How to make students hate poetry

[a2zmom]

Apparently on Texas' state assessment reading test, for both the 7th and 8th grade test two different poems are printed for students to answer multiple choice questions. The questions are so poorly thought out that the author of the poems in question had no idea what the answers were

Comments

[kita0610]

It's a circle. Repubs WANT a country of uneducated zots. Critical thinkers do not elect Clownface Von Fuckstick and his merry band of fascists.

[a2zmom]

I agree.

But it's even worse. You get lunatics almost killing people in a Washington pizza parlor because they can't tell truth from BS.

[kita0610]

See, I'm not sure I agree with that conclusion. Crazy people are gonna find a reason to shoot people if they wanna shoot people. Like the asshole at the Ft Lauderdale airport- the right wing press is trying to spin it that he's ISIS. He's not fucking Isis, he believes the CIA is in his brain telling him to join ISIS. He's a NUT. And if it wasn't ISIS, it would be something else.

[a2zmom]

That;s different. The guy in Florida is mentally ill. But the pizza shooter most assuredly was not. These are the people who subsist on a diet of hate radio and conspiracy web sites and they cannot tell truth from fiction. If you talk to them, they will tell you that WaPo, the NYT and every other major news outlet prints nothing but lies.

These are the people who believe that the CIA, the FBI and every other intelligence agency we have are incompetent and of course Russia would never hack us.

These are the people who will gladly let Trump turn this country into an autocracy.

[cornerofmadness]

More than ever, children need to be taught to think, how to critically analyze and drew conclusions.

They can't do this. At all. Every year I have to water down the soup because they can't step up and do this. There's only so far I'm willing to go. But by the time they're 18, 19 years old, it's hard to teach them the things they should have been getting in K-12

[kita0610]

My sister is an adjunct at a community college. She says the same damn thing.

[cornerofmadness]

Everyone teaching at the college level than I personally know is saying this and not just in the united states. It's downright terrifying. The fact that I'm gutting out stuff students could handle just 5 years ago is in sane.

[a2zmom]

Oh I agree that by college it's way too late. And with the internet reinforcing stupidity, it will only get worse.

[carlyinrome]

I read those questions, too, and my MFA in writing and I couldn't puzzle through them. Texas has adopted textbooks that whitewash (pun intended?) slavery from our nation's history. They refer to slaves on plantations as "workers", and describe upsides to slavery. Upsides. To slavery. I have no idea how to combat this. I know how we got here, but I don't know how to get back.

[a2zmom]

The even bigger problem is that since Texas is such a large market, these textbooks get used everywhere in the country.

[feliciacraft]

I suppose by now I should no longer be surprised by news like this. :(

I'm curious as to what the questions were? Is there an article that includes the poems and the questions?

[a2zmom]

but of course!

poetry non questions