55:10 minutes (12.63 MB)
If you are already using Youth Voices — or planning to soon, we think you'll enjoy this Teachers Teaching Teachers podcast , recorded about a month ago. We talked the Youth Voices curriculum, guides, and more! Lennie Irvin, who is having his first-year college writing students contributing to the “Crossing to College” group. Here’s more from Lennie on bridging from high school to college:
What is College Readiness in Writing? and How Do We Get There?
Every year, we have far too many students like Ian. They aren’t the AP kids (though they might be), and they aren’t the students who fail our classes. They do OK, even sometimes receiving excellent grades in our high school classrooms. But when they get to college, they place into Developmental English classes, or worse (like Ian) they crash and burn and drop out of college. They fall off the bridge between high school and college. This site is devoted to local efforts to help more students graduating from high school place directly into college level writing classes, and importantly—do well in freshman composition. It is meant both as a resource and a professional community of practice dedicated to doing more to prepare our students for college and for helping these students do well once they are in college, for “college readiness” and “student success” in college are really two sides of the same coin.
The Three Frameworks of College Readiness
When we talk about “college readiness,” we can understand it within three frameworks. Each represents a significant part of what we mean by “readiness.”
Technical Readiness—Do students place into college level English classes? Refers to placement issues.
Writing Readiness—Are students’ writing skills and literacy practices able to handle college-level writing and reading assignments?
Student Readiness—Do students have the study skills, personal discipline and emotional readiness for pursing college-level work?
Click Read more to see a transcript of a chat that was happening during the webcast.