S.T. Writing– Just What Are They Looking For?

It sounds as though the MEAP test is getting increasingly challenging each year. According to a report in the Detroit News, the writing scores on the MEAP have dropped between the ’05 and ’06 testing sessions. In addition to this drop, writing scores were already much lower than scores on the math and reading tests. The question as to why the writing scores are increasingly poor cause us to wonder what teachers and students are doing wrong.

“Of all the things we teach, I believe writing is the most complex,” said Paula Wood, dean of the College of Education at Wayne State University. “Writing requires students to process what they’ve learned and formulate it in their own words, a difficult task for some students.”

Teachers may be having a difficult time organizing how to teach young individuals how to write, but I believe organization and structure may be the best way to prepare an individual for the test (after all, students do earn money from passing the MEAP!) The writing section of the MEAP includes an array of emphases:

“On the writing portion of the MEAP, students answer multiple-choice questions and provide their own writing samples. They are graded on spelling, punctuation and grammar, and for how well they maintain and support themes.”

Seemingly, teaching writing can be much more difficult that teaching any other subject. It doesn’t simply include a delivery of information to the student. The student must learn how to organize his thoughts in a constructive manner, and then transfer those thoughts onto a piece of paper while simultaneously learning to perfect grammatical and syntactical basics. Anne Gere, an English professor at U-M, touches also on the subject of students being unable to create an essay which shows any originality.

“‘If you’re going to teach writing well you have to teach writing often,’ said Gere, the U-M professor.
Gere said students are flooding college classrooms, including U-M, ill prepared to make but the simplest five-paragraph argument in print. ‘If you ask them to do any more than that, they are stumped,’ she said. ‘And these are the best and brightest in the state.’”

I was taught that when taking a standardized writing test, the most important aspects included form, grammar and syntax. Now, I read about Gere complaints which are based on the fact that students are failing to show originality on these tests, and she encourages them to break away from the standard five-paragraph essay. It is difficult to standardize writing tests, and it seems as though the rules are constantly changing. It seems as though students are taking chances whenever they take a standardized writing test. Some graders use rubrics, while others read more casually searching for originality. Students sure have to have it all today!

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