(Kist) Firestone

 

Test prep: it’s quickly becoming the ultimate bane of educators. Having now done two semesters of field experience which focus on preparing students for taking the Ohio Graduation Test, I can sympathize. As much as we like to complain about it, it has become a necessary evil. With the way our schools are funded, test scores are an integral part of receiving money to continue educating students.

How can we bring test preparation in to the twenty-first century? Multi-modal methods can be applied, but they must be done so with caution. One of the most obvious ways to incorporate multi-modality into test preparation is to use the internet and its vast resources. There are many websites which offer grammar, punctuation and spelling tests for free to students. I’m sure that there are also sources which provide quick reviews of literary elements, perhaps in video form (which is more interesting and definitely more relaxing). If these things do not exist, then perhaps educators could come together to demonstrate these concepts in video format. Making a video which demonstrates a test-prep idea could be targeted toward that particular school and even texts that the class has read so far. Borrowing movie scenes which give examples of literary devices and using them either as plain review or a game (think Jeopardy) can be useful for students. As long as the questions and answers are working toward review for the test, then I don’t see why they can’t have fun doing it.

What else can we use to bring multi-modality into test preparation? It’s difficult to prepare students for tests without giving them some form of test material. I realize this, and understand why it’s difficult. During my observation experience at McKinley High School, I found that the best test preparation for those students did not focus on the material, but how to answer the questions. By teaching students how to figure out what a question asked, it made finding the answer very easy. The formula which I offered allowed students to apply it to every question they were asked, not just about this or that particular topic. Even students who had very little knowledge of science concepts could get correct answers by reading the question carefully and eliminating answers which don’t apply.

My students had the most difficulty with the short answer questions. They did not always know how many things the question was asking nor the best way to answer. Once again, teaching students to interpret the question allowed them to answer without knowing all of the necessary background material. That brings up another challenge of test preparation.

How do you teach students what they need to know if you don’t know what’s on the test? While we can’t prepare students for everything that they will face, it seems like a good idea to review key concepts which they will need to know. I honestly didn’t see much of this going on with teachers at Firestone. What I did see was teachers just handing out old versions of the test and asking students to answer those questions. While this may help some students review information, I don’t feel that major concepts were covered. My student in particular asked me to review literary concepts such as hyperbole, onomatopoeia and alliteration because she didn’t remember what they meant. As I’ve said in my blog for Pytash’s class, students need these building blocks in order to formulate answers for more complex topics or test questions. I felt that most of my students were lacking this basic knowledge and it made me ask: where did it fall through the cracks? When should students know what alliteration is? When should they know how to determine the mass number of an element?

Do we blame teachers or students? This is a difficult question and nearly impossible to answer. It’s a little of both for me, but I lean more toward the teachers. I’ve seen to many disenchanted teachers in my observation and experience that I’ve become even more determined to do what I can for students. They are missing crucial elements of their English education which will prevent them from doing well on tests like the OGT.

Ultimately, do I see multi-modal literacies merging with test preparation? Perhaps. Most teachers likely won’t take the effort to find good sources and/or create them. Why should they when students can just take old copies of the test over and over again? That seems like a good way to teach, doesn’t it? (Please note the dripping sarcasm here.) I would love to make things more interesting and less robotic for my students, but I don’t see the majority of educators switching their method for test prep because I feel they should. Let’s start with me and go from there. Maybe one of the issues is lack of research on using multi-modal literacies in test preparation. Maybe it will only take one outstanding teacher who uses these ideas to propel their students toward excellent scores. Someone has to try and I’m willing.

As for my field experience/ observation, there are two situations which stick out:

a) Students are being introduced to the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Considering that the “n word” is in the book, this particular teacher decided to meet it head on, even before students cracked open the novel. She did this by having students watch an old TV program where a white teacher was using the book Nigger (written by a Harvard professor) to have a discussion with his students. There was an uproar (as you can imagine) and the African American principal ended up coming in and teaching the class, thinking that a white teacher couldn’t even begin to understand the implications of what the word means. Once students finished watching this video, they got in a circle and began discussing what happened, what it meant, how they feel about the “n word,” etc. Now, because these students had an outstanding discussion about the word, they jumped into the novel knowing some of the connotations, the denotation and how they feel about it. They had a fantastic “book prep” through the use of a multi-modal source.

I felt that this was one of the best introductions to the book that I’ve read or heard about. This teacher foresaw an issue and met the challenge. Her students seemed to understand that she felt they were mature enough to handle it and they responded in kind with a mature and in-depth discussion. This was perhaps the best lesson I’ve seen during my college experiences, and I enjoyed her classroom immensely.

b) To look at another scenario, I’ll talk about another teacher I observed. This is an African American teacher who has a class full of seniors. Immediately, I notice that half of the students are white and half are African American. This normally wouldn’t be an issue, except that they has segregated themselves. The African American students sat in front of the teacher and the others sat on the other end of the room. When the teacher addressed the class, she stood in front of the African American students and spoke largely to them.
After that observation, I was informed that they were reading Macbeth. These students didn’t have textbooks; they had paper copies of only the act they were reading, which they had to return at the end of class. The teacher had students choose roles and read the act aloud during the class period. I was very confused at first because what the students were reading was not what I was following. The teacher pointed out to me that they were in the other column, which was a modernized version of the play. During the entire reading, the African American students were talking and throwing paper balls at the teacher, which she ignored.
At the end of class, I asked the teacher whether or not they ever read the original version. She told me no, and that her students couldn’t handle it.

I must admit that I was appalled by this classroom. While I don’t think the teacher assigned those seats, it was clear that her students felt disengaged from her. Only one white student volunteered to read and the others just stared at the pages for the entire class. The sad part is that that was what bothered me the least. I was absolutely stunned that a group of seniors “couldn’t handle” Shakespeare. I can understand freshmen struggling to understand the language when they first attempt it, but to never even ask seniors to try is incredibly disappointing. I felt that this teacher honestly didn’t have any interest in educating her students and they responded to that attitude by goofing around and/or having no interest in classroom activities. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to become an educator. I am definitely new and excited, but I want to do more for my students than that. I felt that those students were being deprived of an education they could have been receiving two doors down.

With the tumult going on in the world of education, it is no surprise that some teachers are struggling to stay afloat while others have given up entirely. We have a sad mess going on and it is up to current and future educators to work together in order to provide the best education for our students. Will it be easy? No. Will it be fun? At times. Can we do it? Absolutely!! We only have to apply ourselves.