Comment by mattkrause 2 days ago
Those quizzes are part of the problem. It was so dispiriting to read, even enjoy, the assignment and then get dinged because you couldn’t remember whether the protagonist put on an otherwise irrelevant blue sweater or red jacket.
> It was so dispiriting to read, even enjoy, the assignment and then get dinged because you couldn’t remember whether the protagonist put on an otherwise irrelevant blue sweater or red jacket.
Maybe things have really changed a lot since I was in school, but that was certainly not the type of questions that were asked of set works.
The questions were asked such that, the more the student got into the book, the higher the mark they were able to get.
Easy questions (everyone gets this correct if they read the book): Did his friends and family consider $protagonist to be miserly or generous.
Hard questions (only those slightly interested got these correct): Examine the tone of the conversation between $A and $B in $chapter, first from the PoV of $A and then from the PoV of $B. List the differences, if any, in the tone that $A intended his instructions to be received and the tone that $B actually understood it as.
Very hard questions (for those who got +90% on their English grades): In the story arc for $A it can be claimed that the author intended to mirror the arc for Cordelia from King Lear. Make an argument for or against this claim.
That last one is the real deal; answerable only by students who like to read and have read a lot - it involves having read similar characters from similar stories, then knowing about the role of Cordelia, and at least a basic analysis of her character/integrity, maybe having read more works by this same author (they'll know if the mirroring is accidental or intentional), etc.
We were never asked "what color shirt did $A wear to the outing" types of questions (unless, of course, that was integral to the plot - $A was a double-agent, and a red shirt meant one thing to his handler while a blue shirt meant something else).
Did I like the set works? Mostly not, but I had enough fiction under my belt in my final two years of high-school that I could sail through the very difficult questions, pulling in analogies and character arcs, tone, etc from a multitude of Shakespeare plays, social issue fictional books ("Cry, The Beloved Country", "To Kill a Man's Pride", "To Kill a Mockingbird", etc), thrillers (Frederick Forsythe, et al), SciFi (Frederick Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick), Horror-ish (Stephen Kind, Dean R Koontz) and more.
With my teenager now, second-final year of high-school, I keep repeating the mantra of "To get high English marks, you need to demonstrate critical thinking, not usage of fancy words", but alas, he never reads anything that can be considered a book, so his marks never get anywhere near the 90% grade that I regularly averaged :-(
The only books he's ever read are those he's been forced to read in school.
We certainly had questions like that as part of bigger assessments and they were pretty reasonable.
However, some of the teachers at my school also had short pop-quizzes meant to ensure that everyone kept up with the reading. These were usually just some details from the assigned chapters and, IMO, often veered into minutia. One really was about the color of something and I don’t remember it being particularly plot-relevant or symbolic, even if it was mentioned a few times.
It wasn’t a huge part of one’s grade, but I distinctly remember being frustrated that these quizzes effectively penalized me for “getting into” the book and reading ahead.
> Hard questions (only those slightly interested got these correct): Examine the tone of the conversation between $A and $B in $chapter, first from the PoV of $A and then from the PoV of $B. List the differences, if any, in the tone that $A intended his instructions to be received and the tone that $B actually understood it as.
I always got As on these ... but the primary reason was that I was good at bullshitting. They are super easy when you are good at bullshitting. The trick is not to care that your answer sounds royally stupid. Then you will get A.
And all you need is to check those dialogs when writing the test. If you are expecting me to remember those dialogs, then we are back to the expectation that I basically memorized the book.
> Very hard questions (for those who got +90% on their English grades): In the story arc for $A it can be claimed that the author intended to mirror the arc for Cordelia from King Lear. Make an argument for or against this claim.
Again, I got As ... but they were solidly in the "kind of test that convinces you literature is stupid class" kind of questions. Unless there is some kind of actual interesting insight to be had, this question just shows how empty the whole exercise is.
> Again, I got As ... but they were solidly in the "kind of test that convinces you literature is stupid class" kind of questions. Unless there is some kind of actual interesting insight to be had, this question just shows how empty the whole exercise is.
You are not making much sense.
You got As in the type of question that required demonstration of a broad swath of literature ... but that just shows you how empty the question is?
WTF?
> You got As in the type of question that required demonstration of a broad swath of literature ... but that just shows you how empty the question is?
Yeah. I think that the key to achieving A is that you must not care and just let the creativity in your brain go. Thinking back, basically I did what LLM do today. You have to be able to vaguely associate plot points you vaguely remember from books you did not liked. You have to be able to write argument sounding constructions without care for how much they are true. Without feeling ashamed that you wrote something meaningless.
It is the kind of question that does not provide any meaningful insight to anything. The answer does not matter except for the grade. It wont give you any insight to literature. It does not demonstrate you understood something about the book either. That is why it is empty question - its only purpose is to prove you vaguely remember plot points.
Kids dont read for fun, but they have vague idea that books are something educational that is generally good to do. These sort of exercises will only convince them that reading books is both unfun drag and meaningless thing to do.
I never understood people who say their English writing is "bullshitting". Oh you read the book and offered a plausible interpretation? That sounds to me like learning and creating.
> I never understood people who say their English writing is "bullshitting". Oh you read the book and offered a plausible interpretation? That sounds to me like learning and creating.
It was bullshitting, because it was not even an attempt at a good analysis of what the author actually wrote or meant to write. I know for a fact that I was not trying to analyze the book. When I am actually trying to analyze a text, I think about it differently and treat it differently.
The thought process was closer to what I do when I am joking around, it is just that result was put into formal language.
It was a bit like a debate club - you know you are having sleazy untrue argument, but it is being rewarded, so.
> That sounds to me like learning and creating.
I dont think I learned much or anything about literature. I did created something. I learned something that, imo, schools should teach less - generate BS on command.
> I never understood people who say their English writing is "bullshitting". Oh you read the book and offered a plausible interpretation? That sounds to me like learning and creating.
I'm skeptical that watwut was as good in HS English lit as he claims to be: see his other response to me - he basically believes that recycling plot points is both meaningless (correct) and a path to high marks in literature (incorrect) :-/
I mean, it's possible but unlikely that plot examination will lead to good marks.
> he basically believes that recycling plot points is [...] a path to high marks in literature (incorrect) :-/
I had those As.
> I mean, it's possible but unlikely that plot examination will lead to good marks.
The key is that plot must match. The rest of it can be made up.
> get dinged because you couldn’t remember whether the protagonist put on an otherwise irrelevant blue sweater or red jacket
This sounds like a bad quiz, unless the story was set in e.g. the American revolution.