The National Assessment report card on writing gives us an important new look at how well students learn one of the most vital skills they can take with them from their classrooms to the rest of their lives.

As I tell my own students, the ability to write clear English prose is more than an incidental tool. It is a crucial means to organize our own ideas, to find out what we are thinking, and to communicate clearly with others. Good writing is much more than disorganized self-expression or fluent chitchat. It requires clear logic, strong evidence, and the ability to connect with the audience we are trying to reach.

The results of the 1998 NAEP writing assessment are both encouraging and sobering. The encouraging side of the coin is that so many students, around 80 percent, can write at least at the basic level. This means they can get their main points across in a reasonably clear and organized way. How effectively this is done depends on the grade level. But, as you can see from the examples in the report, writing at the basic level -- even at 12th grade -- is not particularly sophisticated and certainly not powerful. There still may be errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation, though these do not get in the way of meaning.

The sobering side of the coin is that such a small proportion of students, only around a quarter, can write the effective, fully developed response that is required for proficient writing. At the proficient level -- where the Board believes all students should be-prose is strong and coherent, choice of language is precise, and the writing clearly engages the intended audience. Spelling and grammar are consistently correct and writers can deploy the elements of English usage for stylistic effect.

This is still well short of the rich, compelling prose required at the Board's advanced achievement level, which only 1 percent of students can reach. But the relatively modest proportion at the proficient level, just 22 percent at grade 12, indicates, as many teachers would say, that there is considerable need for improvement.

The assessment itself covers the three types of writing -- narrative, informative, and persuasive -- that students encounter in their classrooms and must be prepared to handle later in their lives. The results for each type were somewhat different. At 12th grade, students clearly had the most trouble with persuasive writing. This is a serious problem because persuading a reader to take a course of action or bring about a certain change is enormously important, not just to get ahead on the job, but also to make sound decisions in our democratic society.

The achievement standards, set by the Board, require not just that one essay receive a sufficient, skillful, or excellent rating, but that there be consistency in both pieces of writing that students were asked to do. Frankly, it was difficult for many students to show consistency. This accounts for the relatively low proportions reaching the proficient and advanced levels, but the Board felt it was important for students to demonstrate consistent quality in order to attain those standards.

As a timed, on-demand assessment, NAEP cannot tell us fully about our students' ability to produce a carefully polished piece of writing. The performance standards set by the Board were framed with this limitation in mind. But students were given a fair amount of time-25 minutes -- to respond to each of the prompts that were included on the NAEP writing scale. Almost all had enough time to complete their assignments.

What have we learned from these NAEP studies?

As usual, NAEP cannot offer a simple, clear prescription. Because of its design, the assessment can show correlations -- what factors are associated with what results, but it cannot prove definitively what causes what. Still, there is a strong association and much other evidence as well between students' writing more and writing better.

We do know that good writing is a craft, which takes time and practice to develop. And students must write frequently to maintain and improve their skills. Also, writing well not only requires practice, but planning as well. This shows up clearly on the NAEP assessment. Students who showed evidence of planning for both of the prompts they were given score higher than those who planned for only one, and those who planned only once score higher than those who didn't do any planning at all.

Of course, that may just seem to be a matter of common sense. But deliberate planning is also an important part of the process by which good writing can be taught. Research indicates that writing, like reading, is a recursive process. The mature writer rethinks ideas throughout the process of writing. Through pre-writing, drafting, responding to peers, and drafting again, the writer's thoughts are clarified, organized, and perfected.

Another important technique to improve the quality of writing is for teachers to spend time talking with students about their work. This may seem obvious, yet all teachers must be reminded of the tremendous results such conversations can have. Also, keeping portfolios clearly helps develop good writers, and performance on the NAEP assessment was better for students who saved their work. Perhaps the explanation is that portfolios demand that students evaluate and reflect upon their individual pieces of writing. The close analysis of one's own work cannot but help to improve it.

What patterns of performance does the writing assessment show?

• The gender gap is large with female students writing considerably better than males. For example, at 12th grade, 29 percent of females reach the proficient level compared to just 14 percent of males. By contrast, at 12th grade in NAEP's most recent NAEP math assessment (1996), 18 percent of males and 14 percent of females reached proficient. At the other end of the scale, 30 percent of 12th grade males write below the basic level, compared to 14 percent of females. In 12th grade math, 30 percent of males and 31 percent of females were below basic.

• The racial/ethnic gaps are also large, with white and Asian students scoring higher than blacks and Hispanics. Generally, though, these gaps are consistent with those in other NAEP assessments.

• The state-by-state comparisons in 8th grade writing show Connecticut first, followed by Maine, Massachusetts, and Texas. The results for the three New England states were also high in the 8th grade reading assessment. Interestingly, Texas performed considerably better in writing than reading, and its average score for each ethnic group of students -- white, black, Hispanic, and Asian -- was either first or second among all the states participating. However, the highest scores for both black and Hispanic students were not in a state at all, but in the schools operated by the Defense Department for military dependents.

• Poor children -- with family income low enough to qualify for subsidized lunch -- perform significantly worse than those who are not poor. But the differences in how such children do in different states are considerable.

It is clear from the report that many students are able to write at a basic, minimally effective level, but far too few can produce strong, coherent prose. We know that writing can be taught, and that frequent writing is important to develop fine thinkers and writers. The task of our schools is to take what we know about writing and move forward to improve it, so that all of our young people will graduate writing well.