Warren,
   I have a lot of respect for the frustration you might be feeling and 
for the questions you are raising.  
   I think there is a big difference in having short term goals (like 
passing a standardized test) and bringing a potentially excellent writer 
along the next, reasonable step, and I think much too much of education 
chooses the first over the second. (I can appreciate the pressure you 
feel to have your students succeed at those goals, especially since it 
reflects directly on you.)  I don't think, for example, that it matters 
if a sixth grader writes sentence fragments.  The bigger question might 
be how to put that student along a path that will make the idea of a 
sentence fragment very clear long before it does matter or should 
matter. To me, that would be recognizing the core of a clause and how a 
sentence builds and expands around it, and the different kinds of 
meaning nuance that result from playing with the arrangement of those  
constituents, and how sentences carry a meaning forward as they add 
something new, but there are certainly other approaches, and I have 
never taught sixth grade.
   I teach something like "How to write under time pressure" in my 
writing classes, in part because it is a useful practice in school and 
students can benefit from developing strategies for it and walking with 
some confidence into these situations.  But part of that means admitting 
that you have to give up certain activities, like drafting and revising, 
that would produce better writing if you had more time.  There's nothing 
wrong with a five paragraph theme, but students are often told that this 
is the right or correct way to write, which is both silly and wrong.  If 
you offer it as a somewhat narrow or restricted approach that might be 
enormously useful in a crunch, then sure.  But I don't think the five 
paragraph theme is at all the foundation for excellent writing. Give it 
to them as a tool, but not as the "right" way.
     If writing is purposeful, then it should surely be organized and 
unified, but at what point do we settle on those purposes and meanings? 
 Should I write a thesis statement long before I have thought all this 
through? Am I supposed to stifle those facts that seem to be whispering 
that I'm wrong? Can I use a draft as a way to help feel out 
possibilities?  Does this have to be a one size fits all approach, or is 
there room for different  approaches?
   Your students may have trouble writing sentences, but they have been 
speaking complex grammar all their lives.  If they just write quickly 
and naturally, the sentences will come, though my experience has been 
that they'll be very weak when it comes to punctuating or tightening or 
rearranging, since speech doesn't give them practice with revising or 
reshaping their words.  I like to go top down, to deal with the big 
issues first, making decisions about subject, perspective, audience, 
organizing and arranging, cutting and adding, and so on, in part because 
sentence revision decisions should be made in harmony with the whole 
text. The whole enterprise should be about bringing the writing into a 
clearer focus. Too often, students are used to correcting their 
sentences and leaving a mediocre essay fundamentally unchanged. When 
Nancy Sommers did research on it, that's exactly what she found; 
experienced writers revise their meanings, and inexperienced writers try 
to improve the forms.
   Have you thought about finding writing the students really like and 
looking closely at how it is organized? If they are being asked to write 
nonfiction, are they also reading it and admiring it when it works well?  
    In my writing class this semester, I used the Best American Essays, 
and we got a lot out of finding things to borrow or steal. They are 
purposeful and organized and coherent and developed and engaging, and 
it's interesting to look at how that happens.
    All my life, I have worked with students who are not supposed to be 
writers, but I have never accepted that.  They may give up on it, but I 
won't.
    You seem passionate about giving all your students what they really 
need. The key question, I think, is how to get them ready to jump some 
hurdles without losing sight of much larger possibilities. I think you 
can do both.

Craig
Warren Sieme wrote:

> I think one of the problems we need to address here is the issue of 
> the end result of student writing. Obviously, not every student is 
> destined to become a “writer” (whatever that may be), and our job, at 
> least at the high school and probably the college level is have 
> students perform to certain standards. We’ve elected to call these 
> standards “formal writing.” We call this “formal” because is follows a 
> FORM.,  Please don’t misunderstand me, I certainly advocate 
> self-expression, respect for dialects, and inculcating personal 
> meaning in student writing. But, the fact is, that in order to succeed 
> academically, what students need to be able to do is “measure up” to 
> whatever the local state standards happen to be.
>     Much like building a house, though, writing needs to have a 
> foundation. It’s somewhat of a truism that “you have to know the rules 
> in order to break them,” and I think this is true of student writing. 
> So, is it so terrible to teach students to outline their writing with 
> a “controlling idea” or “articulated thesis statement”? Craig says 
> that our students have been “too rigidly prepared for this.”  And “you 
> have to shake them loose from this.” My question is: how do we prepare 
> students for more advanced writing? Again, it seems as though you need 
> to master the basics before you can add layers of sophistication to 
> these basics. Again, if you are learning to build a house, you build a 
> foundation, lay down a sill plate and build a reasonably square house 
> with four walls and a roof. Once you’ve done that, you may experiment 
> with adding gables, extensions and whatnot, but, the basic frame 
> remains the same. I deal daily with students who have problems with 
> basic sentence construction. How am I to teach them to build the 
> Parthenon?
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent:         Mon, 9 May 2005 13:57:37 -0400
> Subject: Re: Writing and assessment
>
>   The NCTE task force on SAT and ACT Writing tests has just released 
> its report, which has direct bearing on our discussion. My copy was 
> forwarded, but I believe you can access it directly on the NCTE.ORG site.
>  I'm sure much would get lost in summary, but they are in general 
> critical of the test. In part, they don't feel it adds much of 
> anything to the predictive value of the SAT's. They worry about it 
> being used for purposes it is not well suited for, like placement or 
> diagnostics. They do agree that it is likey to foster more interest in 
> writing instruction at the high school level, but worry that 
> instruction will be entirely focused on preparation for the test at 
> the expense of more substantial instruction (practice) in writing.
>  There are inherent weaknesses in a test like this if it is designed 
> to measure writing capability or ability. One is that the subjects 
> have to be of general reference, and the student is thus encouraged to 
> write without substantial knowledge of the topic or access to research 
> sources.It's also hard to design in any kind of meaningful rhetorical 
> context. Form begins to take primacy over substance. Another objection 
> is that it's pretty much a one shot writing assignment, not at all the 
> drafting and revising that goes on in virtually all substantial 
> writing. ESL students are particularly harmed by functioning under 
> this kind of time pressure, without access to dictionaries and without 
> a chance to put in extra time. Traditionally, these tests underpredict 
> the success rate for nontraditional populations.
>  A fairly general consensus in the field is that writing is best 
> measured in portfiolio, which can include a wide range of assignments 
> and can take a much fuller measure of a student's approaches to 
> writing, including strategies for revising. Another consensus seems to 
> be that assessment is best practiced locally, in relation to a 
> particular placement decision or particular context or situation. (I 
> work with EOP students at a major university, and my job is to get 
> them ready to function well within the mainstream. A remedial student 
> in that context might be an honor student somewhere else. Students 
> transferring in with good grades from community college writing 
> classes often find themselves way over their heads, but that doesn't 
> mean their composition grades were wrong. And so on.)
>  I too have worked with holistically assessed writing samples, some of 
> them in timed, cued sessions, and I find them very useful, but highly 
> limited in what they can validly say. Most people who work with these 
> tests incorporate training and monitoring procedures to make them 
> RELIABLE (a reasonable expectation the same student would receive the 
> same score on a second test) and would agree that they are of limited 
> VALIDITY (as a predictor of how well a student might do in college or 
> as a full measure of competence in writing.) Since writing is 
> performance, it's easy to have an off day and be unfairly judged for it.
>  I remember teaching for the SAGE system in a local prison and being 
> forced to give a timed post-test essay with a question somewhat like 
> the following: "School bus drivers have been running amok in your 
> town, paying no attention to the speed limits as they careen past your 
> corner. Write a letter to the school board asking them to address this 
> problem..."
>  The problem was that I was administering this writing cue to people 
> who had never ridden a school bus and probably didn't know what a 
> school board is all about or how they might be appropriately 
> addressed. (Compare it to, say, asking about how prisoners might 
> approach the warden about a particularly brutal C.O.) When I raised 
> these issues with someone on campus, I was told that it didn't matter 
> because they only look at errors. This is, of course, nonsense of the 
> highest order, but doesn't in and of itself condemn this kind of 
> testing. In general, form does seem to take precedence over substance, 
> and the tendency is to find mechanical responses acceptable and to be 
> somewhat unsure of how to deal with any real risk taking on the part 
> of the student. But you can train people to adjust to that.
>  In New York we have a regents writing exam, and many of our students 
> have been too rigidly prepared for this. The five paragraph theme is 
> one popular way. It helps them through the test, but you have to shake 
> them loose from it when they get to college, which is an easier 
> adjustment for some students than it is for others. It's hard not to 
> believe it sometimes does more harm than good.
>  Those of us who will be part of the working group this summer might 
> look at the NCTE's task force report as a potential model. The intense 
> focus on ERROR avoidance/correction and not on KNOWLEDGE when testing 
> grammar is a parallel in the way it demeans the whole subject of 
> grammar. We should say so just as clearly and forcefully. That also 
> means advocating a different kind of curriculum and a different kind 
> of accountability. It might help to get the writing people in as 
> potential allies, though that probably means adjusting/deepening their 
> own current understanding of grammar.
>  All this means, and I think Martha is very much right, taking on the 
> NCTE policy that teaching grammar is harmful. Because that position 
> has been Politically Correct for some time, it has been hard to have a 
> reasonable discussion on the issue. We need to present a clear and 
> cogent point of view as an alternative. We need to have an alternative 
> position on record.
>
> Craig
> .
>
> Veit, Richard wrote:
>   I will second what Karl says. About ten years ago I was, for several 
> years, a grader for the ECT (English Composition Test) and was 
> impressed by the training and monitoring of readers and the efforts to 
> get consistent scoring. I'd say the the essay tests are no less (or 
> more) reliable a measure of general writing ability than the other 
> SATs are at measuring verbal and quantitative ablities.
>
> Dick Veit
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Karl 
> Hagen
> Sent: Sun 5/8/2005 1:08 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Writing and assessment
>
> I have a fair bit of experience with this sort of essay grading. It's
> widely used in state and national assessments, as well as in colleges
> and universities for their internal placement tests into composition
> courses.
>
> Personally, I prefer authentic assessment and dislike standardized
> testing on principle. But within the framework of a standardized test
> (something we are stuck with for many reasons), you are more or less
> forced into something very similar to this sort of essay task, and the
> grading practices are defensible if the results are used appropriately.
>
> That is a big if, however, as these results are often used
> inappropriately. This essay measures students' ability to write a brief,
> impromptu essay on an incredibly general topic. In terms of
> authenticity, the task is lacking in obvious ways. This writing task is
> far removed from the revised composition, and not even much like writing
> an exam essay (where at least one has a narrowly defined subject). So if
> we use scores from these essays as a competency test (say, to exempt
> students from a freshman comp class), I would argue that they are 
> misused.
>
> However if the purpose is to get a relative ranking of students'
> abilities, these tests do work. There is research to back up the
> assertion that students' relative performance remains consistent if you
> change the nature of the essay (for example, by altering the time
> constraints), and that there's a positive correlation between these
> essays and freshman comp grades.
>
> This, by the way, is a big problem with the uses to which standardized
> tests are put generally. There is a large difference in the way you
> construct an assessment test like the SAT or GRE (designed to
> distinguish student performance across the full range of ability levels)
> and a competency test like the NCLEX or a state bar exam (designed to
> establish a minimum performance standard). To try to use the results of
> a test for a purpose it was not designed for guarantees unfairness.
>
> Since I have trained graders myself for several years, I can definitely
> state that graders are not trained to look for any formulaic wording for
> transitions. Or at least that's not in any of the training material I've
> ever looked at. There tends to be instructions to the effect that no
> specific formulaic approach is to be favored or penalized. In other
> words, readers are not supposed to favor structures like the
> five-paragraph essay over any logical organization.
>
> Karl Hagen
> Department of English
> Mount St. Mary's College
>
> PAUL E. DONIGER wrote:
>
>    Wow, Jan, aren't you glad NOT to have gone to that training? It's a
> great lesson for students, isn't it? All they need to do is use lots
> of transitions and not worry about accuracy or meaning. What a sad
> state of things we have gotten into. No wonder so many arrive at
> college unready for composition classes.
> Feeling depressed,
>
> Paul
>
> */Jan Kammert <[log in to unmask]>/* wrote:
>
>    >
>    > Check out this news. It would be funny if it weren't so true and
>    so sad!
>    Meaningful grades on essays that are read in 2-3 minutes? Bulk is
>    valued more
>    than content? Made up facts are good? WOW!!!!!
>    >
>    The assessment test that all students have to take in my state
>    includes an
>     essay. The people who read the essay are expected to spend about that
>    much time on each essay. Although I have never gone to the
>    training (only
>     one person per school district is allowed to go per year), I have 
> been
>     told that the graders look mostly for transition words: "next" "then"
>    "finally."
>    Jan
>
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