TEACHER EDUCATION

The Need for a Writing Revolution

According to the National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges, "American education will never realize its potential as an engine of opportunity and economic growth until a writing revolution puts language and communication in their proper place in the classroom."   In April of 2003 this National Commission, comprised of a blue-ribbon group of teachers, superintendents, and university presidents, issued The Neglected 'R': The Need for a Writing Revolution. This report, prompted in part by the addition of a writing component to the SAT (a popular college admissions tool), describes America's writing dilemma and makes a number of recommendations regarding the improvement of writing skills.

Writing today is not a frill for the few, but an essential skill for the many.

The report stresses that writing is essential to educational and career success.  Writing allows students to "connect the dots" in their knowledge and is central to self-expression and civic participation. Yet despite wide recognition of the importance of writing to achievement and learning throughout life, the school reform movement of the '80s neglected to give writing instruction the attention it deserves; other subjects fared well in the reform movement—but not writing.  This neglect has contributed significantly to the deterioration of writing quality in America over the past 20 years.

The Neglected 'R' makes these important points about the current state of writing:

• Most fourth-grade students spend less than 3 hours a week writing, which is approximately 15 percent of the time they spend watching television;
• Nearly 66 percent of high school seniors do not write a 3-page paper as often as once a month for their English teachers;
• 75 percent of seniors never receive a writing assignment in history or social studies; and
• The senior research project has become an educational curiosity, something rarely assigned, because teachers do not have time to correct such projects.

Citing NAEP research, the report says that at grades 4, 8, and 12 about one student in five produces completely unsatisfactory prose, about 50 percent meet "basic" requirements, and only one in five can be called "proficient."  According to the report, recent analyses indicate that by the first year of college, more than 50 percent of the freshman class are unable to produce papers relatively free of language errors or to analyze arguments or synthesize information.

The report calls for a new commitment to measuring writing quality, insisting that assessment composed only of multiple-choice tests is not adequate to this "demanding task." The report states, "An authentic assessment of writing depends on requiring the student to produce a piece of prose that someone reads and evaluates."

Copies of the full report are available online or by calling (212) 713-8240 and requesting item number 997548.

Prompting a Change

The new writing segment on the SAT may have done more than simply prompt a National Commission to examine the state of writing in America's schools; it may have effected a change in the emphasis placed on writing in schools and on the ways in which writing is "taught." 

SMU writing instructors welcome the new emphasis, although it is too soon to predict how the SAT writing segment will affect incoming students.  The greatest weakness of incoming students is the inability to synthesize information to support an argument, professors say.  Jo Goyne, director of SMU's first-year writing program, says that college education requires students to do something completely different from what they've done in high school; they must "read theoretical nonfiction and fiction texts, generate their own opinions, and write papers that use the texts to support their arguments."  According to Goyne, high school students typically "complete only short, timed writing assignments." 

The new SAT with the new writing component will be administered for the first time in 2005.  Lee Alvoid, a lecturer in SMU's School of Education and Human Development, has compiled a number of suggestions and ideas that may help parents help their children improve their writing and prepare for the new SAT.  Click here to access this PDF document.