The different emphasis high school and college English teachersplace on writing skills may give some college freshmen trouble whenwriting essays and term papers, according to a recent surveyconducted by ACT.
According to the survey results, presented by the testingorganization's recent National Curriculum Survey in an online newsconference Tuesday, there is a major discrepancy between what highschool teachers and college instructors value in studentwriting.
Participating college instructors ranked grammar and usage as astudent's most important writing skill, while participating highschool teachers ranked this skill as the least important. Highschool teachers listed sentence structure,writing-strategy/organization, punctuation and style respectivelyas more important than grammar and usage.
The rift between what is learned in high school and what isexpected in college is also apparent at The University of Memphis.Many freshmen at The U of M struggle with grammar and usage andother writing skills because they either were not taught or did notretain those writing skills, according to faculty in the Englishand Transitional Studies departments.
"Grammar is something that is not being carried over (from highschool to college)," Patsy Krech, academic advisor for the Collegeof Arts and Sciences at The U of M, said.
Krech, who divides her time between the College of Arts andSciences and the Transitional Studies departments, said there is adifference between the writing skills many freshmen have and whatthey are expected to know in college level writing-intensivecourses.
Unlike ACT, Krech attributes the disconnection between highschool teachers and college instructors to the overcrowdedclassrooms in many high schools.
"Many (high school) teachers have 30 students in a class andfive classes a day," Krech said. "It makes teaching difficult."
Mary Sue MacNealy, coordinator of composition and professionalwriting in the department of English agreed with Krech.
"Sometimes we see students that are under-prepared," MacNealysaid. "My guess is that they have not had the opportunities towrite and get feedback on their writing --over-worked high schoolteachers can't do that."
ACT is an independent, non-profit organization that providesmore than a hundred assessment, research, information and programmanagement services in the areas of education and workforcedevelopment. The organization is best known for its collegeentrance exam, the ACT Assessment test.
The organization conducted the survey in response to low scoreson the English portion of their college entrance exam in 2002.Forty-six percent of high school seniors graduating in 2002 scoredbelow 19 on the English portion of the test, out of a possible36.
At The U of M, students who score below 19 on the Englishportion of the ACT are placed in transitional studies courses.These courses, according the Krech, are aimed at preparing studentsfor introductory college level English classes, like English1010.
Many incoming freshman, according to MacNealy, may be lacking inonly one or two areas. She compared the deficiency to that of acomputer virus.
"A virus can cause a computer to fail, in the same way a writingbug can cause a student to fail," MacNealy said. "We (the Englishdepartment) have teachers and teaching assistants who are verywilling to help students overcome their bug."
The results of the ACT study will aid the testing board in otherways to evaluate students' English skills.
"Because the ACT Assessment is a curriculum-based exam thatmeasures students' academic achievement, it would be impossible forus to design our new writing test without knowing the specificskills high schools are teaching and colleges are expecting theirincoming freshmen to know," Cynthia Schmeisher, ACT'svice-president for development said in the online pressconference.
ACT announced in September 2002 the addition of an optionalwriting test to its college entrance and placement exam, which willbegin the 2004-05 school year.
