A close friend, a music teacher, was speaking to me recently about the incorporation of more informational and non—fiction texts into the English Language Arts curriculum.  He asked me,  “How can a student leave high school without learning The Catcher in the Rye or The Lord of the Flies to make room for these other texts?  I said to him, ”Well, what do you teach?  Does every student leave learning the Hallelujah Chorus? What happens if they do not?  Do they still take the skills of balance, blend, and intonation, that you impart to your students?”

The creation of baseline assessments as an indicator of where the student enters the class in comparison to a summative assessment as an indicator of expected or predicted growth makes sense.  What does not make sense is how educators are creating the assessment.  The idea that many tests in many disciplines is comprised of 100% multiple choice, does not.

First of all, and I know this may seem petty, but many students can guess well on exams when they do not know the answer.  For instance, I did exceptionally well on the math portion of the SAT, and on my math placement exam in college.  Neither of these exams asked me to show work.  I did not know the first thing about the advanced math course I was placed in during college – in fact – I failed.  There were (unfortunately for me) no multiple choice exams.  I did not deserve to pass the class – I had not the first idea how to approach any of the concepts throughout the semester.

 Second, when someone asks you what you teach in English 10, is your answer a series of novels, poems, and short stories?  Is that really what you are teaching, or are you using these texts as simply a vehicle to teach specific analytical skills?  

In dealing with multiple choice, what skill is necessary to be able to answer the question correctly?  If the answer is recall, for instance, the teacher provides the student with the correct answer, the student banks this information for future retrieval, and then the student recalls this answer to answer the question, the question is not valuable. 

What is the different between knowledge and fact?   Knowledge involves psychological reasoning, perception and function.  Facts are things that are to be collected, simple pieces of information.    Fact acquisition and recall is simply using one simple skill, memorization. 

A multiple-choice question states, “What does Holden’s red hat symbolize in Catcher in the Rye? “ A student can recall the answer to this question without understanding the meaning of symbolism or how to extract symbolism apart from the literary work in question. 

What is your goal as an educator?  What would you like students to learn when they leave your classroom?  These skills should be the focus of your assessments.