Writing well is hard to do. It requires skill, time, and lots of effort. Would-be writers must also learn the fundamentals of English usage, style, and grammar. Ten million purchases of the venerated 1959 manual, The Elements of Style, are proof positive of the timeless need for sensible guidance in the rules of writing.
If recent test scores are any indication, though, instruction in the writing basics is in short supply in North Carolina. According to new eighth grade writing scores on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), North Carolina (PDF) was the only state in the country whose scores declined. This dubious distinction was curiously omitted from the Department of Public Instruction’s press release trumpeting the headline: “NC NAEP Writing Scores at National Average.”
While it’s true that North Carolina’s 2007 writing scores kept pace with the national average, this is hardly something to crow about. Nationally, just 31 percent of eighth graders scored at proficient levels. In North Carolina, only 28 percent of eighth graders wrote proficiently, a drop of six points from 2002.
State test results also revealed disturbing achievement gaps. Only 16 percent of low-income children, 12 percent of African American students, and 16 percent of Hispanic pupils scored at proficient levels. Boys also fared poorly: a mere 18 percent were proficient, compared to 42 percent of girls.
Scores were not broken down by individual school districts. However, results for Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools (CMS) (available because the system participated in NAEP’s Trial Urban District Assessment) provided a bit of good news. CMS eighth grade students bested (PDF) the average American central city score by nine percentage points. Still, more than two-thirds of CMS students cannot write proficiently.
Why are writing scores so low – here and nationally? One simple reason is that students don’t write often enough. A 2003 report from the National Commission on Writing found that elementary students spend three hours a week or less on writing. At the high school level, “nearly 66 percent of high school seniors do not write a three-page paper as often as once a month for their English teachers.” In many public schools, writing loses out to frequently tested subjects like reading and math. This trend may well increase if recommendations from North Carolina’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Testing and Accountability – to end state writing tests in fourth, seventh, and tenth grade – are adopted.
Kids aren’t avid readers either – a major concern since frequent reading correlates positively with writing scores. A 2007 report from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) found that only 30 percent of 13-year-olds read almost every day for fun. Among 17-year-olds, just 22 percent read almost every day for enjoyment. Instead of reading, adolescents and young adults are often online or watching television – TV time averages a whopping two hours per weekday, says the NEA.
Schools are also failing to teach grammar fundamentals. Opposition to grammar instruction has come from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). A 1985 NCTE resolution inexplicably disparaged grammar exercises as a “deterrent” to improvements in speaking and writing and a hindrance to the “development of students’ oral and written language.” Professor David Mulroy, author of The War Against Grammar, has said of NCTE’s position: “Thanks to their efforts, grammar has been banished from ‘grammar school.’” Fortunately, grammar instruction seems to be experiencing a resurgence of sorts.
Let’s hope it continues. Writing proficiency is a critical skill – and one that employers say is in increasingly short supply among high school graduates. We must do better to prepare students for what lies ahead. But it will require considerable effort. As British novelist Anthony Trollope said, “There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.”
We’ve done “easy” for long enough. Now it’s time to get to work.