I Can’t Answer These Texas Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems, writes Sara Holbrook in the Huffington Post.
Old STAAR questions are released so teachers can prepare students for the exam. Holbrook checked out the questions on A Real Case, which appeared on the 2014 Grade 7 STAAR Reading Test, and Midnight, appearing on the 2013 Grade 8 STAAR Reading Test. Both poems are published in Walking on the Boundaries of Change.
A teacher wrote to ask her how to answer this question on Midnight:
“Dividing the poem into two stanzas allows the poet to?
A) compare the speaker’s schedule with the train’s schedule.
B ) ask questions to keep the reader guessing about what will happen
C) contrast the speaker’s feelings about weekends and Mondays
D) incorporate reminders for the reader about where the action takes place.
The answer is C) to contrast the speaker’s feelings about weekends and Mondays.
The teacher had been given test-prep materials that omitted the stanza break. Holbrook sent him an image of the published poem.
Why had she put the stanza break there? “When I read it aloud (I’m a performance poet), I pause there.”
Holbrook includes all the questions on A Real Case. She concludes, “any test that questions the motivations of the author without asking the author is a big baloney sandwich. Mostly test makers do this to dead people who can’t protest. But I’m not dead.
“I protest.”