Writing scores are up for 12th- and eighth-graders on the new NAEP (National Assessment of Education Progress) report card. More low-scoring students reached the basic level; the number of “proficient” students stayed about the same.
One possible reason for the solid improvements in 12th-grade writing may have to do with the SAT exam. A writing portion was added to the college entrance exam in 2005, and since then teachers report greater focus on writing in their schools, according to a survey by the College Board, which runs the SAT.
In a video discussion, Fordham’s Mike Petrilli and Liam Julian speculate that stronger fourth-grade reading scores four years ago have translated into better writing skills for eighth-graders.
Often better performance in elementary school doesn’t translate into better secondary performance. This is encouraging.
Education Trust points out that most students score at the basic level.
Schools in Tennessee include a writing component for their benchmark testing in grades 5, 8 andd 11. Scores for students are fairly strong in grades 5 and 8, but those same students do not score as well in high school. Teachers tell me that student attitudes toward taking a writing test that ‘doesn’t count” seem to affect the essays as much as, or perhaps more than, their skill levels. Is that fairly common in other states? I am assuming that students who pay for and take the SAT assessment have a vested interest and want to succeed, but those who are required to write a high school essay for state measurement just don’t care all that much.
I’ve been teaching writing and thinking about how to improve the teaching of writing for years, and the problem doesn’t actually seem very complex to me.
Currently, the way we teach writing in high school is roughly analogous to teaching basketball by assigning a hundred students to a coach and giving him 15 minutes a week. He can try all sorts of techniques and strategies, but nothing seems to work very well.
What would work would be much more time, which would cost much more money.
English teachers have come up with a thousand strategies to cope with overload, most of which, like peer editing, amount to something to do instead of actually teaching writing.
High school writing will improve when it’s worth enough to people to pay what it would cost to teach it–a teaching load of 45 or so students a day, with 4 or so hours a day free of teaching assignments to respond to student writing.
Also, students should be writing three hours a week (as recommended by the National Commission on Writing) which means writing instruction shouldn’t be wedged into literature classes, which also have a long list of curricular responsibilities other than writing to meet.
Maybe we should have students write more essays in Art classes since the students are too busy in their English classes working on dioramas, posters, and pamphlets.
As a reference tool, I love, love, love The Complete Stylist and Handbook by Sheridan Baker. I found a used edition, printed in 1984, and payed $1. I had almost no formal grammar or writing instruction in either high school or college. I muddled through the as well as I could. Picking up this book was a definate epiphany moment.