Using action research to assess student comprehension of essay organization

The way in which I would begin a grammar lesson would be like this: first, I would define the subject that we would be studying. For example, if I was introducing an idea such as a part of speech like an adverb can be used to modify a verb, adjective or other adverb, I would define this concept for the students. This would be a form of direct teaching. Then I would give some examples of the concept, using real sentences on the board. Finally, I would diagram the examples, so as to provide a visual aid for the students.
I tried to engage the students, in this manner, in different ways—appealing to their intellect, their visual sense, and their auricular sense. I would activate their prior knowledge by building on concepts that they had already learned—such as, what it means to be an adjective, or what it means to modify a word. I would tie in past concepts with the new lesson and build on them, showing how knowledge keeps expanding upward and outward through further advancement of concepts in grammar.
I believe it was a successful method for engaging students’ attention because as Folse (2009) notes, one of the keys to teaching grammar is to give students the ability to visualize and see through examples how concepts work and can be applied. My feeling is that students learn by way of example. Also, by activating their prior knowledge and engaging their attention, I could see that the lesson opening was working—and I knew it was working because the students were engaged and were able to demonstrate in class that they were following along through active participation: I would have them come up and do examples at the board.
2: Customized Hypothetical Action Research Project
What I would do systematically to determine whether my students were comprehending how to organize an essay would be first to conduct action research, as Mills (2014) suggests. I would monitor the effects of my teaching by conducting assessments, and examining the performance of the students. If they are not doing well, then I must understand why. I can do this by reflecting on my own presentation, discussing in class the lesson, and rethinking my approach.
From this research, I could revise my general plan or approach and try a new version of it. I would implement this new approach to the lesson and then monitor the results again by examining the students test scores. It is always a good idea to conduct more than one type of assessment, too—because it could be that the students are simply not doing well with a particular assessment and could benefit from a different measure of their knowledge and ability.
So I would need to examine the issue from various points—whether it is my approach that is the problem, or whether if the students are simply not doing well because the assessment method that I am utilizing is not very conducive to their ability to express their knowledge and skills.