I have a problem with timed essay-writing, and you should too

by Rebecca Green

In my College Composition I class last semester, I assigned a personal narrative essay to my students. When I initially reviewed the project guidelines, I was worried. What if they won’t gain anything from this essay? What if they struggle to connect sources to their own personal experience?

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I was hesitant, but I knew my students deserved the opportunity to write about themselves, to be creative, to take risks and not feel restricted by strict project expectations. I prepared them as best as I could: we spent weeks close reading, responding to sources, discussing our topics, and partaking in creative free-write exercises as a class. We talked about writing as a process, instead of a five paragraph formula. When that fateful Friday night arrived in which students were expected to hand in their essays, I sat by the computer anxiously waiting for a disaster to take place. 

The young writers in my class flourished. Liam — who always shows up to class fifteen minutes late and rolls his eyes as each slide clicks by — wrote a touching story about coming to terms with the declining health of an aging relative.

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Jenna — who is perpetually on the brink of raising her hand and saying something brilliant — penned an emotional story about a vacation spot she and her family can no longer return to. Grading, a previously droll task, was suddenly accompanied by popcorn and excitement over how successful the assignment was.

A resounding comment appeared during conferences: This was the first time in a while that I was able to be creative in my writing. Haley, a STEM major, told me this essay resparked her love for writing, which was cruelly crushed during her AP English class experience in high school. She said she is considering switching majors and dropping math forever. Amanda told me about how standardized testing killed her creativity. She found she no longer wanted to write after strenuous years of teachers and administrators expecting perfection within a limited time frame. She found it difficult to write about sources she only had a few moments to familiarize herself with. She was glad we spent weeks — instead of minutes — reading and responding to each source.

I’m just going to say it: enough is enough.

How can we ever expect the future generation to learn the beauty, pain, and patience of writing if we do not allow them to do so during their formative years? Writing should never be restricted to a first draft, to a time frame of forty minutes. Standardized tests misrepresent the reality of writing. Writing is a process. We should encourage “shitty” first drafts, as Anne Lamott would say. We can not and should not grade students on an essay that was written in only forty minutes, in which the student had to read the prompt, think up a thesis, and write it all out. Doing so goes against the essence of writing, and it teaches students to denounce their work if it isn’t perfect on the first try. What takes weeks in a college level class (reading sources, understanding the expectations and nuances of the genre, and developing a specific focus for the upcoming essay) is reduced to forty minutes. ​

Not only do standardized tests impose strict time limits, but they also enforce the formulaic five-paragraph essay format, in which students must rush through a piece of writing they are not familiar with and then also write something analytical or interesting about it. Why not incorporate a personal narrative on these tests? Why not, at least, allow students to write about subjects or pieces of writing they are familiar with? In the real world, don’t we expect that people will take the time to research something before publishing information about it? Why aren’t we allowing high school students to practice more practical processes of writing? Aren’t standardized tests teaching students that their future writing should be rushed, hurried, and not 100% researched and accurate?

In 2014, 33 students at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology were given permission by their teacher to abandon the typical essay format on the Virginia EOC Writing Test and wrote in creative forms: plays, short stories, letters, interviews, etc. According to Michael H. Miller, the students’ English teacher, all 33 students passed with high scores. It is possible to write “successfully” (by standardized testing criteria) without abandoning creativity and individuality. Why cram our brilliant students into a five paragraph structure, a three-point thesis statement, an inability to write inquisitively? ​

We are losing the voices of our students, of future generations. Brilliant writers are walking away from the craft after receiving poor grades on essays written within strict time frames. We need to allow students to write creatively. We need to allow students to experience the process of writing, of chipping away at a draft until it is ready for the world. We need to allow our students the freedom to write a draft that isn’t perfect, with the knowledge that they can always return to it and try again. Imagine all the potential we are preventing these young writers from reaching. If we don’t do something soon, we’ll have a world of first drafts and disillusioned writers instead of polished pieces and patience.

*all student names are pseudonyms