Essay Test-Taking Strategy

About the Author

Charles Hughes, Ph.D.

Affliations

Professor of Special Education
Penn State University

Research Affiliate and Certified SIM Professional Development Specialist
University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning

My Background and Interests
I was a classroom teacher for six years, primarily with students with learning and behavior problems at the middle- and senior-high levels. I also spent four years as a state-level consultant to programs for students with emotional and behavior disorders. After that, I was an educational diagnostician and mainstream consulting teacher for a university-based multidisciplinary diagnostic and training program. For the last 23 years, I have been a university professor and have taught and conducted research in the area of learning disabilities. I have co-authored a number of the learning strategies instructor’s manuals within the Learning Strategies Curriculum, and I have worked with the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning (KU-CRL) for over 20 years. As a SIM professional development specialist, I have conducted over 100 workshops in more than 20 states and have made presentations and conducted training sessions in Jamaica, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, and Sweden on methods related to strategic instruction.

The Story Behind the Essay Test-Taking Strategy
We (Don Deshler, Jean Schumaker, Cecil Mercer, and I) included some instruction about answering essay questions in the instruction associated with the Test-Taking Strategy. However, this instruction was admittedly a fairly cursory covering of this topic. About a decade after the Test-Taking Strategy was developed, we observed that more and more testing situations required students to answer essay questions. Moreover, not only were essay questions present on classroom tests, they were also required in other assessment situations, such as state competency exams, high-stakes assessments, and the SAT college entrance exam.

We decided that answering essay questions was now worthy of its own strategy. The Essay Test-Taking Strategy emphasizes procedures to help students understand the questions or prompts (i.e., what is being asked, what are the requirements of the response), organizing their responses before they write (i.e., developing an outline), and then using the outline and their understanding of the question to write a well-organized and detailed response. We recognized that many students other than those with LD could benefit from this strategy as well as the fact that many students with LD receive most of their instruction in the general education classroom. Therefore, we developed the manual to be somewhat different from the previously developed strategies manuals. We used a “lesson” format which is familiar to general education teachers, and we provided a variety of options related to the instructional procedures, recognizing some students need intensive instruction whereas others do not. Also, before we finalized this strategy manual, we asked general education teachers to review it, and we obtained their feedback about its usefulness and practicality. Revisions were made corresponding to their suggestions.

My Thoughts about Strategic Instruction
Based on my 25 years of work in the area of strategic instruction, I view this type of instruction as a key approach to the overall education of students with learning disabilities and other students who have difficulty learning. As a teacher, researcher, and parent, I have seen how much strategic instruction benefits students. Students not only learn these strategies and as a result perform better on school-related tasks, there is an overall benefit: they begin to see themselves as successful and competent learners. Another general benefit that I observe is that strategic instruction gives students a way of starting tasks and working their way through them. I often observed students just sitting at their desks looking at the assignment, test, or reading selection not knowing how or where to begin. Strategies are a concrete way of getting started and systematically solving problems and completing tasks. Not a small accomplishment!

Teacher and Student Feedback on the Essay Test-Taking Strategy
This is a relatively new strategy, and thus we have not received a lot of feedback on it. The students (middle-school students with LD) who were part of our research study on the strategy genuinely seemed to like the strategy. Many reported that they had not previously given much thought to analyzing the question and its requirements or using prewriting strategies to help with content and flow.

I have conducted two professional development workshops to date, and two teachers have emailed me about their experiences. Both commented on its “ease of use” and how fast the students learned and used the strategy. They both have noticed how much better their students are at writing essays in their classes, but they had not had an opportunity to see if the students improved their performance on state competency exams.

My Contact Information
Please contact me at CAH14@psu.edu