Poet responds to her poem being used on a TX standardized test

[cintinative]

Has anyone seen this? It's a year old almost, but boy did I enjoy her response. 

One of my favorite lines, she writes that her one poem is "[t]he written evidence of my anxieties, those evil gremlins that ride around on tricycles in my mind shooting my self-confidence with water pistols."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/01/07/poet-i-cant-answer-questions-on-texas-standardized-tests-about-my-own-poems/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.08c98f85a0b8

[SKL]

Love it! 

I remember when I was a kid, an advanced and avid reader, but I hated reading/literature classes because they always asked those "what do you think the author intended" questions, and I always got a sucky score.  Real literature is supposed to affect each reader differently, right?  And also, who's to say the test writer is correct and I'm wrong??  ?

As for standardized tests, I gave up when I was looking at a 2nd grade practice test (reading) years ago (as a parent), and I literally could not answer the questions.

[El...]

Good grief, those questions!  So speculative!  So many possible right answers!  Poor kids.

I do like the poet herself.  She's pretty hilarious about their choice of poem!  

[TravelingChris]

I am remember reading this.  My youngest had the most problems with the testing game but she finally came around (her tests were ACTs not in school).  She has done very well in her literature class in college too.  Because these what did the author think stuff is stupid if you have no evidence (like author's own words).

[RootAnn]

1 hour ago, cintinative said:

One of my favorite lines, she writes that her one poem is "[t]he written evidence of my anxieties, those evil gremlins that ride around on tricycles in my mind shooting my self-confidence with water pistols."

And can you imagine what the test writers would question about that line?

"The author refers to her anxieties riding around on tricycle because,

A) She is tri-polar and thus each personality has its own wheel.

B) Her anxieties have never grown up and thus cannot ride a regular bicycle.

C) Tricycles are a metaphor indicating how stable her mind is, even with anxiety

D) Her anxieties manifest as childhood phantoms. 

[SKL]

Oh, I loved standardized testing as a kid too.  We took the Iowas every other year starting in 3rd IIRC.

I do think it's different now.  My kids are in a private school and even they have taken 2 or 3 different standardized achievement tests this year (6th grade).  They did 1 in 1st grade, 2 in 2nd, 3 in 3rd, 1 in 4th, 1 in 5th (that I recall).  I think there will be at least 3 in 7th grade.  These are in addition to the periodic standardized benchmarks the school uses internally.  And our state cancelled the one really scary standardized test that had parents up in arms a few years ago.

I don't know how well or poorly our tests are designed these days.  I do know that my kids' performance is all over the place from one year to the next and from one test franchise to another.  Right now I don't really care too much, because I don't believe it will affect my kids' placement.  I can understand schools wanting an objective measure of how their curriculum and methods are working, but how many tests are needed for that?  Do they even need to test all of the kids every year?  Why not do A-M one year and N-Z the next year?  Or like when we were kids, just do one biennial test with no prep?

[cintinative]

Since I don't live in TX and I have never seen their state testing, I cannot be certain, however, I don't think it is necessarily valid to compare TX state testing with the IOWA. Maybe someone can comment on this comparison and if it is valid. I would not, for example, equate the IOWA with Ohio's state testing. They are very different.  One key difference being the amount of testing required (hours-wise and how many times per year).  Based on what teachers in the public schools here have shared with me, our two days of IOWA testing are nothing compared to the many hours of testing they must complete. 

[ktgrok]

54 minutes ago, Arctic Mama said:

I must be in the minority.  I enjoyed standardized tests as a kid and have to give them to my children as a homeschooler in this state, or do a nasty PITA portfolio thingy.  The kids all did extremely well and there was no anxiety.  But maybe that’s the benefit of homeschooling?  Even with the same litmus we don’t get caught up in the test prep fever to nearly the same extent a a public school.  Like one day of “here is how you take this kind of test and samples of what they might ask” and then one day of proctored exams for each student.

 

As for the article, I found it rather difficult and convoluted to read.  And whiny.  The rant about testing in general and the president and common core, in particular, was an extra side of stink on a poop sandwich. 

I really think part of it (most of it) depends on the quality of the test. Some are MUCH better than others. A lot of the new ones are terrible and thrown together quickly.  I have no issue with the old ITBS, etc. The new stuff...crazy pants. 

[Garga]

1 hour ago, Arctic Mama said:

I must be in the minority.  I enjoyed standardized tests as a kid and have to give them to my children as a homeschooler in this state, or do a nasty PITA portfolio thingy.  The kids all did extremely well and there was no anxiety.  But maybe that’s the benefit of homeschooling?  Even with the same litmus we don’t get caught up in the test prep fever to nearly the same extent a a public school.  Like one day of “here is how you take this kind of test and samples of what they might ask” and then one day of proctored exams for each student.

 

As for the article, I found it rather difficult and convoluted to read.  And whiny.  The rant about testing in general and the president and common core, in particular, was an extra side of stink on a poop sandwich. 

 

I enjoyed the tests as a kid, too.  My kids have taken standardized tests to fulfil homeschool state laws as well.  They don’t really enjoy them,  but they don’t freak out about them either.

But the tests I took in school, and the tests my sons have taken, are completely different animals from what the public schooled kids have to take now.  The school kids prep for the test for weeks.  They tell the kids how high stakes the tests are, and from a few examples I’ve seen, some of the tests are very tricky to understand what the test maker is going for.

I totally agree with you that the poet’s article about it was badly written.  I was trying to read it aloud to my 7th grader and it just didn’t make sense.  It jumped all over the place.  

[regentrude]

It won't let me access the article in the link. (ETA: never mind, found the article on other sites)

My favorite contemporary German poet refused permission to have her work included in school curricula because she did not want it to be used as one of those horrible writing exercises along the lines of "what did the poet mean by this poem?" that accomplishes nothing but create a distaste for poetry because kids learn it is something to analyze, not something to enjoy.

The way poetry analysis is taught in school is often soul sucking and insulting the poetry. I can completely imagine a test author coming up with "meaning" the poet didn't intend to put there in a million years.

[regentrude]

I think test makers should not be permitted to incorporate texts by living authors without obtaining the author's permission for both the inclusion of the text AND the phrasing of the questions. Dead authors can't defend themselves.

[regentrude]

This reminds me of an exercise we had to do in high school, I think 11th grade: select a poem of your choice and write an essay interpreting the meaning of the metaphors and similes in the poem and the poet's intent.

I figured, the best way to know the poet's intent was to write the poem myself. I first wrote a poem that was not very good, but full of easily interpretable (aka clichee) metaphors and similes (which is one reason it wasn't a good poem - too much metaphor and too little actual substance, and too predictable metaphors to make sure the teacher would be able to understand my interpretation) and then wrote the essay about that. I was prepared to reveal my identity as the poet, had the teacher argued with me that I did not fully understand the poet's intent - but it was unnecessary, as I got an A for my outstanding work. What a load of BS. 

[ktgrok]

19 minutes ago, regentrude said:

It won't let me access the article in the link. (ETA: never mind, found the article on other sites)

My favorite contemporary German poet refused permission to have her work included in school curricula because she did not want it to be used as one of those horrible writing exercises along the lines of "what did the poet mean by this poem?" that accomplishes nothing but create a distaste for poetry because kids learn it is something to analyze, not something to enjoy.

The way poetry analysis is taught in school is often soul sucking and insulting the poetry. I can completely imagine a test author coming up with "meaning" the poet didn't intend to put there in a million years.

I was JUST discussing poetry with another homeschool mom and said pretty much the same thing. ESPECIALLY in elementary school, poetry is to be enjoyed, full stop. Let them binge on it, wallow in it, immerse themselves in it. Let them find poems they love and poems they hate. Let them find ones that make them laugh and ones that make they sad and ones that confuse them. Teach via immersion. 

Later you can address the rest of it. 

[Garga]

44 minutes ago, regentrude said:

The way poetry analysis is taught in school is often soul sucking and insulting the poetry. I can completely imagine a test author coming up with "meaning" the poet didn't intend to put there in a million years.

 

Amen.  We just did some poetry analysis as part of my son's curriculum and it was just dreadful.  Both of us haaaaated it.  I finally told him to skip a bunch of activities that were sucking the joy out of everything, and frankly seemed made up.  I didn't think the analysis of the poem was true at all.  I didn't agree with the curric writer AT ALL about what the poem meant or why the poet chose to do such-and-such with his rhyming scheme.

This summer, the boys and I (even the high schooler) are going to read through the below thread together, reading the suggested poems from hivers. Right now, my boys hate poetry and I'm not far from that.  I'm hoping that after spending a little bit of time browsing through this thread, we'll come to not hate it so much.

Poetry thread: 

 

[scholastica]

Love it! Standardized tests are a joke, especially at the state level.

[regentrude]

30 minutes ago, Garga said:

Amen.  We just did some poetry analysis as part of my son's curriculum and it was just dreadful.  Both of us haaaaated it.  I finally told him to skip a bunch of activities that were sucking the joy out of everything, and frankly seemed made up.  I didn't think the analysis of the poem was true at all.  I didn't agree with the curric writer AT ALL about what the poem meant or why the poet chose to do such-and-such with his rhyming scheme.

Good poetry is not one dimensional; it leaves some ambiguity, some space for the reader to fill in meaning. 

I took the fantastic Coursera course from UPenn on Modern and Contemporary American Poetry, and it was so interesting to see the different readings the professor and the graduate students came up with. Poetry speaks to different people in different ways. And sometimes the poet may not have put a clear "message" into the poem at all. 

Sometimes readers read and interpret a poem quite differently from the poet; in a recent discussion with poet friends, a poem that was written about a young adult leaving home was interpreted by some readers as speaking about to the death of a parent, and by others as the end of a romantic relationship - it spoke to all of them, but in very different ways.

The notion that there is one single "correct" reading of Art goes against everything that Art is.

[mamaraby]

1 hour ago, Ktgrok said:

I really think part of it (most of it) depends on the quality of the test. Some are MUCH better than others. A lot of the new ones are terrible and thrown together quickly.  I have no issue with the old ITBS, etc. The new stuff...crazy pants. 

Yeah, I picked the new ITBS for both ds and dd this year and wish I had stuck with the older one.

[Farrar]

I really agree with the idea that standardized tests don't have to be this bad. I didn't hate them as a kid and did pretty well on them. I think they're a problem when they're the only metric, as they are in many schools and districts. You can't just take the patient's temperature. One metric is not a good measure of a student's learning overall. There will always be smart kids who don't perform very well on them. And even kids who do fine on them who would benefit from more multifaceted assessments. And they're really bad when they're like this one - slapdash and weird.

One of the things about these tests is that they seem to go through a cycle. They get ordered (for an insane amount of money). Kids don't do well on them because they're new or poorly written or whatever. They get criticized - sometimes like this. The state sticks it out for a little while. But then they get scrapped. A new test is ordered. It's a rush order. They completely change the other test and try out a million new things that are "better." And the whole thing starts over. If they would just slowly create, hone, and perfect a limited number of good tests then we'd all be better off.

[goldberry]

I was always a good tester.  Being a good tester is its own skill, separate from any other skills in my opinion.  I once got an A on a test about a book I didn't not even read or look at spark notes.

Both my DD and DH are not "good testers", and I have seen how inaccurately it reflects learning and intelligence, as well as damaging to self-esteem, when it is used as the end-all of assessment.

[goldberry]

Definitely made me want to read this poet though!

[goldberry]

2 hours ago, regentrude said:

It won't let me access the article in the link. (ETA: never mind, found the article on other sites)

My favorite contemporary German poet refused permission to have her work included in school curricula because she did not want it to be used as one of those horrible writing exercises along the lines of "what did the poet mean by this poem?" that accomplishes nothing but create a distaste for poetry because kids learn it is something to analyze, not something to enjoy.

The way poetry analysis is taught in school is often soul sucking and insulting the poetry. I can completely imagine a test author coming up with "meaning" the poet didn't intend to put there in a million years.

 

Quoting for truth. I've always felt the same way.