When it comes to education in the United States, we don’t have much to write home about. Just take a look at the test scores that we see at the end of each semester and look at the increasing trend among school children to simply give up and walk away. It seems that a college education is far from their minds. While we don’t compare well to other advanced nations at all, this did not slow down any educators in Massachusetts recently. They decided that they were going to drive home the importance of writing exercises, to show what could be achieved.
There was a time when one out of every three high school students in Massachusetts dropped out of class and failed to pass state sanctioned exams. The situation looked grim and there seemed no easy path to help turn it all around. A group of teachers had other ideas, however, and focused on a sequence of writing exercises as a new, stable part of the students’ daily educational diets.
Educators knew the importance of writing exercises and decided that they would be incorporated into every single teaching period, without fail. They were right, as within less than a year, more students were passing the statewide tests at the pilot school as compared to other, similar schools around the state. Results started to snowball until 90% of all of the high schools were left in the dust.
Not all educators were keen to take part in this project at the beginning, but once they had all been persuaded, writing exercises did indeed become a necessary, useful and successful habit. Every single element of the curriculum, including physical education, were subject to these writing exercises.
As part of the project, students were asked to think about what they were learning and sit down to write about their experiences in detail. This way of focusing on the written word ensured that they were far more likely to retain the information and much more likely to succeed, come exam time.
This was certainly an example of “thinking outside the box,” by the educators at that school. Critics argued that this would take away valuable time and resources from the other teachers and not allow them to focus on their own subjects. However, in practice it turned out to be the opposite. Students became far more motivated and engaged and their reading and writing skills increased dramatically.
There are many lessons to be learned from this real world experience. The art of writing is very important and one which we must all master, in school, business or life. Just think how many times we are called upon today to communicate our thoughts, wants and desires. When was the last time that you ensured that your resume was up to date and well formulated, ready for a new job? In truth, all of us could focus on those Massachusetts writing exercises ourselves, for every application.
Communication is paramount within the business world. As we know, communication is virtual online and requires us to be very good at writing or typing if we ever want to succeed. Whether we have to compose a blog post, write an article, formulate a sales page or a host of other highly focused writing exercises, we need to master these business marketing skills of today. We can be sure that high school students in Massachusetts will be one step ahead of us in the future.
Click on the link to find out more about professional writing services. Nigel Evans and Internet Marketing Future maintain a comprehensive, free information blog on this complex subject. Learn more about writing exercises and why you should seriously consider the approach for your online marketing initiatives.
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