It's been a long, long time since I've contributed to this forum. It's been a very, very busy year – overwhelmingly so. Ironically, I was reading Tom's Wednesday post about how often we consider making policy based on what's best for our kids today, and "walla" (as my students write – because they don't know it's actually a French word spelled "voila"), I saw the persuasive prompt for the 10th-grade HSPE. It turns out they also write prompts without considering what's best for our kids.
I teach English 10th-graders at a low-income, high-needs school, so we have spent a considerable amount time preparing for this test. As you all know, one of the keys to getting kids involved in their own education is making it relevant to them. Thus, I was absolutely appalled at the prompt the kids were given to write about. It was relevant to… well… my husband who works in the security field. Included in the prompt was a new type of technology with an appellation of ambiguous language, including the word "tag."
First of all, a persuasive prompt on a high-stakes test should be about an issue with which students are familiar. The purpose is to give them a topic with which to show their skill. One sitting is not enough time to think about an issue for the first time and be able to develop convincing and persuasive arguments – particularly if a large number of our students have no idea what the topic is in the first place. The word “tag” is already ambiguous, as the kids might understand it in the context of price “tags,” name "tags," dog “tags,” graffiti “tags,” clothing brand “tags.”
With the high number of ELL students and students living in poverty at my school, there were many students who were completely confounded in how to approach this prompt. While some of our more creative students were able to “make up” enough details to complete their essays, others were completely and utterly discouraged when this unrealistic prompt was coupled with the enormous pressure they were already experiencing because of the high stakes this test represents. I saw despair on many faces.
My heart broke for one student who has been coming in regularly to work with me after school. He was determined to pass this test, and he knew that writing was not his strongest suit, so he asked for and received tutoring. Normally a gregarious one, when he came into class he could barely stand up straight. Shoulders slumped, head down, when I asked him if he was okay, he couldn't make eye contact with me or respond. I kept him after class, hoping to give him some encouragement, but all he could say was, "I just couldn't do it. I didn't even know how to start so I didn't finish."
For many of our third-world immigrants, the concept of a new technology is so foreign that they have a difficult time imagining it – much less constructing compelling arguments one way or another. Plainly and simply, this prompt is culturally insensitive to just about everyone.
It was a difficult day in a difficult year. My students and I have worked very hard to prepare for this test, and it is incredibly difficult to see their hope and high spirits shot down.
Did anyone else share this experience? In a middle-class venue, did the prompt work?
@Tom… I’ve always believed that students at least ought to be offered a menu of prompt options rather than one option. But, opponents say that this takes the “standardized” out of our precious “standardized tests.” I wonder if other states offer a menu of prompt options–or total freedom for the student?
I have no idea what you guys are talking about, since I teach third grade and have no access to 10th grade prompts, but I’ve always wondered something:
Why can’t students choose their own prompt? Deciding what to write is not only personal, it’s also a skill in and of itself, worthy of evaluation.
Mike, maybe they “should” have the frame of reference for this, but they didn’t. The most common question relayed to me: “why would that thing even be necessary?” They didn’t understand enough about the situation/issue to be able to take a stand… which is rather necessary.
As for prompt vs. topic, maybe educators can see the nuanced difference, but a 14/15 year old reads it and thinks “that is what I am supposed to write about.” If their gut reaction is “I don’t know what the heck that is,” you bet that deflating of confidence is going to affect their overall performance. Any teacher of writing can tell you that the quality of the prompt matters and will always have an impact on the quality of the product which is then produced.
I gave the test to a group of low intermediate ELLs who’ve been in the US for about 1-2 years. I wasn’t thrilled with the prompt (I was thrilled with the expository prompt, however) but I thought this prompt was fine. One of the keys for my students was having the individual words in the prompt that they did not understand defined, as per the instructions. Also, since it is a prompt, not a topic, I don’t think the distinction between something worn or otherwise is relevant. The students I saw seemed to do fine- at least they were able to put forth a good effort though many know they will need to retake it before they can pass and graduate. ELLs don’t take this test and expect to pass the first time.
The majority of kids in this day and age should have quite a frame of reference for a prompt like this, and interact with all sorts of relevant things in their daily lives. Though I dislike being an apologist for the state ed. folks, having scored the writing assessment before, I can say that there are at least a few people in charge of the writing who do have kids interests’ at heart and who have been in many classrooms.
DrPezz, my original draft contained the prompt, but I’m afraid that I and this forum could be in trouble if I published it before it was actually released.
EdThoughts, I also tried to prepare my kids for boring. Heck, I tried to prepare them for “unknown” also by having them practicing the art of “creative prevarication.”
Jason, your guess it close.
Thank you all for responding! This sounds horrible, but I’m almost relieved that my kids weren’t the only ones who struggled and that mine wasn’t the only demographic negatively impacted.
My students were talking about the prompt after the test, and one of my girls almost started to cry when she realized the “tag” was not a necklace. I guess she wrote about something worn around the neck because she had no idea what the prompt was trying to get her to do.
Unfortunately, I did not have proctoring duty (we rotate), so I don’t exactly know how the prompt was worded.
Regardless, my kids were very frustrated with it.
P.S. Can anybody fill me in on the actual prompt?
RFID tag I’m guessing?
I think this is one of the ultimate failings of “standards” and “assessments” coupled with a belief that reading and writing is a skill, without specifying curriculum and content.
In the attempt to be content neutral, we are almost guaranteed to run up against “fairness”, one of the major three things assessments have to be concerned with (alongside reliability and validity).
When I read that prompt to the students I was proctoring an expletive popped into my mind. We were all trained to be proctors, and the instructions we are given caution us to not paraphrase, or add anything, so I deleted the expletive, but I was sorely tempted to commit an act of unprofessional conduct.
I can only believe that the people who are creating these prompts have seldom been in a classroom.
They don’t know the damage they are doing.
It’s not so much that the prompt was dry… we’re used to that. It was that the prompt required students to have prior schema or experience which was not reasonable to expect all students to have. In some cases, the teachers felt stuck between a rock and a hard place–due to ethics they were bound not to give the students even the most basic context for the prompt. Dictionaries (allowed) were no help.
Our prompts are often rather dry too. They state really tries to be sensitive to all groups. This is a noble goal, but sometimes it does lead to a dry prompt. In the run-up to state writing testing, I had my students write mini-essays based on past state writing prompts.
At one point, a student turned to me and said, “This is so boring!”
I said, “I know, that’s why I chose it, because you never know what type of prompt you’re going to get, and you have to be ready for the boring one.”
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Unfortunately, my daughter had RSV the week of the test, but when I did look at a few essays before sending them off, I think that the kids did ok. In Oregon students choose between 3 prompts, so they have to be ready to do a persuasive, expository, narrative, or an imaginative story. Then again, I have never seen state prompt that was so specific as to mention something like a tag.
Sorry your kids had a hard time with the prompt. The good thing is that kids usually bounce back quickly from things like this.
The prompt DID NOT WORK and I believe that the results ought to be thrown out. I teach in an affluent, solidly middle-class-and-higher (with some socioeconomic diversity, but not much) community. The kids had zero frame of reference for the prompt. I had teachers frantically calling/emailing me as dept chair because the kids were asking SO MANY questions to clarify what the prompt even was referring to–in many cases, the concept was a completely foreign one to them. They would have been better off taking a side about current events in Libya.