Sandra K. Friday
These four very short stories will give my students plenty of opportunities to practice answering the final and, perhaps, the most challenging of the four Language Arts CAPT questions: "Evaluate this story. What qualities does it have that make it effective or ineffective for you as a reader? Give specific examples from the story to support your reasons for your evaluation." My students, many of whom lack the skills for this kind of challenge, have little idea what it means to evaluate a story, short of saying they didn't like it because it was boring, nor do they have the terminology to discuss
qualities,
and often do not understand what the word
effective
means in the question. Practicing answering this question and dispelling the mystery around the terms they do not understand will diminish much of the anxiety they feel when they are confronted with this test. I have found that using a short, short story for practice and, in many cases, to
introduce
question four, is far more manageable and gives students a greater feeling of confidence, than trying it out on a story of several pages.
One of the most helpful visuals I have found to clarify what the abstract word
qualities
means is a large mobile hanging in my room. A piece of poster board measuring about three feet by six inches supports the pieces that dangle and float below. The phrase QUALITIES OF AN EFFECTIVE STORY is highly visible on the poster board. On smaller pieces of poster board dangling from the large piece are the terms: ACTION, DETAILS, SURPRISE ENDING, CONFLICT, REALISTIC, FULL OF FEELINGS, DESCRIPTIVE, LESSON, HUMOROUS, SCARY. On the back of each of these pieces is a collage that students make from magazine cuttings, representing these terms, such as a photo of two people shouting at one another for conflict. Throughout the year, when we practice answering the question, "Is this an effective story," students have learned to look in the story for the qualities hanging from the mobile.