As a secondary English teacher, I am in total agreement with Linda Campbell that vocabulary is a key building block to acquiring the rhetorical skills needed to succeed in college and in life. However, this is true for all students not just African-Americans. (See: "Vocabulary-building key to closing the gap," Thursday)
It is also true that the objective should be the acquisition of written and oral literacy as opposed to subject matter knowledge.Multiple choice and true and false tests measure knowledge not skills, and that is a problem for most public schools. Why don't teachers require more essays and oral arguments?The answer has many facets -- school districts like standardized assessments and lots of them, add to this the time it takes for a teacher who has 130 students to read, grade and provide feedback on 1,500-word essays and you have a formula for a content-based learning environment.The key to improvement, as Campbell pointed out, is to have students develop their skills in every class, and the key to doing that lies with an administration willing to trade content assessments for skill-based assessments.If you are looking for an example, look at schools like Westlake Academy that have adopted International Baccalaureate Programmes.-- Robert Kai, KellerHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
