On nearly every test
Since the days of number-two pencils
Straight through to today’s students
Hunched over laptops
It’s tradition to ask students
What the author’s purpose was
As if we expect them to be clairvoyant
Mind-readers who can practice telepathy
Across miles and leagues,
Months, years, and centuries.
I don’t purport to be a mind-reader myself
But believe I can tell you what no author
In the history of the world
Has ever held as his purpose for writing:
No author has ever thought,
“Dear God, how I hope they use this thing
I am writing,
This poem, essay, story, novel, or play.
I hope it will be used, as a whole text or an excerpt,
On a standardized test
So that its meaning can be
Reduced to a series of four-choice questions
With only one right answer.
I want my words to be used
To see if young people
Can take a stab at understanding
How my metaphors created mood,
How my use of literary elements
Created layers of meaning
Like a Dagwood sandwich piled high
With turkey, ham, lettuce, bacon, and themes.
I hope to high heaven
That students will someday
Have to guess what I was thinking
And why I was writing
When I wrote a particular text.
I hope my writing will be used
To measure students’ minds
So that they may be sorted into winners and losers,
So that teachers can be sorted into
Distinguished, Highly Effective,
Effective, or Needs Improvement.”
I strongly suspect that no author ever thought,
“I truly hope that no reader is ever moved
By what I wrote,
Is changed by what I wrote,
Relates to or connects with or is influenced by what I wrote.
I do not write to touch the emotions
Or rouse the soul or inspire the imagination
Or affect change or change reader’s perspectives,
No do I hope to edify or educate
Or open new vistas of understanding and insight.
No.
I just want to be used
On a test someday
So that any higher purpose my writing may have had
Will be plummeted to the Earth
Reduced to one right answer
And used to stifle the creativity
And love of learning
For generations of students
And their dejected teachers.”
-David Lee Finkle