Reviving the Essay at Provident Heights

by Mary Senter

One thing that all fourth-grade students in public school have to look forward to is taking the writing portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test. It is the first year that creativity is introduced into the standardized testing process.

As third-graders they take the math and spelling tests for the first time, and as fifth-graders they will take the science test. These tests have objective measures and right or wrong answers. But the fourth-grade is the one and only year of elementary school when students’ are asked to do more than bubble their answers into an electronically graded answer sheet. To meet this challenge efficiently, students must employ good handwriting, organization, theme development and most of all, creativity.

To help students prepare for this writing test, teachers at Provident Heights Elementary have already started preparing for next year’s test by using fourth-grade "experts" as teachers, helping to build excitement among the third-grade students.

Chelsea Pershall, a fourth-grade teacher, came up with the idea of using her students to serve as writing role models, or mentors, for her up-and-coming third-grade students.

One day during the spring semester, after the TAKS tests had been administered and school began winding down for the year, Pershall invited classes of third-grade students to her room in one-hour blocks of time. She paired each third-grade student with a fourth-grade mentor. The fourth-graders guided the neophytes through the writing process that they had been learning all year long.

"It makes them excited about coming here," said Katina Kelly, instructional specialist for the school.

Last year, during Pershall’s first year as a teacher, 96 percent of the fourth-grade students at Provident Heights passed the writing portion of the TAKS test, Kelly said. This she attributed this to Pershall’s success with the students, her enthusiasm for teaching and her creative and unique approach.

It is also Pershall’s desire to be at the school where she teaches that fuels her passion for her job.

Pershall was an education major at Baylor University and gained her teaching experience through the university’s professional development school program. She spent her freshman and junior years as an intern at Provident Heights, and her senior year at another campus. When she graduated, she knew exactly where she wanted to teach.

"I just wanted to come here…I just really felt supported by the faculty here," she said.

Pershall said she attended a writing seminar at Region 12 called "Reviving the Essay," which helped her find a creative way to teach young students how to write.

Using colorful hand-made construction paper booklets, the students come up with a theme, and then jot down main ideas about the story and how it progresses. The end result is a colorful booklet that the students’ are proud of and that is especially fun to read. The booklet ultimately gets translated to a sheet of notebook paper in the form of a final composition.

"They love them…they don’t even feel like they are writing a composition because they are making something really cool," Pershall said.

One third-grade student wrote an essay entitled, "To the Sea."

"I organized my ideas. I put them in order. I wrote on paper and made a final draft."

She said she enjoyed the exercise, and especially enjoyed learning from an older student,"Because she’s a good writer and I think I can learn a lot from her."

As the third-graders lined up to head back to their classroom, Ms. Pershall thanked them for coming.

"I want you to practice really hard for next year," she said.

And all of a sudden, the fourth-grade does not look quite so scary, and neither does the writing TAKS.

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