Writing in Schools Is Found Both Dismal and Neglected
Ann
Writing in Schools Is Found Both Dismal and Neglected
By TAMAR LEWIN
ost fourth graders spend less than three hours a week writing,
which is about 15 percent of the time they spend watching television.
Seventy-five percent of high
school seniors never get a writing assignment from their history
or social studies teachers.
And in most high schools, the extended research paper, once a
senior-year rite of passage, has been abandoned because teachers do not
have time to grade it anymore.
Those are among the findings of a report issued yesterday by the
National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges, an
18-member panel of educators
organized by the College Board.
The commission's report asserts that writing is among the most important
skills students can learn, that it is the mechanism through which they
learn to connect the dots in
their knowledge and that it is now woefully ignored in most American
schools.
"Writing, always time-consuming for student and teacher, is today
hard-pressed in the American classroom," the report said. "Of the three
R's, writing is clearly the most
neglected."
The panel, led by C. Peter Magrath, president of the National
Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, is
recommending that the amount of time students
spend on writing be doubled, that writing be taught in all subjects and
at all grade levels and that every school district adopt a writing plan.
"If students are to make knowledge their own, they must struggle with
the details, wrestle with the facts and rework raw information and dimly
understood concepts into
language they can communicate to someone else," the report said. "In
short, if students are to learn, they must write."
In two decades of education reform, the teaching of reading and
arithmetic has come under intense scrutiny, with increased state
regulation and a host of new assessment
tests.
But until recently the teaching of writing has been largely overlooked.
That seems to be changing now. With everyone from employers to college
professors expressing alarm
about the dismal writing skills of most American students, there is a
new urgency, and new energy, to upgrade the teaching of writing.
Both of the major college-entrance exams, the SAT and the ACT, are being
revised to include writing tests, and last year the College Board, which
administers the SAT,
created the National Commission on Writing to study the issue.
The panel found that only about half of the nation's 12th graders report
being regularly assigned papers of three or more pages in English class;
about 4 in 10 say they never,
or hardly ever, get such assignments. Part of the problem is that many
high school teachers have 120 to 200 students, and so reading and
grading even a weekly one-page
paper per student would be a substantial task.
On the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam, only about one
in four students in Grades 4, 8 or 12 scored at the proficient level in
writing in 1998, the most
recent such results available. And only one in a hundred was graded
"advanced."
Further, a 2002 study of California college students found that most
freshmen could not analyze arguments, synthesize information or write
papers that were reasonably free
of language errors.
There are some encouraging signs, though, among them the growth of the
National Writing Project, a professional-development effort that began
at the University of
California at Berkeley almost 30 years ago and has expanded to 175 sites
nationwide, where teacher networks are fostered at five-week summer
sessions on writing.
The commission's report is to be followed by a five-year campaign to
fulfill its recommendations. That campaign, called "A Writing Challenge
to the Nation," will be led by
former Senator Bob Kerrey, president of the New School University.
"Our spiritual lives, our economic success and our social networks," Mr.
Kerrey said, "are all directly affected by our willingness to do the
work necessary to acquire the
skill of writing."
Just how much national will exists to do that work remains the crucial
question, educators and policy experts agree.
"This report is a great beginning," said the executive director of the
National Writing Project, Richard Sterling, chairman of the commission's
advisory board. "If this is the
trigger that allows us to step up to the kind of interest there has been
around reading and math, it will make a big difference in children's
education.
"But the commission could sink without a trace unless we go forth and
say: How does it actually happen? How do we get the recommendations into
policy? How do we get
enough professional development for teachers? How do we recognize the
excellent work that's going on?"
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
By TAMAR LEWIN
ost fourth graders spend less than three hours a week writing,
which is about 15 percent of the time they spend watching television.
Seventy-five percent of high
school seniors never get a writing assignment from their history
or social studies teachers.
And in most high schools, the extended research paper, once a
senior-year rite of passage, has been abandoned because teachers do not
have time to grade it anymore.
Those are among the findings of a report issued yesterday by the
National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges, an
18-member panel of educators
organized by the College Board.
The commission's report asserts that writing is among the most important
skills students can learn, that it is the mechanism through which they
learn to connect the dots in
their knowledge and that it is now woefully ignored in most American
schools.
"Writing, always time-consuming for student and teacher, is today
hard-pressed in the American classroom," the report said. "Of the three
R's, writing is clearly the most
neglected."
The panel, led by C. Peter Magrath, president of the National
Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, is
recommending that the amount of time students
spend on writing be doubled, that writing be taught in all subjects and
at all grade levels and that every school district adopt a writing plan.
"If students are to make knowledge their own, they must struggle with
the details, wrestle with the facts and rework raw information and dimly
understood concepts into
language they can communicate to someone else," the report said. "In
short, if students are to learn, they must write."
In two decades of education reform, the teaching of reading and
arithmetic has come under intense scrutiny, with increased state
regulation and a host of new assessment
tests.
But until recently the teaching of writing has been largely overlooked.
That seems to be changing now. With everyone from employers to college
professors expressing alarm
about the dismal writing skills of most American students, there is a
new urgency, and new energy, to upgrade the teaching of writing.
Both of the major college-entrance exams, the SAT and the ACT, are being
revised to include writing tests, and last year the College Board, which
administers the SAT,
created the National Commission on Writing to study the issue.
The panel found that only about half of the nation's 12th graders report
being regularly assigned papers of three or more pages in English class;
about 4 in 10 say they never,
or hardly ever, get such assignments. Part of the problem is that many
high school teachers have 120 to 200 students, and so reading and
grading even a weekly one-page
paper per student would be a substantial task.
On the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam, only about one
in four students in Grades 4, 8 or 12 scored at the proficient level in
writing in 1998, the most
recent such results available. And only one in a hundred was graded
"advanced."
Further, a 2002 study of California college students found that most
freshmen could not analyze arguments, synthesize information or write
papers that were reasonably free
of language errors.
There are some encouraging signs, though, among them the growth of the
National Writing Project, a professional-development effort that began
at the University of
California at Berkeley almost 30 years ago and has expanded to 175 sites
nationwide, where teacher networks are fostered at five-week summer
sessions on writing.
The commission's report is to be followed by a five-year campaign to
fulfill its recommendations. That campaign, called "A Writing Challenge
to the Nation," will be led by
former Senator Bob Kerrey, president of the New School University.
"Our spiritual lives, our economic success and our social networks," Mr.
Kerrey said, "are all directly affected by our willingness to do the
work necessary to acquire the
skill of writing."
Just how much national will exists to do that work remains the crucial
question, educators and policy experts agree.
"This report is a great beginning," said the executive director of the
National Writing Project, Richard Sterling, chairman of the commission's
advisory board. "If this is the
trigger that allows us to step up to the kind of interest there has been
around reading and math, it will make a big difference in children's
education.
"But the commission could sink without a trace unless we go forth and
say: How does it actually happen? How do we get the recommendations into
policy? How do we get
enough professional development for teachers? How do we recognize the
excellent work that's going on?"
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
[email protected]
In a message dated 4/26/03 6:27:26 AM, anns@... writes:
<< The commission's report asserts that writing is among the most important
skills students can learn, that it is the mechanism through which they
learn to connect the dots in
their knowledge — and that it is now woefully ignored in most American
schools. >>
Connect the dots is my favorite unschooling analogy these days, and will be
big in what I'm talking about at the Live & Learn conference in SC.
Writing in school would NOT be among my top 200 recommendations!! <g>
Turning off the TV to write AFTER school wouldn't even make my top thousand.
If they want kids to write, they forbid it. They take notebooks away if they
catch kids writing, and they tell them not to bring any pens or pencils to
school. THEN those kids will write.
<<But until recently the teaching of writing has been largely overlooked.
That seems to be changing now. With everyone from employers to college
professors expressing alarm
about the dismal writing skills of most American students, there is a
new urgency, and new energy, to upgrade the teaching of writing.>>
When I taught, I spent at least six hours every weekend going through student
writing. My salary was embarrassingly low. It wasn't the greatest use of my
time. SOME of the kids really read what I wrote and looked at what I marked.
More of them glanced at the score and shoved the paper somewhere that would
cause it to be trash within days. Those were hours in addition to what I did
on my prep period and before school in the half hour we had to be there
early. I worked my butt off trying to teach kids the mechanics of writing,
and to play with words, to roll and fly, to write things that were light and
funny.
<<"Our spiritual lives, our economic success and our social networks," Mr.
Kerrey said, "are all directly affected by our willingness to do the
work necessary to acquire the
skill of writing."
Ah, jeez, they don't have a clue about making it seem easy and fun.
Sandra
<< The commission's report asserts that writing is among the most important
skills students can learn, that it is the mechanism through which they
learn to connect the dots in
their knowledge — and that it is now woefully ignored in most American
schools. >>
Connect the dots is my favorite unschooling analogy these days, and will be
big in what I'm talking about at the Live & Learn conference in SC.
Writing in school would NOT be among my top 200 recommendations!! <g>
Turning off the TV to write AFTER school wouldn't even make my top thousand.
If they want kids to write, they forbid it. They take notebooks away if they
catch kids writing, and they tell them not to bring any pens or pencils to
school. THEN those kids will write.
<<But until recently the teaching of writing has been largely overlooked.
That seems to be changing now. With everyone from employers to college
professors expressing alarm
about the dismal writing skills of most American students, there is a
new urgency, and new energy, to upgrade the teaching of writing.>>
When I taught, I spent at least six hours every weekend going through student
writing. My salary was embarrassingly low. It wasn't the greatest use of my
time. SOME of the kids really read what I wrote and looked at what I marked.
More of them glanced at the score and shoved the paper somewhere that would
cause it to be trash within days. Those were hours in addition to what I did
on my prep period and before school in the half hour we had to be there
early. I worked my butt off trying to teach kids the mechanics of writing,
and to play with words, to roll and fly, to write things that were light and
funny.
<<"Our spiritual lives, our economic success and our social networks," Mr.
Kerrey said, "are all directly affected by our willingness to do the
work necessary to acquire the
skill of writing."
>>"WILLINGNESS TO DO THE WORK."
Ah, jeez, they don't have a clue about making it seem easy and fun.
Sandra