Post by Moses on Feb 9, 2006 20:56:25 GMT -5
Writing test time -- why Lincoln wouldn't make the grade
By Mark Lane
This week begins a season that starkly divides people with school-age kids from people who don't.
If you don't have children in public schools, this is a week like any other. A pleasant lull before the town fills up for Speed Weeks. The earlier azaleas are flowering. Super Bowl office pools are being paid out.
But if you have kids in public school, this begins a time of stress, fear, acting out, sleepless nights and hardly-touched dinners. This is the first round of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. The serious high-stakes testing is still to come, but the writing test started Tuesday. And what a test it is.
The FCAT rewards a specific kind of essay. One that starts with a sprightly, attention-grabbing question or statement of what's to come. Continues with three paragraphs backing up the point. And ends with a paragraph answering the first paragraph and tying the whole together with a neat rhetorical bow.
College English teachers often spend the first weeks of class getting their charges to stop writing this way. Some despair of ever dislodging a model so forcefully ingrained.
Here's a short piece of prose subjected to 10th-grade FCAT grading to give you an idea of what the state is looking for:
Doesn't ask a question or state the thesis of the essay. This essay is about a battlefield commemoration, not a history lesson. Points off.
A much better beginning: "You're probably wondering why we're all out here today. Let me give you three reasons."
No transitional phrase or words used. More points off. Ends with a split verb. "Can last a long time" would be better.
Again, no transition. No descriptions. No words that appeal to the senses. Bland vocabulary.
Nor is there any use of data, argument or anecdote to back up these assertions. Many points off.
Why won't you use transitional words or phrases? The ending fails to answer a question, back up an assertion or even restate the first paragraph. It simply jumps into a conclusion.
And what's this "great task remaining?" Define and discuss. Remember: You should state three clear points per essay.
At three paragraphs, this is unacceptably short. You must shoot for five paragraphs.
Still, this is not without nice touches. The piece shows use of punctuation that demonstrates mastery of state standards. You even use a semicolon correctly!
Grade: 3.8 on a scale of 6.0.
But just barely.
mark.lane@news-jrnl.com
— Mark Lane
Daytona Beach Newsjournalonline.com
2006-02-08
[ A few years back, the Delaware state department of education sent me a packet of third grade essays judged "meritorious." It made for scary reading. Every single essay had a sprightly beginning, carefully poised adjectives, and so on. The Stepford children had learned the rules well. Not one varied from the pattern. -S.O.]
[My comment: English faculty told me that the writing of the students they are getting now is completely formulaic, and that it is impossible to break them of this. They are imprisoned, including their thinking, in the formulaic regimen drilled into them now, and good writing has become extremely rare]
By Mark Lane
This week begins a season that starkly divides people with school-age kids from people who don't.
If you don't have children in public schools, this is a week like any other. A pleasant lull before the town fills up for Speed Weeks. The earlier azaleas are flowering. Super Bowl office pools are being paid out.
But if you have kids in public school, this begins a time of stress, fear, acting out, sleepless nights and hardly-touched dinners. This is the first round of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. The serious high-stakes testing is still to come, but the writing test started Tuesday. And what a test it is.
The FCAT rewards a specific kind of essay. One that starts with a sprightly, attention-grabbing question or statement of what's to come. Continues with three paragraphs backing up the point. And ends with a paragraph answering the first paragraph and tying the whole together with a neat rhetorical bow.
College English teachers often spend the first weeks of class getting their charges to stop writing this way. Some despair of ever dislodging a model so forcefully ingrained.
Here's a short piece of prose subjected to 10th-grade FCAT grading to give you an idea of what the state is looking for:
Doesn't ask a question or state the thesis of the essay. This essay is about a battlefield commemoration, not a history lesson. Points off.
A much better beginning: "You're probably wondering why we're all out here today. Let me give you three reasons."
No transitional phrase or words used. More points off. Ends with a split verb. "Can last a long time" would be better.
Again, no transition. No descriptions. No words that appeal to the senses. Bland vocabulary.
Nor is there any use of data, argument or anecdote to back up these assertions. Many points off.
Why won't you use transitional words or phrases? The ending fails to answer a question, back up an assertion or even restate the first paragraph. It simply jumps into a conclusion.
And what's this "great task remaining?" Define and discuss. Remember: You should state three clear points per essay.
At three paragraphs, this is unacceptably short. You must shoot for five paragraphs.
Still, this is not without nice touches. The piece shows use of punctuation that demonstrates mastery of state standards. You even use a semicolon correctly!
Grade: 3.8 on a scale of 6.0.
But just barely.
mark.lane@news-jrnl.com
— Mark Lane
Daytona Beach Newsjournalonline.com
2006-02-08
[ A few years back, the Delaware state department of education sent me a packet of third grade essays judged "meritorious." It made for scary reading. Every single essay had a sprightly beginning, carefully poised adjectives, and so on. The Stepford children had learned the rules well. Not one varied from the pattern. -S.O.]
[My comment: English faculty told me that the writing of the students they are getting now is completely formulaic, and that it is impossible to break them of this. They are imprisoned, including their thinking, in the formulaic regimen drilled into them now, and good writing has become extremely rare]