Where am I? I can honestly say that this morning I wasn't sure I was ready to end the journey but then I had my last interview. I feel like it helped me close some of my still existing questions. I am okay with the fact that there may be problems I can't provide solutions for. I also feel that I've learned a lot about the gap and I think that both high school teachers and college professors want what's best for their students. To some that may mean laying a strong foundation and to others it may mean giving them a variety of opportunities to write. I know that high school teachers cannot assign the kind of writing that college professors can because their jobs vary. What they can do is encourage their students to write in a variety of ways so that students can enter college feeling comfortable with writing. I have had the opportunity to teach a couple of classes this semester. Although my lessons needed to be based on literacy strategies, I always made sure there was an opportunity for the students to write something. You know what I realized? They know how to think. It may not always be about the writing, it may be about the thought process. The students I worked with responded to my questions or prompts far better than I expected and I could almost see their thought process. So maybe bridging the gap isn't just about writing long research papers. Maybe, it's about helping students to get thinking. The last teacher I interviewed has her students write all the time about various things. Those are some of the students I had the pleasure of teaching. Honestly, reading their responses, I don't doubt that they would be ready for college, even if they never wrote a 10 page paper.
I still need to find a more recent secondary source. This is something I don't want to let go of; I need something more to close this out. Everything else, I feel is falling into place. Is it perfect? No. Does it need to be? No. Have I learned something? Absolutely!
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Interview Highlights
I have now completed all of my teacher interviews. Phew. I have been pondering the best way to post about my interviews. I have come to the conclusion that highlights would be the best choice of blogging about all the information I received from these willing participants. I am so grateful that each of these teachers took time out of their busy schedules to speak with me.
My first interview, as I have previously mentioned, was with a private school ELA teacher. I was really excited about all the information she provided me with. She mentioned that she had learned of the lack of persuasive writing in high school and had began working with her students on improving these skills. We also discussed the problem of organization. Her students are taught to write in a specific way. There should be an attention getter, or quote, the thesis statement should come at the end of the first paragraph and so on... I believe what we may have here is the traditional 5 paragraph essay format. She was kind enough to bring me samples of her students writing and I must say the way they articulated their ideas was very impressive. I felt these would build a good foundation for their future writing. Students in this school begin learning MLA formatting as young as 6th grade. We also discussed how the implementation of common core is helping to bridge the gap between high school and college writing. Specifically with the lack of non-fiction writing. After doing some research and discovering in my secondary sources that the length of papers were an issue, I e-mailed her to find out what length of papers their students write. She responded that the Seniors write a 10 page paper as part of their Senior project.
My next interview was with a college professor who teaches Writing 100. She was pretty helpful in talking about some issues there are with teaching students about writing the 5 paragraph essay. Some students who are very successful with this type of writing may become arrogant and not believe they can improve or change from what they are already doing. In these instances, it may be better to have the students who do not have a strong foundation with writing because they are more moldable. She also brought up how some high schools are starting writing centers. She feels this can be very helpful in bridging the gap. She also agreed that although there is a lack in the length of papers high schoolers are required to write, teachers have too much on their plates to grade a large amount of lengthy papers.
My last interview was with a public school teacher. I think this was the most interesting of all my interviews because there were vast differences in opinion. One of the things she felt was a problem was that she was teaching her students MLA format, yet she had students coming back to her after they had arrived in college saying they weren't using it. I found this surprising since everything I've done in college has been MLA, with the exception of one APA paper for a psychology class. She also felt strongly that writing should be about the quality not quantity. She felt that if they could effectively write shorter pieces, that would give them a strong foundation for longer ones in college. She also suggested that perhaps there didn't need to be such a close connection with high school and college writing because after all, the work should get harder and challenge them more as they move up in their education.
One thing I was specifically impressed about in this interview was that she does engage her students with literary criticism. This is something that I have not found at the high school level. It makes me wonder if where at times we may fail to close the gap but may provide students with other useful tools that may help them succeed in their college careers. Hmmm....
These interviews brought me far more information than I could write here, and I will have the opportunity to elaborate more when I write my paper. I did want to highlight just a few of the things I learned because some related to my previous posts and secondary sources.
My first interview, as I have previously mentioned, was with a private school ELA teacher. I was really excited about all the information she provided me with. She mentioned that she had learned of the lack of persuasive writing in high school and had began working with her students on improving these skills. We also discussed the problem of organization. Her students are taught to write in a specific way. There should be an attention getter, or quote, the thesis statement should come at the end of the first paragraph and so on... I believe what we may have here is the traditional 5 paragraph essay format. She was kind enough to bring me samples of her students writing and I must say the way they articulated their ideas was very impressive. I felt these would build a good foundation for their future writing. Students in this school begin learning MLA formatting as young as 6th grade. We also discussed how the implementation of common core is helping to bridge the gap between high school and college writing. Specifically with the lack of non-fiction writing. After doing some research and discovering in my secondary sources that the length of papers were an issue, I e-mailed her to find out what length of papers their students write. She responded that the Seniors write a 10 page paper as part of their Senior project.
My next interview was with a college professor who teaches Writing 100. She was pretty helpful in talking about some issues there are with teaching students about writing the 5 paragraph essay. Some students who are very successful with this type of writing may become arrogant and not believe they can improve or change from what they are already doing. In these instances, it may be better to have the students who do not have a strong foundation with writing because they are more moldable. She also brought up how some high schools are starting writing centers. She feels this can be very helpful in bridging the gap. She also agreed that although there is a lack in the length of papers high schoolers are required to write, teachers have too much on their plates to grade a large amount of lengthy papers.
My last interview was with a public school teacher. I think this was the most interesting of all my interviews because there were vast differences in opinion. One of the things she felt was a problem was that she was teaching her students MLA format, yet she had students coming back to her after they had arrived in college saying they weren't using it. I found this surprising since everything I've done in college has been MLA, with the exception of one APA paper for a psychology class. She also felt strongly that writing should be about the quality not quantity. She felt that if they could effectively write shorter pieces, that would give them a strong foundation for longer ones in college. She also suggested that perhaps there didn't need to be such a close connection with high school and college writing because after all, the work should get harder and challenge them more as they move up in their education.
One thing I was specifically impressed about in this interview was that she does engage her students with literary criticism. This is something that I have not found at the high school level. It makes me wonder if where at times we may fail to close the gap but may provide students with other useful tools that may help them succeed in their college careers. Hmmm....
These interviews brought me far more information than I could write here, and I will have the opportunity to elaborate more when I write my paper. I did want to highlight just a few of the things I learned because some related to my previous posts and secondary sources.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Memo #4
I have interviewed two teachers so far, one from a private high school and one from college. The one thing that really stuck out to me was the vast difference in how writing is taught. It seems that high school centers around the 5 paragraph essay, where college is trying to break that mold. When I interviewed the college professor she said that sometimes it was actually easier to teach the students who had no writing skills because she could start from scratch with them. Some students who do well in high school writing think they have nothing more to learn and can be difficult to break the habit of the 5 paragraph essay. The high school teacher I interviewed was very proud of the papers she showed me that seemed perfect examples of this 5 paragraph essay. I guess I don't really remember these. It's been a while since I was in high school but I just remember writing, not the structure. In a way, I think this was beneficial for me once I got to college because I had good enough writing skills to get into English Comp., or as it's referred to at RIC as Writing 100, but I was able to learn how to organize my writing in college. I think these differences in the type of writing is a large part of the gap that exists between high school and college writing.
After researching my secondary sources, I found two issues contributing to the gap: length of papers and form of writing. Students were not doing enough research papers in high school to have a good foundation once they get to college. Also, the papers they were writing were no more than 10 pages but many fewer than that. I e-mailed the private high school teacher to ask about this once I hit it in my research and she was kind enough to check with another teacher and confirmed that their Seniors write a 10+ page report as a "Capstone Project." She also said that students are utilizing non-fiction and political sources in their classes now because of Common Core. You know, Common Core gets a lot of flack but I am seeing more and more positives to it than I used to. I highly recommend that more people research it further before placing judgement. Do I think it's perfect? No. But there are positives to it and I think we can benefit from not strictly focusing on it's negative aspects. I digress...
I thought it was interesting that she got back to me and told me Seniors wrote a 10+ page paper. So, is that the only long paper they write? I will need to check back in about this because if that's the case this is definitely a valid contribution to the gap.
The college professor I interviewed reinforced that another problem is that high school teachers have so many students it is hard for them to grade lengthy papers. This is also something I came across in my secondary sources. This is a tough one to bridge because it is not fair to ask teachers to read thousands of pages a year on top of all their other work. I asked this professor what her recommendation would be and she said, first would be to reduce class sizes but considering that would probably not be realistic, she would suggest the use of peer review. Although this may not be ideal, I think this is a valid suggestion. Teachers could teach the students how to give critical responses to their peers papers. Hmmm.... This may be something I need to look into.
What's next? I have an interview with a public school teacher next week. I also need to interview a few students, which I will do within the next couple of weeks.
After researching my secondary sources, I found two issues contributing to the gap: length of papers and form of writing. Students were not doing enough research papers in high school to have a good foundation once they get to college. Also, the papers they were writing were no more than 10 pages but many fewer than that. I e-mailed the private high school teacher to ask about this once I hit it in my research and she was kind enough to check with another teacher and confirmed that their Seniors write a 10+ page report as a "Capstone Project." She also said that students are utilizing non-fiction and political sources in their classes now because of Common Core. You know, Common Core gets a lot of flack but I am seeing more and more positives to it than I used to. I highly recommend that more people research it further before placing judgement. Do I think it's perfect? No. But there are positives to it and I think we can benefit from not strictly focusing on it's negative aspects. I digress...
I thought it was interesting that she got back to me and told me Seniors wrote a 10+ page paper. So, is that the only long paper they write? I will need to check back in about this because if that's the case this is definitely a valid contribution to the gap.
The college professor I interviewed reinforced that another problem is that high school teachers have so many students it is hard for them to grade lengthy papers. This is also something I came across in my secondary sources. This is a tough one to bridge because it is not fair to ask teachers to read thousands of pages a year on top of all their other work. I asked this professor what her recommendation would be and she said, first would be to reduce class sizes but considering that would probably not be realistic, she would suggest the use of peer review. Although this may not be ideal, I think this is a valid suggestion. Teachers could teach the students how to give critical responses to their peers papers. Hmmm.... This may be something I need to look into.
What's next? I have an interview with a public school teacher next week. I also need to interview a few students, which I will do within the next couple of weeks.
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