Reply to Benchmark questions for 3rd grader have me questioning my sanity

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The essential question of the unit your child is working in is the following:

How do our actions influence our lives?
In this unit, students will read and compare stories, poems, and myths to analyze characters and understand how their actions shape events.

There are times when what you say and do can directly impact others. You may not even know you are causing them problems. There are also times when you do nothing, and that too has a similar impact.

For instance (this text is used in the unit):
In paragraph 19, King Midas makes a wish to be able to turn everything he touches into gold. This soon causes problems for Midas, as even his food turns to gold he can’t eat! Midas’s next action is to hug his beloved daughter, who tried to comfort him. This action causes her to turn to gold! In response, Midas pleads with Dionysus to take his power away. This action summons Dionysus, who tells Midas to wash his hands in the river, which Midas does “until they were as red as bricks.” This action contributes to the story by bringing it to its resolution: Midas and his daughter return to normal.

Students are asked to do the following with guided practice:

How Dionysus’s actions in these paragraphs contribute to the events of the story?

Annotate! Circle story events that are caused by this character’s actions.

Students should identify that Dionysus’s actions in these paragraphs contribute to the resolution of the story because they rid Midas of his curse and turn his daughter back to normal.

[/quote]

OP here-- I appreciate you typing this out or pasting it.

These are [i]better[/i] questions than the one I shared in the OP. Some thoughts:

I don't love the way they seem to call things "story events" that are separate from "characters' actions." I understand this may be a semantic issue, and they have terminology they are following, although I'm not convinced that terminology is consistent!

But what makes "Midas and his daughter return to normal" a "story event" and "Midas washes his hands per Dionysus's instructions, which returns things back to normal" not a "story event" but an "action" + a "story event?" Unless "story event" is narrowly defined as "effect of a character's actions." And even then, that would make general questions as in the OP tautological. You'd be saying, basically, character actions cause story events because we have defined story events as effects of character actions.

It really does feel unnecessarily confusing, maybe especially for kids (~per a PP) who have already grasped storytelling conventions and don't need every single piece broken down into subatomic particles. Especially inconsistently defined particles. But I can't imagine this is really clear to any kid.

I also feel the petty need to point out that "Students are asked to do the following with guided practice: How Dionysus’s actions in these paragraphs contribute to the events of the story?" is not coherent. It is missing either an "explain" or a "do."

[b]But here is a key thing![/b]

[i]None of these questions was asked of my kid[/i]. If they had been, it might have been clear[i]er[/i] what the OP question was getting at!

"Why is it important to understand how a character's actions affect the events of a story?"

By substituting terms, we now kind of understand that this question ~is:

"Why is it important to understand how a character's actions cause other things to happen?"

Now, what might the answer be? No one has taken me up on this challenge.

Why IS that "important?"

If we understand the effects of a character's actions, then... what? We understand the story? What's the answer to that?

"It is important to understand how a character's actions have effects, because otherwise, we would literally not be able to follow a story at all, and it would be pretty much meaningless to us?"

I mean, if you don't understand the causes and effects in a story, you're going to be completely lost. It will read as a series of disconnected events. I don't know how else to answer that, and that's a truly inane, pointless answer.

But here is the kicker! I misrepresented the OP question.

It is actually:

"Why is it important to understand how a character's actions affect the events of a story? Use evidence from the text to support your thinking in a paragraph (3-5 sentences)."

If we are answering the question how it was asked, with perhaps a bit of context that "story events" = things that happen as a result of "character actions," then what is this asking us?

It is asking us to provide "evidence from the text" that (essentially) "If you don't understand the cause and effect in a story, it will read as a series of disconnected events and lack a coherent message."

Where is the evidence of [b]that[/b] in the text of the story about King Midas? Where is the direct, "circle-able" evidence that "if you don't understand cause and effect, you won't grasp the story?"

As an adult, I can twist myself in knots to bring up specific examples of plot points in the King Midas story. And I could say that if you didn't understand how they were connected, you wouldn't get the point of the story. But for what purpose? To what end? How is this explanation useful in literally any way, if you even were able, as an 8-year-old, to answer the prompt as it was written?

Again, this question seems like it wants to be “How do a character’s actions affect a story?” Basically, "How do characters drive plot?" And of course, providing examples from the text for this is an achievable task.

To my OP, this is "requiring the reader to figure out what they think the writer meant to ask, and not answer the question they actually asked." Which, look-- we all have to do this for our crappy bosses or when filling out government forms or whatever. But it's hardly a life skill kids need to practice almost every day, in place of actually practicing writing and literature analysis.

I know I've devoted a lot of headspace to this over the last day or two. I'm sure I sound "exhausting" and "insufferable" and all the other DCUM standard insults. But it's actually helping me see both how to move forward with this and what to tell my kid-- and it's helping me recognize that a lot of the stuff like this I encountered as a kid, myself, was just straight up nonsense, and not my problem.[/quote]

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