When I realized I couldn’t answer the questions posed about two of my own poems on the Texas state assessment tests (STAAR Test),
I had a flash of panic – oh, no! Not smart enough. Such a dunce. My
eyes glazed over. I checked to see if anyone was looking. The questions
began to swim on the page. Waves of insecurity. My brain in full spin.
The two poems in question are A REAL CASE, appearing on the
2014 Grade 7 STAAR Reading Test, and MIDNIGHT, appearing on the 2013
Grade 8 STAAR Reading Test. Both poems originally appeared in Walking on the Boundaries of Change, Boyds Mills Press, 1998.
Let me begin by confessing that A REAL CASE
is my most neurotic poem. I have a pile of them to be sure, but this
one is the sour cherry on top. The written evidence of my anxieties,
those evil gremlins that ride around on tricycles in my mind shooting my
self-confidence with water pistols. How in the name of all that’s moldy
did this poem wind up on a proficiency test?
Dose of reality:
test makers are for-profit organizations. My poems are a whole lot
cheaper than Mary Oliver’s or Jane Kenyon’s, so there’s that. But how
would your vulnerable, nervous, number two pencil-gripping seventh grade
self have felt opening your test packet to analyze poetic lines such as
this: I’m just down with a sniffly case/of sudden-self-loathing-syndrome…an unexpected extra serving/ of just-for-now-self-hate.
Seriously? Hundreds of my poems in print and they choose THAT one? Self-loathing and self-hate? Kids need an extra serving of those emotions on testing day?
I apologize to those kids. I
apologize to their teachers. Boy howdy, I apologize to the entire state
of Texas. I know the ‘90s were supposed to be some kind of golden age,
but I had my bad days and, clearly, these words are the pan drippings of
one of them. Did I have a purpose for writing it?...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/standardized-tests-are-so-bad-i-cant-answer-these_us_586d5517e4b0c3539e80c341
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/standardized-tests-are-so-bad-i-cant-answer-these_us_586d5517e4b0c3539e80c341
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