Most students are not proficient in writing. Gasp! This statement is based on a recent report on the results from a national test on writing which was highlighted today in the NYTimes. 140,000 8th graders and 28,000 12th graders were administered a writing proficiency test. According to the Time report, "each student wrote two 25-minute essays, designed to measure student skills at writing to inform, persuade and tell stories." The result? "About one-third of America’s eighth-grade students, and about one in four high school seniors, are proficient writers..."
Here is the best quote from the article...
[W]hat he [James Billington, the librarian of Congress] called "the slow destruction of the basic unit of human thought, the sentence,” because young Americans are doing most of their writing in disjointed prose composed in Internet chat rooms or in cellphone text messages.
Is blogging helping or hindering the development of writing skills?
Posted by richlee at April 3, 2008 12:56 PM