Bridging the writing gap

1/30/2020
This is a response to how my experience in High School either matched or didn’t match the gaps discussed in the blog post: “Bridging the Writing Gap: Centering Student Voices in High School and College Writing.” 

I have to admit that it’s difficult for me to accurately gauge how my High School experiences matched up to these because I graduated High School 15 years ago, so my memory of what I had learned that long ago has some major gaps. However, as far as I can remember, these are the responses I have to each of these things:

The Citation Gap – personally, I never learned anything other than MLA from high school into college. Even in college level work, I rarely used anything other than MLA.

The Choice Gap – The only time I wrote anything unprompted was in a class through Syracuse University for an AP Sociology class. Other than that, it was all based-on prompts.

The Template Gap – Other than my AP class, every essay was a 5-paragraph essay. The only variation in high school was a 25-page final in my AP Sociology class. In college, it was all 3-page minimums with 5 pages being the average requirement.

Evidence Gap – To this day, it’s the only way I know how to cite sources.

The Style Gap – I was taught paragraphs were 4-5 sentences long, until college when I realized how to write more to the idea than the format.

The Mode Gap – This was never really taught to me; I just saw each as a different form of writing.

The Revision Gap – I still have issues with this, to be honest. I am not good at essay revision. I was never effectively taught this skill.