A section of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) is coming under scrutiny. Even Texas’ best students struggle with a section of the test that asks students to express themselves and back up their claims with evidence, revealing either faulty tests or preparation.
Three short-response questions require students to stretch their brains by generating clear, reasonable ideas from a reading selection, the Dallas Morning News reports. Then they must support those ideas with evidence from the text in a well-written response. ”Students are passing the ninth-, 10th- and 11th-grade language arts TAKS at higher rates than ever, the paper notes. “Some even post near-perfect passing rates. But on the short-response portion, fewer than half of North Texas students pass.”
Texas Education Agency officials say the short-response questions provide a better window into how well students can think, communicate and write. ”This paints a much different picture for teachers and parents than the multiple-choice test,” Victoria Young, a testing official with TEA tells the paper. “You’re finding out two very different things about kids.” Richard Kouri of the Texas State Teachers Association said curriculum doesn’t have the depth it used to because teachers are pulled in so many different directions by the TAKS demands.
Here’s the scoring rubric for the short-answer reading section of the test. Seems a reasonable set of tasks for high school students.
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It is, in my opinion, a perfectly reasonable set of tasks. I teach high school English in Texas, 9-12th grade. (Usually English III, the “testing out” year.)
The test provides students 3 pieces of literature: usually a non-fiction piece, fiction piece, and some sort of media such as an ad or flyer. All three pieces are linked by broad thematic elements - courage, culture, determination, etc.)
The short answer portion asks three questions. The first usually has to do with the non-fiction piece, the second with the fiction piece, and the third requires the student to compare or contrast two of the pieces (usually the fiction and non-fiction). You can see released TAKS tests here:
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/release/taks/index.html
The answer form requires students to complete the task in only about 5-6 lines for the first two questions, maybe 7-10 lines for the third. (Not sure about the line count. I tried to find an online copy of the answer form but couldn’t.) The difficulty is that the task requires the student to identify and answer, via effectively embedded quote or concise paraphrasing, in a limited amount of space. (I’m not identifying this as any excuse for poor student performance, just as a precursor to what makes this difficult for students, in my experience.) Within that limited amount of space students must be able to address the question and provide solid proof. The three most common obstacles I address with my students are:
1. Students don’t know how to paraphrase, and especially how to paraphrase just the portion of the text they are referring to. They feel obligated to paraphrase the entire story up to that point, then try to use that as the proof of their answer.
2. Students don’t know how to embed abbreviated quotes seamlessly into their own sentences, or don’t know how to choose precise quotes which support their own answer. What I see often is that students will answer the question in their own words, then attempt to choose quotes which surround their answer, rather than choosing the quote that *is* their answer.
3. Students misinterpret the question as soliciting their opinion on the story.
I disagree with Kouri. I find the TAKS demands to be the lowest common denominator of writing and literary analysis. I agree with the statement made by Young: you DO find out two very different things about students. Whether they can guess their way through multiple choice answers, and whether they can effectively read and respond to literature.