Jennifer Izaguirre

Professor Weaver

ENGLISH 1101

December 5th, 2019

The Better Idea

            “SAT Scores Are Useful for Placing Students in Writing Courses” by Kristen di Gennaro is a bad idea because a test doesn’t define what a student knows. The SAT is just a requirement for many colleges but doesn’t help place a student in a class. Colleges mainly use the SAT to see who gets accepted and who does not. So, is there a better idea? The following three author, Kristen Gennaro, Gerald W. Bracey and David Owens will decide a better idea is having students do a self-assessment on themselves in order for them to choose which writing course they believe fits better for them.

            The author Kristen di Gennaro states “Many people, especially college writing faculty, interpret the College Board’s decision to minimize the role of the SAT essay test as an admission that is was a poor measure of writing ability”. (Gennaro 297) The SAT comes with an option to take the writing portion or not. So how would a student’s SAT scores help them be placed in a writing course if they choose to not take the writing portion of the SAT?

            Gennaro believes that if students were to respond to questions about the own strengths and weaknesses in writing, then they would be able to select a course based of their self-assessment. (Gennaro 296) Kristen Gennaro is going based off programs that are experiencing in these types of self-assessments. This type of self-assessment could be useful for students and could possibly be something permanent if colleges decided to eventually use them.

Gennaro used the source “Thinking about Test and Testing: A Short Primer In “Assessment Literacy’” by Gerald W. Bracey which states “Not all people who score well on the SAT will do well in college:” (Bracey 12) The SAT is only a few questions about each subject which doesn’t cover everything. Bracey explains that students could get the highest score on the SAT but still fail a class in college. This could be due to the transition for high school to college not the scores of a test. Bracey believes that freshman college grades and the SAT scores have a correlation but they the college board cannot confirm if the SAT caused those college grades. (Bracey 22) Gerald W. Bracey thinks that a better way of students doing better in a writing course is by them knowing themselves as writers.

Bracey used the source “The Truth Behind the SATs” by David Owen which he mentions “college admissions officers need the SAT because they can’t get by without an objective, uniform measure that puts all applicants on an equal footing regardless of their educational or cultural background. (Owens 260) What Owen means about this is that colleges are using the SAT as a requirement for all applicants just to be accepted. It is not being used to put students in writing courses because students choose their own classes based on the prerequisites of their major once accepted.

David Owens infers that the SAT is not useful when it comes to being placed in writing courses so even if colleges decided to get rid of the SAT requirement then there would still be students that would have to be accepted and rejected. Owens decides that possibly there is a better idea which is students testing their own ability of writing and learning in this area, which will help them decide in which class they would feel more comfortable according to their own evaluation.

In conclusion, all three of these authors believe that if students could do an evaluation on themselves, then they could be able to choose which course would best fit their ability to write and the way they learn. SAT scores being used to determine what writing courses a student should be placed in is a bad idea because once accepted all students a mainly placed in the same class (ENGLISH 1101) in their freshman year. A self-assessment could make a major change in so many ways for students. This type of assessment can help students learn their strengths and weaknesses which guide them to the correct writing course they fall in. So, could these three authors possibly change the minds of the college administrators? Will there ever be a change in the way the SAT is used in college? Would colleges ever consider a self-assessment for students?

Sources

Gennaro, Kristen di, and Drew M. Loewe. “Bad Ideas About Writing.” Bad Ideas About Writing, edited by Cheryl E. Ball, WVU Libraries, 2017, pp. 294–298.

Bracey, Gerald W. “Thinking About Test and Testing: ‘A Short Primer in ‘Assessment Literacy.’” ERIC, 2000, files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED445096.pdf.

Owen, David, and Marilyn. Doerr. None of the above : the Truth behind the SATs. Rev. and updated.. ed., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999.