EDUCATION | Driving tomorrow’s achievements
12 May 2008
Student Writing Gets Higher Marks on America’s “Report Card”
Survey finds teens value writing, embrace new technology
Washington -- The writing skills of U.S. eighth-graders and 12th-graders improved in 2007 compared with earlier assessment years, with gains across many student groups, according to a recently released national writing assessment.
“Good writing means you can tell a story, provide information and persuade people with your words,” said Mark Schneider, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which carried out the assessment. “While we still have a ways to go, America’s students are getting better at writing.”
About 140,000 eighth-grade students and about 28,000 12th-graders participated in the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Writing. The assessment also was conducted in 1998 and 2002. Average scores in 2007 were higher than in the previous studies. The NAEP -- also known as “The Nation’s Report Card” -- has served as a national yardstick of student achievement since 1969.
A recent survey of American teenagers revealed that the overwhelming majority (86 percent) believe that good writing is a critical skill to achieving success. The survey was the work of the Pew Internet & American Life Project and The College Board’s National Commission on Writing.
Most teens (60 percent), however, do not regard what they are doing electronically as writing -- whether they are sharing messages on social networking pages or in e-mails, or sending instant messages online or texting on their cell phones.
Many teens also keep journals and write music or lyrics, especially black teens, 47 percent of whom keep a journal, compared with 31 percent of their white counterparts. Black teens also are more likely to write music or lyrics (37 percent), compared with 23 percent of white teens.
More than eight in 10 teens believe their writing would improve if teachers required more in-school writing. “Blacks and those from lower-income households are the most ardent believers in the importance of writing and in the likely payoff of more class time devoted to it,” according to a Pew press release.
Nearly all American teens (94 percent) use the Internet at least occasionally to do research for their school assignments and nearly two-thirds go online daily, according to the survey. Also, more than 70 percent of teens have a cell phone, and almost six in 10 have a desktop or laptop computer.
The state of Maine, beginning in 2002, provided 70,000 seventh-graders and eighth-graders with a laptop. Possession of a laptop has had a positive effect on students’ writing scores on a standardized test, according to a recent assessment by the Maine Education Policy Research Institute at the University of Southern Maine.
“Five years after the initial implementation of the laptop program, students’ writing scores on Maine’s statewide test had significantly improved,” wrote the report’s authors. “Furthermore, students scored better the more extensively they used their laptops in developing and producing their writing. And finally, the evidence indicated that using their laptops in this fashion helped them to become better writers in general, not just better writers using laptops.”
In the Pew survey, 57 percent of teens say they revise and edit more when they write using a computer.
The survey found that boys are significantly less likely than girls to enjoy writing, whether inside or outside of class, or to communicate using technology.
Two-thirds of girls (and 86 percent of 15- to 17-year-old girls) but only half of boys maintain a profile on a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace. More than a third of girls keep an online journal or blog, while only a fifth of boys do.
The survey found that simply owning technology had no effect on writing engagement.
Most American parents believe their children are writing more than they did at a similar age, and they see writing skills as more important than in the past. Black parents are more likely to believe in the importance of writing than white parents. Most parents think computers help their children improve their writing.
The single greatest motivator for learning to write well? Teens say it’s getting good feedback, especially from a great teacher, which is where the National Writing Project (NWP) comes in. A federal education program also supported by local, state and private funds, NWP is dedicated to improving the teaching of writing.
Independent, rigorous comparative studies have shown that the NWP’s professional development programs for teachers work.
The NWP has created a network of 75 sites across the United State since the year 2000, offering high-quality professional development programs for educators in their service areas at all grade levels and across the curriculum.
The NWP also maintains active relationships with associated sites that operate on the NWP model in international locations. Like NWP sites in the United States, the associated international sites run invitational summer institutes where teachers examine their classroom practice, study theory and research and develop their own writing skills.
More information is available on the NWP Web site.
