The article under analysis is “Crossing the Divide: A Survey of the High School Activities That Best Prepared Students to Write in College” by Doug Enders. In the paper, Enders emphasizes the importance of improving future students’ ability to write well in college. He claims that, on the one side, college professors must appropriately assess their new students’ ability levels and plan their classes to accommodate individuals who may lack critical abilities for writing and speaking in college. High school instructors, on the other hand, must become aware of the difficulties that numerous of their past students are experiencing in college in order to prepare future pupils properly. Fortunately, recent joint initiatives between colleges and high school writing teachers are tackling such challenges to the advantage of incoming college writers.
The author draws on specific examples and surveys to determine and demonstrate the effective practices that help students to write better. According to the findings, high school instructors may introduce several initiatives to assist pupils in preparing to write in college. First, professors should allow for plenty of writing practice and give students writing projects that require them to do more than just record and summarize. As such, Enders highlights that “many students saw the positive results of their writing practice” when it was frequent (63). The other suggestion is that they must evaluate, develop, and analyze their thoughts and those of others. This practice helps students develop a deeper understanding of the readings and improves their critical thinking while posing a more significant challenge.
Moreover, Enders recommends giving pupils writing tasks that enable them to choose their themes and provide detailed comments and explicit grading criteria. The author underlines that students frequently perceive their professors’ judgments of their writing to be ambiguous or lacking in substance, which causes frustration regarding the results (Enders 64). The other practice is to encourage students to practice writing evaluations, particularly in peer-group settings. Many students stated that knowing how to examine the strengths and shortcomings of their own and others’ writing was critical to their college preparedness. Finally, teachers should allow pupils the opportunity to edit and revise their work. The technique of fixing problems of wordiness, imprecise language, and faults in syntax, grammar, and vocabulary within a document is referred to as editing. In contrast, the process of reconsidering, clarifying, expanding, and restructuring an author’s thoughts and purpose is referred to as revision. The revision addresses global concerns instead of the local issues addressed by editing.
Thus, the main reasoning of the author concerns the need to prepare students for writing by making it a frequent, collaborative, challenging, and more student-centered process. Enders advocates for more straightforward instructions, which allow freedom of thought, meaningful evaluations, peer discussions, and a second chance for improvement. The practices the author recommends are admitted as helpful for learning to write by the students he surveyed and researched. The article is particularly helpful for the upcoming paper since it highlights the points at which students struggle and provides solutions. Moreover, it allows one to understand the meaning and usefulness of writing exercises and look at them as an opportunity to improve one’s skills. Finally, the paper provides the direction in which it is better to apply their knowledge for writing and excelling in the task for personal development and a good mark.
Work Cited
Enders, Doug. “Crossing the Divide: A Survey of the High School Activities That Best Prepared Students to Write in College.” The Clearing House, vol. 75, no. 2, 2001, pp. 62–67.