Rank these high-school-English-teacher-goals in order of importance:

-develop a student’s love of literature

-develop a student’s argumentative writing skills

-develop a student’s writing voice 

Obviously your answer will reflect your priorities. For a moment, though, let’s use the Loudoun County mission statement as our guide…

The mission of the Loudoun County Public Schools is to work closely with students, families, and the community to provide a superior education, safe schools, and a climate for success. The educational programs of Loudoun County Public Schools will strive to meet or exceed federal, state, and local requirements for assessment of achievement and to promote intellectual growth, individual initiative, mutual respect, and personal responsibility for productive citizenship.

The first bullet-point for “student achievement” is then defined thusly:

“LCPS will ensure that all graduates demonstrate readiness for continuing education and entry level skills for immediate employment.”

With these priorities as our guide, I think the ordering of the above goals becomes a little less subjective. A love of literature and the development of a distinct writing voice are often needed for an enriched life, and they should never be discarded from the curriculum. But the most valuable skill that will serve all students immediately upon graduation is an ability to maturely and persuasively argue.  

When I say “argue”, I don’t mean fighting, ranting, or complaining, and I don’t mean using MLA format. I mean the conscious application of rhetorical choices, which is a needed skill in getting what you want in high school and beyond, to say nothing of being a “productive citizen”. 

Post-high school self-advocacy takes many forms. It could involve creating resumes and cover letters or participating in job interviews or managing workplace dynamics, to say nothing of the social and intellectual obstacles of college life.

Whatever the setting, the majority of post high school writing and communication is rooted in rhetoric, language that is made to achieve a purpose. The more logically sound this communication is, the better. The more coherent, the better. To master this skill requires meaningful practice, with consistent feedback from an instructor. It’s not easy for students, as I’ve learned. I’ve spent eleven years preparing students for the end-of-course SOL persuasive essay, and three years teaching the rhetoric-centric AP Language and Composition.     

In contrast, a comprehensive understanding and appreciation of literature, while enriching, pays small dividends when compared to the ability to compose a thesis that is backed with evidence and a well-developed line of reasoning (to use College Board’s phrasing). 

As for developing a distinct writing voice, I’d place that on the very top of the high school student’s hierarchy of needs. I’ve read hundreds of college application essays over the years, and the most common issue is when the student places too much focus on fussy details in syntax and diction instead of focusing on presenting original evidence to build a compelling case for why the student is a worthy candidate for admission. The value of credible evidence and logical reasoning can’t be taught enough in high school classrooms.    

LCPS wants its students to be skilled at composing persuasive writing. (So does VDOE, although the SOLs are almost equally divided between literary and rhetorical standards.) 

One of the ways Loudoun attempts to hold students and teachers to this standard is the Big Question Project, an essay which is to be completed by honors English students freshman to junior year.

I have two years experience leading students through the process of writing the BQE, as well as scores of hours spent trying to alleviate student neuroses around the paper. It’s traditionally not a pleasant experience for most students, for a few reasons. 

• The project is worth one hundred points, which usually makes the paper a huge determining factor in a student’s score for the quarter and the course itself. 
• The paper is often one of the first times the student has written argumentatively that year. 
• The paper topics themselves students find difficult to grasp. 

A lot of this I knew from observation, but it was confirmed in December when I surveyed thirty three Champe junior and seniors about their past BQE experience. (For this group I asked only for freshman memories because the project was cancelled when we went to online learning this spring.) 

I will allow that this is a small sample, and I will also allow that most students would much rather complain about a county-mandated project than offer it praise.

Even so, what a shame that such is a well-intentioned project appears to have such unintended negative effects on students. 

And while students all reported earning good to excellent scores on the project, I’m not sure the skills stuck. As an AP Lang teacher, students often arrive having completed freshman and sophomore BQEs, but having very little control of persuasive writing that is backed with credible evidence and a line of reasoning. This is not surprising, since many students surveyed claimed that the BQE was the only argumentative writing they completed that year.  

The county has recently introduced some revisions to the assignment. 

I have an additional revision I’d like to submit for your approval: Do more BQEs per year.

By “more”, I mean two — two Big Question Essays, per grade, per year. Let’s say English honors students must complete a fall and spring BQE. (Also, if we agree with the premise that this skill is valuable to all students, not just the honors kids, it seems wrong that academic students aren’t asked to do it?) 

The first effect of multiple BQEs in a school year would be a reduction in grade dread. If each essay were worth fifty points instead of the county-mandated 100, the paper no longer looms as large over a student’s GPA. A reduction in student stress also makes for a more productive classroom environment for the teacher, who probably doesn’t enjoy the student stress over the writing and the subsequent complaints about the grades they earn.  

Students will also feel less dread because they will have more consistent experience practicing the skill. If your only experience writing a persuasive MLA essay occurs once a year, how confident can you feel? Practice and meaningful feedback from the instructor will give students a shot at correcting their mistakes. Assuming the instructor is providing careful feedback, how can a well intentioned student not make significant improvement from the first essay the fall of their freshman year to the sixth essay in the spring of their junior year? 

It will also give students and instructors a chance to learn to love Turintin, a useful tool that has been maddenly shuffled around the LCPS interface like the pill in a shell game, from website to Vision to Schoology, where it now resides behind a series of clicks in the “add-on external tool” feature. 

It requires practice to get there, but it’s worth the effort.

After experiencing the program’s plagiarism tracking, students would feel accountable for the product they submit. After experiencing the program’s handy feedback options, teachers would hopefully start using it for all their assignments that have the risk of academic dishonesty.   

More preparation writing rhetorically could potentially also translate to greater success on the reading and essay portions of the SATs, both of which rely on an understanding of rhetorical writing. Until colleges stop relying on these scores as an admission standard, why not examine these concepts in greater depth in the classroom and reduce the extra the stress students face of taking after-school classes to prepare for the exam?

Two BQEs per school year will also help teachers become more effective at providing quality feedback and releasing sores in a timely manner. Speaking from experience, it’s a little nerve-wracking to score an essay worth so much, and the grading process can be time-consuming. Teachers rightly take the grading process seriously when so much is at stake. 

This isn’t entirely helpful for the students, though. It’s tough to learn from your mistakes when feedback is released up to a month later…

If teachers are grading these essays twice a year, they have more familiarity with the genre itself, and with the reduced grade they won’t feel the anxiety about each point. (And hopefully the students will be better at writing, so it won’t be so arduous to offer feedback.) 

Students should also be encouraged, maybe even required, to develop their own questions. It was a consistent answer in the survey: students appreciated teachers who encouraged them to craft their own questions… 

It’s been almost a year since we switched to online learning, and the value of self-advocacy has become even greater. In this setting, where there is limited contact with the instructor, students who have the confidence and skill to communicate logically and maturely stand a better chance of to succeed in such a challenging learning environment. Beyond such immediate rewards, they will also stand out in a world often dominated by incoherent discourse.

It’s not easy to ask students to write rhetorically. For the teacher, it involves careful instruction, feedback, time to grade, and developing ways to get buy-in from the class. For the student, it involves deliberation over sources, and time spent crafting a logical progression of ideas.

It’s worth the effort though, and it should be given the highest priority in high school English classrooms of all levels, if we’re actually serious about achieving the county’s goals to prepare our students.