ERIC Number: ED022741
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1967-Oct
Pages: 7
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
On the Reading of Poetry in Relationship to Testing.
Borden, Arthur R., Jr.
Arizona English Bulletin, v10 n1 p11-6 Oct 1967
Experience in evaluating responses to poetry in the Advanced Placement Examination can offer guidelines for the effective testing of students on poetry without reducing their interest in the art. For advanced secondary or first-year college students, teachers should avoid approaches and tests that are concerned with (1) extraneous biographical, historical, and scholarly knowledge, (2) psychological, political, or religious implications, and (3) impressionism. Such elimination leaves only formalistic criticism to evaluate student responses. This objective approach may be a discussion in which the student analyzes how poetic and linguistic techniques contribute to the "whole meaning," or it may take the form of structured questions on the poem. The best solution--a compromise between these two objective analyses--tests the student's knowledge of the devices a poet may use without encouraging him to read material into the poem. Ideally, the test leads the student to analyze the poem as precisely as possible without destroying his interest in it. (LH)
Publication Type: N/A
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: N/A
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Advanced Placement Examinations (CEEB)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A