Writing Skills Count

I was a guest again today on Neil Haley’s Total Education Hour radio program. We talked about the importance of the college application essay, which is a critical part of the application process. It gives students the opportunity to shine, to show how they are different, and to show why they would be a great asset to the school.

The college application essay, like any essay, needs to be well written. Students are supposed to learn how to write in elementary, middle, and high school, but as I point out in Toward College Success: Is Your Teenager Ready, Willing, and Able?, not all students are adequately prepared to write a well organized, logical essay. For whatever reason, in many of today’s middle and high schools, students graduate without ever being required to write a formal paper complete with footnotes or in-text citations, bibliography, and a well-organized presentation of the material.

Often, teachers feel pressed just to cover the required material, much less assign a documented research paper. It takes a long time to grade 80 to 130 multiple-page essays and give adequate feedback for the student. I’ve worked as a “compositional aid” in my local school district for several years and I understand what an overwhelming undertaking it is to face that many papers. Sometimes teachers have to choose between assigning a paper and covering all the required material for a unit.

When students are assigned a paper, they often put it off until the last minute, then rush to write something, and seldom proofread or edit—unless that process is covered in class—a process that definitely will not happen in college. In college, students will write in an academic style that requires critical thinking with ideas and supporting detail clearly expressed, all grammatically correct at the time it is turned in. Students need to learn, while still in middle and high school, to use both spell-check and grammar-check, but understand that the computer does not catch all errors (is it there, their, or they’re?). They must proofread the final document before turning it in.

Teenagers need to understand that good writing skills are essential for good communication skills and no matter what career he or she pursues, your teenager will need to write clear, error-free, well-organized business letters, resumes, job applications, memos, accountability reports, and a whole range of other possibilities.

Written communication skills are still essential in life beyond school, despite our multi-media world. Follow your teenager’s progress through high school to be sure he has the skills needed to write clear, well-documented papers in college. And be sure to suggest that your teenager have someone proofread that college application essay.

The Total Education Hour programs can be accessed at http://www.totaltutor.net/index.php/total-education-network.