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Secondary Writing Overview

Secondary Writing is the practice of writing at the level of Secondary Education, or Adolescence. This type of writing is noted to be significant at this level for student's abilities to practice career readiness and demonstrate learning through written products. Theoretical views on the writing process at this level assert that it supports the student learning process through the composition of a written demonstration of knowledge through evaluating material, making personal and content connections, reflecting, and demonstrating understanding of the meaning of a concept. Additionally, development in writing at this level is recognized to be a combination of professional, personal, and educational development due to the ways in which writing skills are utilized in a wide range of scenarios throughout the experiences of the student during and after secondary education.

Common Core State Standards

For states in the U.S. who have adopted and implemented these standards, the Common Core State Standards provide a foundation for teaching writing at each grade level and setting goals for student development in English Language Arts. The mission of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (ELA) claims to be designed to prepare all students in K-12 education for college and career readiness and life after schooling. These standards contribute to secondary writing by providing guidelines or goals for development in specific writing skills and practices at each grade level. The Common Core Standards website lists those standards for teaching ELA at each grade-level as well as for developing literacy and writing skills across disciplines. Common Core State Standards provide secondary school teachers with a foundation for teaching students to compose a variety of types of writing, such as presenting information, arguments, or opinions. For secondary writing, Common Core Standards place focus on developing a "sophisticated" language use through vocabulary, sentence structure, and the development and organizing of ideas in writing.

In grade specific standards, Common Core established sub-headings of:

• Text Types and Purposes
• Production and Distribution of Writing
• Research to Build and Present Knowledge
• Range of Writing

Each of these subheadings contain their own set of specific standards or goals designed to develop student writing skills at each grade level. The standards were developed by state leaders (governors and state commissioners of education through membership in Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center)) and are adopted voluntarily by each state. According to the Common Core State Standards Standard-Setting Criteria, the standards for both English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics were designed based off of the following criteria:

• Essential
• Rigorous
• Clear and Specific
• Teachable and Learnable
• Measurable
• Coherent
• Grade-by-grade standards
• Internationally benchmarked

Critiques of Common Core Standards in English Language Arts

The creation of Common Core Standards have also received pushback from educators and educational professionals who either do not agree with the standards and goals or the ways in which they have been implemented in the classroom setting. One of the major critiques of Common Core State Standards is that they were not directly created by teachers, or those who are instructed to follow them for students in the classroom. Additionally, criticisms have risen from researchers and educators who have concerns about the Common Core and its potential harm to students, especially those from marginalized communities. Another critique is that the standards are too focused on a narrow range of "testable skills", where students are taken away from the more exploratory aspects of school (field trips, experiments, etc.) and instead are taught to take standardized tests in preparation for college and careers. In the area of writing, criticisms of this similar nature assert that the assessments related to Common Core Standards do not allow for freedom or flexibility in student writing, due to the language in the written standards focusing on providing textual citations and source evidence when writing.

Pedagogical Approaches for Teaching Secondary Writing

Research on secondary school writing education have adopted a large range of instructional techniques for the teaching of writing at this level. From collaborative to individualized approaches, research on teaching composition has developed from varying values and models of the writing process when it comes to writing at this level. Some researchers assert that the writing process is highly complex, therefore requiring a longer time to learn and acquire the appropriate skills and tools needed to develop in this process and demonstrate learning. Research also notes that this learning and writing process is not only connected to the skills obtained in the secondary education classroom, but also in the outside experiences of the student as they develop unique meanings and perspectives on the situations and content related to their writing.

Modeling the Writing Process

The Institute of Education Sciences and What Works Clearinghouse published a guide for educators teaching secondary writing in November of 2016, providing three recommendations for teaching students to write effectively at this level. . Recommendation 1, "Explicitly teach appropriate writing strategies using a Model-Practice-Reflect instructional cycle", suggests that teaching students strategies to organize their writing process and then modeling those strategies for them contributes to their development as effective writers. Modeling the process includes demonstrating the use of graphic organizers, prompting students with questions about the goals of their writing, or modeling error correction. As shown in this instructional guide, the Writing process involves the planning, goal setting, drafting, evaluating, revising, editing, and production of a piece of writing where each stage maintains its own set of strategies for students to develop in. These steps in the writing process can be approached in many different ways as students and writers discover the purpose of these strategies and how they function to create a written product.

The Writing Center

The technique of the writing center in the classroom involves the assertion that composing writing is a creative and collaborative act for students that requires support of others. There are many different variations of this instructional technique that involve different members of the school community, such as students, teachers, faculty, or technology aids. Several websites, many of which come from universities or collegiate level institutions, exist as technology aids for writing support, such as Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab). Many of these websites are free to use and claim to be accessible and designed for all levels of writers. This instructional technique and tool has also been noted to be flexible for student writers at different levels or abilities in writing, allowing opportunities for both advanced writers to enhance their work and struggling writers to focus on their process and get the support needed to improve.

Implications for College and Career Readiness

More recent focus and developments on the improvement of secondary writing has been linked to the preparing of students to enter into higher level composition demands, such as those that arise in college or career-level institutions. Assessment in writing abilities are a highly popular form of evaluating a student's preparedness for future endeavors after completion of secondary schooling. The Common Core State Standards for writing in grades 6-12 detail its own section titled, "College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing". In this section, the standards correspond to the College and Career Readiness (CCR) standards in the areas of "Text Types and Purposes", "Production and Distribution of Writing", "Research to Build and Present Knowledge", and "Range of Writing" which provide the broad skillsets needed for advancement into the next grade level and post-secondary education or work development. In many secondary schools, students are also given the opportunity to take courses in writing that have the potential to earn them college credit during their time in high school, or secondary, education. Two programs that design these college credit and preparedness courses include the Advanced Placement Program and the International Baccalaureate.

The Advanced Placement Program

Advanced Placement (AP) Courses

Advanced Placement (AP) Courses were created by the CollegeBoard to provide students with the opportunity to take college-level courses while in high school. These courses have the potential to earn high school students college credit when students earn the appropriate credit value, or score, after taking the AP Exam related to their course, which are all given in May of each school year. AP courses are offered in many different subject areas, but those pertaining to secondary writing in the subject of English are titled "AP English Language and Composition" and "AP English Literature and Composition".

AP English Language and Composition

The Advanced Placement English course in Language and Composition focuses on argumentative writing, rhetorical analysis, and the decisions of writers during the writing and composing process. This course specifically focuses on nonfiction texts for reading, gathering information, analyzing, and composing written arguments. The AP English Language and Composition Course Framework organizes the course into nine units, but states that teachers are able to adjust the course content plans according to their specific school's needs or academic schedule. The "big ideas and enduring understandings" for this course are set as a foundation for the skills and performances that students are expected to learn in this course. For AP Language and Composition, the "big ideas" are as follows:

• Rhetorical Situation
• Claims and Evidence
• Reasoning and Organization
• Style

Each of these ideas and understandings relate to the writing process that the course is designed to teach students in preparation for the exam. According to the AP English Language and Composition Course and Exam Description, the AP English Language and Composition Exam consists of three free-response questions worth 55% of the entire exam score. These three questions include a Synthesis, Rhetorical Analysis, and Argument prompt. The student's written response to these prompts are scored in three areas, Thesis (0-1 points), Evidence and Commentary (0-4 points), and Sophistication (0-1 point).

AP English Literature and Composition

The Advanced Placement English course in Literature and Composition focuses on reading, analysis, and writing around concepts of literature at the introductory college level Specifically, this course focuses on literature in fiction, poetry, and drama from a range of periods. The course is designed to be made up in nine units with its corresponding set of skills and levels of understanding for the student's development and preparation for the AP exam. Following these focuses, the course is also founded on the following "big ideas":

• Character
• Setting
• Structure
• Narration
• Figurative Language
• Literary Argumentation

Each big idea is tied to a skill that students are expected to develop throughout the AP Literature and Composition course and perform on the exam. The written, or free response, portion of the assessment is organized into three questions worth 55% of the entire exam score. During this portion of the test, students are given two hours to write responses to a Poetry Analysis prompt, a Prose Fiction Analysis prompt, and a Literary Argument prompt. According to the AP English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description document, the free-response portion of the exam is scored out of a total of six points per response. The rubric for this scoring includes sections for Thesis (awarded 0 or 1 point), Evidence and Commentary (awarded 0-4 points) , and Sophistication (awarded 0-1 point).

International Baccalaureate

The International Baccalaureate (IB) provides a program for students ages 16-19 titled the "Diploma Programme" which builds to secondary writing skills and overall student development through its various curriculum themes and courses. The program is noted on the IB website to be a university respected program that is committed to the intellectual, social, emotional, and physical well-being of students. The curriculum for the Diploma Programme offers six subject groups along with three core elements defined by the IB. The three core elements of the Diploma Programme are:

1. Theory of knowledge: students are to reflect on the nature of knowledge
2. The extended essay: students are to complete a 4,000 word paper on independent research
3. Creativity, activity, service: students are to complete a projects related to the concepts of creativity, activity, and service

The six subject groups in this program include:

1. Studies in Language and Literature
2. Language Acquisition
3. Individuals and Societies
4. Sciences
5. Mathematics
6. The Arts

Each of these subject groups maintains a set of specific courses for students to choose from. Students are assessed on their ability to master the goals and academic skills set forth in these courses. These skills include analyzing and presenting information, evaluating and constructing arguments, and solving problems creatively. These assessments include, but are not limited to, essays, short-response questions, text-response questions, and case-study questions.