IMS Global: Aleeta Johnson, I understand you've been teaching high school English for a number of years and that Farragut High School has been using Criterion since 2003. What do you like most about the system?

AJ: It allows students to write and get feedback on their essays in a timely manner, much faster than any teacher could ever provide. It allows them to write a lot more. But it also allows them to get feedback on essays a teacher might not see until it has been corrected by them several times. It allows them to fairly painlessly revise essays, which students usually don't want to do. They prefer to write one final copy and turn it in and let it go. This way, depending on what parameters you set for an assignment, until they get a certain score or get certain feedback information, the teacher can ask them to keep re-writing the essay until it meets her specifications. The system gives me time, when I read them, to focus on the voice and the content rather than the grammar usage and the mechanics. We can focus more on stretching their ideas, helping them create an individual voice, and those kinds of issues rather than the mechanical correctness of their essays.

IMS Global: What do the students think of Criterion? Do they like it?

AJ: Actually, I haven't found any that don't. They're very challenging to themselves. Sometimes they will re-write an essay more times than I would have required them to. I must tell you, though, that I teach honors classes and those students generally are more motivated than the average student.

IMS Global: Do you find that students who use the Criterion system tend to do better than those who don't?

AJ: I don't have the data in front of me, but when we started, I think we were at about 82 percent proficiency on the statewide writing test. When we first used Criterion, our scores went from 86 percent proficient to 92 percent proficient. In 2003, it was required by all 12 of our high schools, and our score for the whole district went from 69 percent proficient to 77 percent proficient. It went up eight points in just one year. Three schools initiated Writing across the Curriculum, for which Criterion is also beneficial. These were comprehensive high schools where there is a cosmetology class or wood shop or courses like that. One of those schools came up 19 points in one year, another 16 points, and the third 17 points. It made believers out of us.

IMS Global: What would you like other schools and teachers to know about Criterion?

AJ: It provides an avenue for student independence in writing. It's not something that will ever replace a teacher, but it will allow a student to write a better essay before the teacher ever sees it. It frees up teacher time for focusing on interpretation and higher order thinking. It helps make students into not only proficient writers, but also efficient writers. Proficiency is not all we want, just making sure someone can understand your writing is not enough. We want our students to become writers who have something to say that is worth reading. And if they can eliminate things that bog down editing by a teacher and have it edited primarily by Criterion, it frees up the teachers to do what most teachers never have the time to do and that's to help students become better thinkers and express that in their writing. They're more likely to become better communicators through their ideas and their content than if they simply wrote essays and someone corrected their grammar.