
to improve the extent of their
capabilities. Individuals are using technology to improve their
ability to perform jobs.
Worldwide, classrooms have implemented many forms of

technology to boost student interest
and achievement. The NCTM Position Statement (1996) for
instance stated categorically the
imperative role calculators played in enhancing comprehension
of mathematics by students.
Cognitive gain in the sense of numbers, conceptual development
and visualization can empower
and motivate students to engage in real mathematical problem
solving at a level previously
denied to all but the most talented. For all students of
mathematics the calculator is an essential
1
2
3
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-06T18:59:18-08:00
have attempted different approaches
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-06T19:01:03-08:00
Delete text between brackets.
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-06T19:10:29-08:00
Delete text between brackets.

tool. Research has shown both positive and negative impacts of
technology implementation on
student achievement. This research area is very important given
the changing technological
landscape (Mallia and Gorg 2013).
Statement of the Research Problem
The hypothesis and core aim for this study was to determine
whether 1:1 technology
can impact academic achievement and motivation of the
students. The data from this study
showed that the technology was not a specific factor in students
attending school.
For the students to have the motivation to be at school and
to fully comprehend
educational instruction; teachers need to keep in mind best
teaching practices. However,
it is important for them to also keep in mind what's best for
students, and what's going to
interest them to take them to the next stage of academic
participation (Orey et al. 2009).
Teachers and administrators are constantly looking for new
ideas that would make classrooms

more technology-friendly. Mastering technologies will turn a
classroom around (Mallia and Gorg
2013).
Could we increase student productivity by the use of
technology? It is important to note that
skills cannot be learned through simply teaching facts but can
instead be gained by allowing the
learner the opportunity to interact with the material; identifying
learning objectives and exploring
new understandings by real, challenging tasks.
This research is meant to compare the effects that technology
has on student
achievement. Most importantly, the fields of investigation cover
positive and negative effects on
student achievement, and the different types of technologies
that may increase or decrease the
capacity of a pupil to do classroom work (Anderman and Sayers
2019).
4
5
6

Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-06T19:11:55-08:00
Why is it important?
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-06T19:14:57-08:00
The amount text needs to be reduced significantly. Please
rewrite section for greater clarity and conciseness.
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-06T19:15:41-08:00
The text needs to be clear and concise and free of spelling,
punctuation, grammar, and/or structural errors.
Data Graphic and Discussion
Methods
This quantitative study examined the mean scores of Topic
Tests in the enVision Math
Series, Discovery Education Assessments and attendance
records to determine whether
1:1 Technology was responsible for academic achievement and
motivation among
students. The participants in this research are students in Fourth
Grade attending school in
Central Illinois. 1:1 Technology in school districts across the
country is still a recent

phenomenon.
As our society becomes more filled with new technology,
school administrators and
managers are keen on uncovering the positive impact that new
technology can bring to old
educational processes.
Subjects
The subjects in this research were Fourth Grade students
from two separate classes, but
in the same Title 1 Class, located in Central Illinois. The school
has a low income rate of
84.3%, according to the Illinois Integrated Report Card (2013),
with 40.5% of pupils were
African-American, 15.2% Multiracial, 32.3% White, 10.2%
Latino, 1.0% American-
Indian, and 0.7% Asian.
This study looked at how 1:1 technology affects the academic
achievement and
motivation of participants in the classroom. The study focused
on the Discovery Education
Evaluation, offered four times a year, as well as the conclusion
of Math Topic Testing to
see if there are any significant differences in the performance of

pupils. Monthly
attendance records for each class were used to gauge the
motivational side of this research.
7
8
9
10
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-06T19:16:38-08:00
What is your source for this claim?
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-06T19:18:54-08:00
Signature Project Stage 1 Chapter 1 is to articulate the research
problem as part of a proposal.
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-06T19:19:35-08:00
The text is difficult to follow. Please rewrite paragraph for
Chris Moersch @ 2020-02-06T19:22:03-08:00
This text goes into detail on an existing study which is NOT the
assignment. The assignment is to reference existing data
including charts in support of your own research proposal.
The school taking part in this analysis breaks the school day

into Periods 1 and 2 in two.
The number of absences for each classroom was determined
by adding the number of
absences from Periods 1 and 2. Instrumentation In this study,
the results of Topic Tests in
Math, Discovery Education Assessment (Math), and attendance
were used to determine if
1:1 technology positively impacts student academic
achievement and student motivation.
The Subject Studies is taken from the Pearson enVision Math
sequence that Bloomington
Public School District 87 has implemented. A unique Math
curriculum is consistent with
Common Core State Framework which uses the vocabulary and
exercises to follow these
academic expectations.
The Subject Assessment are used to gage the mastering of
Math skills as summative
assessments. The Discovery Education Assessment is an
evaluation which is administered
four times per school year via computer (Anderman and Sayers
2019). According to the
Discovery Education Evaluation Report, this evaluation is used
as a statistical standardized

measurement that provides data for each element on the exam
using the state's education
requirements and subskills. The Discovery Education Test, as
assessed under No Child Left
Behind and Race to the Top, can be used to enhance teaching,
help develop academic skills
of pupils, and increase competence.
These four evaluations are administered with 9-12 weeks
between each assessment
throughout the school year. The predictive benchmark
assessments are meant to predict
performance on the student's next high-stakes test during the
school year. TECHNOLOGY,
2016, 7(4), 368-381 375 Discovery Education Assessment uses
a vertical scale score
ranging from 1000 to 2000. The Rasch Method of Item
Response Theory (IRT), a single
parameter method, is used by Discovery Education to measure
the vertical scale.

Participation data were also studied to assess whether there are
any trends of students in
school because of their desire to know using 1:1 technology
(Anderman and Sayers 2019).
The purpose of this study was to decide whether 1:1
technology has effects on
academic achievement and encouragement of students. 1:1
Technology refers to every
child's technological movement in the classroom, school, school
district, etc., having a
laptop in the classroom to manipulate and learn as a tool. 25
students enrolled in the
analysis in the 1:1 Integration Classroom, whereas only 22
students participated in the
traditional classroom. The differences between the number of
participating students may

distort or misinterpret the data being collected and evaluated for
this analysis. The
collected data was then put into tables and figures to determine
whether 1:1
implementation has a real effect on academic achievement and
motivation of students.
For this analysis the motivational dimension was calculated
using the student attendance
records. The school that took part in this analysis divides the
whole day of school into
Periods 1 and 2.
Research Question 1: Does 1:1 Technology Affect Student
Academic Achievement?
Table 1 showed some noticeable discrepancies between the
1:1 Implementation
Classroom and the Traditional Classroom in the Topic Test
scores. Those mean scores
were well above the Traditional Classroom in Topic Tests 1 and
3, whereas the
Traditional Classroom scored well above the 1:1
Implementation Classroom in Topic
Tests 5 and 6. Table 1. Tab. Comparison of Topic Test Scores
between 1:1 Classroom

implementation and Traditional Classroom
Summary
Since 1:1 Innovation is a rather new phenomenon in the
field of education, it needs to be
introduced with care and consideration. Technology, whether
computers or tablets, should be
seen as instruments and not as a replacement for best teaching
practices in the classroom
(Anderman and Sayers 2019). Student motivation is another
important component of 1:1
Technology. The classroom teacher should consider how
students are inspired to study, and why.
Attention, Relevance, Satisfaction and Confidence are the four
attributes one needs to establish
in order for people to be inspired to learn (Anderman and
Sayers 2019).
While looking at incorporating 1:1 technology in a school,
educators need to look
closely at their student population and consider who they are

interacting for, how their
students can benefit better, and how to develop their confidence
in technology so that
they will be pleased with their learning experience in exchange
and thus motivated to
learn. Educators just cannot use technology as a substitute.
References
Anderman, L. H., & Sayers, R. (2019). Academic motivation
and achievement in classrooms. In
Visible Learning Guide to Student Achievement (pp. 166–172).
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351257848-26
Harris, L.|Al-Bataineh, J., T.|Al-Bataineh, M., & Adel. (2015,
November 30). One to One

Technology and Its Effect on Student Academic Achievement
and Motivation. Retrieved
from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1117604
Mallia, & Gorg. (2013). The Social Classroom: Integrating
Social Network Use in Education:
Integrating Social Network Use in Education. IGI Global.
Orey, M., McClendon, V. J., & Branch, R. M. (2009). Graduate
Programs. In Educational Media
and Technology Yearbook (pp. 411–541).
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09675-9_26
Stakkestad, Victoria, S., Størdal, F., & Guro. (1970, January
01). The Effects of technology on
students' academic performance rollout of individual laptops in
norwegian upper
secondary schools. Retrieved from
https://openaccess.nhh.no/nhh-
xmlui/handle/11250/2487301
http://paperpile.com/b/Chl6gW/NObW

http://paperpile.com/b/Chl6gW/4A7X
http://paperpile.com/b/Chl6gW/NYGZ
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09675-9_26
Comment Summary
Page 2
1. have attempted different approaches
2. Delete text between brackets.
3. Delete text between brackets.
Page 3
4. Why is it important?
5. The amount text needs to be reduced significantly. Please
rewrite section for greater clarity and conciseness.
6. The text needs to be clear and concise and free of spelling,
punctuation, grammar, and/or structural errors.

7. What is your source for this claim?
8. Signature Project Stage 1 Chapter 1 is to articulate the
research problem as part of a proposal.
9. The text is difficult to follow. Please rewrite paragraph for
10. This text goes into detail on an existing study which is NOT
the assignment. The assignment is to reference
existing data including charts in support of your own research
proposal.
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION SIGNATURE PROJECT
CONTEXT STATEMENT
Overview
The Signature Project is designed to guide candidates through
the steps for planning and conducting an in- depth school
improvement project focused on improving teaching and
learning. The project involves an opportunity for candidates to
apply the knowledge, skills, and behaviors they gain from their
respective programs. The Signature Project is structured and
implemented in a way to improve identified needs within a
school community. Candidates will document the mastery of a
substantial number of program standards with the planning,
implementation, and evaluation of their projects.
Candidates in all advanced programs will receive proper
instruction, support, and feedback to guide them through the
completion of the three stages of the Signature Project.
Candidates must work collaboratively with course instructors,
P12 practitioners, and other school stakeholders on the
Signature Project to develop the skills required to successfully
complete each stage of the Signature Project and to ensure the

products for each stage meet minimum requirements to
represent proficiency at the appropriate level on the evaluation
continuum. Candidates will prepare only the Signature Project
Stage 1 in ED 504. The Signature Project Stage 1 is a research
proposal for an experimental or quasi-experimental research
proposal. Candidates in the Master’s program will be required
in a subsequent course to submit the final iteration of the
research proposal as an 8-10 minute presentation explaining the
project, including details about the identified problem,
background investigation, proposed action plan, and impact on
teaching and learning to an outside evaluation team. Ultimately,
candidates will be expected to earn a minimum of 80% of the
possible points by the outside evaluation for each stage in the
Signature Project before they are eligible to receive an
advanced degree.
The Signature Project concept was developed by a committee of
unit faculty and P12 partners in Summer 2016. Further
development of the project stages’ descriptions and evaluation
rubrics was put on hold while the unit worked to complete a
successful NCATE re-visit in Fall 2016. Project development
resumed in Fall 2017. The entire unit faculty had an opportunity
to provide feedback with respect to stage drafts created by the
committee, in Fall 2017 and Spring 2018. Adjustments to the
original products and the development of an assessment
platform in Blackboard followed in Summer 2018 and Fall
2018. Adjustments were made based on the recommendations of
a committee of university faculty and a P-12 partners. Pilot
administration of the Signature Project stages will begin in
Spring 2019 but completed projects will not begin to be
evaluated outside of courses until candidates advance through
the project stages. Focus group interviews with candidates and
faculty involved in the pilot will begin after implementation.
Afterward, revisions to the project descriptions, rubrics, and
evaluation process will be completed. The unit anticipates
implementing the Signature Project with all advanced programs

by Fall 2020, with full candidate accountability becoming
compulsory at that time.
THE SIGNATURE PROJECT
The Signature Projectis designed to guide candidates through
the steps for planning and conducting an in-depth school
improvement project focused on improving teaching and
learning. The Signature Project has three stages. Stage 1 is the
only stage addressed in ED 504. In Stage 1, candidates will
design an experimental or quasi-experimental research proposal.
This stage includes the following three major
assignments:Research Problem, Literature Review, and
Methodology. The three major assignments will be expanded
and become the three chapters for a research proposal. This
research proposal is the culminating product in ED 504 and is
called the Signature Project Stage 1. Signature Project Stages 2
and 3 are embedded in follow-up courses.
Major Assignment 1: Research Problem
Candidates gather existing data from their classroom, school,
district or work setting. They will construct a graphical
representation that allows for easy analysis of the compiled data
and assess the data to identify a problem or weakness that can
be addressed in an experimental or quasi-experimental study. In
a short narrative essay, candidates identify the

problem/weakness, connect the problem or weakness to trends
or patterns represented in the data, and explain how the problem
or weakness might have impacted student achievement. The
required scope of the problem/weakness depends on the level of
advanced degree being sought.
· Master level – classroom level or school level problem
· Specialist level – multiple classrooms or school level problem
Major Assignment 2: Literature Review
Candidates discuss the background of the identified problem,
conduct a literature review following APA format (most
recently published edition), and become familiar with the
scholarly debate surrounding the topic or problem identified in
the existing data. The scope and expectations for the literature
review depend on the level of advanced degree being sought.
The problem or weakness must be suitable for an experimental
or quasi-experimental study.
· Master level – Candidates must describe a best practice or a
trend/theory and justify its use and connection with the
identified problem; use a minimum of 10 sources (largely
representative of the most recent five years); describe/justify
the best practice and/or theory based on each of the sources; and
provide a synthesis of the related literature. (10 sources
required, but a minimum of 15 sources are required to receive
all points.)
· Specialist level – Candidates must describe a best practice or a
trend/theory and justify its use and connection with the
identified problem; include a minimum of three best practice
options AND a theory/trend; clear descriptions and
justifications; and provide a synthesis of the related literature
from the past 5 years. (15 sources are required, but a minimum
of 20 sources are required to receive all points.)
Major Assignment 3: Methodology

Candidates construct a measurable and executable action plan
that includes a description of collaborative resources,
description of the plan, and the scope and expectations required
to complete an experimental or quasi-experimental study. The
collaborative resources include evidence of collaboration with
appropriate stakeholders (who, what role do they play, what
impact do they have on the plan). The description of the plan
includes a descriptive timeline, participants, variables,
definitions of key terms in the study, data, resources, leverage
plan, pertinent documents, and justification. The scope and
expectations for the action plan depend on the level of advanced
degree being sought.
· Master’s level – represents a plan to address a problem
identified across multiple classrooms (i.e. teacher leader
looking at data from multiple classrooms on the same grade
level).
· Specialist level – represents a plan to address a problem
identified across an entire school, multiple schools, or
throughout a district (i.e. an instructional leader addressing a
problem across elementary schools in a district)
Signature Project Stage 1 SP1 OL1
6

MAJOR ASSIGNMENT 1: Research Problem
(Use this as a template. Copy and download. Do not delete any
portions of the template. Respond to each prompt with essay
style answers within the template. Save and submit in
Blackboard.)
Candidates will gather existing data collected at the classroom,
school, or district level to justify identification of a
topic/problem for study. Review the grading rubric while
completing Major Assignment 1.
OBJECTIVE: Analyzing existing data and identifying an
educational problem or weakness currently found in student’s
classroom or school for the purpose of completing UWA’s
Signature Project Stage 1assignment.
1. Summarize an introduction to your topic.
2. Identify the problem/weakness to investigate (statement of
the research problem).
3. Identify your hypothesis.
4. Describe how you determined that a problem or weakness
might exist?
5. Construct a graphical representation that allows for easy
interpretation of your compiled data that highlights your
problem or weakness. Identify the source of the data and
discuss its credibility.
6. Discuss your analysis of the data to confirm that a problem or
weakness can be addressed that is appropriate to the scope of
the required program.

7. Connect the problem or weakness to trends or patterns
represented in the data.
8. Explain how the problem or weakness might have impacted
student achievement.
9. Identify the research methodology that you are planning to
use with an explanation of why.
MAJOR ASSIGNMENT 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Blackboard.)
Candidates conduct a literature review, following APA format
(most recently published edition), and become familiar with the
scholarly debate surrounding the topic, and what scholars and
practitioners say about the best way to address the particular
need or problem identified through the data analysis. Review
the grading rubric while completing Major Assignment 2.
OBJECTIVE: Reviewing and writing a Review of Literature on
your chosen topic/problem for the purpose of completing
UWA’s Signature Project Stage 1 assignment.
1. Provide a brief overview of the problem and need discussed
in Major Assignment 1.
2. Provide a developed problem statement that demonstrates a
sound and focused understanding of the chosen topic/problem.
3. Identify the hypothesis.
4. Identify best practice(s) that will be used to address the
problem or weakness.

5. Describe a trend/theory that will be used to justify the use of
the identified best practice(s) and clearly highlight the
connection with the identified trend/theory to address problem.
6. Include content from the literature reviewed that supports the
identified best practices as viable responses to the
problem/weakness identified.
7. Describe how the literature reviewed connects the identified
theory/trend with all identified best practices.
8. Include summaries of the sources reviewed.
9. Include only sources in the review of literature that show
clear connections with the best practice(s) and/or theory/trend
identified as viable responses to the problem/weakness
presented.
10. Include a minimum of 10 sources (largely representative of
the most recent five years). All 15 references must be included
to receive all possible points.
11. Conclude the chapter with a synthesis of the literature and
how it justifies the need for study.
MAJOR ASSIGNMENT 3: METHODOLOGY
Blackboard.)
Candidates write a measurable and executable action plan on
their chosen topic/problem for the purpose of completing
UWA’s Signature Project Stage 1 assignment. The action plan
must be APA formatted (most recently published edition).
Collaborative resources must be included. Evidence of
collaboration with appropriate stakeholders is required. Review
the grading rubric while completing Major Assignment 3.

OBJECTIVE: Writing a measurable and executable action plan
on an identified topic for the purpose of completing UWA’s
Signature Project assignment.
1. Provide a brief overview of Major Assignment 1 followed by
a brief synthesis of the literature review.
2. Identify the population.
3. Provide a full description of the participant sample and the
sampling technique.
4. Justify the sampling technique and the sample chosen.
5. Describe the role of all participants and the plan to prevent
harm to them, including the plan for protecting student
confidentiality and data.
6. Explain the impact all participants will have on the study.
7. Provide a detailed description of steps and sequence of steps
required to complete a successful study.
8. Justify the plan with respect to the identified problem.
9. Justify the connection between the plan with the expected
impact on student achievement.
10. Define constitutive and operational definitions of key terms.
11. Identify the variables in the study and define how each will
be measured.
12. Describe the data that is needed for the study and how it
will be collected.
13. Include a description of the timeline for the data collection.
14. Identify any instrument that will be used in the study and its
validity and reliability measures.
15. Describe any threats to internal validity of the study and
measures for control.
16. Identify the collaborated resources and explain the value
and role of each.
17. Identify the connection between the collaborative resources
and the identified problem.
18. Identify the plan to leverage resources to complete the

action plan.
19. Describe the limitations or outside interferences that might
interfere with improved student achievement.
20. A list of all sources cited in Major Assignments 1, 2, and 3
must be compiled. It must be included in your Major
Assignment 3 submission.
21. Compile documents for the appendices. These do not have to
be included in your Major Assignment 3 submission. But, they
are required in the final submission of the Signature Project
Stage 1.

THE SIGNATURE PROJECT
The culminating requirement in ED 504 is the final iteration of
your Signature Project Stage 1. The Signature Project Stage 1
is your research proposal. It is designed to guide candidates
through the steps for planning an experimental or quasi-
experimental study to examine an in-depth school improvement
project focused on improving teaching and learning. The project
involves an opportunity for candidates to apply the knowledge,
skills, and behaviors they gain from their respective programs.
To complete the Signature Project Stage 1, candidates extract
information from their Major Assignments 1, 2, and 3 to create
the Signature Project Stage 1 which includes Chapters 1, 2, and
3, References, and Appendices. The Signature Project Stage 1
should include the following:
Cover Page
Abstract
Chapter 1: Research Problem
Introduction
Statement of the Research Problem (include hypothesis)
Data Graphic and Discussion
Research Methodology
Summary (of chapter 1)
Chapter 2: Literature Review
Introduction
Sub-headings (according to the organization of your study)
Synthesis of Literature Review
Chapter 3: Methodology
Introduction
Population
Sample
Sample Technique (with justification)

Role of Participants and Impact on Participants (with
explanation)
Plan for Protection of Human Subjects
Variables
Timeline (with sequence of steps and timeline for data
collection)
Constitutive and Operation Definitions
Description of Data (data needed)
Reliability and Validity of Instrument
Collaborative Resources
Leverage Plan
Limitations
References
Appendix A: Consent Form
Appendix B: Permission to Study
Appendix C: Copy of the instrument or survey if one is used.
General Guidelines
· APA format.
· Double-space using Times New Roman 12 pt. font size.
Follow the example found in the Course Resource section of
this course.
· Top, bottom and side margins must be 1 inch.
· Pages must be numbered, top flushed right.
· Organize the literature review according themes important to
the study.
· Direct quoting of other authors is not permitted. All written
text should be in your own words.
· Appropriately cite all information sources using APA.
· Include a minimum of ten scholarly sources, five of these
sources should come from the primary literature. (ED 504
requirement) All ten sources should primarily be from the past
five years.
· References should be in APA format and on a separate page in

the document.
· If you’re scholarly literature sources were obtained from an
Internet site (e.g., online journal article), include the URL and
the date downloaded as part of the bibliographic details
presented. Check APA on formatting.
· Grammar and spelling must be correct.
INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD APPROVAL (completion
of the IRB approval does not occur in ED 504):
· Candidates at both the Master’s and Specialist Levels are
required to complete the Responsible Conduct of Research
Program offered through Citi Training.
(https://www.citiprogram.org/) The course candidates are
expected to complete the Social, Behavioral and Education
Sciences section. The modules that must be completed are
Introduction to RCR, Research Involving Human Subjects,
Collaborative Research, Conflicts of Interest, Data
Management, Mentoring, Peer Review, Research Misconduct,
and Plagiarism. This training is free.
· Candidates must complete the Citi Training in ED 504.
· Candidates must submit the certificate of completion and the
other required documents for IRB approval prior to conducting
their research in one of their future program courses.· Formal
IRB submission can occur any time prior to beginning the
research. The IRB form will be provided by the instructor or
can be obtained from UWA’s Office of Sponsored Programs,
Ms. Carmen Giles ([email protected]).
· Failure to complete the IRB process will nullify the proposal
requiring the candidate to revise the project before completion

of the program.
Rubric
Name:
Date:
Course :
Signature Project Chapter I
Description
Rubric Detail
Levels of Achievement
Criteria
Unacceptable
Needs Revision
Target
Are the focus and purpose clear and ideas are well supported?
0 Points
Missing thesis; confusion about or misunderstanding of topic;
no sense of purpose; absence of support for main points
1 Points
Simplistic and unfocused ideas; limited sense of purpose;
support is provided, but is not specific; support is only loosely
relevant to the main points
2 Points
Developed thesis; represents sound understanding of the
assigned topic; focused; support is provided and is sound, valid,
and logical
Is the writing structured and well organized?
0 Points
No paragraph structure; or single, rambling paragraph; or series
of isolated paragraphs
1 Points
Organization structure is present, but is confusing or disjointed;
weak paragraph structure; transitions are missing or
inappropriate
2 Points

Clear organizational structure; easily followed; includes
transitions; structured format
Is correct sentence structure and proper mechanics utilized?
0 Points
Contains multiple and serious errors of sentence structure: i.e.
fragments, run-ons; unable to write simple sentences; numerous
errors in spelling and capitalization; intrusive and/or inaccurate
punctuation; communication is hindered
1 Points
Formulaic sentence patterns or overuse of simple sentences;
errors in sentence structure; contains several punctuation,
spelling, and/or capitalization errors (up to 6); errors may or
may not interfere with meaning
2 Points
Effective and varied sentences; errors (if present) due to lack of
careful proofreading; virtually free of punctuation, spelling,
capitalization errors (no more than 3); errors do not interfere
with meaning
Are vocabulary and word usage varied and appropriate?
0 Points
Vocabulary is unsophisticated; or subject specific vocabulary or
sophisticated vocabulary used incorrectly
1 Points
Proper, but simple vocabulary used; subject specific vocabulary
used infrequently
2 Points
Vocabulary is varied, specific and appropriate; uses subject
specific vocabulary correctly
Is APA format followed?
0 Points
There are significant format errors present ; multiple (more than
6) of APA formatting errors; in the reference list and/or in-text
citations
1 Points
Fewer than 6 APA format errors are present in the reference list
in-text; citations; header; headings; page numbers; etc.

IntroductionYour current submission cites research from 1996 (cl.docx

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