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‘Why They Can’t Write’ By Scott Jaschik  

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‘Why They Can’t Write’ By Scott Jaschik  

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"Author discusses his new book about “killing the five-paragraph essay” and other ways schools and colleges could do a better job of teaching writing."

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For generations, professors have complained that their students can't write. Do they know what they are talking about?

John Warner questions those complaints, arguing that faculty members frequently ignore the real challenges to teaching writing and the impact of poor instruction that many students receive. He also questions traditional writing instruction (before college and in college), the way standardized tests evaluate writing skills, and the reliance at many colleges on adjuncts to teach writing. Warner, a blogger for Inside Higher Ed, discusses these issues in his new book, Why They Can't Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities (Johns Hopkins University Press). Via email, he responded to questions about the book.
Q: Many professors complain that "students these days" can't write as well as did those of previous generations. Are these professors correct?
A: Both history and current research say no. Professors lamenting about student writing is as old as professors and students. In the book I have a quote from Harvard professor Adams Sherman Hill from 1878 complaining about his students "making blunders which would disgrace a boy 12 years old." I imagine that Professor Og was rending his animal skin over Student Thak's failure to properly etch the antelope glyph on the cave wall.

A comprehensive investigation of student-produced writing artifacts dating back to 1917 by Andrea and Karen Lunsford also revealed that the number of errors in student writing have been largely consistent over time. (Andrea A. Lunsford and Karen J. Lunsford, "Mistakes Are a Fact of Life: A National Comparative Study," College Composition and Communication).
Q: Technology is frequently seen as the culprit. You don't support that view. Why do you think technology is blamed, but maybe shouldn't be?
A: In a lot of ways, this dovetails with the first question, in that if one believes that students are somehow defective (or more defective than previous generations) there must be a cause, and that cause is technology. It is tempting to look at students through the lens of defects because it puts the onus on them to somehow amend their ways, rather than doing what I believe must be done, which is to examine how we approach teaching writing from a systemic level.

If anything, technology is causing students to write more than ever before. This smells like an opportunity to me when it comes to helping students learn to think and write in the ways we would like them to in academic contexts.
Q: The five-paragraph essay is widely taught in high schools everywhere, and its proponents say it teaches students basic skills of structure and argument. What's wrong with the five-paragraph essay?
A: The five-paragraph essay is more avatar for the problem than the problem itself. There's nothing troubling about essays with five paragraphs, but the "five-paragraph essay" comes coupled with some very troubling things.

The primary problem is the practices which attach to the teaching of the five-paragraph essay, and the totalizing system of accountability which privileges the teaching of the five-paragraph essay. Prescriptive rules such as: a thesis must be the last sentence of the first paragraph, the last paragraph must start with "in conclusion" and restate the body paragraphs, and each paragraph should have between five and seven sentences do not help students learn the basic skills of structure and argument. They help them create what I call "writing-related simulations" which pass very basic muster on surface-level assessments, but don't actually help students learn to make better arguments or think in the ways we expect in college.

Effective argumentation is about learning to make choices consistent with audience, purpose and message (the rhetorical situation). The way the five-paragraph essay is employed as prescriptive practice actually prevents students from practicing those far more vital and complicated skills.
Q: You note that many colleges have adjuncts teach freshmen to write. What are the problems with this model?
A: By and large this means writing teachers work with the most students while having the least security, lowest pay and often substandard institutional support. The maximum recommended student loads for teaching writing according to disciplinary experts is 60 students per semester (three sections of 20). Adjuncts and other contingent faculty often are working with double or triple this number. (Some tenured faculty are as well, of course.)

If an institution claims it's important for students to learn to write while leaving contingent faculty with double or triple the maximum loads to do that instruction, they're either liars or hypocrites.
Q: Many colleges have been dropping the SAT/ACT essay as a requirement, a shift you have applauded. How should colleges evaluate the writing of applicants?
A: Les Perelman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology argued that the best strategy for doing well on the original SAT essay was to "just make stuff up," and while the revised version is somewhat better, it's still a largely inauthentic task which does little to demonstrate whether or not students can think through writing, which is what I believe to be most important. At the same time, essays written from admissions department prompts also suffer from their lack of authenticity while being susceptible to "coaching."

My preference would be some kind of portfolio of student work which -- above all -- the student thinks best reflects not just their writing abilities, but their intellectual and creative preoccupations and passions. I want to see students creating knowledge in their writing -- why not ask them to show what they've been working on in this realm prior to college?
Q: What would be hallmarks of a good program to teach college students to write?
A: I would look at this on two fronts. One, what are the conditions that students and instructors are working under and are they consistent with what we know about the effective teaching of writing? We need reasonable class sizes, well-trained instructors who are given the time and resources to continue to develop their teaching practices, and professional pay that allows for the establishment of a stable teaching force.

Two, we would look at how well students are able to transfer what they're learning in a first-year writing program to new and unfamiliar genres. My goal is to help students see through the lens of a writing "practice," where a task may be unfamiliar, but they have a flexible and robust process combined with experience in analyzing the rhetorical situation to solve that unfamiliar problem.

Writers of any kind are never going to be a finished product, so I want to see writers who can apply the past to the future, a future which extends well beyond school.

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Author discusses his new book on how writing is and should be taught

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For generations, professors have complained that their students can't write. Do they know what they are talking about? John Warner questions those complaints, arguing that faculty members frequently ignore the real challenges to teaching writing and the impact of poor instruction that many students receive.

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"The impact of grades on student motivation" by Kelsey Chamberlin, Maï Yasué, I-Chant Andrea Chiang

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"The impact of grades on student motivation" by Kelsey Chamberlin, Maï Yasué, I-Chant Andrea Chiang

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This article is on my "to read" list--just awaiting access.

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Abstract

Although research has explored how in-class pedagogical practices and narrative feedback affect student engagement and motivation, questions remain on the impact of grading systems (i.e. multi-interval grades vs pass/fail and narrative evaluation) on academic motivation. Here, we compared the motivation of students who received multi-interval grades to students who were evaluated with a pass/fail and end of course narrative evaluation. In addition, we compared academic motivation at institutions with different grading systems. Grades did not enhance academic motivation. Instead, grades enhanced anxiety and avoidance of challenging courses. In contrast, narrative evaluations supported basic psychological needs and enhanced motivation by providing actionable feedback, promoting trust between instructors and students and cooperation amongst students. Even when accounting for potential confounding factors, students in universities that used narrative evaluations experienced higher intrinsic and autonomous motivation compared to students who received multi-interval grades. Given the potential for grades to thwart basic psychological needs and academic motivation, institutions should re-evaluate when and in which programs grades may be appropriate or necessary.

References

Cameron, J, Banko, KM, Pierce, WD (2001) Pervasive negative effects of reward on intrinsic motivation: The myth continues. The Behavior Analyst 24(1): 1-44. |
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Campos-Sanchez, A, Lopez-Nunez, JA, Carriel, V. (2014) Motivational component profiles in university student learning histology: A comparative study between genders and different health science curricula. BMC Medical Education 14(1): 46. |
Google Scholar Crossref | Medline

Gairns, F, Whipp, PR, Jackson, B (2015) Relational perceptions in high school physical education: Teacher- and peer-related predictors of female students' motivation, behavioral engagement and social anxiety. Frontiers in Psychology. Epub ahead of print 22 June. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00850. |
Google Scholar Crossref | Medline

Molesworth, M, Nixon, E, Scullion, R (2009). Teaching in Higher Education 14(3): 277-87. |
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Rohe, DE, Barrier, PA, Clark, MM. (2006) The benefits of pass-fail grading on stress, mood, and group cohesion in medical students. Mayo Clinic Proceedings 81(11): 1443-48. |
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Tannock, S (2015) No grades in higher education now! Revisiting the place of graded assessment in the reimagination of the public university. Studies in Higher Education 42(8): 1-13.
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White, CB, Fantone, JC (2010) Pass-fail grading: Laying the foundation for self-regulated learning. Advances in Health Science and Education 15: 469-77. |
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Wyanaden, D, McAllister, M, Tohotoa, J. (2014) The silence of mental health issues within university environments: a quantitative Study. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing 28: 339-44.
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The impact of grades on student motivation

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Abstract Although research has explored how in-class pedagogical practices and narrative feedback affect student engagement and motivation, questions remain on the impact of grading systems (i.e. multi-interval grades vs pass/fail and narrative evaluation) on academic motivation. Here, we compared the motivation of students who received multi-interval grades to students who were evaluated with a pass/fail and end of course narrative evaluation.

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"Why Storytelling Matters in Fields Beyond the Humanities"

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"Why Storytelling Matters in Fields Beyond the Humanities"

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Why Storytelling Matters in Fields Beyond the Humanities

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The Chronicle Interview Premium content for subscribers. Subscribe Today A physician and literary scholar, Rita Charon helped develop the field of narrative medicine, which aims to strengthen clinical practice through recognizing, absorbing, and interpreting patients' stories. On October 15, Charon, a professor of...

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Association of Writers and Writing Programs

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Association of Writers and Writing Programs

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The Writer's Chronicle is a leading source of articles, news, and information for writers, editors, students, and teachers of writing.

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CCCC's Teaching Resources for Writing Instructors

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CCCC's Teaching Resources for Writing Instructors

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So many writing resources all in one place.

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Conference on College Composition and Communication

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One of the challenges of current staffing practices for college writing courses in my institutions is the sometimes last-minute assignment of multiple course preparations, additional sections, or new preparations that instructors can receive due to fluctuation in enrollments or inaccurate curricular planning. On this page, we offer direction to some teaching and learning sources that provide models of syllabi and assignments as well as heuristics and guidelines that can help instructors with the planning process that goes into teaching college writing. We also include some open-access materials that can be assigned in courses as student reading or that support course development.

Syllabi and Assignment Models or Collections of First-Year Writing Materials

Writing and Research Assignment Banks

CORA: Community of Online Research Assignments: An Open Access Resource for Faculty and Librarians: A searchable bank of assignments for developing and assessing information literacy.

Effective Research Assignments, Oregon State University Libraries (audience, exploration and topic selection, reading and evaluation)

Creating Successful Research Skills Assignments, Penn State Libraries

Alternative Research Assignments, San Diego State University Libraries

Alternative Assignments to Term Papers, Lawrence University

Writing Assignment Ideas for Specific Purposes (to learn, to communicate, Hobart and William Smith colleges

College Composition Instructor Guide, Three Rivers Community College, for first-year writing (including syllabus checklist and learning module ideas)

Effective Writing Assignments, Lehman College

Sample Writing Assignments for first and second-semester writing courses (narrative, summary, rhetorical analysis, synthesis, literary analysis) from Stephen Austin University

Sample Writing Assignments (literacy narrative, ethnography, new media, visual analysis), Georgia State University

Resources for Writing Teachers, George Mason University

Tutorials and Guidance for Writing Class Planning and Management

Open Source Sites

These are open-access educational materials that can be useful for instructors who are assigned courses with little time to advance order traditional textbooks.

Bibliographies on Composition Teaching Topics

Professional Resources from Publishers (at no cost)
Bedford St. Martin's Guides for Writing Teachers in Specific Curricula or Contexts

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Teaching Resources for Writing Instructors - Conference on College Composition and Communication

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One of the challenges of current staffing practices for college writing courses in my institutions is the sometimes last-minute assignment of multiple course preparations, additional sections, or new preparations that instructors can receive due to fluctuation in enrollments or inaccurate curricular planning. On this page, we offer direction to some teaching and learning sources that ...

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Writing Across the Curriculum Resources @ Colorado State University

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Writing Across the Curriculum Resources @ Colorado State University

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The WAC Clearinghouse has a lot of fantastic resources for teachers who use writing in their courses.

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Teaching Resources - The WAC Clearinghouse

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The Clearinghouse community offers several sets of resources to support teachers interested in using writing in their courses. These include a rich collection of teaching guides, the University of Delaware's Teaching tips, access to the archives of Bedford Bits, and a list of links to teaching resources elsewhere on the web.