H.S. Teachers against new writing component of SAT

Parent Cafe
1

<p>The following is an article found in the Chronicle of Higher Education where high school teachers are against the new writing component of the SAT: I have enclosed the article and my response:</p>

<hr>

<p>National Council of Teachers of English said in a report issued on Tuesday that the new writing component of the SAT is not an effective way to measure students' writing ability or potential. Worse, said the group, the new SAT may cause high-school English teachers to take time away from high-quality writing instruction, in order to teach "formulaic writing" intended to prepare students for the new test. </p>

<p>There is widespread agreement that many high-school graduates lack the writing skills they need in higher education and in the workplace. But Robert P. Yagelski, an associate professor of English education at the State University of New York at Albany and head of a group that produced the report, said the new writing test would lead high schools to teach writing "in a paint-by-numbers way," at the expense of an approach that placed more weight on critical thinking. </p>

<p>"Teachers already have so little time to do what they need to do in the classroom," Mr. Yagelski said. Inevitably, in preparing students for the new test, "other vital kinds of writing will be ignored or devalued." </p>

<p>In addition, he said, students from poorer families, and those who use a language or dialect other than standard English at home, will be at an even greater disadvantage in the new writing component than they already are in the multiple-choice parts of the SAT. </p>

<p>Each year some 1.4 million college-bound high-school seniors take the SAT. The 25-minute writing component was added in March, bumping the test's duration up to 3 hours and 45 minutes. A new writing section has also been added to the ACT, a competing college-admissions test. But on the ACT the writing test is optional, thereby diminishing its impact, critics say. </p>

<p>The College Board, the nonprofit association of educators that owns and administers the SAT, rejected the council's criticisms. Adding a writing test is "something our higher-education members have been urging us to do since at least 1990," when a College Board task force recommended it, said Chiara Coletti, the board's spokeswoman. </p>

<p>She denied the charge that the new writing test would encourage high-school teachers to emphasize more-formulaic writing. "The greater possibility," she said, "is that it will encourage more writing instruction, period." </p>

<p>The council of English teachers represents 60,000 individual and institutional members worldwide. The full text of report, "The Impact of the SAT and ACT Timed Writing Tests," is available on the organization's Web site. </p>

<p>Response: I wrote an Op Ed piece here in Maryland entitled, "The Emperor's Kids Go Without Clothes." Essentially, I noted that although our english curriculum looks strong, it has produced kids who can't write cohesive sentences. I get many high school applicants looking for jobs that have horrible writing and grammar skills.
In my own household, I have yet to see any grammar and punctuation homework in my kids since early middle school. Frankly, this new writing component may make the high schools more responsible and responsive to the needs of both business and our community.</p>

2

<p>From the New York Times today:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/education/04education.html?%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/education/04education.html?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The headline is:</p>

<p>SAT Essay Test Rewards Length and Ignores Errors</p>

<p>Excerpt:</p>

<p>"SAT graders are told to read an essay just once and spend two to three minutes per essay, and Dr. Perelman is now adept at rapid-fire SAT grading. This reporter held up a sample essay far enough away so it could not be read, and he was still able to guess the correct grade by its bulk and shape. "That's a 4," he said. "It looks like a 4." "</p>

3

<p>
[quote]
I get many high school applicants looking for jobs that have horrible writing and grammar skills.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Hey, I was once looking for jobs like that too. :)</p>

<p>And no wonder, either. Does anyone ever diagram a sentence anymore? I don't think we spent much time on that at decades ago, but it was a very valuable excercise to explore a different way of looking at things. I wouldn't hurt to bring back the old Warriners English Composition books either. Today's curriculm tends to be based on the "handout" of the day.</p>

<p>And these writing "rubrics" that they have are ridiculous.</p>

4

<p>Dadx, I must be tired. You are right. I used a misplaced modifier; however, at least I recognized my mistake.Oh well.</p>

5

<p>Washington Post story begins "A professional organization representing 60,000 teachers of English criticized the new essay portion of the SAT as a poor predictor of how well students will perform in college and expressed concern that it could encourage mediocre, formulaic writing."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/03/AR2005050301450.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/03/AR2005050301450.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

6

<p>This is an interesting article suggesting that the length of the SAT writing essay is correllated to the score. Read it!</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/education/04education.html?hp&ex=1115265600&en=ac077b8b08653596&ei=5059&partner=AOL%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/education/04education.html?hp&ex=1115265600&en=ac077b8b08653596&ei=5059&partner=AOL&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

7

<p>See discussion below:</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=60075%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=60075&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

8

<p>Two points:
If we want kids to learn to write we have to encourage them to write a lot and to improve along the way. My heart goes out to English High School teachers and their students. 150 kids x 5 minutes to grade an essay and make comments is a lot of time. Maybe at one point in a high school career, students should be allowed a small writing class where the teacher will be better abled to focus on the details of essay writing.</p>

<p>and</p>

<p>Wasn't their an article in the Atlantic a few years ago describing the failing grades given to Shakespear, Joyce and Faulkner based on the standardized grading rubrics?</p>

9

<p>I have been puzzling over the low score my S achieved on the SAT-II writing essay (8/12). He is a strong writer. So I surmised that, since his handwriting is lousy, he put an extra effort into writing legibly and thus shortened the length of his essay. Otherwise, his performance on the test seems to have been perfect. Oh, well.</p>

10

<p>As for encouraging mediocre and formulaic writing...Texas already does that with the mandatory state testing. They've done it for years. Children are taught to respond to the prompts. It if is a narrative, this way. A "how to" this way. Etc....They have to be "unlearned" in order to write for the AP English exam and college essays. You can spot a TAKs essay a mile away. I suspect this will eventually happen with the SAT essay.</p>

<p>Only the first two pages of a TAKs essay are read, so kids are taught to make sure they have five paragraphs on the two pages. Opening, three paras in the middle, and a conclusion. When writing a persuasive essay for example, the three paras in the middle are supposed to be pro, con, pro. When grading said essays, the evaluators look for the same components. What makes a 4 better than a 2? Not the word choice or detail....it's having the all the components in the right order. </p>

<p>Oh, and the complete essays are shipped out for grading--sometimes to college English students in other states.</p>

11

<p>Hey, my kids diagram sentences at their grade school! I think they start it in 4th grade, if I remember correctly. And the school also encourages journal writing, even as young as 2nd grade - though spelling and grammer is not marked at that level. My S really hates it, and strives to make the shortest sentences possible, but at least it gets him writing at a young age!</p>

12

<p>"Teachers already have so little time to do what they need to do in the classroom," Mr. Yagelski said. Inevitably, in preparing students for the new test, "other vital kinds of writing will be ignored or devalued." </p>

<p>I'm not a teacher, but I don't understand this quote. What takes precedence over assigning writing exercises in an English classroom? Since neither the writing not the grading needs to take place in the classroom, how could this be a sensible objection?</p>

13

<p>""Teachers already have so little time to do what they need to do in the classroom," Mr. Yagelski said. Inevitably, in preparing students for the new test, "other vital kinds of writing will be ignored or devalued." "</p>

<p>Taxguy, thank you for posting the article. I usually get between five and six copies of this type of articles in my e-mailbox. There is a very vocal group of college teachers who are intent to expose the schism that exists between high school writing and college writing. The SAT happens to be an innocent bystander that walked right in the middle of the crossfire and does not find a deep trench. </p>

<p>I also have to thank you for a most welcome comical interlude. Did it ever dawn on Mr. Yagleski and the others of his ilk that they bear MOST of the responsibility for the dismal state of our curriculum in high school? Jumping on the anti-SAT won't eliminate the real issue: the growing imcompetence of high school teachers. As I have stated before, I do not believe that 50% of the teachers would score more than 600 on the SAT IN THE SUBJECT they teach. I am not saying this without evidence as I have paid close attention to the subject for the past two years. I know for a fact that numerous teachers are UNABLE to grade grammar tests without an answer key. </p>

<p>As far as the NCTE ... thanks for pointing out how little they understand about THEIR role and the role of the SAT. The good news is that they can look forward to another few months of leisure. Maybe they ought to buy a few books about the subject.</p>

14

<p>Reasonabledad, I am also not a teacher, but these are my observations of the Texas system and the requirements for the classroom and their impact on time:</p>

<p>The state has a huge laundry list of TAKs (state testing) benchmarks for each subject that must be covered. Beginning in January, many schools spend most of the class time on TAKs review until the writing and reading tests are administered. Writing is generally in Feb, Reading in April. New legislation makes it imperative that students pass these tests to progress to the next grade level or graduate if it is the exit 11th grade level. The school accountability rating reflects how many do, and a teacher may be reassigned based on the performance of the kids. So, TAKs takes up the lion's share of the class time. As I stated above, TAKs writing is not good writing, but rather formulaic.</p>

<p>Add to this literature genre requirements and class discussion, literary analysis etc...; a research paper and the teaching of those skills, and AP skills if it is an AP class...and you have quite a lot to squeeze in. Furthermore, our school requires that most the essay writing be done in school because of the upturn in students getting "help" ie not turning in their own work. Longer projects are done at home, but checked at specific points. I know, sad, but a fact of life. </p>

<p>As for grading them outside of class, I know that it is uncompensated time.</p>

15

<p>English teachers unite!!!!!!!!!!!! Stop the bashing. I used to teach English and got out because of the tremendous load. Do you realize that English teachers used to have an extra conference period a day in order to help lighten to load of grading all those papers? So now, not only do they have more students per class, they have lost their conference period due to budgetary restrictions. And I promise you, a HS paper takes a minimum of 20 minutes to read and grade (that's an A paper, with few corrections or comments needed.) If it's a bad paper, then 30-45 minutes. Now you know why teachers want their students to write better! As for diagraming, the kids in our district do get a little bit of that. However, in foreign language I do a lot of it, especially with direct and indirect object pronouns, in order to get the kids to understand them better since the placement is different in other languages, and the kids want to turn them into subject pronouns. Quite frankly, the honors kids come to me better prepared in grammar, but the regulars kids seem more lost with it. Yet, many say they didn't really learn English until they took a foreign language! As to the different types of writing, we did that many years ago, as well. But with our testing, creative writing is out!</p>

16

<p>evita I know what you mean...I evaluate FPS booklets. A good booklet goes a lot faster than a poorly written booklet. Making suggestions for improvement takes time. </p>

<p>Our teachers get 45 min conference time per day (1 1/2 hours at high school but that will change next year to less) so that is about 2 papers per conference period (4 at high school) if they are "good papers" and if no parent wants to come in for a conference! But most junior high teachers have six blocks of 25-28 students, a high school teacher will have three blocks of 30.</p>

17

<p>I just finished reading that New York Times article and it just adds to my already jaded and cynical view of standardized testing. If the article is accurate, this new twist to the almost 4 hour long test is truly pathetic. </p>

<p>Perhaps it's time for a parent/student strike? I know, I know - very few will join together... The more I read the more it makes sense for colleges NOT to require or even want the results of these tests. Just venting. :(</p>

18

<p>All of the individualized assessments of writing are plagued by these issues. Some over-reward for length. Others over-reward for using long words. </p>

<p>Educational diagnosticians who evaluate one child at a time do not have a single truly effective tool for evaluating writing quality at the discourse level. Everyone can agree on what makes a good sentence, but coming up with a true rubric for evaluating an essay that can be used for a large group of students is bound to fail, due to over-reliance on easily quantifiable, but perhaps not very important, aspects of the writing.</p>

<p>Beyond this, in real school settings kids are penalized for..not preplanning, not writing multiple drafts and not editing and revising. In other words, all the things good writers are taught to do in good HS writing classes (my boys have been in them) are the things a student simply cannot do within a 25 minute time limit.</p>

<p>An effort to truly address the issue of writing in schools- rubbish.
Another chance to teach kids a formulaic approach to test taking and charge big bucks- you bet.</p>

19

<p>"Teachers unite! ALL those papers!"</p>

<p>I understand the issue but it IS a cop-out. </p>

<p>First, spend enough time on CC and you'll get a better idea on the extent of the writing requirements in HS. While there are schools that value the exercise, you'll read PLENTY of reports of students who hardly write anything in HS. </p>

<p>Secondly, if it was such a big issue, it should be addressed. If papers are so important and take that long, campaign for additional manpower (additional teachers who specialize in writing assignments) or campaign for doubling up classes. One of the weaknesses of our curent system is the one hour-one subject distribution. Is it really that important to have the same number of hours assigned to social sciences than to english and math. I know that my european cousins have a system where more than 25% of their classes are math and another 25% for the their main language. If math gets 9 to 12 hours out of 32, history gets 1 or 2, and physics gets 2. And that does not stop them to do BETTER in history and physics than the average US kid. It's a matter of setting priorities ... and isn't the curriculum the best place to set the priorities. Right now, in most schools there is simply a gross dilution of time and efforts ... too much wasted time on sports and fluff classes, without mentioning a day that is shortened to accomodate a great number of asinine activities, mostly EC. </p>

<p>Our schools are failing their basic mission, and it is not because teachers and students work too hard or too smartly!</p>

20

<p>I have tutored the SAT2 Writing for many years. There is a direct relationship between length and quality. The kids who are the absolute worst at writing and hate to write tend to write short essays. They either have nothing to say or are slow in writing. The ones who are fluent and good writers and love to write tend to really get into it and write more. There are exceptions to this rule, but most of the time this holds, so I am not surprised at all by this finding. Of course, once in a while you do get a long, bad essay, and that is excrutiating to the reader. I know that two of the girls I have worked with got perfect on very short essays that hit all of the point this time around which, again, is an exception. They do exist, but most of the time, the length does indicate a good, fluent writer.</p>