Should students memorise their essays?

This is really quite interesting. I was particularly amused that someone who got 98.85 could already have forgotten what she did for History Extension and get it mixed up with Modern History. lol

From today's Sydney Morning Herald

Date: October 16 2010

THE ACADEMIC PETER AUBUSSON

MEMORISING answers is not good preparation for life or university, but this is not life, learning and university. It is an exam. If students are being coached to memorise answers it might be because it has worked. They probably don't get the top marks but they may score well. Mind you, I am certainly not willing to bet against a tutor with years of experience in a competition with 17- or 18-year-olds on their first attempt.

This year the examiners might outsmart them, but I doubt it. Examiners will struggle because the HSC exams have a degree of predictability. They are based on known content and skills. They use the same, known format. If the exam drifts too far from past norms people scream and the media vent complaints of unfairness. The consequence is that parts of exams are readily exploited by prepared answers.

There is a moral dimension to the process. It is one thing to memorise an answer which you have prepared, but it is wrong to present an answer prepared by someone else. The question we should be asking is not should it be done - the answer is self-evident. Rather we should ask why might some people engage in shady practices?

High-stakes tests always corrupt teaching, learning and curriculum. The Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR), produced from HSC data, is a high-stakes cull. Memorising answers is just one strategy students have used to perform in examination sweat boxes. Cohorts of students studying Latin in the 1970s routinely memorised the English translation of the entire Latin text to get 100 per cent on set translation passages. Someone got a bright idea. He measured the length of passages set in past papers and memorised only those that fell within this range. Needless to say, he did very well. I wonder whether it would have been easier to learn Latin.

Answer memorisation is inevitable in high-stakes and somewhat predictable examinations. We speak as if students in examinations spend their time in critical appraisal, analysis or proofs - pure fraud. The reality is that many questions are answered by a process of ''recognition of sameness''. This exam question is similar to one they have done before and requires the same or an adapted response. For the well-prepared, only some questions require careful, lengthy deliberation. In the unreal world of exams with their time limits, single drafts and ritualised marking schemes, how could it be otherwise? If you step up for the biology exam and you are asked about Koch's postulates (again) and you haven't memorised them, no amount of critical thinking will produce them - unless, of course, you are Robert Koch.

Associate Professor Peter Aubusson is head of the teacher education program at the University of Technology, Sydney. He is a former secondary science teacher.

THE MARKER LOUISE WARD

I HAVE been marking the HSC English exam for many years and would strongly advise against memorising essays as an effective way of preparing for an English exam.

Before marking commences, markers are briefed on how to award marks for each question. Students should understand that a key discriminator for judging an answer relates to how well it addresses the full scope of the question. Learnt responses don't gain high marks as they generally don't address all aspects of the question.

Some students compose prepared responses that address questions from previous years' examinations. This often disadvantages them considerably since they are distracted from addressing the question they are required to answer.

It is especially a dangerous practice to memorise a story or essay written by someone else and reproduce all or parts of it in an English exam. I think students sometimes forget that markers are experienced English teachers who are very familiar with material that is published to support them during their HSC preparation, as well as the work of a wide range of authors and filmmakers. If I am suspicious an answer has been memorised from another source I am required to report it to the Supervisor of Marking. If the answer is found to be plagiarised, the consequences for that student may be a zero mark or a reduced mark for that question.

It is important for students to understand that memorising essays and reproducing them in an exam is not the way to achieve high marks. I am sure their teachers have been telling them that throughout the year. Some of the ways I advise my students to best prepare for the HSC English examinations is to be thoroughly familiar with all the set texts, complete all class work during the year, write responses to a variety of questions under timed conditions and understand the standard that is required to achieve high marks.

My experience as a marker and all the comments from the examiners in the marking reports (published by the Board of Studies) over the years show memorising essays is not the way to achieve high marks and may prevent a student from realising his or her full potential.

Louise Ward has taught English in government and non-government schools for more than 20 years. She has extensive experience as a marker and senior marker of HSC and School Certificate exams.

THE TEACHER GARY JOHNSON

THE answer is simply one word - no. But let me explain the advice I've given to many reluctant young writers - often boys - over the years.

Learning an essay off by heart and regurgitating it in an examination fails to demonstrate the many important skills we as educators are trying to instil in our students.

Students, as part of their learning and skills development, certainly need to analyse questions, practise writing essays and refining their responses to material they have learnt; this is an integral part of their education. In this process students learn to deconstruct questions, synthesise and analyse complex ideas and demonstrate their capacity to think, something educators and employers agree is vital.

The NSW curriculum is designed so students learn important skills that will be useful in their lives. For example, the English syllabus aims to enable students to understand, use and value the English language and to become thoughtful and effective communicators.

An admirable aim which, when examined, requires students to present something more than a collection of memorised essays.

Gary Johnson is principal of Cherrybrook High School.

THE STUDENT ELISE WOOD

I SAT the HSC last year and submitted 22 extended pieces of writing, across seven subjects, in the space of three weeks. Of those, 12 were memorised. In my eyes, and in many of my teachers' eyes, this was not a form of ''cheating''. It was preparation.

The process of memorising an essay is not a case of copying ideas and regurgitating them. It involves decoding a subject's rubric, researching, writing, editing, writing, second-guessing, a little more writing, until finally you produce a piece of work that you are sure about using in the exam.

There's a difference between memorising an essay and rote learning. I learnt in my final year of school that you cannot just write what you have memorised. Critically engaging with the question at hand is vital. Unless you have cheated the system and obtained the exact wording of a question, there is still a need to construct a thesis and a line of argument.

Of course, memorising an essay cannot be done in all subjects. Only questions that will be broad, because they are based on interpretation and judgment, can have answers memorised. Those based on a content-heavy syllabus cannot. For example, in the HSC history extension exam there are two questions. The first is a historiography essay that draws on content from Herodotus and Karl Marx, through to the postmodern dichotomy of histories as narratives. This essay cannot be memorised.

The second question is a case study of a personality that uses open terms, such as ''to what extent'', to indicate the need for individual insight, judgment and interpretation. After crafting this essay for a year, I memorised 1500 words in six hours.

Memorising essays should not be frowned upon. It was through this process that I learnt the academic skills needed for tertiary education.

While it is futile to memorise essays for university exams, the scholarship I adopted during the HSC has enabled me to identify the requirements of different questions, and that I always ''answer the question. It's donkey dumb, just answer the question'' (logic courtesy of my school's HSIE department).

Although there is an increasing number of gimmicks used by students to prepare for the HSC, essay memorising is not one of them. Students attach weights to their pens in the hope that they will develop muscles to allow them to write faster. Others record study notes and listen to them on their iPod as they sleep. These could all be viewed as excessive practices that disadvantage other students. The difference with memorising essays is that it works.

Elise Wood attended Newtown High School of the Performing Arts and obtained an ATAR of 98.85. She is studying international and global studies at the University of Sydney.