Writing Instruction in Massachusetts

by Alison L. Fraser

This new Pioneer Institute policy brief on student writing in our schools will be helpful if it highlights the understanding that students will need to write often and at length in college and beyond. Personal and creative writing alone do not prepare students for college term papers or for the memoranda and reports they may need to write at work. With the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test of writing showing 55 percent of Massachusetts’ eighth graders scoring “needs improvement” or below, it ought to be clear that, despite any progress our schools have made in writing under education reform, many schools still have a long way to go.

A Harvard College student who attended a public high school in California wrote: continue….