For black students, single essay made big difference

The seventh-graders were asked to write an essay about their most important value. ``My friends give me companionship and courage," a girl wrote. ``I'm a great athlete," offered a boy. ``God is the answer to everything," wrote another.

Psychologists hoped the self-esteem boost from the exercise would improve the African-American students' school performance -- for a few days, anyway. To their surprise, students who wrote the values essays received 10 percent better grades in the class for the fall compared with African-American students who had a different writing assignment. They also closed the ``achievement gap" with white students by 40 percent.

``What seems small isn't really so small from the perspective of the students," said Geoffrey Cohen , a University of Colorado psychologist who co-authored the study, which was published last week in the journal Science. The essay ``is 15 minutes, but it's tapping something deep."

Experts on racial differences in academic performance are skeptical of Cohen's finding but are not dismissive. ``Things that motivate students make a big difference," said Christopher Jencks , professor of social policy at Harvard University. ``It's surprising," he said, that one assignment ``should have this kind of effect, but, hey, maybe this is something we should be looking at more."

The research, involving 243 black and white students at a suburban school, was to test the theory that the achievement gap is partly psychological. Cohen says many African-Americans struggle because they are stereotyped as less intelligent, making school stressful. If students think better about themselves, he suggests, they become more relaxed and less likely to conform to the stereotype.

Cohen and his collaborator, Yale University psychologist Julio Garcia , randomly selected students to write about their most important values or, alternately, to write about their least important values. Writing about important values didn't affect white students' grades, but black students of all ability levels did better after the important-values essay.

Cohen said the essay may have removed a final obstacle to better grades among children who had the potential. ``Our performance is really affected by what other people think of us," he said.

SCOTT ALLEN