Module 1: Activity 2

   a.      What is a corandic?

A corandic is an emurient grof with many fribs.

   b.     What does corandic grank from?

Corandic granks from corite.

   c.      How do garkers excarp the tarances from the corite?

Garkers excarp the trances by glarcking the corite and starping it in tranker-clarped storbs. 

   d.     What does the slorp finally frast?

The slorp frasts a pragety, blickant crankle: coranda.

   e.      What is coranda?

Coranda is a cargurt, grinkling corandic and borigen. 

   f.        How is the corandic nacerated from the borigen?

The corandic is nacerated from the borigen by means of loracity.

   g.      What do the garkers finally thrap?

The garkers thrap a glick, bracht, glupous grapant, corandic. 

 It’s interesting that without any idea of what this passage is about, I am able to answer all seven of the questions that followed it.  This really proves the point that questions intended to check for comprehension in workbooks and standardized tests don’t necessarily prove that students have understood what’s expected.  An example that easily comes to mind is the science workbooks that my student teaching school system used.  The page was divided into two sections, one had text, and the other side contained questions.  The questions were just like those from the example.  The students did not have to prove in any way that they learned the information; they could simply copy sentences or parts of sentences to answer the questions.  Students would look for keywords and copy the parts that seemed to answer the question.  In reality, most students could probably answer all of the questions without actually reading the text. 

This also makes me think of a popular test-taking strategy that we often teach our students to use.  Before reading passages, we encourage students to read through the questions to see what they are going to be responsible for answering.  The purpose of this is to allow students to see familiar keywords in the text.  I personally think that this is a wonderful strategy when students continue to actually read the text all the way through.  Unfortunately, though, I think that many students read the questions and immediately browse the reading until they find the keywords.  Then they can quickly choose a multiple choice answer that seems to answer the question.  This is not proving that the students comprehend the reading; it simply shows that the students can find information in the text.