More Is Better: "The "new and improved" SAT test was offered for the first time in March and, in one of the major changes, students were required to write an essay as part of the annual ritual. The College Board thinks this alteration makes the test more relevant. Others are not so sure it's an improvement.

On Thursday, Tim Stahmer wrote about a report from National Council of Teachers of English that is critical of the writing component of the new SAT. He points out that it looks like the more you write, the better your score. The report, and an article linked from Tim's post, points out that the longer the piece, the higher the score. Les Perelman of MIT suggests that students write as much as possible and include lots of facts... Doesn't seem to matter if they are correct, just put in a lot of them... Not exactly how we teach the writing process at Lewis...

Update: NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday has an interview with Les Perelman this morning. The audio will be available after 1:00 pm Eastern time.