constructed responses ..district orders

At our school we are required, by the district, to do weekly constructed responses. Our students scores are recorded and teacher compliance is also noted. While I understand they are designed to help students do better on the PSSA’s, it is quite annoying to loose instructional time for this test preparation. Nonetheless, I have slowly but surely been finding ways to negotiate this. One way is to pick readings or design questions that relate to the course material. So this week as we concluded imperialism I had my students read a primary source written by a Chinese imperial officer to Queen Victoria regarding Britain’s exploitative actions in his country. The students were then asked to identify attitudes of the speaker towards European imperialism. We did a collective brainstorm on the board and then the students wrote their paragraphs individually. For the most part students were able to identify the speaker attitude as a negative one, then find quotes within the texts to support their claim. Despite the ridiculous things the higher ups ask to do, I believe there is always a way to be creative within that especially for the sake of the studentsAt our school we are required, by the district, to do weekly constructed responses. Our students scores are recorded and teacher compliance is also noted. While I understand they are designed to help students do better on the PSSA’s, it is quite annoying to loose instructional time for this test preparation. Nonetheless, I have slowly but surely been finding ways to negotiate this. One way is to pick readings or design questions that relate to the course material. So this week as we concluded imperialism I had my students read a primary source written by a Chinese imperial officer to Queen Victoria regarding Britain’s exploitative actions in his country. The students were then asked to identify attitudes of the speaker towards European imperialism. We did a collective brainstorm on the board and then the students wrote their paragraphs individually. For the most part students were able to identify the speaker attitude as a negative one, then find quotes within the texts to support their claim. Despite the ridiculous things the higher ups ask to do, I believe there is always a way to be creative within that especially for the sake of the students