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05/02/2005 Archived Entry: "SAT"
SAT
Dennis Baron, whose work is usually insightful and to the point, writes on the SAT in the Chronicle (archived at WPA-L).
Baron makes good points throughout, from the business-dominated aspect of the SAT to the lack of experience or professionalization among the so-called graders. Always key to SAT critique is its lack of focus on actual writing; instead it tests ability to negotiate a scheme we've come to know as the "five paragraph essay" whose roots are not in writing but in labor (finding a way for unskilled and cheap labor to teach material that they do not know).
More specifically, the five-paragraph theme, or any other formulaic approach to writing, will not help improve the writing of either high-school or college students: It won't help those who can't produce intelligible, written sentences to form them better, and it won't teach those not used to thinking analytically to analyze either their writing or the subject that they're writing about.
All on the money. But....and of course I must throw in the "but"....who is really complicit in this game of paying out big bucks to Kaplan and the College Board to assess students in inefficient and nonsensical ways? Us. Where are the decisions to reject the SAT straight out? Where are the WPAs gathering voices and making decisions to no longer recognize the SAT? Where is WPA momentum and strength in numbers calling for an end to a practice we all recognize as a sham?
Chirp chirp.
Chirp chirp.
Silence.
Instead of saying “enough,” we hear calls to better understand and work with the College Board. Instead of saying “this is crap,” we hear ways to join the ranks of SAT graders (ah, yes, more mindless work for us) and help them understand how to assess properly. And guess what, kids? It don’t work. I’ll leave aside for now the whole issue of new media thinking and all that jazz (which, of course, the SAT does not even approach, since its creation emerges from another kind of thinking – mostly Fordist). Instead, I put it on the admins who gripe about how much this dang thing sucks, but who continue to use it anyway.
Wal-Mart thinking? I.e.: “Yeah, I know its exploitive, but it sure is cheap.”
Yup.
Replies: 4 comments
If we're not going to solve the labor problem, then why make first year writing a requirement? Make it an elective, as Crowley recommends.
It's like when I was WPA. I put the question to the chair this way:
"What's the difference b/w the first year writing and the pre-first year writing courses? Why do all this placement work in the summer when we hire folks on the fly with limited to no experience and who don't know the difference b/w basic and first year writing anyway?"
Chair: "Well...the basic students go to the writing center.."
HuH? Wow. Great answer, right? But it unfortunately, stands for the odd logic at play when it comes to assessment/placement. The university chooses to ignore staffing/labor issues and pretends that the tiered system really matters. It doesn't.
Posted by jeff @ 05/03/2005 12:41 PM EST
To get rid of the whole business completely, then do we listen to Sharon Crowley at the end of COMPOSITION IN THE UNIVERSITY, when she says (to paraphrase Jon Stewart on Crossfire) required composition is hurting America? If students self-place into comp classes, then we don't need assessment exams. If teachers do evaluative writing exercises in the first week, that should provide the limited 'doorkeeping' necessary to help a student who needs "introduction to college writing" from taking "advanced college writing" before s/he's ready.
Posted by Brendan @ 05/03/2005 12:36 PM EST
Or do away with the whole business completely.
I remain unconvinced by
1. Entry exams to prove one's potential to do well in the university
2. Placement exams to prove one's place in a writing program
Neither succeeds well or at all. But we continue to cling to them - despite certain factors like being held hostage to big business (Kaplan).
Posted by jeff @ 05/02/2005 04:45 PM EST
In broad terms, I agree with both Dennis and you about composition's fairly uncritical approach to the various ETS testing programs.
There are two issues, as I see it: (1) creating valid and replicable methods for assessing various kinds of writing and (2) the various institutional uses of those assessments.
For instance, the TWE (part of TOEFL) does a fairly reasonable job of assessing levels of writing skill in English for prospective students all over the world.
And the GMAT requires two essays, one analytical and one argumentative, with different scoring rubrics. So these test don't always favor the 5-paragraph format. In fact, it's not easy for a perfunctory 5-paragraph essay to score a 5 or 6. But they often get what readers call a "weak 4." There's also a "handwriting 4"--some papers, in my experience, squeak by on neat penmanship.
Actually, I'm more concerned about the new "language" component to the SAT, the one replacing the analogies section. Many of the items appear to be usage choices of a specific variety of the standard English dialect, and are likely to have high school English teachers introducing exercises practicing the stylistic preferences of the test item writers. Which, of course, are members of our profession who get paid by ETS.
Maybe we need to create Alternative Assessment models, ones that would reward students who can write in multiple media.
Posted by John @ 05/02/2005 04:17 PM EST