Many students at San Luis Obispo High School are very familiar with the English writing assignment called the District Writing Assessment (DWA).

The DWA is an assignment given to each grade level three times a year. The Assessments cover the main three writing types: Narrative, Argumentative, and Informative essay writing. This involves writing an essay in one or two class periods.

The DWA is normally designed to assess the teacher’s ability to teach and how students are comprehending and retaining the curriculum. The common viewpoint amongst students is that teachers struggle to follow the student’s opinion in the essay because it may be weak and unclear.

    “I am normally unable to support my topic and it’s sometimes difficult to make my writing as in depth as it could be,” said freshman Logan Johnson.

Depending on the writing type, the topic for these essays is chosen for the students. So, the writers have to create an essay on their opinion on some random topic. 

  One teacher told the students in advance that they would be writing the district assessment. Students were given the instructions on the overhead and from there, the students followed the prompt and wrote the essay.

  With students being forced to write opinion essays on the most random topics in order to get a good grade, they often provide evidence to support their so called “opinion” essay that is weak, meaning there is little to no evidence to support the opinion on the topic students do not care for.

  Students want to achieve satisfactory grades, but when they have to write about a topic they have little to no interest or knowledge in, it is difficult to provide all the requirements that the teacher expects out of them.

It is time to change the way these assessments are given, or do away with them all together.