soon children will be graded the same way as chicken offspring. profitable or blendable
Explains all the shitty books.
Just kidding, of course. When I was in grade 6ish, I remember writing “the fire consumed the house” in a short story I wrote for class and being docked a mark with the note “consume means to eat”. Totally turned me off of any creativity in English/Language Arts classes.
I had an assignment to write a short story when I was 11. Since I’d been reading too much Stephen King I decided to make it a horror story about a possessed doll in a family’s attic. My teacher marked me down because it was “tense and disturbing”, as if that wasn’t what I was trying to achieve.
I learned english as a second language and often knew of a word but not all meanings of it. I struggled with tests until I started reading other students notes about context of what we were to learn, otherwise I’d get docked despite being technically right.
I get teaching is a hard job, but man, the standards are low sometimes.
Strong “Einstein failed math” vibes
I don’t know what to take the original post for other than just some bragging they have published several books.
Is “writing” for a 4th grader even the same skill that we talk about when talking about an author? The first is about the ability to literally write down words on paper, the second is about crafting sentences, using engaging language, and telling powerful stories.
Is it implied that someone successful at writing as an adult has necessarily also been good at the writing classroom work and testing in 4th grade? That somehow the test is wrong if a future author can get a low score? And what if the test identified weaknesses that this person genuinely had to work on to improve their writing skills? I mean it’s not like the sample we see is some genius work of art, I assume the dude adopted punctuation at some point along the way, for example. Don’t get me wrong, it’s funny for an author to find this, but why is it framed as evidence that testing is bad?I think it’s more of ‘don’t let negative feedback define you’
Good point, probably that was the message indeed.
However, it still sees the role of feedback backwards. Obviously, feedback is an essential source of improvement. If you score low on writing, it doesn’t mean that you should stop writing. On the contrary, it means that you may benefit from working more on some of your skills if you want to be a writer. But I get that culturally, test scores can be seen more as judgment on a person’s worth than feedback to guide learning, unfortunately.
Alexandra Penfold has been working in publishing for over a decade. Formerly an Editor at Paula Wiseman Books/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, she specializes in young picture books, middle-grade fiction, and young adult. Prior to becoming an editor, Alexandra was a children’s book publicist. She worked on media campaigns that appeared in USA Today, Newsweek, US News and World Report, and NPR’s All Things Considered. She’s the co-author of New York a la Cart: Recipes and Stories from the Big Apple’s Best Food Trucks and the author of Eat, Sleep, Poop, illustrated by Jane Massey and We Are Brothers, We Are Friends, illustrated by Eda Kaban as well as three forthcoming picture books.
Late bloomer
