Pytash Ch.7

Jago begins the chapter by addressing the issue of  national standards. I agree that our country should have a national consensus of what students should know when graduating high school. Jago then brings up a group called The American Diploma Act which is a group that set standards describing what high school graduates should know and be able to do. I like the groups standards for writing about literature, which is: "A high school graduate should be able to analyze the complexity of moral dilemmas in historically significant works of literature, as revealed by characters' motivation and behavior (149)." To able able to reach this standard, students have to know how to apply different literary elements to a text.

I really appreciate how Jago strives to make literature relevant to her students lives and creates exciting activities when reading a text. My favorite activity is choosing a character from Julius Ceaser and using evidence from the text to support their answers.

I also really like the idea of creating a bank of questions for a test in which students choose which ones to answer. I feel that giving students some independence is important, especially high school students.