No Writing Left Behind!

I found Emig’s psychological perspective in regards to the importance of writings’ impact on cognitive functions to be of interest; however, her conclusion scared me a little bit: “for unless the losses of learners of not writing are completely described and substantiated by experimental and speculative research, writing itself as a central academic process may not endure” (127). Granted, this piece was published in 1977, but Emig’s claim, in some ways, it not so far from the truth. This statement makes me think about the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act and the current “standards” invading public education. To assess my students’ abilities in English Language Arts, the state of California mandates that we give the students standardized multiple choice tests to assess the performance of the students and evaluate the effectiveness of the teachers. My logic tells me, as Emig’s research indicates, that my students’ written abilities should be used to assess their skills in English; however, the cost for that kind of assessment would be too big a fiscal burden for the state of California to face. As a result, at least from my observations working in the public schools for the past seven years, in some cases teachers’ overemphasize “teaching to the test” as opposed to working with students to further develop their writing. This is not their fault, as they are simply doing the jobs that their state and school district mandates, but letting writing fall by the wayside, as Emig indicates, is such a logical fallacy.

Aside from some of the problems that are out there because of the NCLB, there are other reasons why some educators do not address the writing needs of the students in the classroom on a frequent enough basis; one of which is the challenge that working with writers who need some serious help represent for the instructor. Although Sondra Perl’s piece The Composing Process of Unskilled College Writers applies to students in the college setting, I see the same problems at the secondary level as well. Obviously grammar and syntax are issues for many writers, but what really stood out to me was “[e]gocentricity” which applies that the students “often took the readers’ understanding for granted. They did not see the necessity of making their ideas apparent, of carefully and explicitly relating one phenomenon to another, or of placing narratives or generalizations within an orienting, conceptual framework” (332). This is a problem that I see on a regular basis and as Perl suggests, “these writers do not know how to edit their work” (332). I agree with this as editing is often considered, at least by my students, to do with grammar. As long as their I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed, the students feel like they are doing the right thing with their writing and they overlook some of the major complexities when they are involved in the editing process and take an egocentric stance when the write their essays. I suppose this is one of the reasons why some teachers insist that students do not write in the first person. Anyhow, for me, Perl offers an interesting analytical approach to the writing process, some of which I can incorporate or consider when I am going through the writing process with my students, hopefully, helping them improve their composition skills.