<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><br><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal 'Minion Pro'; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><br></font></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal 'Minion Pro'; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="5"><i>The Atlantic</i></font></a></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Minion Pro'; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3">Thursday, September 27, 2012</font></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Minion Pro'; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Minion Pro'; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-size: 14px;">[William Hughes Fitzhugh is the editor of the <a href="http://www.tcr.org/tcr/index.htm"><span style="font: 11.0px 'Minion Pro'; text-decoration: underline ; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #1324a7">Concord Review</span></a>, a unique academic journal </span></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; font: 11.0px 'Minion Pro'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-size: 14px;">that publishes history research papers by high school students.]</span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 16.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; font: 14.0px 'Minion Pro'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><b>Why Are We Afraid to Show Off Our Brightest Students?</b></font></span></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Minion Pro'; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3">By William Fitzhugh</font></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Minion Pro'; min-height: 14px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></font></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px 'Minion Pro'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; font-size: 14px;">[Atlantic Editor: High school athletes are the pride of their communities. But if we want to inspire kids to write well, we should be putting the exemplary work of our best young high school scholars on display.] </span></p><div><br></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3">As the editor of <a href="http://www.tcr.org/"><span style="font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'; text-decoration: underline ; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #1324a7"><i>The Concord Review</i></span></a>, I have been glad to publish more than 1,000 exemplary high school history research papers by students from 46 states and 38 other countries since 1987. Yet I have long been aware that little “personal” essays have killed off academic expository writing in most of our schools.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3">For generations, American children in our schools have had their writing limited to short pieces about themselves, from primary school up through their “college essays” (those little 500-word “personal” narratives). As long as English teachers have borne all the responsibility for reading and writing in the schools, the reading has been fiction, the writing personal and “creative.” Lately a genre has emerged called “creative nonfiction,” but that turns out to be just more solipsistic autobiography.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3">Most of our students never read a single history book and they very rarely write a serious term paper before graduating from high school. They learn to write without learning anything beyond their own feelings and the events of their present lives, and their teachers are able to grade that work without knowing much either.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3">Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, put it very well in August this year: “The single biggest complaint from college teachers and employers is that high school graduates cannot write as well as they need to.” As a result, the member companies of the Business Roundtable have been saddled with <a href="http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/2540"><span style="font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'; text-decoration: underline ; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #1324a7">a $3 billion bill</span></a> for remedial writing courses every year, not only for their hourly hires but for their current and new salaried employees.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3">There are a few exceptions, of course. For decades, the International Baccalaureate has required a 4,000 (16-page) Extended Essay for the Diploma, and thousands of American students have done that. Even the College Board has begun to think of a small pilot program on term papers as well.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3">The New Common Core standards, a set of reforms that will soon be applied by most states, talk about nonfiction reading, but that category seems to include more memos, short speeches, brochures, and technical articles than anything like a complete history book. The standards also mention something about nonfiction writing, but all of the examples in the Appendix seem to be only more two-page efforts that will far from challenge the capability of our students in academic writing.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3">By publishing Peg Tyre’s stor<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the-writing-revolution/309090/"><span style="font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #1324a7">y </span><span style="font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'; text-decoration: underline ; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #1324a7">“The Writing Revolution,”</span></a><i> The Atlantic</i> is doing a great service for our students who need to learn to do some serious academic expository writing while they are still in high school. However, I would add that students also benefit from seeing exemplary expository essays written by their peers.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3">At<i> The Concord Review</i>, I’ve seen many examples of first-rate academic writing on historical topics. Students are startled, challenged, and inspired when they see this kind of work by people their own age. “When I first came across <i>The Concord Review</i>, I was extremely impressed by the quality of writing and the breadth of historical topics covered by the essays in it,” one New Jersey public school girl wrote to me. “The chance to delve further into a historical topic was an incredible experience for me, and the honor of being published is by far the greatest I have ever received. This coming autumn, I will be starting at Oxford University, where I will be concentrating in Modern History.”</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3">It may be objected that this is a letter from a good student. Where are the letters from struggling students? I would respond that in sports, we are quite happy to present other students with the very best public performances of their most athletic peers. But when it comes to academics, we seem afraid to show students the exemplary work of their peers, for fear of driving them away. This dichotomy has always seemed strange to me.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Minion Pro'"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3">Of course we must pay attention to our least able students, just as we must pay attention to the those who have the most difficulty in our gym classes. But it would’t hurt, in my view, to dare to recognize and distribute some of our students’ best academic work, in the hopes that it may challenge many others of them to put in a little more effort. Surely that is worth a try.</font></span></p><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>----------------------------</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Minion Pro'; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Palatino; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Palatino; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Palatino; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Palatino; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Palatino; "><b class=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; ">“Teach by Example”</span></b></div><div class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Palatino; font-size: 14px; ">Will Fitzhugh [founder]</div><div class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Palatino; font-size: 14px; "><i class="">The Concord Review</i> [1987]</div><div class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Palatino; font-size: 14px; ">Ralph Waldo Emerson Prizes [1995]</div><div class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Palatino; font-size: 14px; ">National Writing Board [1998]</div><div class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Palatino; font-size: 14px; ">TCR Institute [2002]</div><div class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Palatino; font-size: 14px; ">730 Boston Post Road, Suite 24</div><div class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Palatino; font-size: 14px; ">Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776-3371 USA</div><div class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Palatino; font-size: 14px; ">978-443-0022; 800-331-5007</div><div class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Palatino; color: rgb(21, 15, 133); font-size: 14px; "><span class="" style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(56, 99, 187); "><a href="http://www.tcr.org/" class="">www.tcr.org</a></span><span class="" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">; <a href="mailto:fitzhugh@tcr.org" class=""><span class="" style="text-decoration: underline; ">fitzhugh@tcr.org</span></a></span></div><div class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Palatino; font-size: 14px; ">Varsity Academics®</div><div class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Palatino; font-size: 14px; "><a href="http://www.tcr.org/blog">www.tcr.org/blog</a></div></span></div></span></div></span></span>
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