Literacy
Writing Prescriptions
Duane Roberts highlights
the writing crisis and looks
for technological solutions
The hallmark of an education
has always been the ability to communicate,
verbally or in writing, and those are the very
skills that the marketplace demands, but is
unable to fulfill. Most critically, only in writing,
is the ability to communicate and think inex-
tricably linked.
Writing is the neglected partner of reading
in the battle against illiteracy. It is reading lev-
els that receive the media attention and read-
ing programs that receive funding, yet writing
which is just as necessary a skill is all too
often ignored. The National Commission on
Writing has warned that writing is “The
Neglected R” and cites the latest National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
scores as proof. “The quality of writing must
be improved if students are to succeed in
college and in life,” the Commission’s report
concludes.
From kindergarten to 12th grade, writing
skills of students are deteriorating. Current
statistics show that the majority of students
entering college today have writing skill levels
in the range of grades 8-10 — with some as
low as grade 5. Writing tests of 4th- and 7th-
graders in North Carolina showed drops of
22 points in 2004, to 47 percent. And the
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most recent NAEP test results show that 70
to 80 percent of high school students are not
proficient writers.
Former U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige
commenting on the NAEP Report Card on
Writing, noted “...more than two-thirds of the
nation’s students still perform below the profi-
cient level in writing. We need to make a collec-
tive effort to help our students become better
writers. It will require diligence because one size
does not fit all in any endeavor to improve stu-
dent performance in any subject. We must find
out what works best for which students.”
For aspiring college students, the first hur-
dle is getting past national tests to go into the
school of their choice. Last year, 1.2 million
students took the ACT and 1.4 million took
the SAT. However, the SAT has introduced a
25-minute multiple-choice section testing
grammar, usage, and word choice in March,
2005. The test is similar to the current SAT II
writing exam that students applying to more
selective colleges are sometimes required to
take. The new test will be worth a total of
2,400 points. And the grammar section will
account for more than 500 points — which
can make the difference between a student’s
first-choice college versus a backup school.
http://www.languagemagazine.com
The effect of these tests now incorporating
writing and even grammar is trickling down to
every school system in America, where the
focus is now shifting to helping students artic-
ulate themselves in writing.
At the College of the City of New York
(CCNY), about 55 percent of entering fresh-
man fail the writing test and must take
preparatory courses. Over the past several
years, polls taken by Public Agenda and
Education Week show that employers and
college professors believe poor writing skills to
be the number one problem of graduating
high school seniors. At Miami Dade-College
(MDC), approximately 80% of the entering stu-
dents require remedial English courses. The
ability to write in college is directly correlated
with a student’s ability to finally get a degree.
For second language learners, written lit-
eracy skills are the keys to success. Second
language learners have had a major impact
on the K-12 school system in America. Many
are not fully literate in either their native lan-
guage or English — only 44 percent of Latino
fourth graders nationwide scored at or above
the basic level on the most recent reading
exams according to NAEP.
Ironically, while the demand for good writ-
April 2006

ing in English has increased, the pool of
teachers trained to provide composition skills
has diminished. The quality of writing has
withered in recent years as demands on
teachers and students have placed con-
straints on the time and resources needed to
cultivate good writing skills. In addition, the
increase of foreign speaking students over the
years has added to the strain on these resources.
The necessary hours for teachers to spend
reviewing and grading papers are more diffi-
cult to come by as more demands are placed
upon those who educate our children.
But the problem is also generated from
the student side: Writing requires students to
actually sit down and take time out of their
busy days. People in general, but especially
those in the MTV generation, are constantly
bombarded with ideas and thoughts that are
handed to them on the Internet, TV, or other
forms of mass media. In the era of Instant
Messaging, it is indeed ironic that composi-
tion students must wait a week to have a
teacher return a corrected paper. This delay
in feedback is not suited to this new, com-
puter-savvy generation whose literacy is
increasingly shaped by technology.
Of course, more reading usually leads to
April 2006
better writing skills, however composition
requires its own skill set and, more than any-
thing else, lost and lots of practice. It is gen-
erally accepted that children need to com-
plete three writing assignments a week in
grades 3-12 to develop into proficient writ-
ers, which creates an enormous volume of
work for any teacher, let alone teachers with
numerous English language learners, so any
help is welcome.
Not surprisingly, educational software
companies are trying to perfect programs to
teach writing skills with varying degrees of
success. Educational Testing Service
launched Criterion, its online writing evalua-
tion service, a couple of years ago; Vantage
Learning markets a prompt-driven web-
based writing environment called My Access;
and Pearson Education has recently acquired
Knowledge Analysis Technologies (KAT) and
its Intelligent Essay Assessor.
All of these systems provide the environ-
ment and tools for students to improve their
writing skills by practicing essay composition
and receiving automatic assessment,
although they cost in excess of $20 per stu-
dent per year, so they may be beyond the
reach of many school districts.
http://www.languagemagazine.com
Literacy
Coming in at about half that price is a
system which has been developed by
Pomona Unified School District, the RxNet
Writer, also known as the California Electronic
Writer. This system has the advantage if
being developed by teachers for teachers, as
well as a much wider scoring range than its
competitors. It is now in use by several
school districts in California, with trials in
other states including Hawaii. So far the sys-
tem seems to be living up to its promise of
actually teaching students how to write
instead of just assessing them, which in itself
is a major achievement.
Of course, teachers need all the help
that they can get and these systems have
the potential to rapidly increase writing
scores. However, there is little point in imple-
menting systems and training programs if
budgets will be unable to sustain their use in
the long term.
Duane Roberts is freelance writer
specializing in computer technology
based in Memphis, Tennessee.
His interests include creative writing,
language and artificial intelligence.
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