To explore how high school teachers in the United States teach writing, Kiuhara, Graham, and Hawken (2009) examined how language arts, social studies, and science teachers addressed the issue of writing in their respective classes. They surveyed a random sample of 1,200 content teachers throughout the United States to discern “what students wrote in their classes, their use of evidence-based writing practices, the adaptations they made for weaker writers, how they assessed writing, and judgments about their students' writing capabilities” (p. 136). Some of
the findings of the survey were:
96% of teachers either moder-
ately or strongly agreed that
writing is an essential skill
after high school, 58% of
teachers either moderately
or strongly agreed that stu-
dents are taught the writing
skills needed for success in
college, 56% of teachers either
moderately or strongly agreed
that students are taught the writing
skills needed for success in the workplace,
and 71% of teachers indicated that they received minimal to no preparation to teach writing during their pre-service preparation (Kiuhara, Graham, & Hawken, 2009). Teachers realize that writing is an essential skill in all aspects of students’ lives today, – in school, in the workplace, and in social media – but they feel inadequately prepared to teach that essential skill.
ACT (American College Testing), the college admissions and placement test taken by more than 1.6 million high school graduates every year, provides information regarding the condition of college and career readiness for education and workforce development. The ACT data reports provide valuable information to a variety of stakeholders interested in the next generation of young people preparing to enter college or the workforce. According to ACT (2013),
We help education and policy administrators make informed decisions so that teachers and counselors can better help students help themselves. We help human resources make smart hiring decisions and help companies retain and develop a skilled workforce, so they can stay in business. At the same time, we help job seekers gain credentials and determine their paths to success. (ACT Improve Yourself, 2013)
Stakeholders use ACT information to help plan for and assess learning throughout the lives of this nation’s graduating high school students.
The latest ACT report, The Condition of
College and Career Readiness, 2012,
states that the “condition of
college and career readiness
has slightly improved over
the past several years, specifically in the subject areas of math and science” (p. iii). While this is good news in the areas of
math and science, the data in
the area of English are not as
promising. The data show that
67% of the high school tested
graduates in 2012 met the English
benchmark. ACT defines benchmarks as “the minimum scores needed on the ACT subject area tests to indicate a 50% chance of obtain-ing a B or higher or about a 75% chance of obtaining a C or higher in corresponding credit-bearing first-year college courses” (p. v). Between 2008 and 2012 this percentage dropped from 68% to 67% in the subject area of English. While this decline is slight, there is even more concerning data revealing what happens to the ACT-tested high school grad-uates who do not take a core high school curriculum in English, defined as at least 4 years of English; 41% of those graduates did not meet the English benchmark.
Perhaps even more discouraging is the statistic regarding the percentage of ACT-tested high school graduates in 2012 not meeting any of the four college-readiness benchmarks. In 2012, 28% of graduates tested did not meet any of the four college readiness benchmarks: English, Reading, Mathematics, and Science. Clearly only a little more than one in four ACT-tested high school graduates were academically ready for college coursework in all four subject areas.
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"Teachers realize that writing is an essential skill in all aspects of students' lives today, but they feel inadequately prepared to teach that essential skill."