The Readiness Gap Articles

What Is College-Ready Writing?

Why are so many entering college students unprepared for college writing? Each year, most students graduating from high school go on to attend college, yet the majority do not have the writing skills and experience they need for success. The consequences are...

Preparing High Schoolers for College Writing Success—Pt 4 (A Sociocultural Model of Writing)

A Sociocultural Model A general disconnect between high school and college instruction is well documented.[1] According to a six-year national study on college readiness from Stanford University, “coursework between high school and college is not connected;...

Preparing High Schoolers for College Writing Success—Pt 3 (Authentic Composition)

Authentic Composition First, students need practice with extended, source-based composition. As shown above, an abundance of research indicates that most student writing prior to college is not rigorous enough to prepare them for the demands of college-level academic...

Preparing High Schoolers for College Writing Success—Pt 2 (What is College-Ready Writing?)

College-Ready Writing There is no universal standard of college-ready writing, in part because there are such wide differences in the academic demands of postsecondary institutions, from open-access community colleges to highly selective universities (Marlink &...
Is the ACT a Valid Test? (Spoiler Alert: No.)

Is the ACT a Valid Test? (Spoiler Alert: No.)

ACT, Inc. released the results of its 2016 National Curriculum Survey earlier this year. The Survey goes out every three or four years to elementary, middle school, high school, and college teachers, as well as to workforce professionals. It...

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College As Culture Shock

College As Culture Shock

The standards-based education reform movement, kicked off by A Nation At Risk in 1983, has been around long enough now to start showing results, if it’s going to. Unfortunately, there is not much evidence that this path is leading anywhere good....

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Function Follows Form

Function Follows Form

The problems with standardized tests lie less with the content they cover than with their very form—which drives their content and everything else about them. The tests have looked pretty much the way they do ever since the fifties—a bunch of kids...

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Welcome to the Sausage Factory

Welcome to the Sausage Factory

I used to work for ACT, Inc., designing and developing student assessments. In my final years there, I was Director of the Writing and Communications Literacies group. In one of my last major projects, I headed the team responsible for the revamped...

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