Example of teaching religion in the schools

Robyn Kozierok mentioned in passing :
Do any standardized tests test anything at all about literature? Not
necessarily specific works, but even topics like themes, symbolism,
etc?



I would not be surprised to see references in testing like SAT's and similar
types of tests, where the reader might be expected to have been exposed to
Romeo & Juliette, for example. And, if you want to prevail on Jeopardy,
you'd best know quite a bit of "trivia" about various classics! Do you want
to be the next Ken of Jeopardy????

-Aula

--
Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are
hatched. - Guy de Maupassant


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.783 / Virus Database: 529 - Release Date: 10/25/04

Do any standardized tests test anything at all about literature? Not
necessarily specific works, but even topics like themes, symbolism,
etc?

IIRC the ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) gets into themes and meaning some,
but of course in 3rd and 4th grade they didn't test on symbolism. I haven't
seen any evidence of those issues in Texas yet. My child is certainly left
behind in that regard...

-Dawn
Mom to Henry, 12

"just me" wrote:

Robyn Kozierok mentioned in passing :
Do any standardized tests test anything at all about literature? Not
necessarily specific works, but even topics like themes, symbolism,
etc?

I would not be surprised to see references in testing like SAT's and similar
types of tests, where the reader might be expected to have been exposed to
Romeo & Juliette, for example. And, if you want to prevail on Jeopardy,
you'd best know quite a bit of "trivia" about various classics! Do you want
to be the next Ken of Jeopardy????

I was on Jeopardy in 1971 when I was pg with #4 (and I didn't know it
and thought I was coming down with the flu). I won two days and then
the third day did really badly because of morning sickness. That was
back in the days of Art Fleming. I don't even watch it with Alec
Trebek because I don't like what he's done with it. The worst thing
is not letting people ring in until he's finished reading it. Makes
it less skill of reading and more guessing how soon you can ring in,
so more luck. Also I hate that only the winner gets money.

Anyway, I did OK (won enough to put the down payment on a special
order crew cab pick-up truck). You can know trivia without having
actually read everything.



grandma Rosalie

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 14:45:27 EDT, (Robyn
Kozierok) wrote:

I don't think there's any danger of anyone reading "all" the classics
in school (there are just too many out there). On the other hand, I think
a decent chunk of the population will not read a single classic that
they aren't forced to read in school. I can think of only a handful of
classics that I've read on my own. (I do read, but I tend to read more
"junk" adventure/mystery/fantasy novels just for fun.) So to the extent
that we believe that a certain core familiarity with the classics (either
particular books or authors or genres) is important to an educated
populace, I think we need to make sure that that gets included in our
K-12 education programs.

Do any standardized tests test anything at all about literature? Not
necessarily specific works, but even topics like themes, symbolism,
etc?

It definitely is in Australia, or at least in New South Wales. All
students who sit for the School Certificate (in year 10) or Higher
School Certificate (used for university entry, in year 12) have to
study English which includes studying a minimum of 2 "classic" pieces
of literature, a selected number of poems by 2 poets and at least one
play, usually one by Shakespeare and one by another playwright. When
I did my HSC I studied John Donne and Robert Lowell for poets,
"Wuthering Heights" and something from the 20th century for novels,
and "Joan of Arc" by Bernard Shaw and "Henry IV part 1" for plays.
Because they know you are going to have to study these for the HSC the
types of texts assigned are a standard part of the curriculum
throughout high school.

During the HSC exam you will usually sit two English papers, one which
tests your general language skills which usually includes short answer
and creative writing questions, and another which questions you on the
specific texts you have studied. Our questions in 1990 were either/or
questions for the novel and poet, then a compare and contrast for the
two plays. You had to be able to quote specifics from each piece of
writing you were answering about and in fact 14 years later I can
still recall the first few lines of the poem "Grandparents" by Robert
Lowell and at least one paragraph from "Wuthering Heights". Bits of a
poem by John Donne come back at random intervals but because we
studied Andrew Marvell the year before I get the two confused, their
writing styles were very similar. For that type of poetry we had to
really delve into the idea of conceits which was fascinating.

And FWIW I'm a science/maths type too.

--
Cheryl
Mum to Shrimp (11 Mar 99), Thud (4 Oct 00)
Mischief (30 Jul 02)
+ Thumper due Feb 05

Robyn Kozierok wrote in :

[snip]
Do any standardized tests test anything at all about literature? Not
necessarily specific works, but even topics like themes, symbolism,
etc?

In the UK, most children sit exams (called GCSEs) when they are 15 or
16yo. The marks are from a combination of coursework and externally
marked exam papers. All children have to study English up until they
are 16yo.

I'm not quite sure how it differs from when I was at school: here is a
randomly chosen school website on their English syllabus:
http://www.friends.org.uk/moreinfo/d...nglishgcse.htm

When I was at school, we did slightly different exams, known as 'O' levels.
(Probably the equivalent of a high school graduation was getting
5 O levels/GCSEs including English language and maths). At my
school, everyone did English language, which included a comprehension paper,
and writing an essay or story, We also all did English literature, which
included A Merchant of Venice, To Kill a Mocking Bird and the poems of
ST Colerige (ie Kubla Khan and the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner).

I don't remember explicitly studying themes or symbolism.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three