FIPSE Coalition Writing Grant P116B010644
“Consortium for Innovative Instruction: Aligning Writing Instruction in Secondary and Postsecondary Institutions”

To eliminate remedial instruction in writing for recent high school graduates, this project offers a multi-faceted yet focused solution to a critical national issue, the underprepared high school graduate. Originally funded by FIPSE in1998, this project is an outgrowth of student-centered approaches to instruction developed by faculty in secondary and postsecondary institutions. Based on proven initiatives for reform and their potential for replication, this model is being disseminated locally, statewide, and nationally through 2004.

Responding to national concerns about the educational system’s failure to prepare high school seniors for college, postsecondary institutions’ growing need to remediate college freshmen, and increased dropout rates produced by placing students in remedial courses, this project maintains the momentum of the original partnership while fostering partnerships within the college community and elsewhere. The goals are to improve communication between secondary and postsecondary institutions to increase student learning opportunities; provide opportunities for high school and college English faculties to collaborate in professional workshops to develop and implement innovative instructional strategies; develop alignment between secondary and postsecondary institutions through a deliberate articulation of composition-related curriculum and instruction; reduce the number of high school graduates needing remediation in writing prior to enrolling in college composition classes; and implement successful reform initiatives through a transfer of knowledge and strategies to a variety of adapting sites to improve quality and accessibility to postsecondary education for diverse student populations.

Using a multi-tiered approach, Tidewater Community College (TCC) continues its existing relationship with Salem High School as a showcase for collaboration. The college expands the model to two area high schools and two Virginia Community College System sites and provides assistance to seven colleges across the nation to adapt objectives and activities to their individualized settings. Successful components of this model include collaborative professional workshops; exploration of innovative instructional strategies to promote student accountability for progress; high school writing centers for extended dialogue and practice; and multiple measures of authentic assessment for college placement. Dissemination includes orientation workshops for national site leaders, regular dialogue, progress reports, and presentations to national audiences.

Adapting institutions have been positively effected by inclusion. College sites have hosted workshops for educators to develop innovative classroom activities, i.e., portfolio instruction and revision practices. Individual sites have replicated strategies through weekly roundtables and refined activities to respond to their needs, i.e. web-based surveys of students’ writing attitudes. Local partnership activities have included high school field trips to the college, observation of college writing classes and writing center, high school seniors’ correspondence with college freshmen, portfolios as an alternative placement method, and celebrations of student writing.

Although a multi-site evaluation plan is in place, the overall effects are in the preliminary stage. Performance-based tests, portfolios and/or writing samples, provide baseline data. TCC’s piloting of portfolio placement has increased the number of participating high schools graduates identified as prepared for college composition. Correlating pre and post indicators of student readiness for college writing and student success will determine the long term value of this project.

Successful dissemination of this model substantiates the necessity for secondary and postsecondary collaboration to provide greater learning opportunities for common student populations. With high visibility across the nation in focused, replicable approaches, this project demonstrates the power of teacher partnerships. A reform movement that supports teachers who identify and employ solutions to problems brings renewal to the institution and paves the groundwork for student success.

This project was recognized as a model for alignment in Raising Our Sights: No High School Senior Left Behind by the National Commission on the High School Senior Year, 2001, featured on League for Innovation in the Community College TLC Forum, July 2002, and awarded the 2003 Outstanding Program in English for Enhancing Developmental English by The National Council of Teachers of English/Two Year College Association, in partnership with the Annual College Composition and Communication Conference.