BST for Freshmen

Today our freshmen are taking the MN BST writing test. The prompt concerns writing about the advantages and disadvantages of having a part-time job during the school year. I don't envy the test evaluators. Here come the five paragraph themes.

I think this prompt is poor because how many freshmen have part-time jobs? I don't think kids can legally work until age 16. So that automatically excludes most freshmen. Sure some may help out around the home or farm, but many don't. What meaningful experiences do they have to draw from? I suppose they can write about siblings and their experiences, but how is that personally relevant to these kids?

If I were taking this, I'd be screwed. I could whip up an essay no problem. I could even put my own unique spin on it (and if I could ever get my hands on the returned essays I'm willing to bet that the students who do something unique and different on their essays will score the highest). But I've seen much better prompts before.

The prompt we used for the RU Ready program (refute or defend the governor's proposal to move the driving age to 18 based on the growing number of teen accidents and deaths resulting from those accidents) damn near killed me. Only a handful of the 140 plus essays I read had any life in them at all.

I hope our freshmen do better.

Now I turn my attention to my Comp II essays. They are writing about a rite of passage or an epiphany from their lives. Thank God there's not a canned five paragraph essay among them. I admit some are awful in terms of support, description, and all aspects of grammar and usage. But they are at least personal and interesting. I'll take that type of writing every time.