ERWC now required for future Samo seniors

Samo will now require the Expository Reading and Writing Course (ERWC) for seniors who score “Standard Not Met” or “Standard Nearly Met” on the SBAC (State Testing) at the end of their junior year. I House Principal and English department overseer Julie Markussen, along with Samo staff, have decided that the new rule will begin this year and will be effective for the class of 2018. “There are about 43 percent of our students that are entering Cal-State [schools] and community colleges that are conditionally ready or not ready for college-level English,” Markussen said. “More seniors will likely be enrolled next year in the ERWC rather than just having the electives and AP.”The purpose of the ERWC is to help prepare seniors for the challenging classes they will be taking throughout college. Learning to write productively is a major asset for students and employers after high school, and Samo is incorporating another class into the school’s curriculum to improve the transition between 12th grade and the real world. “It will create a different generation of learning. The next class will be able to express their knowledge and thoughts more efficiently,” Fiona O’Callahan (’18) said. After finding out about the new required course, juniors have responded quite differently. Some are on board and excited to enhance their writing skills and reading comprehension, while others are worried that it will deprive them of their freedom to choose an elective in their senior year, become overwhelming in their schedule, and may reduce all their hard work to hoping to score well on just one assessment at the end of the year.“[The required testing criteria] is so stressful. I feel like it’s going to look bad on my college applications, and I think it’s enough that we’re studying for the ACT and SAT, but now we have to study for state testing,” Iris Watanabe (’18) said. The ERWC was developed in 2003 by about a dozen high school teachers and staff to guide their students in a more challenging course in order to prepare those that were not ready for the AP class yet. It is a full-year college introductory class focusing on expository, argumentative, and analytical texts and writing. The class meets requirements for the UC and the CSU, and has been included in the schedules of over 700 high schools across the state. “Though I don't want to support another test on top of the stress of junior year, I believe that the common core can be very effective and this test is a necessary requirement,” O’Callahan said. “If they take the ERWC and they pass it, they won’t have to take remedial courses when they get to college,” Markussen said. The ERWC will affect Samohi seniors’ schedules in many ways. Those that are hoping to gain freedom in choosing an elective for their English class must pass the State Test to clear the requirement.“Students can clear the requirement in several ways: the first and easiest of which is to meet standards on the CAASPP testing in March,”  English department chair Jennifer Pust said. “If students do not clear the requirement during their junior year, Samohi will place them in ERWC their senior year so they can get the skills and practice they need to be successful in college English.”“It will impact our English department in several ways: we anticipate running several sections of ERWC next fall, which means we'll offer fewer sections of existing senior electives. Several of our current senior teachers are training for this course as well, so that we can best serve our students,” Pust said.