Literature, Knowledge, and The High School Graduate
"Eighteen states require students to pass exit exams in order to earn a diploma. To the extent that these tests help ensure that every student has had access to a rigorous curriculum" (Jago 148). I was wondering if this is like our Ohio Graduation Tests. Students in Ohio must pass the OGT in order to graduate, but they most likely do not pass it during their senior year. I am not sure where students in California take their exit exam in their senior year or not, but they seem to align with one another with the sole purpose of making students understand enough material to graduate high school.
I was surprised on many accounts by statements that Jago made. The first one dealt with her applauding the state for creating an exit exam. Based on her beliefs and structure of her classroom, I felt that she would be against the government and standardized tests. I'm assuming their exit exams are like our standardized tests. I know a lot of us have an issue with this type of testing. I personally do not think that it evaluates what the students have learned in their curriculum's throughout high school. A lot of it, I think, is material that they smash in your head just to pass the test. If they evaluated you on what you learned on what the teacher wanted the curriculum to be then I don't think teachers would have to teach to the test, and each school's evaluation would be different.
I was pleased with Jago's application of literature to life. This is so important to me because I feel that if I don't apply to the students lives then they will get practically nothing out of it. This was a hang up I had with classical literature. It seemed to me that it would be so hard to apply some of the writing to student's lives today. I was pleased to see that Jago applied Julius Caesar to the election world and whom would be best fit for presidency. This seems to be something that the students could understand and relate to the world today.
A second surprise from her was her talking about not making homemade multiple-choice questions. I figured she would have perfected that a long time ago and would use them frequently. I sometimes think that multiple-choice questions are much harder than extended responses. The answers seem to be so close that only a detail, sometimes minor, separates them. Viewing Jago as very blunt and strict, I thought that she would demand her students to be able to pick through multiple-choice questions and make them see the differences between her choices.
The third and last surprise from her was towards the end, talking about assessing student's work. I know a lot of teachers that require their students to submit their papers to Turnitin.com. This site searches their papers for any plagiarism, so the teacher doesn't have to try to catch it on their own. With the intensity of Jago's classroom, I figured she would be very particular and want her students to submit their essays, so she didn't have to try to find the plagiarism on her own and to relate how serious of an offense it is. Surprisingly, she would rather work with the students on their papers than to have a computer do it. She makes students do other things like submit the rough draft and final copy together, to show how their writing has changed. I really like that idea and think that would probably make more progress for the students, than to just have them turn it in online.
I was pleased with the final chapter of Jago's book. It was much more calming than her first. At the beginning, I thought I would hate the book and her love of canonical literature. There were times that I was not her biggest fan, but I don't see her as much as the brutal teacher I did in the beginning. There were a lot of great lesson ideas she had that I will probably use in my future classroom. With all things, I think moderation is needed. We can't go haywire on one subject or type of text or we will watch the students run out of our room. It was very interesting to see a teacher who was so different from my teaching beliefs and also to Kyleene Beers, who we read last semester.
You made agreat point that I hadn not thought of, that Jago is against tests to assess studnet's learning, but she endorses exit exams to graduate. I also ,really liekd this final chapter, I appreciated how she dealt with the issue of the studnets who dont feel that classical literature can be applies to their lives. The appllication of literature to our students' lives is our key to getting them engaged in the material.
ReplyDeleteThe comment about plagiarism surprised me as well, but not for the same reasons. It seemed like an illogical jump that didn't make sense. Jago says on pg 158 that teachers have stopped using student essays as the majority of the grades for their classes because they are worried about catching plagiarism. This seems a little rediculous to me. Plagiarism is serious, but it has been taken to a whole new level lately. What have we come to that we are so worried about plagiarism that we don't assign an essay? Do we really have that little faith in our students that we think most of them are plagiarising? And if we suspect that they are, are we really so lazy that we can't investigate it?
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post and comments. I think we need tot each students to write. When we engage students in writing and allow students to be personal in their assignments (like choice in topic etc...) I think students are less like to plagiarize. I think we have created a testing culture that emphasizes the test over student learning.
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