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"Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” Voltaire
Candide 12 - An Exam : This is the first exam for the World Literature Class. I considered doubling this lesson with the In-Class Essay Lesson, however, I just think it's too important to not stand on its own. How can an exam be important? I believe a well-written exam is a work of art. Everyday in my classroom, there was a quiz. Quizzes are nonthinking, noncomprehension (of the bigger picture), and designed soley to see if the student did the reading. Exams are designed to see if the student has been putting together what they got out of the book with their reading together with the class, the activities, the group works, etc. See my page on Quizzes & Exams
Lesson Overview
Lesson Overview
It is more than possible to write an exam that requires thinking and does not try to "trick" the student - but rather to try and assess how much the student has been paying attention in class to what's been going on. Candide is the first of these. It is also important to give thoughtful multiple choice exams because it is the kind of thing that the students may encounter again and again in their academic lives - starting with their ACT/SAT tests - and later in college. For my exams - I always try to give 5 possible answers - 4 of them plausable - though only one is correct - and one that is a kind of joke. First, to make it easier, second to put them at ease. While my quiz average for students that did the reading hovered at about 92% - my exam average was usually around 70%. I don't think that makes it a bad exam - I think it is another tool to try to get students to study and to process what happens in class.
Remote Enhancements
Remote Enhancements
I did give these exams during Remote Learning - it was trickier and will try and find more material on how I did it.
This novel would become the last new novel that I added to my World Literature curriculum. Yes, we did "The Alchemist" for a few years - but my heart wasn't into it (and it was abandoned). There are so many things to say about this book - but perhaps the most telling was that it was the most requested book to be added to my course - by former students. After they left - in college or beyond they would tell me about this great book that they read - and how it would fit in so well with everything else that we did in World Literature (which - some years was known as World Literature: War and Struggle).
WHAT CAME BEFORE:
WHAT CAME BEFORE:
Thoughts on the Lesson
Thoughts on the Lesson
Since I first started teaching (some 35 years ago now) every time after I wrote an exam, I would think to myself, "Gosh - this is SO easy - the kids are going to ace it." And then they took it. The students would average between a 65% and a 70%. The first exam of the year always has the lowest scores. The students don't take it seriously; some students don't take the class serioiusly. I do know that the note taking always gets better after the first exam. I used to run the questions through the machine and get an analysis of the questions: how many students got a particular question wrong. What I found was a remarkably even distribution - it wasn't that certain questions were hard - students were just paying attention or studying different parts.
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