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.
Hi Michelle, I think this is a really important topic, glad to come to your blog! As I was discussing earlier today, I think there's too much hand holding in some high school classrooms, and it's not doing students any favors when it comes to being prepared for the expectations of college.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about what happens in the writing classes that are designed to give students college credits...For example, my cousin (who is VERY chatty and currently a college freshman if you would like to be put in touch) took URI writing her senior year. It was meant to be a college level class, I wonder if in this class the five paragraph was used? I was in high school a little more recently and I remember *loathing* these essay. Like the model student I was, I once wrote a five paragraph essay about how content was more important than format.
Happy researching!
I can see how high school teachers would use the 5 paragraph essay as a starting point and I never thought about how it would help a student who needed a lot of guidance with their writing skills. I think you raise an important point when you explain the large gap between high school and college level writing instruction. Even different high schools across the United States teach writing differently. I never really thought about the fact that many high schoolers aren't doing enough research papers. This is a HUGE requirement for the majority of college courses, but we take for granted that the students know and have practiced writing research papers. Its awesome that your secondary sources are agreeing with your primary sources!
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see what else you find!