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Poet: I can’t answer questions on Texas standardized tests about my own poems

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Re: Poet: I can’t answer questions on Texas standardized tests about my own poems

#41

Post by jasode »

Retric wrote: post #34
steveklabnik wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author

Which fails as it assumes text must have inherent meaning. But, it lets people avoid criticism making it a popular standpoint.

>Which fails as it assumes text must have inherent meaning.

It doesn't assume that. It doesn't matter whether the text does or does not have inherent meaning. The essay's point is that the reader's judgement is just as valid as the writer's.

As an extreme example, the phrase "colorless green ideas sleep furiously"[1] can be interpreted by the reader as having meaning even though Noam Chomsky says it's a meaningless sentence. The author is not the final and not the only interpretation that's valid.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_fu...

Re: Poet: I can’t answer questions on Texas standardized tests about my own poems

#42

Post by gumby »

mhurron wrote: post #13
cderwin wrote: post #6

If she had known the answer, would that make the question any better? I remember back when I was in high school, I always sort of assumed that the authors of the poems we were tested on wouldn't be able to answer the ridiculous questions on our assessments. But even if they did, I've never been able to figure out what skills these questions were testing. If poems are open to interpretation, isn't it reasonable to thi…

> If she had known the answer, would that make the question any better? If anyone can answer what the 'correct' interpretation of a piece of writing is, it's the author. If they can not, well maybe the authors intent wasn't what the questions are asking. Of course this is a fundamental problem in the way we teach and test literature. No piece of work has a single meaning because meaning is found in the merging of the…

> If anyone can answer what the 'correct' interpretation of a piece of writing is, it's the author. If they can not, well maybe the authors intent wasn't what the questions are asking.

This is the crux of the matter. James Joyce (just to pick someone whose work is heavily discussed) may have made a reference to a common Catholic belief and not realized it because he was embedded in Irish Catholicism. It could have made some metaphor stronger or weaker. When you discuss the metaphor you may be discussing the author's unwitting intent. Thus the author themselves might not be the proper authority (except for their own overt motivations).

Literature isn't special in this regard -- after all we go to psychiatrists & therapists to help us learn about our own actions that we don't understand.

Re: Poet: I can’t answer questions on Texas standardized tests about my own poems

#43

Post by forgotpwtomain »

762236 wrote: post #38
forgotpwtomain wrote: post #31

> I’m just down with a sniffly case/of sudden-self-loathing-syndrome … an unexpected extra serving/ of just-for-now-self-hate. How do these terrible poets even make it on to the curriculum / standardized-tests? The author suggests: > My poems are a whole lot cheaper than Mary Oliver’s or Jane Kenyon’s, so there’s that. What about all the classics in the public domain?! I read a lot independently as a kid but I recall…

> How do these terrible poets even make it on to the curriculum / standardized-tests? Snobbish much?

Without further debating the merits of the verses in question (I thought it was self-evident)... I think it would be an accurate characterization that the author of this editorial will not be read or remembered half-a-century from now. Therefore if the purpose of education is to provide something of enduring value, I do not think it strange, or snobbish as you put it, that we should prefer to have Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and Langston Hughes in our public schools.

You might find that you personally dislike them but than that too has helped shape your esthetic views, education should indeed bring you to encounter significant milestones of cultural and literary heritage; at the very least to give a student some understanding of the landscape.

Re: Poet: I can’t answer questions on Texas standardized tests about my own poems

#44

Post by mirkules »

762236 wrote: post #38
forgotpwtomain wrote: post #31

> I’m just down with a sniffly case/of sudden-self-loathing-syndrome … an unexpected extra serving/ of just-for-now-self-hate. How do these terrible poets even make it on to the curriculum / standardized-tests? The author suggests: > My poems are a whole lot cheaper than Mary Oliver’s or Jane Kenyon’s, so there’s that. What about all the classics in the public domain?! I read a lot independently as a kid but I recall…

> How do these terrible poets even make it on to the curriculum / standardized-tests? Snobbish much?

We went from Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost to something that sounds like lyrics from a '90s grunge band. I don't quite think OP's criticism is unwarranted.

Re: Poet: I can’t answer questions on Texas standardized tests about my own poems

#45

Post by Spooky23 »

cderwin wrote: post #6

If she had known the answer, would that make the question any better? I remember back when I was in high school, I always sort of assumed that the authors of the poems we were tested on wouldn't be able to answer the ridiculous questions on our assessments. But even if they did, I've never been able to figure out what skills these questions were testing. If poems are open to interpretation, isn't it reasonable to thi…

You're lucky this is an engineer heavy forum. Around humanities people, your comment is like pouring gasoline in an open flame.

Re: Poet: I can’t answer questions on Texas standardized tests about my own poems

#46

Post by 6stringmerc »

dsr_ wrote: post #18

Predicted, mostly, by Isaac Asimov in 1954: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Immortal_Bard (TL;DR with spoiler: Time machine brings Shakespeare back to the current age, where he takes a class on his own work and is flunked.)

I've been only a tangential reader of Asimov, though definitely respectful of his contributions to the literary canon. This sounds fantastic to check out, thank you & also for the summary preview.

Re: Poet: I can’t answer questions on Texas standardized tests about my own poems

#47

Post by oddlyaromatic »

SamBam wrote: post #24
mhurron wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If she had known the answer, would that make the question any better? If anyone can answer what the 'correct' interpretation of a piece of writing is, it's the author. If they can not, well maybe the authors intent wasn't what the questions are asking. Of course this is a fundamental problem in the way we teach and test literature. No piece of work has a single meaning because meaning is found in the merging of the…

> If anyone can answer what the 'correct' interpretation of a piece of writing is, it's the author. Well, that's very much up for debate. The Intentional Fallacy claims that authorial intent is not a valid part of artistic criticism or interpretation. That all you can judge a work on is the internal text and surrounding body of context, not notions of what was going on in the artist's head. The idea is debated, to be…

If the question, and the purpose of the exam, is framed as "why did the author do this or that?", then sure authorial intent has meaning to the question. And I certainly think what the author intended to mean can be culturally interesting. But for the individual experience of the work, intent beyond that included in the work itself doesn't have much bearing. So, to me, this post has a lot to do with the wrong kind of questions being asked of students. Poetry is not all about discovering what an author hoped you might feel and being "right". It's about your own experience of the words and ideas in the poem- or movie or whatever.

I guess what I'm saying is poetry runs on the client?

Re: Poet: I can’t answer questions on Texas standardized tests about my own poems

#48

Post by 6stringmerc »

mirkules wrote: post #44
762236 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do these terrible poets even make it on to the curriculum / standardized-tests? Snobbish much?

We went from Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost to something that sounds like lyrics from a '90s grunge band. I don't quite think OP's criticism is unwarranted.

If a lot of the people who criticize using old dead white people as literary texts - which, having worked in Education I know is a "hegemony" hot-button issue - it's not like other brilliant works translated (or not) could be used. Neruda, Marquez...they're completely deserving classics and, I guess the real problem here, just as hard to study and work through as any of the other traditional texts. Kids don't like hard, never have, but that's the essence of education and brain growth - challenges.

Re: Poet: I can’t answer questions on Texas standardized tests about my own poems

#49

Post by oddlyaromatic »

jabb0r wrote: post #37
literallycancer wrote: post #33

I read parts of the article, skipped a bit, read the questions 32-36 and her remarks. And I don't think there is anything wrong with the questions. Maybe she's just trying too hard to make a point, but in many cases it seems like she just can't read or doesn't understand the question(?). E.g. 36 - "The poet reveals the speaker’s feelings mainly by –", then she goes on to say that most of the answers are viable, but c…

I agree. The questions seemed perfectly reasonable to me. No test is perfect, but if I had a student who couldn't get these questions right, I'd say their reading comprehension was pretty suspect.

I agree the author reached a little far. These questions are OK if ask we are checking is basic reading comprehension. Not great, but OK. Poetry seems like a weird fit for that kind of assessment though. The content of poetry is usually more complicated than the raw understanding of the words. It seems that these questions want to assess the more complicated inferences and such, they just fail to effectively do so.
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