So last week my principal sends me an email with results of the English 12 provincial examination June sitting for our school. As a teacher and department head, I had more than a slight curiosity in seeing how my students did, so I poured through the document while my kids got ready for the pool. If I was looking for a calm, carefree two hours poolside, with thoughts devoted to nothing except what we would do for dinner, this was a bad move.
In the early days of my teaching, I was told that anything within a 5% deviation between a student’s school mark and exam mark was pretty good. Anything beyond that certainly warranted special consideration or examination. For a student who had worked reasonably well throughout the year, who took feedback and used it to actively improve, and who had an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses throughout the course, five percent, I felt, should be an acceptable deviation.
Last week, right across the grade, the average deviation between school mark and exam mark was more than 5%. A lot more.
In general, the school marks were higher than exam marks. I know there could be lots of reasons for this, and I know that standardized testing takes much criticism for exactly these reasons, but this information made me question which ways our students are changing as learners, whether or not teachers are keeping up with this change when considering assessment, and whether or not the promotion of and adaptation to this change is appropriate for all educational contexts.
The message for Module 4 was received loud and clear: learners are entering and moving through school with a multitude of abilities and attributes that are nurtured through technology and social media. Alexander (2008); Cazden et al. (1995); Dobson & Willinsky (n.d.); Kress (2005); Mabrito & Medley (2008); and Wesch (2008) all acknowledge the emergence of digital literacies and their role in shaping how students learn and how they communicate. Many of these authors go so far as to call for educators to “revamp and extend their prior technology skills to address new literacies requisite of a Web 2.0 world” (Alexander, 2008, p. 159).
I couldn’t agree more, but my first concern is with regards to assessment of these multiliteracies. The New London Group (1995) outlines a broad conceptualization of design elements that can constitute multimodal texts. Can and should there be some effort to standardize expectations of competency or proficiency in these modes of meaning? English teachers have had decades to hone and refine expectations for literacy and written expression. My assessment for the assignments I give my students is a product of that refinement, as are the scoring guides for the English provincial examinations. How will assessment for other, newer literacies, hold up, next to decades – at least – of research and debate on what makes for proficiency in the medium of the English language composition (written or spoken)? At the very least, more conversation needs to take place with regards to understanding what constitutes proficient or exemplary use of these digital technologies, and while I recognize that the championing of my field of teaching goes against the “civic pluralism” that is encouraged through a multiliteracy framework (Cazden et al., 1995), I still teach with the presumption that English is the language of choice in many global markets.
While his premise is bold and blunt, Mark Bauerlein’s (2017) comments during his Center for Global Humanities lecture echo some of my concerns. He teaches because he cares and because he wants to see his students leave his class at a higher level than when they entered. I see myself as teacher and facilitator, but in a course that primarily promotes the refinement of literacy skills, I see myself also as a coach, and part of a coach’s job is to push students into new territories and onto new levels that they have not yet reached. I find this difficult to do if students are “given the reins”, so to speak, with determining how they build their knowledge and communicate their learning.
I also have trouble accepting that these multiliteracies will be the dominant forms of communication in the modern workplace, like basic proficiency in written and spoke English is expected to go out of style. Bauerlein notes in his lecture that employers in multiple job sectors are reporting poor written and verbal communication skills in young workers (2017). Standard skills in reading and writing are still the expectation. Even for the most progressive of university courses, the processing and communicating of information is achieved by traditional reading and writing of text. What would ETEC 540 look like if we didn’t have to “read” articles or “write” blog entries?
Maybe the question I am arriving at is whether or not the rest of the world is ready for Net Gen learners. How long until schools and districts realize that standardized tests offer an incomplete (at best) picture of student achievement? How long until universities realize the shift in the learning styles of their student population? How long until the job markets no longer value mastery of English language literacy and expression? I have a desire to help learners explore their interests and realize their potentials, but I also have a duty to prepare them for their futures. How will my teaching allow me to do both? Michael Wensch makes a compelling argument when he says that we are taking the metaphorical walls of our subjects, disciplines, and courses too seriously (2008). I can fully see how a multiliteracy framework can help students further their education. The larger questions entail an examination of what this education is for, and if the world beyond the changing classroom is ready to support these 21st century learners.
References
Alexander, B. (2008). Web 2.0 and Emergent Multiliteracies. Theory Into Practice,47(2), 150-160. doi:10.1080/00405840801992371
Bauerlein, M. (2017, November 07). Dumbest Generation: Young Americans in the Digital Age [Video File]. Retrieved July 29, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnk4JzPV4IM Published online by the Center for Global Humanities
Cazden, Courtney; Cope, Bill; Fairclough, Norman; Gee, Jim; et al. (1995). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review; Spring 1996; 66, 1; Research Library
Dobson, T. M., & Willinsky, J. (n.d.). Digital Literacy. The Cambridge Handbook of Literacy,286-312. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511609664.017
Kress, G. (2005). Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition,22(1), 5-22. doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2004.12.004
Mabrito, M., and R. Medley. 2008. Why Professor Johnny can’t read: Understanding the Net Generation’s texts. Innovate 4 (6).
Wesch, M. (2008, October 21). A Vision of Students Today (& What Teachers Must Do) [Web log post]. Retrieved July 30, 2018, from http://blogs.britannica.com/2008/10/a-vision-of-students-today-what-teachers-must-do
michael cebuliak
August 2, 2018 — 2:34 pm
As a fellow English teacher, I can certainly appreciate your frustration. Although I no longer worry about provincial exams in grade 10, and never had to worry about them in grade 11, I have noticed that the compositional skills that students come to class with seem to be deteriorating over the years. While, I don’t really know what other teachers are doing in their classes, I do know that I’m not focusing on essays, and interpretive reading skills primarily with printed textual means of representation, to the extent that I have in previous years.
Maybe it’s because some of my colleagues, who teach English 12, still teach to an exam that they have noticed the demise in skills, but I don’t think any of the provincial exams were ever entirely reflective of the curriculum. The oral component within the curriculum is supposed to account for between 25-35% of the teacher’s summative assessment and, as you have previously noted, there is an expectation that the one’s summative assessment should be within 5% of what is achieved in the final exam. So, how can that be when the final provincial exams have never offered material that could reflect the oral component inherent within the curriculum? The fact is that provincial final exams in English have never reflected the curriculum. No big deal? Well, it certainly is to my First Nation students who fare considerably better in oral forms of representation, than in any printed textual counterpart. Frankly, it’s an unfair cultural bias that leads to inaccurate assessment.
However, I think the largest factor contributing to recent lower scores within provincial exam is a discord between what English teachers actually teach through a student’s high school years and what is assessed on the final provincial exam. I think the problem has been that the curriculum has been slow to change for far too long within language arts: it hasn’t fully acknowledged multiliteracies and its underestimated the importance of popular culture, entertainment, news, and digital texts in the shaping of young people’s minds. As much as I sometimes feel compelled to take a traditional approach and walk in the footprints of my highly respected English teachers, I know I can’t because I would be doing a tremendous disservice to my students if I didn’t recognize the power of new media in shaping their minds. They simply need to be savvier in regard to understanding and challenging the messages that shape them. Teaching them Shakespeare at the expense of teaching them about the perils of advertising, and its inherent subversive rhetoric, to the development of one’s values and quality of life seems wrong. So, what appears on the final exam that reflects a student’s understanding of these topics? Nothing. But that is seemingly all irrelevant if a grade 12 student can do a great synthesis essay so that universities have some convincing evidence of ability. I have always thought that assessment should be purposeful to the student and I’m convinced that the assessment that is achieved from final exams is only purposeful to post secondary institutions and the need for bureaucratic accountability.
But I hear you. I think writing and the reasonable development of ideas is an incredibly important skill. And, I see the importance of printed textual means of representation as perhaps the best vessels of complicated ideas, and higher-level thinking, within all the forums throughout this program. If the visual is really displacing the printed textual why can’t I just respond to posts with an image? An image is often just not as clear and direct as printed text. It is too easily vague or ambiguous, but I think the visual, as noted within our many of our recent readings, is our most prevalent means of popular discourse. Should it be that way? No, despite some amazing affordances of such a modality, but I think it is highly advantageous to the people who profit from it being that way. Also, I really believe that such forces are very cognizant of the advantage of multiliteracies and multimodal means of representation as manipulative means of persuasion. Exciting music, intoxicating words, gyrating hips and pretty girls all make for a compelling argument to a young male about what beer to buy.
However, an ability to deconstruct such ads, while a worthwhile skill, is not something that the ministry has promoted through the creation of Performance Standards that would allow one to objectively assess such skills. And while it may appear that these are not the skills desired in the workforce, I think one can make a convincing argument that such skills are necessary to fostering the development of critically thinking individuals who can navigate around newer highly persuasive forms of text and recognize what is often the superficial, or unreasonable nature, of an argument.
Oh, and one last thing before I go here, teaching to a test, I believe circumvents what is perhaps the most critical responsibility of an English teacher. An English teacher is a salesperson, selling students on the love of consuming and creating text. If my students leave my class and do fabulous on their final exams but don’t ever want to read another book, create another text, and explore the breadth and depth of human thought and emotion passionately, I don’t think I’ve done my job.