I think it is interesting that people want to change the way the SAT's are layed out, but i dont agree with the grading of the essays. I think that it is unfair to tell somebody that in order for them to get a good grade on an essay it needs to be "long winded and predicatable". Alot of the time when kids are in an english class the teacher will say "quality is better than quanity" and I fully belive that with writing it is better to be unique than to do someting that everydody else does.
Thinking back when I took the ACT junior year, on the eassay portion of the test when they said it had to be "enough supporting essays" i felt like my writng watered down my arguement. If I could have just written striaght to the point, but still written enough, my writing would have been much more sophisticated. Also, with standarized testing I think students feel pressure to write more than what their neighbor is writing, but the truth is, what one person writes in a paragraph, another can write even better in a sentence. So overall their focus on length is unfair, and they should be more focused on the content.

This article was interesting to read and shows how education is always changing. I never took the SAT, but I took the ACT, which had a writing portion. I also took the AP Literature test.For both of these tests, we were taught to write in a specific way giving concrete details with a thesis, topic, and concluding sentence. We had to use specific evidence to support our claims and use fluent language.

The article remarks that the people who earn a 6 out of 6 have earnest, long-winded and predictable essays. In my opinion, making the writer conform to certain ways of writing is restricting. Not everyone can write in this type of way but can still be considered excellent writers. In my view, standardized testing doesn’t really account for true talent in writing. There are so many types of genres to write in and only one type is used on these tests.

On the other hand, I can see why the tests would use this type of essay. Later in life, this is the writing most people are going to come in contact with, and it is important to be a decent writer. It is hard to suggest a medium for this problem but I do think something should be changed because it doesn’t separate the best writers from the others.

Shakespeare vs the SAT

Two years ago, I took both the SATs and ACTs, as well as took a prep course for the SAT. During the course, my friend and I goofed off the whole time, went to Starbucks during break, and laughed and laughed and laughed. We tried to make the teacher play a game once, "Stools", a game that our american lit/creative writing/AP lang teacher had our class play every Wednesday -- the guy whose had most influence on my writing to date.

The course didn't stress me out, and neither did the physical tests. I didn't take it seriously enough, though, as well as I handled most of my education up to now. I was a floater. I considered going to a concert the night before the ACT. I did not see the tests as something that could hinder myself, of course, only I can do that. I received my scores and immediately knew I could have done better. It doesn't effect my life whatsoever now. It never really did. It's just nice to know it's there.

And then it was senior year when I took AP Language & Composition. In the class we wrote all types of essays, my teacher chose themes for the different ones, we had "I believe", the fear paper, our soapbox speech (what we really had to say in that moment in our lives). Even more, we practiced rhetorical analysis weekly. It was hard to position myself into this course, especially being a lazy senior, added with being the floater that I was. And when I took the AP exam, I took it seriously, but I was safe. And this will get me to my point.

I was talking to friends in the course (although you're not supposed to - don't sue me College Board!) about the test, and one of them told me that he decided to write a satire for one of the prompts. It was brilliant, and I didn't even think of going there. I wanted to be safe. I could guarantee myself a passing grade, but not a perfect 9, but also not a 1. I was floating, still.

With this in mind, as I read the Atlantic article "Would Shakespeare Get Into Swarthmore?", I immediately thought of what I felt when I took these tests junior and senior years of high school, but couldn't articulate about them. The essay portions were boring; you had to write an ordinary, lackluster essay to get an above-average score. In addition, Katzman, Lutz, and Olson screamed and begged, "do not write boring things!" with their really clever use of rhetoric. The article contained great satire (I mean, giving the Unabomber a 6 isn't ironic, right?) , and I could not stop nodding my head in agreement. I rarely took risks in high school that I should have, and try to do so as often as possible now.

So I am here to spread this: do not write boring things. It is the same with days in a life, do not do boring things. If not, are you really living?

Response to "Would Shakespeare Get Into Swarthmore?"

What an interesting change to the SAT! Well, I actually never took the SAT because all the schools I applied to accepted the ACT since that is more common in the Midwest. However, I have heard stories of how difficult the SAT can be. From what I just read, it sounds like the College Board just made the SAT even MORE difficult and disappointing. Their ideas are great, but not fulfilling to the students taking the test.

I personally feel they have removed some key concepts from the test that sounded very important to me (like the analogies), although I do approve of the addition of an essay to the test. Writing is essential to college preparation and a measure of one's preparation. Students from my high school who graduated and went to college told the teachers after a year of college that the one thing teachers needed to focus on more was 'writing'. Because of that, In each class we diverted the course plan every once in a while to focus on a writing project or some type of assignment that emphasized the importance of writing in each subject, including Math or Physics. It was pretty helpful.

However, I'm calling it difficult because of the following essays they list on the page from professors who receive '3's, '2's and '1's. Wow, really? They could be just showing us a random selection, and that the majority of the essays they received from educators could be 5s and 6s, but wow! The essay that received a '1' made me laugh. It made no sense whatsoever, although it seemed very thought-provoking. However, if I was only given "1 to 2 minutes each" to look over an essay, I'd give it a '1' also. It was too complicated to understand for someone who is generally looking for a mainstream prompt.

It is disappointing because they are discouraging students from being creative on their SATs. Having no "flair" or rhetorical language in an essay calls for general, typical essays instead. If the prompt is only one to two sentences, how do you expect a nervous high school student to write a well-organized, competent essay if they cannot be creative in the process? It's simple -- I would die. So, while I approve of the addition of an essay question to the SAT because of the emphasis it places on writing, I'm not sure they have the grading concept completely right yet. They should be more focused on making sure the student can address the prompt and derive an idea from it, even if they use rhetorical language and creative strategies to do so. I'm glad I never had to take the SAT!

Higher Education as a National Resource

I found this article to be eye-opening and substantial for the average American college student to evaluate. It helped me understand better our financial standing as an educational enterprise in comparison with our less-than-perfect economy. I found Kerr's claims of recruiting educational leaders who think and work more creatively to be key to expanding both our university and universities as a whole. With our technological advances and nuance ideas, creativity is crucial to the standing of a college in comparison with others around the country. I agreed with the Carnegie Commission's disagreement with block funding for higher education. Federal funding needs to come to students on a personal level with loans and grants. This makes it possible for students to pick their attendance of a university based specifically on what they know they can handle financially. Something needs to be done to continue funding our higher education system. Currently the United States ranks 13th "in the percentage of the population that enters postsecondary education and the completes a bachelor's degree or enters a postgraduate program." We as college students need to fight for our right to attend grad school and make an effort to prove that the United States can in fact facilitate fulfilling undergraduate student's wishes to go on to postgraduate programs.

Government's Role in Higher Education

Towards the end of the article, John Aubrey Douglass says, "Arguably, the federal government has a greater role to play in supporting American higher education that ever before." This reminded me of an e-mail that I received about 10 days ago from the financial aid office. The email explained that the Stafford loans for next year will be disbursed from a government program, Direct Loans, through the Department of Education. The government loans offer guaranteed funding, lower interest rates, and faster disbursement. So even since 2005 the government has made and continues to make significant strides in attempting to assist students with the burdens that accompany higher education. Though they haven't done anything for the snowballing tuition rates, they are attempting to appease some strains.

Higher Education as a National Resource

There were a few main points in this article that I really agreed with. The first was that federal financial-aid should be given to the students directly, not to the institutions themselves. A big factor in choosing where to go to college is money. If universities are the sole recipient of federal grants, the university plays a substantial role in terms of finances and the choice students make on whether or not to attend that university. For example, if the University of Iowa gives a student money and University of Illinois doesn't, even if the student may not like Iowa as much as Illinois, they might go to Iowa because it ends up being less expensive. If the same amount of money that Iowa gave the student was given directly to the student, instead of to the university, that student could have put the money towards going to Illinois instead. Then the student has more control over where they go. If a student wants to go to a certain school, they should be able to put money towards that school instead of having it offered from another school that s/he might not like as much.

The other point I really agree with and support is in the conclusion, where it's written that "colleges and universities, the states, and the federal government all [need] to work together to continue America's great [...] higher education system" (37-38). They all need to contribute, the responsibility and obligation is on all of them. The federal government needs to put their money where their mouth is because they talk about how important higher education is in our society, but have not given the financial resources to actually do it. The state governments should provide more financial aid, and colleges and universities themselves should make attending their school more affordable. Especially with inflation and the recession, all parties need to work towards making a college education attainable for more people. The diversity of public and private institutions is one of America's strengths, now we just need to use them to their full potential to get back in the game.