We are pleased to present a link to yet another educator who believes in the power of writing about different school subjects. In a blog post for Smart Blog on Education, Katherine McKnight retells, one more time, the story of how writing about a subject helps to reinforce what is learned about that subject:
More than 30 years of research from the University of Chicago shows teaching analytical reading and writing across disciplines is the most important thing we can do to improve our students’ college and career readiness. Students who wrote regularly in each of their classes showed consistent improvements in math and science courses as well, not just English.
This message reiterates one we quoted in 2011 on our Learnvox.org site about the use of constructed response (essay) test questions and how much better they were than multiple-choice questions at giving teachers an understanding of where their students’ strengths and weaknesses were:
“Requiring students to think and process information at much deeper levels prepares them for the real role they will face in life and in tomorrow’s workplace” (from Tests That Teach by Karen Tankersley, available from ASCD, here).
The message continues to be written, year after year, by educator after educator. Yet we still succumb to financial pressures and use multiple-choice questions on tests that have neither the validity nor reliability we need to determine how well our students are progressing in their studies.
