The end of the high school essay
Essays might not be the best way to assess reading and writing skill, but this article&#x27;s reasoning leaves a lot to be desired. The author seems to value an essay insofar as it demonstrates reading comprehension, and not as a vehicle for teaching writing skill. Students need to understand what they are reading to write an essay, but the writing itself is another skill entirely that the author here doesn&#x27;t seem to address. I read a lot of my peers&#x27; works in college and came to the conclusion we need to encourage more writing skill, not less.<p>&gt; Students get more points for good typing and clear sentence structure than they did for actually thinking deeply, questioning the status quo or changing their minds.<p>I hear this all the time from engineering types. Writing well means finding a clear, compelling way to communicate your ideas. Sure, we should try to avoid hiding bullshit behind a façade of flowery prose, but a great idea communicated poorly is useless.<p>&gt; If you grew up in a household with verbally agile family members, you probably did way better on essays than your peers, but not due to much effort on your own.<p>And? If you grew up in a household with engineers, you probably did better at math. I don&#x27;t get how this affects any one given assignment type over another.