How to get a teen to read? Relevance and publication.

I was confounded when I learned that Minneapolis high school students pass the state writing test at a much higher rate than they pass the required reading test.

How can this be? Reading prepares us to write. We teach children to recognize and sound out letters before we teach them to imitate letters with pencil on paper.

Reading provides the information we need to write papers and pass tests. It offers models of writing we learn from. So how is it that 75 percent of Minneapolis 9th graders passed the statewide writing test in 2008-2009 while only 57 percent passed the 10th grade reading test?

This spring, I’ve been talking with teachers, curriculum specialists and teachers in Minneapolis to try to understand this puzzle. Here the simple answer: It’s easier to teach enough writing basics to get a passing grade on a standardized test than it is to prepare students for the range of non-fiction texts they may encounter. It’s not that kids are great writers, but they can pass the tests.

Reading and English teachers blame students’ weak reading skills on everything from lack of motivation to lack of access to good print materials. Students don’t get enough experience reading expository and persuasive texts, teachers say. Many lack the ability to determine importance, to infer and to synthesize.

Since practice makes perfect, what motivates reluctant students to read and write? Carmen Elate, a quiet, committed and creative reading teacher at Edison High School in Minneapolis, says her students want to read about issues that are relevant to their lives and about people like themselves. They like writing for a real audience and having a genuine sense of purpose. That’s one reason Elate launched a literary magazine for her classes.

Elate and I are exploring whether ThreeSixty staff and volunteers might work with her and a few other Edison teachers to help engage students more deeply in reading and writing. Only 36 percent of Edison’s 10th graders passed the state reading test last year — a failure for the students and the school.

ThreeSixty has a lot to offer — strong “real-world” writing by other teens, a chance to be published on-line and in print, staff and volunteers to come as guest speakers or work one-on-one with students who want to improve their writing.

I suspect that Elate’s days are busier than mine and that both are busier than we’d like. But I hope we can find a way to collaborate. Building a passion for reading and an appetite for writing among teens who believe that the world of words is not for them requires all the energy we can muster.