College Writing Expectations Analysis

Many say that American high schools teach students to learn how to take standardized tests on writing, rather than actually prepare them for college. Therefore, most secondary students are entering college without an understanding of how to meet demands of college writing beyond the prescribed “standard five-paragraph essay.” Susan Fanetti’s “Closing the Gap between High School Writing Instruction and College Writing Expectations” examines the discrepancy between American high schools and their post-secondary counterparts in writing and English education through interviews with instructors from secondary teachers up to post-secondary professors. The results of this study, the common statements of English/writing educators over a diversity of backgrounds, as well as possible explanations for their complaints, contrast an educational experience held at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM).
The findings of Fanetti’s study varied, but many of “the secondary teachers [felt] compelled to teach to the test, [whereas] college instructors [wished that] students had not learned so well in high school that an essay is five paragraphs and a thesis statement can appear only as the first or last sentence of those paragraphs” (Fanetti 3). Instructors from drastically …show more content…
In many ways, my experience in writing and English is largely skewed due to the interdisciplinary component of English courses at NCSSM; not one of my classes were devoted to an intensive study of writing, but to literary, historical, or ideological center. The main method of evaluation I experienced was designed to test comprehension and reasoning through essays. Despite their attempts to defy the expectation to teach to the test, many teachers considered the five-paragraph theme the baseline for all