Memo #3

My primary sources primarily consist of teachers but I also hope to interview a couple of students who have recently transitioned into college to get their perspective. To date, I have done two interviews, one with a private high school ELA teacher and another with a Coordinator of Learning Skills at a college. I will delve more into those interviews in a separate post. I have also scheduled an interview with a college professor who teaches college intro writing courses, and will be scheduling an interview with a public high school ELA teacher. I am mainly utilizing schools that I work with, for example the private school teacher is from the school my children attend, the public school teacher will be the one I am working with for SED 407, and the college professors are from RIC. I have contacted them via e-mail to request an interview and explained my project.  I have yet to receive a rejection., phew!

Some of the questions I have been using include:

• What do you feel schools/teachers should do or are doing to prepare students for college?
• Is there PD offered regarding this topic?
• What changes have you seen in the way students are taught writing?
• Some common issues I've seen with writing are organizational and grammar. Do you agree these problems are consistent with the gap between high school and college?
• Do you feel the implementation of Common Core has been helpful with teaching writing to high school students in preparation for college level writing?
• What do you do for students that struggle with writing?

After finding some differing information in my secondary sources, I may rephrase or add questions that will specifically focus on the types of writing done in high school versus college.  As mentioned in my previous blog post, there seems to be a lack of research writing and use of non-fiction in high school, which has had a tremendous impact on students in college.  I also hope to use my secondary sources to back up the information from my primary sources. 

Finding secondary sources has been a bit of a challenge. So far, I have found my secondary sources through the RIC library website, JStor, and ERIC. I have also noticed that sometimes my interviewees drop a source in the conversation so I may look more into those. The biggest hindrance I have had is finding sources that are from the past year or two.  The latest article I found is from 2010 and since I know there has been a lot of work done recently, I would like to find more current articles.  

I am pretty happy with the way my research is going and I can definitely see how this project can take you in a completely different direction.  I'm enjoying the ride and definitely learning a lot in the process. More to come...

A Curve In The Road

Preface: This will also serve as my "Memo #2" post.

This past week I've been researching some secondary sources. I found a few and as I read through them I discovered some common themes. First off, part of the "gap" between high school and college is the type of writing that is being emphasized. A couple of the articles focused on the lack of research papers that are done in high school verses college. Not only were students unprepared for the research portion of the paper but also the length of a college level paper. Part of the problem here was that students were not reading enough non-fiction material. Also, students primarily used the internet for their research but did not know how to find credible sources. Thus the issue of the dreaded Wikipedia citations.  Many students have never used a scholarly journal until they get to the college level.

Another article talked about a pre-test that was given to college freshman to assess the types and frequency of writing instruction they received in high school. The most common, frequent writing assignments included literary analysis, analytical essays and lab reports (Beil & Knight 6). Moreover, the writing that is often expected in college, criticizing a written argument, defining a problem and posing a solution, and analyzing the needs of a writing audience was not found to be assigned in high school often (Beil & Knight 7).

Studies showed that more than one million high school graduates take remedial college courses, in addition to this insanely high number for colleges, "state governments spend nearly a quarter of a billion dollars each year on remedial writing instruction for their employees" (Fitzhugh 2).  Therefore, the initial gap has now widened to include employers, not only colleges.

So here are the list of problems; where does the blame lie? Not the teachers! Believe it or not the teachers want to teach writing but they have a rather large hinderance often known as The Standardized Test. Teachers have to spend a lot of time teaching to the test and the writing that the test uses, which is completely different from college writing. Time constraints are a big issue for them. Will Fitzhugh notes that if teachers assigned all of their students a 20 page research paper, they would need to read over 3000 pages (3). As a future teacher, I can tell you 3000 pages of reading is impossible to do effectively. I think this is definitely something to strongly consider. College professors do not have the same capacity of students that high school teachers do.

I could go on and on with all the information I came across but these are some important points to note. I think my next job will be to look further into why there is so much of a difference in the types of writing students do in high school verses what they are expected to do in college. This seemed like it was a common theme.

More to come...


Works Cited:

Beil, Cheryl, and Melinda A. Knight. "Understanding The Gap Between High School And College Writing." Assessment Update 19.6 (2007): 6-8. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. Fitzhugh, Will. "Meaningful Work: How The History Research Paper Prepares Students For College And Life." American Educator 35.4 (2012): 32-34. ERIC. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. 
Fanetti, Susan, Kathy M. Bushrow and David L. DeWeese. "Closing the Gap between High School Writing Instruction and College Writing Expectations" The English Journal, Vol. 99, No. 4 (March 2010) , pp. 77-83. Web 26 Mar. 2014.

Memo #1

I intend to post to this blog while I am going through the process of my iSearch but I also have posts that I must do as a requirement for my SED 445 course.  This is the first requirement simply titled "Memo #1." Some of this may seem redundant to my previous post so I will try to elaborate.

I have seen many teenagers and adults enter college unprepared for college writing.  While I can understand that adults entering college may have other reasons for not being well equipped with writing skills, I struggle to comprehend why students who have just graduated from high school can't keep up with college writing skills.  In my experience, it is because high school teachers did not hold their students to the high standards that college professors do.

I know many people are working towards improving the writing skills of middle schoolers as well as high schoolers. I want to discover what steps have been taken and how they are being implemented in the school system.  Let's also keep in mind that the school system is a wide umbrella, so it will be interesting to also see how differently they may be implemented through public and private schools.  Starting out, much of what I know is negative so I truly want to find the positives in this journey.

Through this process, I want to become aware of what the common issues are with writing and how I may help my future students become better writers who are prepared to enter the college setting, confident in their skills. As future teachers, the research we do for these projects is going help shape our teacher identities.

The Journey Begins...

This blog is all about the journey of my iSearch project for writing class.  As you can see from my video, I have lots of questions I hope to have answered.  I have seen too many students graduate from high school unprepared for college writing.  I want to find where the disconnect lies.  I know over the past few years steps have been taken to try and close the gap.  I hope to find that there are more students entering college better prepared.

For my research, I will interview a variety of primary sources.  I have already made an appointment with a high school English teacher in a private school and a college professional.  I will be making an appointment with a public high school English teacher, as well as a few students.  I will consult secondary sources for the remainder of the research.

I am excited to begin this journey.  I have never done an iSearch project before, but I feel as though I will learn a lot.  Wherever it takes me can only make me better equipped for my future classroom.

And so it begins...

Bridging the Gap: The Plan of Action

Bridging the Gap