Gilmore Chapter 5

I absolutely hate essays on standardized test. I lose all prior knowledge and I freeze up, especially if the essay does not pertain to me personally, you those off the wall question like "What is the main point in the essay?" That takes you a hundred read-overs in order to understand what its talking about anyways. I just don't essays, that judge me on how much information I have retained from my teacher.

I do like Gilmore's checklist, even though I think this checklist is a little advance. Especially if you have have never taught your students about strong thesis statements, revisiting nouns, checking evidence and complicating your argument. By the way what does "penultimate" mean? We need to teach our students how to do these things so that they can accomplish them when the these sort of test do come about. This check list also reminds me of a rubric, which I believe, is essential for all major essays. Actually it is a sort of rubric, just in the form of a list. I think that lots of students will benefit from these list/rubrics because it gives some sort of guidance for these sort of standardize that just throw you out with little tools to survive.

By the way I'm starting not to like Gilmore all that much, I really can't relate to him and I feel that he doesn't have strategies for the struggling student, I feel he only has strategies for the student that has excelled and just needs a helping hand not a shoulder to lean on.