Widener-Harrisburg Program Description
BAR EXAM ESSAY WRITING WORKSHOPS©
(PROGRAM OVERVIEW)
Prepared by
Professor Kevin L. Hopkins
Director of Academic Support
Widener University School of Law
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
A. BACKGROUND
During the first semester of our academic support program, I worked
with approximately 11 second-year students and 4 third-year students
who were on academic probation. Most of my weekly support sessions
evolved around assisting those students in becoming "independent
learners" and in helping the probationary students acquire
the critical skills necessary to effectively get through their
final semester exams.
Specifically, my goal was not only to provide students with the
opportunity to take an exam under timed conditions, but to provide
me with some basis upon which to diagnose areas of deficiencies.
After reviewing and critiquing each student's written response
to the mock exam question, I immediately learned many of these
students were having difficulty in "writing" their responses
to the question. The writing suffered in the following areas:
(1) issue responsiveness; (2) issue spotting; (3) IRAC/CRAC structure/formation
(more specifically, rule development before analysis) and (4)
fact analysis.
Although this may have seemed elementary to most of our faculty
members, almost all of our probationary students had not learned
how to effectively use the IRAC/CRAC paradigms learned during
the first-year Legal Methods course. I found our probationary
students struggled with laying out a "well drafted"
discussion of the general and specific rules necessary to lay
the foundation for any analysis, along with how to pull out those
outcome determinative facts necessary to properly analyze the
problem.
Most of our probationary students did not suffer from a "lack
of the basics" for grammar purposes, but were limited in
the conveyance of their knowledge during the exam, primarily because
they had "missed" gaps in the organization of the analysis
or in their development of all of the applicable rules involved
in the problem. These students would raise the appropriate issue,
give a general statement of the rule, and immediately begin to
make arguments without developing the specifics of the rules to
provide some foundation for the credibility of their arguments.1
Also, I found many students were only "skimming" the
surface with regards to pulling out just a few of the many critical
facts available in the question and necessary to support or discredit
the several possible arguments to be made.
B. BAR EXAM WRITING WORKSHOPS
After working with our probationary students and as a result of
the recent changes in the grading of the Pennsylvania Bar Exam,
I concluded many of our students who would have normally been
admitted into the Pennsylvania Bar by successfully completing
the multistate portion of the bar exam, probably failed the July
1995 Exam because of their scores on the Pennsylvania Essays.2
As a result, I assumed those students who failed the exam,
similar to my probationary students, were students who failed
to fully grasp an effective conveyance of the issues and general/specific
rules involved in the essay questions, and the applicability of
the law to the relevant facts of the problem.
To assist our Harrisburg graduates in preparing for the essay
portion of the February 1996 Pennsylvania Bar Exam, I organized
and facilitated several exam writing workshops designed to provide
some additional strategies for "attacking" the essay
examination question. I tailored these workshops to cover many
of the problem areas experienced by our probationary students.3
During these sessions, I focused on following areas: (1) effective
review of the exam question; (2) issue spotting; (3) pre-examination
preparation (e.q. developing a strategy for approaching
the essay question even before taking the examination); (4)
exam writing and analysis of facts (focusing on organization
of the answer, rule development, and application of the facts
to the law) and (5) issue responsiveness (making sure the student
had answered the issue presented).4
I developed a series of 3 workshops to be held once a week for
a period of approximately 2 hours each to cover the target areas
presented above. All workshops were scheduled in January5,
each session involved basic instruction on essay writing and the
taking of a timed in-class exam question on a topic covered by
the Pennsylvania Bar examiners. At the end of the session, I collected
the exam booklets and distributed them to members of the faculty
who had agreed to assist me in evaluating the students' writing.6
I then returned the graded student exams during the beginning
of the following session where I spent the first hour of the workshop
analyzing an approach to structuring an analysis of the problem,
reviewing the suggested answer, and alerting students to the common
problem areas reflected in their responses.
NOTES
1. See Richard K. Neumann, Legal Reasoning and Legal
Writing §9.1 (2d ed. 1994) (for discussion of rule development
referred to as "rule proof.").
2. I assumed students who failed the July 1995 Pennsylvania Bar
Exam worked diligently in mastering the materials but were unable
to either spot and discuss all of the relevant/potentially relevant
issues, or to effectively organize the analysis into a recognizable
format. This assumption does not apply, however, to those students
who did not, for whatever reason, spend sufficient time to prepare
for the exam, or did not take the examination "seriously."
For a more accurate conclusion, it would be necessary to "poll"
all students who failed to determine the specific portion of the
exam where students experienced the most difficulty.
3. I designed the exam writing workshops primarily to assist students
in developing their writing skills and conveying their analysis
in an organized format. A critical assumption was that
all students had the necessary skills to learn and master the
substantive law.
4. See Kevin L. Hopkins, Memorandum to Exam Workshop
Participants, January 13, 1996 (discussing some basic strategies
for taking the essay examination and some general considerations
when preparing student responses to essay questions).
5. Because the February 1996 Bar Examination was held on February
27-28, 1996, Saturdays/Sundays were the only available times to
meet with participants. I assumed students who failed the Summer
exam would retake BAR/BRI or comparable study courses. The BAR/BRI
course at our school began on January 2, 1996 and ended on February
21, 1996. The course met Monday through Friday from 6:00 p.m.
to 10:00 p.m.. BAR/BRI had also reserved rooms for 1/27 (Sat.
9am to 5pm), 2/3-2/4 (Sat. & Sun. 9am to 5pm), 2/10 (Sat.
9am to 5pm), 2/11 (Sun. 9am to 1pm) and 2/17 (9am to 5pm). This
made it extremely difficult for scheduling the workshops. I selected
the following dates:
DATE
1/13/96 Saturday @ 9am
1/20/96 Saturday @ 9am
1/28/96 Sunday @ 1pm
Each workshop lasted for 2 hours. During the first session, I
spent the first hour discussing the bar exam, in general, and
essay writing strategies and techniques. Students took a timed
in-class exam (question #1) during the second hour of the first
session. For the remaining sessions, I used the first hour to
process the previous week's exam question and required students
to take additional in-class exams during the second hour. The
final session consisted of an in-class exam exercise, a review
of exam writing/test taking strategies and a last minute "pep
talk." (Note: because of time constraints, I provided students
with an outline of the law during the final in-class exam. Graded
exam answers for question #3 were mailed to the students.) My
goal for finishing the workshops by 1/28 was to give students
approximately 4 weeks to practice the recommended exam taking
techniques prior to taking the bar exam.
6. Approximately 25 to 30 students took advantage of my invitation
to participate in the exam writing workshops. As a result, I was
able to solicit 4 faculty members to critically review and provide
written comments on 4-5 exam questions per week. I directed the
faculty members to review the exam answers for clarity, organization
and logical presentation. I also provided the faculty graders
with a sample answer to use in assessing the students knowledge
of the law. Students were given the sample answer during the following
week's processing session.
