SANTA PAULA : Word Processor to Aid Student Writers

English students at Santa Paula’s continuation high school will do their writing on a word processor for the first time this year, thanks to a grant from a national writing program and matching funds from local businesses.

Susan Anderson, English teacher at Renaissance High School, said she will receive $3,000 to buy a word processor and software from the Southern California Writing Project and Santa Paula companies.

The 10-year-old project teaches writing from an evaluation of how the brain creates, rather than from a grammar textbook, Anderson said.

Anderson said she sometimes finds herself at odds with other teachers who insist students learn grammar before attempting to write.

“It is my contention that students already think--the brain does that--and if they can deep-think, it is easy for them to put what they already know on paper if it is presented to them properly, and they can write out their own lives,” Anderson said.

Anderson’s students will keep a family history scrapbook this year, collecting recipes, photographs and stories of their ancestors, “because the past is important and because they are experts about their own families,” Anderson said.

They will use three electric typewriters Anderson already had, as well as the new word processor, to complete the project. As they begin to type their reports, Anderson has found the students become interested in style and grammar.

Anderson has also found her students write more willingly when they have an audience. This year, they are corresponding with servicemen in Saudi Arabia.

“It is an exemplary program, which turns the students on to writing,” said Supt. Carolina Erie.

Anderson’s students, many of whom have had discipline or attendance problems and haven’t succeeded at the traditional high school, score very well in the reflective writing sections of California Assessment Program tests, Erie said.