The Not-So-Universal Experience: A Content Analysis of Regional and National Secondary and Postsecondary Standards for Writing

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze six sets of high school and college standards and outcome statements on students writing to identify how expectations of students writing vary in their respective educational levels. I include local samples from North Dakota and Minnesota as well as examples at the national level. Utilizing content analysis, I identify frequently used terminology in these statements to uncover trends in how college-level writing is envisioned through the standards and outcomes. Through this analysis, I explore how the terminology used in standards and outcomes frame writing and how these pictures of writing from the high school perspective and the college perspective are connected and disconnected. My findings note that while there is shared base terminology around writing (particularly ‘audience’ and ‘purpose’), the high school standards lean more heavily on product-focused terms while the college outcomes emphasis process.