Courtesy of Shelly Stewart

Congratulations to the seventh grade students at Poca Middle School who scored 96% at or above mastery in the recent Statewide Writing Assessment administered in March. This test is a state mandated evaluation for students in fourth, seventh, and tenth grades in the state of West Virginia. The students are required to write an essay from one of four writing prompts. They are evaluated in five areas that include: organization, development, sentence structure, word choice, and mechanics.

Teachers feel that credit is due, in part, for the students' successful outcome because of the implementation of the Kansas Writing Strategy. This program was piloted in Putnam County at Poca Middle at the beginning of the 2004-2005 school year. The Kansas Writing Strategy gives students a formula to follow in order to write complete simple, complex, and compound sentences properly. The program has been extremely beneficial to the success of these students at Poca Middle School this year.

Another key ingredient to the successful outcome of the seventh grade students at Poca Middle School this year was the hard work and dedication of the students and language arts teachers. Working together, they succeeded in going above and beyond goals and expectations that had been set for them at the beginning of the school year.