Ever since I began tracking articles about writing assessment earlier this fall, my feed reader has been inundated by headlines about schools and districts taking steps to improve their students’ scores on state-wide writing tests. At this point, I could probably write them by myself: Concern Over Student Performance on Last Year’s (insert state writing test name here) Leads District X to Adopt Comprehensive Writing Instruction Program Z. It’s pretty simple. And the articles are shockingly similar as well. All praise the new program’s emphasis on explicit instruction, and celebrate its proven ability to bolster student achievement, however it’s defined on that state’s test. Of course to me, explicit instruction has come to be synonymous with formulaic, prescriptive instruction, and bolstering student achievement means nothing more than drilling five-paragraph essays into students’ heads until they can’t help but churn them out in their answer booklets. Maybe I’m too cynical. But that’s why I was more than a little surprised to come across “Teaching the Write Way,” by Connie Eastburn. The article details Mapleton School District 32’s quest to improve its writing scores. But instead of adopting one of the programs I characterized above, the Oregon district has infused its writing instruction with technology that doesn’t consist of computerized essay scoring. The results are more than promising.When the grant was awarded, and the Writing Instruction Through Technology project was first implemented,

Mapleton’s 18 classroom teachers received laptops and projectors, and each building was outfitted with a modernized computer lab. Digital cameras were made available to each staff member, and four individual sets of 10 cameras apiece were available to teachers to check out and provide to their students for project work. Teachers [also] received comprehensive professional development throughout the school year, to help them learn how to use the new tools, as well as how to integrate them into instruction.

Since then, writing has taken on a whole new meaning for Mapleton students. The article outlines some of the many writing projects that now take place, which, I have to admit, are impressive. At the lower elementary level,

First-graders are creating biographies of friends for which they take photos themselves and add text, sounds, and visuals that bring their work to life. Second- and third-grade students have mastered the tools of Kidspiration…to organize their ideas and use in the creation of personal digital toolkits containing images, video clips, and text.

Those students go on to use their toolkits to create multimedia reports on topics of their choosing. District fifth-graders are using the technology for similar projects. For example, instead of writing a traditional book-report, one student used a digital camera to film herself talking about the book, and to capture the related artwork she had created. She then used Windows Movie Maker to merge all the clips into “multimedia report infused with digital imagery, video, music, and sound. Sixth-graders also used the digital cameras and Windows Movie Maker, but they combined them with iPods and Audacity (an audio recording and editing program available for free download online) to make oral histories of the district’s elderly residents, which will become part of the local Traveling Children’s Heritage Museum.

Now I know what you’re thinking. All this stuff is great, but what does it have to do with writing? A lot. Determining what to include in a digital story or report requires a great deal of thought on the part of the students. Not only must they consider the needs of their audience-an important aspect of more traditional writing-but they must decide what medium or combination of media is best suited to present that information in a meaningful way. Such a complex task could easily give rise to some very interesting conversations about genre. Then they have to either write, record, videotape, or design their own resources, or choose them from amongst the unbelievable number of possibilities available online. Each student’s individual tastes and personality are sure to play a part in that process, thus giving the final product its own unique voice. What’s more, the ability to present different types of information simultaneously through the use of audio, video recordings, still images, and text demands that students give a great deal of thought to the organization of their digital creations. That’s right, students can learn organization without writing a five-paragraph essay. One critique I’ve often heard of digital writing is that students aren’t actually writing anything, but that just isn’t the case. Not only does actual text play a role in their final products, but they also have to write scripts for their videos and audio recordings. Writing, in various forms, is a key part of the process.

Of course, the original goal of the technology project was to improve scores on standardized writing tests. I have to be very clear here: If I had things my way, standardized writing tests wouldn’t exist. But since they do, and there are all kinds of consequences for those schools and districts whose students don’t score adequately, instructional programs have sprung up all over the place that emphasize prescriptive approaches to teaching writing, by imposing prepackaged structures onto student essays, and completely ignoring the role of the audience in constructing meaning. They evaluate students by either focusing on the easily-measurable aspects of their writing, which are typically the ones that matter least, or by artificially quantifying aspects of writing that can’t be measured objectively. Yet despite all that, schools adopt those programs, believing that doing so is the only way to help their students pass the tests. Mapleton’s Writing Instruction Through Technology project proves that that is not the case. Since it was implemented, the percentage of the district’s fourth-graders meeting state standards on the writing test has climbed from 25 to 75 percent, all while the students were engaged in real writing tasks, which offered them choices of topic and structure, had a real audience and purpose, and could be completed successfully in a variety of ways. The implications are significant: It is possible to improve standardized writing test scores without standardizing instruction. Now if only more school districts would believe it.

Teaching the Write Way
Connie Eastburn
T.H.E. Journal
Volume 35, Issue 7
July 2008
Full Text