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I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

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Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#241

Post by Veen »

skytreader wrote: post #195
Veen wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said in another comment, at this level "literary criticism" is intended to develop rudimentary skills of textual interpretation. You learn what symbolism is and are asked to produce some examples. It doesn't matter what the poem "actually" means any more than it matters that you're ignoring friction and variable speeds and the changing mass of trains as they burn fuel when you work out how fast they're going in…

> at this level "literary criticism" is intended to develop...skills of textual interpretation But it is also at this level that multiple-choice tests about which bits of a text mean what (as the original article illustrates) proliferate. It is at this level that the textbook is the One Truth about what a text means. As one other comment points out, at this level there is no recourse but "authority" which is, ironica…

Your argument seems to boil down to this. Only empirical disciplines count as valid scholarship. Interpretive disciplines in the humanities are not empirical in the same way as engineering and scientific disciplines. Therefore they are not valid scholarship.

Unless you're prepared to budge on the first premise, there's nothing much I can say to persuade you.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#242

Post by longer_arms »

sametmax wrote: post #234

I always though how silly it was for teachers to pretend they got the correct answer in a text analysis of a century old author. Apparently it's even true for authors that are still alive. Some things seemed so far fetched, so random, so made up. And yet it was supposed to be _the_ right answer. When I offered another one, even knowing the official one but disagreeing, I was graded as failing. Hell, I'm pretty certai…

> And as a kid, you certainly can't say a classic author is not interesting. You can't say the text is boring, that you don't see talent in it, that you didn't learn anything from it. It has been validated by society, hence it's good.

That is because that statement is both not useful in the context (you're there to pick it apart) and reflects pretty badly on your understanding, clearly the text has some depth, even if not consciously included, to be analysed. If your conclusion was "rubbish" when you're meant to be making a point about subtext, you're failing, its pretty simple.

People include subtlety in their art even if they don't intend it. Things can not be fantastic but still reflect society, the author, your own experience, which is the point of literature analysis.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#243

Post by [deleted] »

kabouseng wrote: post #200
dragonwriter wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She scored 95% in one subject. But the qualified cut-off rate is 98%! > My eyes just rolled looking at that number. That means they only pick 98 and 99 percentiles. Either one of these is wrong, or they somehow managed to craft a test where the score percentage matches the score percentile, which while possible to engineer is somewhat improbable and also contradicts the next sentence: > For a first grader to score…

It's a form of Goodheart's law [1]. If you use the test scores to select for gifted students and the requirement is this high you will only select for highly test prepared students (the set of prepared and gifted or prepared and capable students). You're final student selection will be higher correlated to preparation and less to how naturally gifted a student is. This is not necessarily a bad thing though. [1] - htt…

[deleted]

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#244

Post by dannyw »

AstralStorm wrote: post #240
Veen wrote: post #145

High school literary criticism is just training for basic interpretation skills. It doesn't matter what's really "in" the poem, just that the student is capable of rudimentary analysis of meaning and symbolism and so on. If they went on to study literary criticism at a higher level with a decent teacher, they'd have to justify their interpretations with reference to the work as a whole, the writer's other work, their…

This means it is worthless for a multiple choice test and should be a write-up with argumentation. A miniature dissertation. Like, say, maturity exam is here in Poland. They're a pain to grade, have to be very careful guidelines and alert examiners.

I’m sorry, in what world is literature or English multiple choice?!

In Australia / NSW it’s essays and essays, including a creative writing prompt that I’ve always genuinely found fun. Think /r/writingprompts.

Never really engaged with the rest of English but it requires choosing your own texts (no list) to compare and dissect. Still flawed? Yeah, but I feel like ‘they tried’.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#245

Post by sametmax »

longer_arms wrote: post #242
sametmax wrote: post #234

I always though how silly it was for teachers to pretend they got the correct answer in a text analysis of a century old author. Apparently it's even true for authors that are still alive. Some things seemed so far fetched, so random, so made up. And yet it was supposed to be _the_ right answer. When I offered another one, even knowing the official one but disagreeing, I was graded as failing. Hell, I'm pretty certai…

> And as a kid, you certainly can't say a classic author is not interesting. You can't say the text is boring, that you don't see talent in it, that you didn't learn anything from it. It has been validated by society, hence it's good. That is because that statement is both not useful in the context (you're there to pick it apart) and reflects pretty badly on your understanding, clearly the text has some depth, even i…

Some are, but I think many don't.

Text analysis is a lot like wine tasting: there is something to it, but it's way over the top. And if you put a brand new text and put 10 experts on it, they will come up with different interpretations. They will even claim terrible wine is good because of the bottle.

There is also a huge mentality implication. See for example your reaction: you assume my understanding is bad while knowing nothing about me.

And I just criticized people drawing definitive conclusions about other people so distant we know little about them. The example in the article supports this and beyond, and while a few data point is not evidence, it calls for a debate.

I think it's perfectly ok for kids to be wrong about their text interpretation if they produce a personal constructed analysis. First because it's pretty hard to prove there is only one right analysis and you got it. Second because the process is as important as the result. Good teachers target that, but few do.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#247

Post by undergrowth54 »

dannyw wrote: post #244
AstralStorm wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This means it is worthless for a multiple choice test and should be a write-up with argumentation. A miniature dissertation. Like, say, maturity exam is here in Poland. They're a pain to grade, have to be very careful guidelines and alert examiners.

I’m sorry, in what world is literature or English multiple choice?! In Australia / NSW it’s essays and essays, including a creative writing prompt that I’ve always genuinely found fun. Think /r/writingprompts. Never really engaged with the rest of English but it requires choosing your own texts (no list) to compare and dissect. Still flawed? Yeah, but I feel like ‘they tried’.

> in what world is literature or English multiple choice?!

If you click on the article, the first thing your eye is drawn to is an image of a multiple-choice scantron bubble-sheet. Its reasonable to think that this image is relevant to the discussion the article presents and to implicitly conclude that the article is describing a multiple-choice test.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#248

Post by rocqua »

grandmczeb wrote: post #235
rocqua wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be a really strong correlation, but the deviations from that correlation might not be totally random. That is, there might be people who consistently test above or below their skill level. This creates some weird imbalances that are far from fair. It would be a lot more acceptable if deviation of test scores from skill were to be totally random for every test.

I can understand biases in a specific test (e.g. cultural biases), but those can (and should!) be corrected with better design and specific accommodations. Do you think that testing as a general method of evaluation is biased though? Because the objection I typically see isn't "we need better test design" it's "there's a component of student ability that cannot be measured by a test".

It is more about things like stressing over tests, dyslexia, ability to sit still for x hours and ability to express yourself in writing.

These all affect how well you test, but do not determine your skill in the subject. Hence, having a disadvantage in any of the above gives you a system disadvantage in the educational system.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#249

Post by bayareanative »

Hehe. I believe it.

So I took the SAT-I (out of 1600) with zero prep around 1994.

Math - missed one question (dumb mistake)

English - ~560/800

I was too depressed and anxious (undiagnosed, untreated) at the time to be able to concentrate on the critical thinking and passage questions.

Re: I Can’t Answer Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems (2017)

#250

Post by bayareanative »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #153
jtms wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in the gifted program when I was in elementary school and I don’t recommend it. It took a kid like me who was already prone to social isolation and isolated him further. I voluntarily left the program after 2 years and was playing catch up socially and I wasn’t any better off academically. Don’t put your kids in that program.

I was fortunate enough to get into a GATE extracurricular program when I was in elementary school in the East Bay, a long time ago. In my case, I got to socialize more with some peer groups, visit a planetarium, make oddball things, get a good grasp of the sciences way ahead of the regular school curriculum, and participate in a problem-solving program that influenced my thinking for the rest of my life. BUT: in retr…

Did California's GATE actually have a purpose? I was in it for 13 years (~1982-1996) and it seemed completely and utterly pointless. No extracurriculars, no meetings, no resources... it seemed like a smart-kid inventorying service for (insert random conspiracy theory here). Worse, I was constantly pulled out of class to take IQ tests and then bored to death because I was 3 years ahead after coming from a private school that had phonics and aggressive material plans (Challenger).
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