By Holly Dayton ’13, Lens Section Editor
The Premise
This past summer I participated in the Stanford Summer Humanities Institute, which required students during the last week of the program to write a ten-page research paper. I, having written my 22-page Junior Paper only a few months ago, was not greatly fazed. But I was shocked to discover how many of my peers had never written something even a quarter as long. When I told them about my writing experience at CCDS, they were all stunned by the amount of writing we do and the serious way we go about it. I returned this Fall eager to investigate whether we really do more writing than other schools, how our writing program differs, and what makes it special.
To compare the writing done at CCDS with that done in schools in other parts of the country, I surveyed students not only from the Stanford program but also students from a summer program I did two years ago. Forty-five students responded, all intelligent, motivated students like those at Country Day. I asked students to only count the number of papers they wrote that were a page or longer, and I asked students how many of these kinds of papers they would write a month for all of their classes. 56.4% of the surveyed students said they wrote 3 or more times a month, 28.2% said 5 times or more, and the other 15.4% wrote twice or once a month.
At CCDS, 52.2% said they wrote 3 or 4 times a month, and 26% said 5 or 6 times. As far as the amount of work being done, it seemed like Country Day matched up pretty equally with schools that produced other smart kids around the nation. It was interesting to note, from the survey, that international students seemed more likely to write more and be happier about it. All respondents wrote 3 or more times a month, 50% said they wrote more than 10 times a month, and no one responded that they wrote too much. But to return to the CCDS writing program, if the sheer amount of writing is not altogether different from other schools, why is it that 26.6% of the national pool of students surveyed said their writing education was lacking, whereas a mere 4.1% of students from CCDS felt the same way? 73.9% of high school students surveyed at CCDS think their writing education is sufficient, and another 21% said it was excessive. What are we doing that breeds such contented students? What makes the Country Day writing program unique— where is it failing and where is it stellar? To find out, I headed to History Department Chairman Merle Black’s office.
Straight from the Educator’s Mouth
In response to the question “are we writing enough,” Mr. Black said, as many other teachers would say later, “We’re not doing enough writing because we’re never doing enough writing.” One of the main reasons parents send their children to Country Day is because we teach students how to write. How does it happen? Black says that teachers give students holistic feedback in every subject, not just in English. Teachers aren’t only checking for facts, they’re also checking for analysis and paragraph formation. That holistic approach to grading is why Mr. Black thinks teachers give out fewer assignments than the students could be writing; it takes a while for a history or English teacher to sit down to a pile of essays and go through each one thoroughly. But, Mr. Black stated, on the whole, the amount of writing done at Country Day is enough to efficiently assess students’ work and build their skills as writers.
History teacher Eldrich Carr agreed with Mr. Black in that he also thought we could be writing more, but said, “Writing is hampered by commitments. Teachers have to cover a certain amount of material and writing assignments can get in the way.” In response to this effect of assigning less writing assignments, Dr. Jeremiah McCall, who also teaches history, explained that he requires small writing assignments weekly or biweekly. They are not checked for syntax or even analysis but merely serve to build fluency. Upper School Head Stephanie Luebbers cites little writing assignments like these as one of the aspects of the Country Day writing program that makes it superior to writing programs at other schools.
There is also a role for larger assignments in the CCDS writing program, like the legendary Junior paper. The Junior Paper is a 12-45 page research paper written during the Junior year over any subject in American history. Mr. Carr said of it, “It is not instructive because it is a few pages longer than what students have written before. The Junior Paper is important to the Country Day experience because it shows students how to do long-term research.” Juniors begin brainstorming topics as soon as the year begins, the rough draft is due in the Spring, and the final draft a few weeks later. “This kind of serious research is one of the ways that CCDS prepares students for college,” said Mr. Carr. History teacher Peter Fossett agreed with Mr. Carr, in that writing longer papers is not good for its own sake, and even went so far as to say that it might be more productive for the students to write several short papers than to write the Junior paper. “What makes the Junior Paper valuable and unique from other high school research papers,” said Mrs. Luebbers, “is that it is independent from classwork. Students choose a topic that interests them and they take the initiative to explore the topic further, which invariably makes the final product better.”
Nearly every educator interviewed spoke to the importance to starting a writing education with the building blocks (the sentence, the paragraph) and working up from there. As Dr. Gregory Martin, Academic Dean, said in his interview, “If you can’t write a sentence, you can’t write a paragraph.” English Department Chairman Pat Dunn added that it is important for teachers not to “grade around the edges” but instead to “go for the heart of the problems in grammar and syntax.” Working up from the components of good writing while along the way correcting “passive voice propensities” and other bad habits early helps prepare students for high levels of writing.
“We need to face the reality,” said Mrs. Dunn, “that with four years of English as the only four year education requirement at CCD, many students will not take a single English class in college. Country Day students need to be taught how to write competently in other fields aside from English.” Science Department Chairman Tim Dunn seconded her opinion, and expressed a wish to have a formal lab report added to the high school science curriculum to prepare students for college-level science courses.
Some of the Upper School faculty are even taking a strand of Pedagogical Development that focuses on crafting better ways of teaching students how to write. The goal is to create a systematic way of judging and teaching good writing, grammar and vocab. The teachers who take this course are required to create lesson plans that incorporate their new approach and present them to the divisional leadership.
After talking to almost the entire English and History faculty, I interviewed Physics teacher Brock Miller, who provided an interesting insight into the Country Day writing education system. “The real advantage of our system,” said Mr. Miller, “is that we expose you to different styles of teachers and by the time you’re done, you’ve covered a solid range of the discipline and how it can be graded— you’ve received a spectrum of education.”
From the Eyes of a Student
What do students say about the education they’re receiving? Elliot Cofer ’13, who has had Senior Dean Fred Carey and English teacher Chuck McGivern, says his teachers have given him nothing but “constructive and productive” feedback. When asked if he was ever taught how to write, Cofer responded, “I was taught how to structure and I got the rest by trial and error.” The one downside of his writing education Cofer cited was that he learned to write to his teachers. “Some teachers like it,” Cofer said, “when you spit back exactly what they said in class,” which he considered not always productive. Cofer said, “It’s not necessarily a bad thing, and it can help you to write in general, though it doesn’t always help you think more.”
Austin Harden ’14 was very positive about his writing education as well. “Mrs. Dunn made fun of me every day,” he said, “but she was also slowly teaching me how to write.” Teachers broke down how to write and made it clearer than just being funny or serious, instead giving examples and asking students to improve in specific areas, said Harden. When asked if he was taught to write in history, Harden responded, “Oh definitely. My education in how to write historically has been fantastic. I’ve learned how to write analytically.”
Even for students that haven’t been here since their freshman year, students like Hunter Behne ’13, the CCDS writing program has been effective. In comparing his current education to that at his previous school, Loveland High School, Behne said this is “superior by far. English class wasn’t a class at my old school. It was more like going into a room to hang out for 45 minutes and calling it a class.” Behne also said he now feels more prepared for applying to college and for his future life because he has learned how to write from the CCDS faculty.
The last question on the survey of CCDS writing asked what students thought of the education they have received in how to write. Many students were effusive, stating that “The English Department at CCDS is outstanding. I have learned so much from each member of the department and continue to learn from them on a regular basis” or that “I think Country Day does a wonderful job teaching its students how to write. The Junior Paper is exhausting to write, but I know I will be better prepared for extensive college research papers because of it. The teachers at Country Day take great care to ensure that all the students can properly write when they graduate.”
But not every respondent was as enthusiastic. One said, “I haven’t received much on how to write but we certainly get plenty of practice on it.” Another said, “Many of the assignments are given with the assumption that one is already a proficient writer. While this is generally the case, the times when it is not may pose a difficulty for that student.” One mentioned that some teachers use “formulas” rather than really teaching the students to write, and another student said that Country Day doesn’t give the same “base-level” writing education as other schools.
However, these above negative opinions are, taken in the greater context of the survey, minority opinions. Most students and teachers are thrilled about our writing program and see it as something unique to our school. As Mrs. Luebbers put it, “Good thinking produces good writing.” Cincinnati Country Day School has consistently proven that it engenders good thinkers, and therefore good writers.
