Daily Writing Programs Pay Off : Moorpark: Teachers credit the Chaparral program with improving state scores and giving students skill and confidence.

At Chaparral Middle School, every eight-grade student writes. Every day.

The daily writing exercises--even in math and science--are paying off in improved CAP scores and giving students the skills and confidence to write well, according to teachers and officials in the Moorpark Unified School District.

Since 1987, scores have consistently risen at the sixth- through eighth-grade school, the only middle school in the 4,800-student district. In 1987, eighth-grade Chaparral students scored 253 points on the CAP writing test, placing them in the 55th percentile statewide. By 1990, scores had risen to 300 points, putting the school at the 82nd percentile.

Marolyn Stewart, an eighth-grade language arts teacher, credits the improvement to writing assignments from teachers in every subject and innovative writing programs.

Starting at the sixth grade, for example, teachers hold workshops for student writers, who choose their own topics and critique each other’s work, Stewart said.

“It’s wonderful for a teacher,” Stewart said. “Although the teacher is certainly still the editor, a great deal of revision takes place before the work even lands on the teacher’s desk.”

And each Chaparral student writes at least one 14- to 20-page book for the school’s annual student author fair, Stewart said. Last year, more than 1,000 books were submitted, school officials said.

The school invites published authors to address students about writing. An award-winning children’s author visited last year, and this year an Appalachian writer and storyteller is the scheduled speaker.

Chaparral students “don’t seem to be resistant to writing,” Stewart said. “The more they write, the more natural the inclination becomes.”

Stewart submitted these examples of some of her students’ best work, written during class in response to specific assignments and compiled in daily journals:

Dani Rabwin:

Look at me! Look at these clothes, look at these hands that haven’t been washed in months. Look at this bench that I call my home, and look at this trash can where I get my food. Look around and see how many are like me, and how many are worse off. . . . I wish that people would take a look at themselves and realize they have a problem. Ignorance is the problem. Selfishness is the problem. . . . Don’t have pity on me. Just do something, anything.

Roscelle Joaquin:

I sit at the window, silently watching every drop of water tap onto the roof below me. . . . A sudden cold wind rushes by now, and the scenery changes to a place where I feel I should be exiled, or banished. But I stay, still watching the brown moist leaves flutter by on the dark wet street, making the noise of people tapping their feet while dancing.

Kevin McQuilken, in an essay about the dog Buck, from the Jack London novel “Call of the Wild”:

Buck lives in a setting from a dream. He is, in his mind and others, the supreme ruler of his habitat. The home he lives in is a huge house in the woods of the Santa Clara Valley. . . . Around this vast house, a silent forest lies, with orchards, and pastures.