High School Writing Practices
July 22nd, 2009
If you have spent time around college professors talking about students, you have surely heard complaints about writing skills (more 
specifically, lack thereof). The majority opinion is that students do not express themselves well in written form. So, what are high school teachers doing in the way of teaching writing?
Kiuhara, Graham, & Hawken conducted a survey of high school teachers to find out, with results published in the Journal of Educational Psychology. They received surveys from 361 language arts, social studies, and science teachers from across the U.S. The survey asked about the types of writing assigned, applying evidence-basedwriting practices, adaptations for struggling writers, assessment practices, and preparation to teach writing.
What are the most common writing activities? The following are used once a week or more:
- short answer responses to homework
- responding to material read
- completing worksheets
- summarizing material read
Extending the time frame to one a month or more adds journal entries and list creation. Almost one third of language arts and social studies teachers did not assign multiple paragraph writing assignments at least monthly (and 77% of science teachers did not).
OK, stop there. I don’t even need to know about how the assignments are being graded or whether the teachers are prepared to teach writing. Students have to practice writing; they need to be writing multiple paragraph assignments that require analysis and interpretation. There is no way that students are going to go to college ready to write if they haven’t actually, you know, written!
One other interesting note: 78% of teachers agreed at least somewhat that their students were taught the writing skills needed for success in college while in high school, but only 51% agreed that students have the writing skills needed to do work in THEIR CLASS. Interesting… so students don’t have the skills needed now, we don’t assign them multiple paragraph assignments, but they’ll be ready for college.
To be fair, there is a lot of content to be covered in high school courses, and these teachers are probably wondering why the students weren’t taught to write in junior high. In addition, grading all those assignments can be a huge task. Still, as the authors conclude, reform here is needed.
Reference: Kiuhara, S. A., Graham, S., & Hawken, L. S. (2009). Teaching writing to high school students: A national survey. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101, 136-160.
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