NAEP Response

September 2010. I sat in the testing center at the University of Idaho, Moscow, staring at a blank document on the computer screen, watching the first few minutes of my allotted time blink away. I was supposed to be writing two essays, back to back. I was supposed to be typing already. I had a three by five card and a nubby pencil with which to organize my thoughts. I had the promise of fifty dollars for participating in this study. I would never get a grade. I would never have to read this bit of writing again. But oh was it ever hard to get started. And oh did I grimace before hitting those submit buttons in quick succession.

You see, the proctors and the test creators had stipulated that we could only have an index card and a substandard pencil and, as the NAEPFACTS from April 1996 suggest, student writers who engage in process writing achieve, on average, higher results. The margin of difference, based on the data, was about 20 points. It is interesting to note, however, that the most successful type of outlining across the grade levels was not the writing of first drafts or alternate drafts but simply was list making and “outlining” in general. Simple lists and bullets were enough to help students pull ahead.

While NAEPFACTS seems to suggest a very rigid type of prewriting thanks to all of their charts and facts [prewriting that may seem diametrically opposed to the fluidity advocated by Janet Emig in her article “Non-Magical Thinking,”], making a list before writing an essay is really a very flexible and fluid approach to prewriting. List making is very close to the initial thought patterns that would emerge in response to a prompt. List making can even be its own form of poetry in some situations. I think that the only real opposition that can be seen between NAEP and Emig is that fact that Emig opposes the type of prompt-centered, time-constrained writing that the NAEP organization assesses and encourages. NAEP asks the question “Can students benefit from process writing?” We could re-ask the question: “Is it important for teachers to continually repeat rules for outlining?” My answer is this: if you are preparing kids for a time constrained writing assessment, you must teach them how to quickly and efficiently outline their thoughts in a format appropriate to the subject material. If, however, they are writing a self proposed piece, a little bit of encouragement might be necessary, but the prewriting should be, if at all possible, less rigid, more fluid and more creative. I think that the biggest battle we face is getting kids to see what they think to be the final draft of their work as what it really is: maybe draft two in a parade of 11 drafts. With NAEP assessments this is obviously not the case. In that sense NAEP writing assessments are artificial, far removed from the natural writing process. The results of NAEP demonstrate student abilities to speed write, to process information at rates we would never expect from veteran writers. If we have expectations of great writing in such situations, then of course we must standardize the prewriting process. Perhaps, like my proctors from 2010, we must even shrink the size of paper and pencil to keep those lists and outlines as efficient as possible.