Stategies for the TExES Essay
Strategies for the TExES Essay Assignment
Prepared by Gene Young, Professor of English at Sam Houston State University
The essay portion (officially called the “Constructed-Response Assignment) counts 20 percent of your score. The general assignment will always be the same—writing an essay in which you are given two literary passages (usually poems or excerpts from long or short fiction) and asked to compare them based on theme or themes and the authors’ use of literary elements and/or literary devices. You have four pages in your essay booklet (and you should write an essay developed sufficiently to use at least 2 ½ of those pages). According to the preparation guide, you should spend 60 to 90 minutes on the essay portion. Your essay will be scored holistically on a 4-point scale. You need to prepare for this essay task with the “4” score point as your objective. You might not be able to reach that score, but you need to try to score at least a “3.” For more information, plus a sample essay assignment, see the TExES preparation guide (available online at the SBEC website). (For links to this and other sites, as well as other information about preparing for the TExES, visit the English Department certification website: http://www.shsu.edu/~eng_eoy/CertificationProgram.html
The Rubric. The criteria against which your essay will be evaluated is also shown in more detail at the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) site, but, briefly, here is what they mean to you.
1. Purpose. It’s hard to know exactly how this criterion plays into the evaluation process. The “content knowledge addressed in the test framework” is not pedagogy (as in most of the multiple-choice questions) but rather the traditional aspects and components of literary studies as demonstrated in the traditional critical explication. I believe that the “purpose” of your essay needs to be along those lines. For instance, if you wrote an essay which addressed how to teach the
Prepared by Gene Young, Professor of English at Sam Houston State University
The essay portion (officially called the “Constructed-Response Assignment) counts 20 percent of your score. The general assignment will always be the same—writing an essay in which you are given two literary passages (usually poems or excerpts from long or short fiction) and asked to compare them based on theme or themes and the authors’ use of literary elements and/or literary devices. You have four pages in your essay booklet (and you should write an essay developed sufficiently to use at least 2 ½ of those pages). According to the preparation guide, you should spend 60 to 90 minutes on the essay portion. Your essay will be scored holistically on a 4-point scale. You need to prepare for this essay task with the “4” score point as your objective. You might not be able to reach that score, but you need to try to score at least a “3.” For more information, plus a sample essay assignment, see the TExES preparation guide (available online at the SBEC website). (For links to this and other sites, as well as other information about preparing for the TExES, visit the English Department certification website: http://www.shsu.edu/~eng_eoy/CertificationProgram.html
The Rubric. The criteria against which your essay will be evaluated is also shown in more detail at the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) site, but, briefly, here is what they mean to you.
1. Purpose. It’s hard to know exactly how this criterion plays into the evaluation process. The “content knowledge addressed in the test framework” is not pedagogy (as in most of the multiple-choice questions) but rather the traditional aspects and components of literary studies as demonstrated in the traditional critical explication. I believe that the “purpose” of your essay needs to be along those lines. For instance, if you wrote an essay which addressed how to teach the