Francesca Roley Adv. Field Seminar Journal 10 10 April 2012 Artifact 9: Student Work—Opinion Statement On March 12, 2012, for an Exit Ticket, I asked my students, “Make a Judgment Call: Do you think the Prince’s punishment was fair or unfair? Why?” We were in the middle of Romeo and Juliet, and the Prince had just banished Romeo from Verona for killing Tybalt—who, however, killed Mercutio, Romeo’s dear friend and the Prince’s cousin. In order for them to more easily TAG the sentence (Turn the question into an answer, Answer the question, and Give details about the answer), I provided a sample TAG statement for them on the Promethean Board below the prompt: “I think the Prince’s punishment was fair / unfair because… (3 more sentences supporting your argument).” Some responses were as follows: “I think the Prince’s punishment was unfair because Romeo was helping his friend out who just got killed by Tybalt. Tybalt killed Mercutio and that wasn’t right. So Romeo gets mad and fight Tybalt then killed him. It’s not write for the Prince to send Romeo out of Verona because he needs to see his wife Juliet.” This response came from Kathy, who we’ve already said is a self-proclaimed mixed ethnicity student. She indicated that she was both Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and Asian (Cambodian), but that she was indeed born in Philadelphia.. I praised her for including good reasons behind her opinion. She followed the TAG statement provided with a correct use of subject-verb agreement: repeating the past tense of the verb (“was”) and using the correct form of the verb for the singular subject: “Romeo.” She remains in the past tense for her next sentence as well, where she provides a second reason for her opinion. In her third and fourth sentences, however, not only does she switch to the present tense (“Romeo gets mad” and “It’s not…”), but she forgets the “s” on the end of her singular verb (“fight” should be “fights”), switches back to the past tense (“killed”) and then uses the wrong homonym for “right:” “write.” Yet, her statement does include correct apostrophe usage to show possession and contraction (“Prince’s,” “wasn’t,” “It’s”), provide three reasons for her opinion, and provide ample explanation of the context out of which that opinion arose. “I think the prince punishment was unfair because tybalt wanted to fight, and he got it. It’s not romeo fought for killing Tybalt because tybalt killed Mercutio. Its also not fair because putting Romeo in the death penalty is very harsh and too hard for “sweet Romeo”. I hope Romeo leaves before he gets caught and die =(.” 2 This response came from Nashali, who we’ve already said is a selfproclaimed Puerto Rican student. She also claims, however, that English is her native language, and that writing comes somewhat easily to her. She feels that the Constructed Response is the hardest part of English class, and indicates Journal Entries or the Multiple Choice question form as her preferred tool of assessment. First, I did indeed comment on Nashali’s Exit Ticket that the Prince decided to exile Romeo, not execute him. Otherwise, Nashali did provide two reasons for her opinion, give the context behind her opinion, and insert her voice into her statement. Her uses of “he got it,” “‘sweet Romeo,’” and “I hope Romeo leaves...=(“ are particular to her writing style and personality. Respectively, she writes forcefully, assumes Juliet’s perspective on Romeo, and inserts herself into her opinion on the text. Nashali does, however, neglect to use apostrophes to show possession (“prince punishment,” “romeo fought”) and to capitalize proper names: 1 out of 3 uses of “Tybalt” were capitalized; 3 out of 4 uses of “Romeo” were capitalized; the 1 use of “prince” was not capitalized; the 1 use of “Mercutio” was capitalized. Perhaps it was only natural for her to capitalize the names of certain characters—maybe those whom were the most fleshed-out/ human for her. Moreover, Nash demonstrates proper usage of apostrophes for contractions only half the time, writing, “It’s” the first time, and “Its” the second. This inconsistency makes me think that she, like many students, I’m sure, still has to think about these rules when she writes—at least some of the time. Nash also spells “fault” as “fought,” betraying a use of phonetic spelling. Finally, she gets confused on her subject-verb agreement: she uses the past tense when she writes her first sentence and at the end of her second sentence, but uses the present tense in the beginning of her second sentence as well as in her third and fourth sentences. Yet, Nash did a great job of having her subject and verbs agree in terms of singular versus plural construction and really put her voice into her writing. “I think the punishment was fair because Romeo was only seeking revenge on a murderer. If they were to give Romeo the death penalty, that would be unfair.” This response came from Michael, who we’ve already said is a selfproclaimed White/Caucasian student. Born in Philadelphia, not only is English Michael’s native language, but America is his native country. On the writing survey, he indicated that writing comes very easily to him, and only marked “Other” when asked for the hardest part of English class. Michael, like Kathy, followed the TAG statement provided with a proper use of subject-verb agreement: “Romeo was.” He also inserts his own voice into the statement through his use of both strong diction—“seeking revenge”—and the subjunctive tense of the verb to defend his opinion through contrast: “If they were to…” Michael did not, however, fulfill the length requirement for this assignment. So, I commented on Michael’s Exit Ticket that he needs more details, such as who Tybalt killed to make him a “murderer,” and the reasons why it’s then alright to punish Romeo at all.