Letter: Are Writing Skills Extinct? (Part 1)

Dear SP-EYE...

We hear about the new high school, the new upper middle school, and now a charter school. When is the school board going to instruct district administration to stop spreading ourselves too thin with multiple--costly--programs and focus on the basics? Every year we hear about Reading and Math. Sure, they are part of (ex) President Bush's 'No Child Left Behind' legacy. But don't we have a new president? When did we take the "Writing" out of Reading, Writing and Arithmetic? Isn't Writing still one of the foundations of education?

Now I see that, with the 'Race to the Top', we have a new acronym...STEM....which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Again, I ask...where are the basic writing skills? Who speaks for them anymore? Colleges and universities will tell you horror stories about how unprepared incoming freshmen are in basic English skills. Many now require a pre-test during orientation to prove the lack of preparation.

We live in a world where text messaging is the principle form of communication. Like that does anything to advance the concept! I also read recently, with great sadness, that the school board approved administration's request to discontinue the CAPPComp course at the high school. Presumably for (A) lack of interest and (B) the AP English course provides a cheaper, equivalent option. Great...but which students are choosing to take AP English? Certainly not your average kid!

I cannot imagine how my son would have fared were it not for teacher Vicki Coulthard, who taught his CAPP English composition class. Prior to this class, despite 11 years of schooling and excellent grades, my son's writing and grammatical skills were horrendous (and that's being kind). Subject? Predicate? (verb for those of you younger than 40). He had no clue. When he was assigned a “research paper”, we cringed. Of course, no matter how poor a paper he put together (as hard as it was, we wouldn't actually write it for him!), he got great grades. We even questioned these with a teacher and then with both the teacher and administration. They didn't care and seemed aghast that we expected a lower grade. True story.

You might be surprised at this response from the parents of a kid with a high IQ, and test scores consistently in the high 80% to 98% level on national tests. He even got scores of 28 and 29 on the ACT, which aren't world class, but they're pretty darn good. But his writing skills were just not adequate. In addition to a lack of basic grammar skills, he had never learned how to organize a research paper. Before Ms. Coulthard’s CAPP Composition class, that is.

From the initial writing assignment, I was intrigued with the exercises designed to develop basic research paper writing skills…something critical to a student preparing for college. As the semester progressed, we were able to watch Kyle’s understanding of organizational writing develop. With each major writing assignment, we found that we had to work less and less with him. Sure , there were still the age-old grammatical issues we had to identify for him, but the structure was much better.

As a result of taking that class, in 2005, my son was one of TWO incoming freshmen at UW-Stevens Point who were not required to take remedial English. All through his college years, professors were impressed with his writing skills. As he closes in on graduation, I remain thankful for Ms. Coulthard's teaching and the curriculum she taught. She was the last line of defense against poor grammar.

This all leads me to a question which I've asked numerous times, but of course the school board ignores me. Will the school board ever put forth a directive to administration to get basic writing skills back onto the radar screen?

Rick Mealy

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Sadly, Mr. Mealy...we have to say we doubt it. The school board in Sun Prairie has historically been filled with people who love to issue predictable soundbites like "anything for the kids" or "education is the foundation of success". But the simple reality is that most of them don't take the time to review their board packages or even do some independent research of their own.

It's easy for them to just come to the meeting every 2 weeks, vote "Aye", and collect their $300 monthly check.

Real leaders don't serve as mouthpieces for the people they employ to run the show. Real leaders lead. And real leading sometimes mean doing something which no one else is doing.