A Multi-functional Essay Prompt For State Mandated Assessments

Abstract

A State-mandated assessment of high school English composition skills can be a trying experience for sophomore basic writers. Because students must construct a text-supported argument around the State's choice of theme, it is of the utmost importance that the assessors present for thematic considerations a properly identified subject that is universally accessible to all sophomores. Through the analysis of an essay prompt used in a benchmark exam from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills--a sentence in which I discern both ambiguity and inaccessibility--this thesis hopefully sheds light on considerations that should be made in the construction of an effective writing prompt. The TAKS paradigm is examined as argument, speech act, and utterance--each of which coalesces around and is completed by a performative prompting sentence--in an effort to make a contribution to the rhetorical content validity of the testing procedures that give shape to State-mandated English composition assessments.