Local Educators Seek Consistency—

Teaching The Write Stuff

By Susan Coney

and Nancy K. Crevier

Standardized testing in the public schools is as common as robins in springtime, but with more ruffled feathers.

As junior and senior high school students across the nation prepare for and take the SAT tests, controversy swirls around the new 25-minute essay portion of this college entrance examination. Teachers and students criticize the essay, which is designed to show how effectively students develop an idea, a vehicle that encourages weak, formula-based writing habits.

Dr Leslie Perelman, a director of writing at Massachusetts Technical Institute in Boston and a trained scorer for the new essay, finds the acceptable inclusion of factual errors in SAT essays an abhorrent practice.

“Give the students prior to the test date articles and tables presenting real information,” suggests Dr Perelman. “Then give them a prompt that asks them to use that information to make a specific argument in response to the prompt.”

The National Council of Teachers of English concurs with Dr Perelman’s assessment of the SAT essay, adding that the narrow range of skills required by the SAT essay does not reflect real life applications in writing.

In Connecticut, students in grades three through eight take a yearly Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT), which includes a 45-minute timed writing essay. The emphasis, as with the SAT, is how well a student is able to convey a message, and does not penalize poor application of conventions such as grammar, spelling, and capitalization. (A separate part of the CMT tests editing and revising skills.)

Are the critics of standardized testing correct in saying that the writing process taught at schools encourages only a steady progression of improvement in testing, culminating in an ability to write formulaically for state, SAT or ACT tests? How are Newtown children learning to write?

“We really don’t want to teach a formula, we want to teach strategies,” says Alice Jackson, assistant superintendent of Newtown schools. “We are trying to teach all kinds of writing.”

Ms Jackson feels that formula writing restricts the children, and she discourages the use of CMT prep workbooks. Currently, she is training local teachers in the Columbia Writing Project approach, which emphasizes the writing process (brain storming, research, sorting, and naming the groups), exposure to good writing, integration of reading and writing, and stamina in writing. She wants Newtown students to have preorganizing strategies, a skill she says is vital to good writing. However, preorganizing does not have to be in the form of a graphic organizer or visual outline and should be varied to the individual writer’s personality.

A Fair Test Of Skill?

Does this educator believe that the CMT is a fair test of writing skills?

“The CMT is a good test — one of the best,” states Ms Jackson. “I believe the open-ended items and the skills they demand are appropriate to writing.” That said, she adds that Newtown does not have to worry about testing.

“The federal No Child Left Behind law wants 95 percent of children proficient. Newtown has met those standards. Our district uses analytical rubrics [forms that spell out specific objectives and content standards] that include elements not included on the CMT: conventions.”

State testing is only one time a year, not enough, according to Ms Jackson, to assess a student’s writing journey. She is presently developing a districtwide assessment and wants to see writing assessed every marking period.

Newtown Middle School writing and reading specialist Cathy Cincogrono emphasizes that while it is common for students in lower grades to depend upon a five-paragraph formula supported by a graphic organizer, by the time students reach the middle school they are quickly encouraged to move beyond any formula writing.

“Kids are lifelong readers and writers,” says Ms Cincogrono. “We are trying to prepare kids for life. All of what we are doing is aimed at getting kids to do what they need to in life.”

That students can use “place holders” for facts and not heed rules of grammar when responding to the writing prompt is not a confusing issue for the students, says Diane Sherlock, principal at Newtown Middle School, even though it is contrary to what is expected day to day from Newtown Middle School students.

“The CMT is one measure, one day of testing,” she stresses.

Ms Sherlock says that “teaching to the test” used to be a valid criticism in the early days of the CMT, but now that local standards have dovetailed with state and national standards, indeed, exceeded state requirements, Newtown schools can no longer be accused of this.

“The reason we have standardized testing,” she says, “is to make sure all students are learning.”

“Our teachers are able to expand way beyond what’s required by the CMT. We hope they are able to communicate their ideas effectively [when they leave NMS] with each other,” says Ms Sherlock. “We hope there are all kinds of windows open to them.”

Head O’ Meadow Elementary School Principal Bill Bircher and Principal Donna Pagé of Sandy Hook Elementary School both feel that the CMT has elevated the status of writing in schools.

“It has raised the bar for all students,” says Ms Pagé.

Yet both are quick to note that the test has its good and bad points. Said Mr Bircher, “The CMT assesses only one part of a writing ability.” He goes on to say, “Writing is a process, not a one-shot deal. The essence of writing is revision. The reason kids find writing tough is that they have to do it over — and over — and over.”

Because Sandy Hook School embraced the Columbia method more than five years ago, Ms Pagé finds that student writers there go beyond formula writing.

“We teach many graphic organizers,” she says, “and the understanding that they [the children] need to be creative. The elementary level is at the level of ‘exposing’ the children to different techniques and strategies.”

Head O’ Meadow School uses a number of writing programs, including the Columbia method.

“Hitching your wagon to one method has traditionally been fraught with difficulties,” points out Mr Bircher. “Various methods come and go.”

Mulling over whether children should be taught formulas for writing based on graphic organizers, he says, “It is better to have kids know critical attributes of writing. So there has to be a ‘formula.’ I think kids are able to write better now than they did a few years ago. People are paying more attention to it.”

Writing Is About Communication

The elementary educators’ goals are similar.

“We want them to love writing and support their learning through writing,” Ms Pagé said. “Writing is about communication. We want them to be good communicators. We certainly need that in our society.”

Mr Bircher added, “I hope that they [the children] can see themselves as having the ability to express their thoughts in print. That they are as comfortable expressing their thoughts in print as they are verbally.”

At Hawley and Middle Gate elementary schools, Principals Jo-Ann Peters (Hawley) and Judith Liestman (Middle Gate) support the Columbia method as a means to teaching writing strategies.

Said Ms Peters, “I have been at Hawley for six years and seen tremendous growth of the students as writers in that time. I am continually in awe what our students have done. It [Columbia method] fits the criteria. It is major that the students begin with a knowledge base and also be able to write about their own experiences.”

What Ms Liestman likes about the Columbia method is that it is a process that leads children through the process from start to finish, and uses authors as models to show what authentic work is like.

“As the children progress and move up through the grades,” says Ms Liestman, “they experience different kinds of writing — expository, narrative, feature articles, poetry.”

Reed Intermediate School reading and writing specialist Pam Kohn does not think the conventions of writing are being dismissed by Newtown schools, and certainly not at the 5/6 levels.

“The fifth grade is using The Purple Umbrella and the sixth grade Caught Ya — Grammar With A Giggle to learn the mechanics,” she says. “It’s very cute, and it’s good because it integrates the skills within a story context. It develops vocabulary, mechanics.”

Ms Kohn concedes that testing is frustrating for everybody involved, whether it is teachers, children, or parents. But, she said, it helps to give a pattern throughout the two-year period of 5/6 grades for each child.

“If the testing is used to guide the instruction, then it is necessary. We look at the scores for inconsistencies in the teaching,” says Ms Kohn, “or for any possible learning disabilities.”

One example of how testing has worked to the advantage of this school was the discovery that the male population was scoring lower on the Reed CMT, while the female population stayed the same.

“We’re looking for ways to engage boys in writing. We are purchasing more nonfiction text because there is a correlation between reading and writing skills,” Ms Kohn states.

Unlike Ms Jackson, Ms Kohn finds the CMT prep workbooks useful. As a small part of the program, the test preparation books can help review skills and areas of weakness, and can be used as supplemental work for struggling students. She emphasizes that the prep workbooks are not to be used as “busy work,” but rather as a teaching tool.

Educators in Newtown believe that a districtwide, consistent writing program is the key to the improved writing skills students possess. The various strategies students are taught, including so-called “formulas,” empower students with organizational skills and the ability to write in a variety of genres. As Hawley principal Jo-Ann Peters sums it up, “Our goal is [for students] to become confident, comfortable writers, who believe that they can do it.”