From Twitter to whiteboards, digital technology has “tangible, beneficial impacts on student writing” and on writing instruction, according to nearly 2,500 middle and high school teachers surveyed by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. But those same teachers—most of whom are teaching highly capable students enrolled in Advanced Placement, honors, and accelerated … Continue reading
Tagged with writing …
English Teachers Reject Use of Robots to Grade Student Writing
Critics of standardized tests argue that the written portion of those assessments can short-circuit the process of developing ideas in writing. Using machines to grade those tests further magnifies their negative effects, according to a statement adopted last month by the National Council of Teachers of English. As high-school students prepare for college, the statement … Continue reading
College, Reinvented
The Chronicle of Higher Ed has a fairly new section of their publication that focuses on innovative ways to “fix” the college system. It’s called College, Reinvented. …parents, students, employers, and pundits say higher education is fundamentally broken—inefficient, ineffective, overpriced, outdated, out of touch. What would it take to reinvent college? Here are just a … Continue reading
Critical Thinking Is Absent Long Before Students Reach College
Today is Friday and I like to reserve Fridays for either conversations about available data or commentaries regarding higher education and her constituents. Today I have an interesting commentary from Dr. Elwood Watson, who is a Professor of History and African American Studies at East Tennessee State University. His areas of specialty include 20th Century … Continue reading
Is the Cell Phone the New Pencil?
It is commonplace to bemoan the poor writing skills of students today. Yes, there is no question that writing effectively is difficult. Yes, it is true that we don’t provide enough high quality writing instruction (writing is known as the “forgotten R”). And yes, the demands of a knowledge economy require excellent writing abilities. But … Continue reading
Why We Can’t Farm Out the Teaching of Writing
An assistant professor recently wrote to me with an interesting request: “I would like you to suggest a software package or other applications that could more critically assess formal writing than the grammar kernel in Microsoft Office. I am disappointed in my students’ writing yet don’t really have the time to fully evaluate writing assignments.” … Continue reading
Freshman Composition Is Not Teaching Key Skills in Analysis, Researchers Argue
Students in first-semester composition classes are routinely assigned to write a research paper, but this exercise rarely succeeds because they do not yet grasp how to analyze their sources, say the chief researchers of a multi-institutional study of college students’ citations. “We need to be teaching analysis, and a lot of it,” Rebecca Moore Howard, … Continue reading
In College, But Reluctant to Read or Write
Teaching English in Quebec’s version of community college, Siobhan Curious told her students toread 150 pages of Life of Pi in a week. They gasped. Then, as they discussed a short reading passage, she asked them to think about writing several hundred words on it. There were “quiet snorts and groans, subtly and not-so-subtly rolled eyes.” When her … Continue reading
