It's nearing March, which means anxious parents are shipping their kids all over the place to tutoring sessions and prep courses for a brilliant invention known as State Standardized Tests.
Let's go back to elementary school, 2nd grade. Remember the CTBS? (we call fondly referred to it as Child Torture Before Summer). Well, while we were frolicking away through Hammarskjold, Churchill, and High School, the state came out with something much more beautiful: the NJAsk.
It's more writing intensive (1 speculative prompt, 1 expository prompt, and Open Ended Responses -- OERs -- for every reading passage available). The questions aren't as straightforward as I remembered them. And there's even a science portion for one of the tests.
Jeezums.
As the seasoned writer who has been through the entire public school system from beginning to finish, wrestled with every standardized test made and tried through the years (CTBS, NJAsk one year, TerraNova prep with my sister, GEPA, HSPA, SAT Is, SAT IIs, APs), and survived the college application process with relative success, I can comfortably say that I do a good job as a tutor.
My students' scores have improved. One of them had her paragraph response picked out by her teacher as "the standard third grade writing sample." Another one has an amazing sense of creativity and is quite good with usage of little specific details that makes her writing so alive.
While these things do make me so happy and proud, its actually my kids' little quirks that me sane and healthy. Laughter keeps you young. I get lots of it everyday, To the point where one of my kids asked me, quite seriously, if I am 15 years old. (There are 2 extremes with my age: either they don't believe I'm 17 and are convinced that I am younger, or they are fixated on the belief that I am in college and therefore must have a boyfriend.)
Let me regale you.
- I was beginning NJAsk work with one of my students. The first critique I usually give her whenever she finishes any piece for me is to break up her sentences -- she is a fine connoisseur of run-ons. This time, she learned and at the end of every major idea/point, she paused, looked up at me, and asked "Period?"
- I was looking over papers this weekend, and saw that one child had written to the edge of the page. Rather than try to fit the thin sliver of a line for the exclamation mark into the bit of space he had left, he moved onto the next line and drew a giant bubbled exclamation mark.
- First drafts of picture prompts begin with "One day." After expressing the need to incorporate details, for example writing "one brilliantly sunny day in August", I noticed that all the second drafts began with "One sunny day."
- Again with the picture prompts. I emphasized that the story needed to make sense -- my main character is from Nigeria, the story takes place in the Philippines. Perhaps the characters are on vacation. Thereafter, all stories were about a vacation.
- I stress creativity so, so much. The first picture prompt I gave was Norman Rockwell's High Dive. Almost all the first drafts read thus: "One day, [name] and x friends were at the pool. ... ... ... [other name] taunts/teases/dares/provokes/threatens [name] into going up the diving board. ... ... ... [name] is scared. ... ... ... [name] jumps. He is happy he did it/wants to do it again/realizes that it wasn't so bad/some mixture of the three." The End.
After stressing the need for creativity, kids started disappearing into whirlpools in the water to find themselves in Hogwarts. Or, my personal favorite coming from the boy who is convinced that I have a boyfriend and wouldn't take no for an answer: My imaginary boyfriend shows up at my house with chocolate, a teddy bear, and a stack of Harry Potter books and asks me out to the pool. We go, I jump off the diving board and into a black hole. He jumps after me and saves me. We kiss and get married. The only downside? It was painfully short.
We must find balance.
For now, that is all. I have anatomy test to study for, stat project, stat test, IPLE speech, Model UN Paper. Ooh what fun. :)
