THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407030196
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Most students cannot get it right when it comes to writing, two new national studies show.
Only 20 percent can write ``well-developed'' essays, says a ``writing report card'' released this month by the U.S. Department of Education. The report card examined writing samples from 30,000 students in fourth, eighth and 12th grades.
It doesn't get better in college. Only 20 percent of professors think undergraduates are ``adequately prepared in written and oral communication skills,'' says a survey released June 20 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
The studies offer the strongest corroboration yet of the nagging complaints of employers and professors: Too many students are graduating from high school - and college - unable to write a coherent letter.
And some can't even turn out a grammatically sound sentence.
``Clearly, we have our work cut out for us,'' said Charles Suhor, deputy executive director of the National Council of Teachers of English in Urbana, Ill. ``We need more students to be able to produce thoughtful writing. Apparently, most are just scratching the surface.''
Lawrence D. Hultgren, a philosophy professor at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, agreed. ``There's no doubt that faculty have seen a marked change in students' writing.''
The problem, he said, ``is that people - students included - just don't write that much anymore. People aren't writing many letters. A lot of assignments students are getting in high school are fill-in-the-blank.''
Virginia is working to address the problem with its four-year-old Literacy Passport Test for sixth-graders. The test, which requires students to complete a writing sample, has spurred many elementary schools to revamp the way students are taught to write.
The Carnegie report surveyed more than 10,000 professors in 12 countries. Four other nations ranked behind the United States, including last-place Israel, where only 15 percent of the professors said students were well-prepared.
The outlook was particularly gloomy in the U.S. Department of Education report. Twelfth-graders, for instance, were given 50-minute assignments to write about a proposal to revoke the driver's licenses of students who fail their classes. Only 3 percent of the writing samples were rated as ``elaborate or better.''
The federal report examined schools where students wrote well. Often, they were asked to write more than one draft and were allowed to choose their own topics. And when grading their papers, teachers focused more on ``quality and creativity of ideas'' than on spelling, grammar and punctuation.
But Brad Breckenridge, a Norfolk State University sophomore, said professors ``need to be tougher on mechanical skills so that the students will be able to make it when they get out of college, because . . . corporate America does not accept a lot of things that students get away with in their compositions.''
Hultgren, the Wesleyan professor, said: ``The main thing is just to get them to write. Then you gradually work on the mechanics and spelling.''
That is happening at some schools and colleges, students say.
``My teacher, she gives me a whole lot of writing,'' said Veronica Wesson, a freshman at Hampton High School. Last semester, she said, she took an essay test every nine weeks and wrote a book report every week for her English class. MEMO: Student correspondent Michelle Mizal contributed to this story.
by CNB