Translated material
Irina Shcherbina. Do you want to be an expert
If you want to be an expert, be one!
Irina Shcherbina
Publication date: November 18, 2003
Irina Shcherbina
Publication date: November 18, 2003
An important part of the Unified State Examination , undoubtedly, is the expert assessment of those parts of the examination work that are not amenable to computer verification. And in this regard (one cannot but agree with the “Program of training and advanced training of specialists for organizing and conducting the Unified State Exam”) “it becomes obvious the need for high-quality training of specialists and, above all, teaching staff to prepare schoolchildren and applicants for passing the Unified State Exam , organization and conducting a unified state exam."
If you are ready to attend special courses, then you have a chance to finally “realize” “the role and place of the unified state exam during the period of modernization of Russian education and in general in the system of the modern educational process”; get “a general idea of control measurement materials, their structure and content; the role of CMMs in conducting the unified state exam”; “to update theoretical knowledge and practical professional skills,” with the help of which you, as course participants, “could carry out the psychological and pedagogical preparation of graduates for passing the Unified State Exam.”
The courses are administered by the Association of Pre-University Education of the People's Friendship University "Unicum-Center", the cost of training is 3,500 rubles (without accommodation), 5,000 rubles (with accommodation).
As for free training of experts, there is no available information about this, and these are not the times to count on it. So, if your institution or you are personally interested in obtaining the appropriate certificate, you will probably have to incur costs. But you will undoubtedly win compared to the majority, who will be quickly told about everything at some meeting after school.
Suppose you decide to pay money, but what will they teach you? Apparently, how to competently evaluate the completion of Part C tasks is the main problem today. You will have to master the criteria for evaluating an essay - an answer to a problematic question and an essay - analyzing a text. And when you master them, it is possible that you will have to change your usual approach to assessing school essays.
Let me explain. In "Methodological recommendations for assessing tasks with a detailed answer: Literature" (authors - Krasnovsky E.A., Zinin S.A., Samoilova E.A., Gorokhovskaya L.N., Volzhina E.D., Yakovleva E.A. ;M.: "Unicum-Center", 2003), published under the stamp of the Ministry of Education, among other materials, the texts of essays are given, accompanied by a detailed annotation by the expert, and points awarded in accordance with the “criteria” developed for assessing the Unified State Exam. What is more incorrect here, the work of the expert or the criteria themselves, needs to be clarified, but the result of the check is, to put it mildly, biased. Judge for yourself.
Task C2-2:
Read A. Blok's poem "About valor, about exploits, about glory...". Give your interpretation of the poem.
Work #1 (Various types of style errors have been highlighted by me - I.Shch.)
The poem "About valor, about exploits, about glory..." was written by A. Blok in the winter of 1908. It can safely be attributed to the poet’s love lyrics. But unlike the poetry of the early period, which is all permeated with a feeling of love, hopes and expectations of happiness, the work “On Valor, About Deeds, About Glory...” is a poem of a “terrible world.”
In it, the lyrical hero talks about his unhappy love, about the tragedy of the human soul. Conventionally, the poem can be divided into two parts: the first talks about the love story itself, about the past, and the second talks about the present.
The poem begins with the lines:
About valor, about exploits, about glory
I forgot on the sorrowful land,
When your face is in a simple frame
It was shining on the table in front of me.The lyrical hero talks about his youth. He says how great the role of love was in his life , and therefore, when it is gone, it is a tragedy:
Don't dream about tenderness, about fame,
Everything is over, youth is gone (!)And with it, it was as if life had ended. It is no coincidence that the “face in a simple frame” “shone” on the table. For the hero, the image of his beloved is like a kind of halo , a deity before whom he bows, the meaning of his life. But one day it ended, and time no longer matters for the lyrical hero, there are no those happy minutes spent with his beloved, which he treasured so much. The days flew by, “spinning in a damned swarm,” and the wine made the tragedy feel even stronger. And in the church, “before the lectern,” the place where they once got married, the hero remembered his love, pure and beautiful. And he remembered her precisely in church, because his love is sublime and divine .
The moment of parting appeared before him:
I called you, but you didn't look back,
I shed tears, but you did not condescend.
You sadly wrapped yourself in a blue cloak,
On a damp night you left the house.In this scene, the color of the cloak has symbolic meaning. In A. Blok's poetry, each color has its own specific meaning. So blue is a color that denotes the connection between the real world and the divine world . This interpretation gives the image of the beloved a divine meaning. With her departure, love ended, and the lyrical hero removed “your face in its simple frame.” It doesn't shine anymore. A great tragedy of the soul happened.
The poem is given special expressiveness by its musicality , a characteristic category of symbolism . The sounds (A), (O), (U) convey the mood of the lyrical hero, his melancholy, sadness.
In 1967, when listening to a poem that Blok had once recorded, despite the defects of the film, the melody of the work was very well felt, and the author’s voice seemed to come from somewhere from outer space, from another world. The idea of two worlds occupies an important place in the work of the symbolists. The connection between them is carried out through a symbol, and this symbol in the poem is a blue cloak, which is also a symbol of the hero’s love and a reminder of it.
I sleep soundly, I dream of your blue cloak,
In which you left on a damp night...Despite the fact that this poem talks about tragic love, it is thoroughly imbued with poetic feeling. When reading it, the soul sings, a feeling of hope remains. There are a lot of ellipses and omissions in the poem, the author gives the reader the opportunity to imagine the picture painted in the work, to think of something for himself.
Having become acquainted with the poem, sadness remained in my heart , but at the same time hope. This work once again confirmed A. Blok’s great poetic talent.
Expert analysis of the work:
“The student sees the meaning of the poem in the love tragedy that the lyrical hero narrates. In the expression of this tragedy, the author of the essay sees the difference between the poem and early love lyrics. The student rightfully asserts that “the image of the beloved is a kind of halo, a deity, the meaning of the whole life of the lyrical hero.” “With the loss of love, life ended.” This idea develops throughout the entire work, is considered in the aspect of composition - two parts of the poem, opposed to each other, read through the poet’s verbal artistic images, the main moods expressed in the poem (“The soul sings, the feeling remains hope..." etc.)
According to criterion K1 - revealing the meaning of the poem in close connection with the poet’s intention realized in it - a score of 2 points is possible.
The author of the work substantiates his judgments based on the poetic text, resorting to quoting individual key lines for understanding, including the most important verbal images, artistic techniques that create these images. According to criterion K2, a score of 2 points is possible.
Turning to artistic means of image and expression, the author of the essay analyzes (without naming the term itself) the composition of the poem, analyzes the symbolic meaning of the poet’s color images (“Blue color is the connection between the real world and the divine world”), the role of sound writing (assonance - without naming the term ). According to criterion K3, it is possible to evaluate the answer as 3 points.
The student’s speech is free, full of syntactic constructions necessary for expressing thoughts, concepts of moral and, in part, literary content (K4 - 2 points).
The work is logical and consistent. The student can be forgiven for turning to some artistic means (color image, sound design) in the second half of the work, and not during the analysis of the poem (K5 - 2 points).
According to the criterion of following speech norms K6 (4 speech errors), 1 point can be awarded.
All work can be assessed at 12 points."
Job #2
This poem was written in the winter of 1908 and is part of the “Retribution” cycle. The writing of this poem is connected with the poet’s personal tragedy - separation from his wife. And what the poet felt at that moment was reflected in the work.
The poem is imbued with a feeling of melancholy, disappointment, and regret for the loss. In this work, the author uses a ring composition that is slightly “curved”, “spiral”. So the phrase “You left home,” slightly changing, is repeated throughout the entire poem: “You left home” - “You left home” - “You left on a damp night.” It is with the help of this that the ring composition and musicality of this work are created.
The ring composition is also used at the sound level. The author alternates between feminine and masculine, exact and imprecise rhyme. The poet uses sound writing. The sounds most often used are (A), (O), (U), which in the theory of sound recording symbolize obscurity, inexplicability, spaciousness and sadness. In this context, alliteration at the junction of the words “... went home” is important.
To create an atmosphere of melancholy, the author uses a special intonation of the poem. Inversion and normal word order constantly replace each other. This alternation of words symbolizes trials , which shows and conveys the author’s premonitions.
It is also noteworthy that Blok uses the exclamation only once: “...Everything is over, youth is gone!” Despite this, the poem does not lose its dynamism. This is mainly created due to the abundance of verbs: “forgot”, “shone”, “gone”.
especially This is evident in the fourth stanza, where there is a verbal rhyme:
I called you, but you didn't look back,
I shed tears, but you did not condescend.
You sadly wrapped yourself in a blue cloak.
On a damp night you left the house.This stanza uses the epithet “blue cloak”, which is symbolic in Blok’s work. Blue is the color of divinity , thus the poet deifies his beloved, represents her as something high, unearthly.
The rhyme in the work is mostly accurate, but there is also assonance (“to pride” - “blue”). Such diversity creates an atmosphere, a general background of confusion and torment in the soul of the lyrical hero:
I don’t know where my pride has a refuge
You, my dear, you, my gentle one, have found...
I sleep soundly, I dream of your blue cloak,
In which you left on a damp night...The cross rhyming method deepens the motive of internal reflection. The lyrical hero recalls the moment of the wedding, his beloved “before the lectern” in the church. And he remembers this as his youth. Happiness and glory are associated with this moment in the hero’s life.
The poet uses many epithets: “sorrowful land”, “cherished ring”, “simple frame”, “damp night”. The poem also uses metaphors: “the days flew by,” “wine and passion tormented my life.” These literary techniques enhance the cyclical nature of the work and emphasize the depth of the drama and reveal the meaning of the images.
Thus , with the help of many literary techniques, a vivid image is created and the feelings of the lyrical hero are conveyed. This is what helps readers when reading Blok’s poems. The author also allows readers to think of something, so when reading, they are left with a feeling of incompleteness and emptiness.
Expert analysis of the work:
“The student sees the meaning of the poem in the fact that it is permeated with a feeling of melancholy, disappointment, regret about the loss of love. Throughout the entire work, in particular, analyzing the artistic means of poetic narration, the author of the work returns to this thought, speaking about the “atmosphere of confusion, torment of the lyrical hero, lost happiness." But this is clearly not enough, so according to criterion K1 you can “award” 1 point.
The student turns to the text mainly to analyze the artistic originality, citing individual stanzas, verbal images, citing rhyming methods, etc. (K2 - 2 points).
As already mentioned, the student analyzes poetic figurative and expressive means in detail and skillfully: she shows a repeated and modified line (“You left home”), turns to sound writing, although she does not evaluate it meaningfully enough. The poem is partially analyzed at the lexical (change of verbs) and syntactic level (exclamation in the line: “Everything is over, youth is gone!”). The student shows the symbolic role of the color epithet, reveals the meaning of the tropes used by the poet (K3 - 3 points).
The essay is not consistent and logical enough; the author of the work repeats himself without deepening the main thesis (K4 - 1 point).
Speech is free. The necessary syntactic constructions and literary terminology were skillfully used (K4 - 2 points).
According to criterion K5 of following speech norms, a score of 2 points is possible.
Thus, 10 points can be “awarded” for the entire work.”
The first thing that needs to be said. It seems that the text analysis was carried out not under the conditions of the Unified Exam, but as part of a planned essay on the Block, and written under the guidance of one teacher. Otherwise, to explain coincidences (the same interpretation of such a detail as the color blue) you will have to refer to a common source. In any case, the condition of the purity of the experiment is not met.
The materials from which these works, verified and evaluated by an expert, are taken say nothing about the purpose for which they are presented: as examples of how to write and check, or how not to. Most likely, “as it should”, since they were published under the heading “Examples of using a system for evaluating tasks completed by students...”. If, according to the authors of the materials, this is how it “should” be, we allow ourselves to disagree with them. True, not in everything.
The second work, rated 10 points, which in our usual five-point system apparently corresponds to a “four,” most likely deserves just such a rating. Although if you add up the points given for each of the criteria more accurately, you get 11. Well, oh well. Let's see what criteria the minimum score for the work is based on - in other words, where our girl “lost points.” These are criteria 1 and 4. Let's compare the official formulation of the criterion with the one given by the expert.
| The general meaning is interpreted superficially or without connection with the author’s intention, a one-sided commentary is given on the motives of the characters’ behavior, the essence of the characters’ characters, thoughts and feelings of the lyrical hero of the poem are not fully clarified, the author’s position is interpreted correctly but in a simplified manner The sequence of thoughts is disrupted (repetition of the same thing, deviation from the chosen topic) | The student sees the meaning of the poem in the fact that it is permeated with a feeling of melancholy, disappointment, and regret about the loss of love. Throughout the entire work, in particular, analyzing the artistic means of poetic narration, the author of the work returns to this idea, talking about “the atmosphere of confusion, torment of the lyrical hero, lost happiness. But this is clearly not enough, therefore, according to criterion K1, you can “award” 1 point. The essay is not consistent and logical enough; the author of the work repeats himself without deepening the main thesis (K4 - 1 point). |
The expert's assessment, without a doubt, corresponds to the spirit and, most importantly, the letter of the text on which it is based. The degree of manifestation of a “sign” is proposed to be assessed with the words “superficial”, “one-sided”, “not fully”. This is what the expert does, using the expression “obviously not enough.” There are no comments either on the “right side” or on the “left side”. How to evaluate the measure of “sufficiency” in this case? Especially if the assignment says: “Give your interpretation of the poem.” In addition, the student does not at all claim that she sees the “meaning of the poem” in the fact that it is permeated with something. It defines pathos, not meaning. The claim about “repetition” is formal and unprofessional: such a very productive method of analysis is known as repeated movement “along” the poem with a gradual expansion of the circle of observations. The main thesis deepens precisely in the course of these studies.
In this essay there is something to more objectively reduce the grade for: for what is called “explaining the role of artistic means” (the student clearly has difficulty trying to connect form and content), poverty of the dictionary (the word “used” is not replaced with synonyms), a factual error ( assonance at the junction of words is called alliteration).
Let's return to the first essay, for which an almost maximum score was given: the author has a direct path to the philology department. It is, of course, a typical "three". The work of a poorly trained and arrogant teenager was liked by the examiner, who seriously seems to believe that “in the expression of this tragedy (love),” the author of the essay rightly “sees the difference between the poem and early love lyrics.” The expert claims that the expression “the image of the beloved is a halo” is “legitimate”, that the words “with the loss of love, life ended” accurately reflect the ideological meaning of the poem. The phrase “This thought... is read through the poet’s verbal artistic images, the main moods expressed in the poem (“The soul sings, a feeling of hope remains...”, etc.)” finally convinces of the expert’s professional incompetence and deprives confidence in all potential inspectors, who have undergone such "training". The professional incompetence is so obvious that it leaves one wondering: what if this is a provocation, an example of “what not to do”? But there is little hope.