Scherff, Lisa & Piazza, Carolyn. “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: Survey of HS Students’ Writing Experiences. Research in the Teaching of Engl 39.3 (2005): 271-204.

The authors run through a recent historical brief of reforms and changes that took place in the late 20^th century in Teaching of English.  From experiences in their junior year in high school to being pre-service teachers and beyond to “teaching to the test."  Sherff and Piazza cite Miles Meyers (NCTE Executive Director in 1996) in his pleas for  a more supple, multiplistic set of tools and strategies to allow students to meet contemporary demands of life beyond the classroom.  Their methods, data, results and reflections of student responses to surveys show that students truly want to learn by “explicit modeling”, and find that teachers do not teach to a writing process consistent with needed life-disciplines, but rather to the expectations of “the test”. 

Reflection:   I’d like to see a more concise process for writing across the curriculum at community colleges and universities that teach the students how to apply what is being learned to whole life learning.  Performance Based Learning is the term used at our school.  The idea is “it’s not WHAT you know, but what you DO with what you know.”