Addressing Students' Concerns about MY Access Online Writing Program

Last February 3 students sent in comments via the district's website to complain about MY Access. Their number one concern was that teachers used MY Access to grade their writing. They were upset about this because they realize that the program isn't perfect in "grading" their papers. (After all, their friends said their writing was near-perfect.) 


The three also feared that their teachers NEVER even read their work to see if they agreed with the MY Access scores.


Although the district could not find the students in our system, I was still asked to reply to these mystery students' valid concerns. (Think they used aliases?) 


In my response, I promised that I would share their criticisms with our district's educators, and so I ask teachers who read this and who use the online writing program review this response and then reflect upon whether or not they are guilty of these practices.


So read on and tell me what you think. I'd love to hear from you! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear H, S, and S,

First I commend you for sending your concerns about the MY Access Online Writing Program to our district. Your emails were forwarded to me because I train and support teachers who use MY Access in their classrooms. Secondly, I am concerned about the valid issues each of you raise, and I hope to address those concerns and correct some of the problems that you mention.

Your concerns are concerns of mine as well. I will bullet those concerns and my responses below.

• Teachers should grade papers, not a computer.

• MY Access is not intended to "grade" papers for teachers, but rather it is designed to serve as a tool to "score" papers as part of the feedback for student writers.
• Because it is a student tool, teachers should train students in how to use the program to improve their writing so that writers aren't guessing or experimenting to improve writing scores.
• Students should also be taught how to interpret the feedback to determine which suggestions are most helpful.
• The program may "score" the papers for feedback purposes, but teachers should read and grade the papers. 

• No scoring machine is completely accurate, but here are some reasons these machines are used.
• Learning how to quickly analyze feedback suggestions to determine whether or not suggested revisions should be made is an important skill.
• People do most of their job-related writing on computers.
• Whether it is Microsoft Word's grammar check or another type of program, writers need to know which suggestions are accurate and which are not. 
• Your fellow students may be qualified judges of your writing, but they may not. Whether or not their feedback is really helpful depends upon their writing experiences. Most students are still learning the many steps and details required to write well, and so their suggestions may not be helpful.
• MY Access receives and analyzes thousands of papers. A minimum of 3000 essays need to be hand-scored and the results fed into the writing analysis program before scores are determined and the scoring engine takes over.
• Feedback for revision can only "suggest" ideas and show examples, but your teacher can AND should share additional revision strategies to further improve your scores. 

• Online writing programs are a growing part of our computer-driven world.
• The Direct Writing Assessment (DWA), required for 5th and 8th graders, "machine scores" the essays.
• A reliable study conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) determined that there was little to no difference between the essays that were human scored and those that were machine scored.
• Future CRT tests will be changed from multiple choice to writing tests that include information from history, science, and language arts. Those online writing tests will, in all likelihood,  be machine scored.
• Businesses and industry use online writing programs with their employees, including the MY Access, to assess and to support their employees in becoming better writers. 
• Programs for scoring machines are constantly being improved, and we see and will continue to see better results as this continues. MY Access is listed as one of the best because of the many features that other online programs do not have. Among the most important asset is the number of essays submitted for analysis which increases the accuracy of the scores.

Because of your comments, the language arts departments plans the following:

• generally share these student comments about MY Access with all teachers who use MY Access
• train or re-train teachers as to how they could and should be using the program in their classroom
• include specific lessons on how to help students revise their work in such a way that scores will improve
• remind teachers that they need to read and grade required submitted papers

Although you would like to have students vote on whether or not our district should use the MY Access program, we cannot do that at this time. There are several reasons for this decision; some of which include the necessity of testing student writing, the increased rigor of the writing curriculum our state and district is adopting, and the writing demands of careers and colleges that require schools do all they can to help students improve their writing.

I hope this rather lengthy message addresses your concerns. If I have not, please email me, and I'll try again.

Best wishes,
Renae B. Salisbury

wRITING REASONS ~ The First of MANY Posts

Inspired by Kelly Gallagher's Reading Reasons, I have been contemplating why we write. Using a similar format as the esteemed Mr. Gallagher, and withOUT his permission, I will share a few ideas that wake me at night and distract me by day.

THE CHALLENGE 

If educators were ONLY concerned about test scores, then we would be overwrought about our students' writing results as reported by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP, considered the Nation's report card, indicates that Utah's READING scores are "pretty good," but students' WRITING scores are significantly lower than students nationwide.

Like most teachers, however, I have a difficult time standing before a classroom of students to tell them that the main reason they need to be better writers is because they have GOT to earn better scores on standardized tests. Yes, some would be motivated by this concern, but many - if not most - would not. (Starting in the 2010-11 school year, we do not even have the UBSCT writing assessment to hang over high schoolers' heads.)

On the other hand, NOT many students challenge the necessity of learning to write like they question other kinds of learning: "I'll NEVER write in the real world." Too many, however, fail to realize how much required writing or the expected high level of writing they will encounter after leaving public school - whether it's college or career-related.

The questions about writing, therefore, are similar to those posed about reading:

• How do we turn around apathetic attitudes about writing?
• How do we address an unwillingness to draft, revise, revise, revise, and edit?
• How do light a writing fire under our students?
• How do shelter fragile adolescent writers and help them grow into confident people for whom writing well matters?
• How can we meaningfully and consistently reinforce the benefits of writing and writing well?
• Where do we start?

BUILDING READERS

Just as educators need to explicitly teach READING REASONS to students, teachers must also EXPLICITLY teach WRITING REASONS to their pupils. By the time adolescents are in middle school and/or high school, we assume that most of them understand the importance of writing. As a result, we assign the essay or the reflective written response without explicit instruction that includes the reason.

Furthermore, the strong emphasis upon summative assessments, along with accompanying administrator and teacher angst, supports the less important reason for writing - scoring well on the Direct Writing Assessment or some other summative test. It is important that educators ensure that students know and understand there are much stronger reasons for learning to write effectively.

As with reading, before teachers and students discuss, discover, and develop solid and motivating writing reasons, building blocks must be in place to support young writers.

Building block 1: Students must experience many different kinds of writing, including WRITING TO LEARN and LEARNING TO WRITE a variety of genres. Among the traditional kinds of writing taught in schools, the National Common Core State Standards (NCCSS) requires students to be proficient in writing effective ARGUMENTS. This type of writing is different from creating persuasive pieces of writing but is used more in ALL disciplines.

Building block 2: Students must have ample time to compose, especially extended pieces of writing. They must be able to draft, review with peers, revise, edit, and PUBLISH.Thinking and drafting take TIME; reviewing and revising take more TIME because writers often go through this step again and again.

Building block 3: Teachers must model writing and the VALUE of writing. Composing, sharing, revising and editing with students, and thinking aloud while working through the process makes the writing process more transparent for students.

Demonstrating a positive attitude about writing is crucial! Too many teachers lack confidence in their own writing; consequently, they may AVOID teaching writing or LIMIT the number of writing assignments.  Tracy Gardner, NCTE Inbox editor writes, "YOU are a WRITER when you BELIEVE that you ARE—and once PEOPLE BELIEVE they are WRITERS, they are ON THE PATH to a life-long LOVE of WRITING."

Building block 4: Teachers must STOP GRADING EVERYTHING. The paper-grading horror stories that follow English teachers not only scare away prospective language arts teachers, they also discourage educators from assigning writing. Because students hang from fluorescent lights in Utah's classrooms, grading EVERY essay, response, or narrative is especially daunting. BUT there are many ways to effectively assess student writing and learning WITHOUT grading every paper. Rather than limit writing, teachers need to PICK and CHOOSE what they will and will not grade. This can be accomplished without diminishing the value of all student writing.

Additionally, Utah Write and MY Access online writing programs are available to support student writing by providing feedback. When used correctly, these tools ASSIST teachers; they DO NOT REPLACE teachers!

Building block 5: Teachers must incorporate writing into MOST aspects of learning. WRITING to LEARN includes tools that help students process learning through writing. Some of these tools include graphic organizers, admit/exit slips, R.A.F.T., Silent Discussions, etc. A new report from the Carnegie Institute, Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading, shares recent research that supports the importance of writing to the reading process.

Building block 6: Students must WANT to write, and they MUST see what's in it for them. Too many young people believe that writing is only important in the academic world. The second part of "wRITING REASONS" will share why we write - reasons that go beyond those connected to school.

While I have some ideas, I plan to search out more; and I would LOVE to hear YOUR ideas. Please share your thoughts with Link2Literacy, and then teachers can share them with future students.

Thanks so very much.
Renae

Oh My! Access: One Teacher's Experience

This year I've been happy to feature a few guest bloggers - Sarita Rich, Roseann Markham and Cynthia Vandermieden - today I am pleased to copy and paste this unsolicited email from Lars Erickson of Oquirrh Hills Middle School. I always appreciate feedback, and it is particularly rewarding when it is POSITIVE.  Thanks, Lars, for granting permission to share your reflections about a recent experience with the MY Access,with other JSD teachers. 

Having just finished my [MYAccess] District Assessment, I was curious to see how my kids did so I took a look at some of the M.A. reports.  Like the District average [Renae] reported, my kids averaged 5.0.  That’s more impressive since I teach the “non-Honors” L.A. students.

I fully expected the scores to go down from previous essay averages due to the restricted time allowed and the editing tools having been removed.  Yet, when I compared the averages from the three persuasive essays the kids have done, I found that they were actually the same as this last assessment, hovering around 5.0.  That might not sound impressive, that perhaps they have not improved, but considering the class time and preparation invested, it blows my socks off.  The first essay used about seven to eight days of class time, the second essay required about five, but this last one was only TWO days of class time and was completely without any teacher-directed pre-writing, M.A. spell-checking or editing help.

With My Access’ help, my students have become “advanced proficient” writers who understand that their efforts in the arduous writing process pay off.  I’ve seen so many lights go on in kids’ eyes today, it’s hard to believe.  I have a handful of essentially non-writers that have decided that they can write and write well.  They have learned valuable writing skills for sure (organization, word choice, mechanics, conventions, etc.), but I think by far the most valuable lesson has been that their sustained effort on a difficult task provides tangible results.  In all the years I’ve taught, I have never seen this lesson learned so well and so obviously.

I credit My Access for giving me the authoritative and immediate feedback tools to help my kids learn this most valuable wisdom. ... The gains I have seen would not have happened without ... My Access.