English Language Arts 9
End-of-Course Exam
Optional Essay Prompt
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English Language Arts
English Language Arts End-of-Course Exam for Grade 9 Optional Essay Prompt
Teachers: Prior to the End-of-Course Exam window, you may choose to have each of your students compose an essay based on the following prompt and include the score on it as part of their End- of-Course Exam. Including the essay as part of the End-of-Course Exam will allow you to have data concerning student progress toward Ohio’s Learning Standards in Writing, in addition to the Reading standards tested on the portion of the End-of-Course Exam that students do during the testing window. Remember that an End-of-Course Exam is required for high school courses that are worth one or more credits. The End-of-Course Exam could be used as part or all of the Final Exam Grade that you put on the Report Card. This prompt can be used in any of the CCS English courses in Grade 9.
Students: Closely read each of the following passages. Then, follow the instructions on the Prompt that follows. ______
✦Passage One. Excerpt from “The Forgotten Tales of the Brothers Grimm” by Jack Zipes, Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota (Public Domain)
1. The greatest irony of the numerous world-wide celebrations held this year to honor the 200th anniversary of the first edition of the Grimms’ Kinder-und Hausmärchen [Children’s and Household Tales], published in two volumes in 1812 and 1815, involves the discovery that most people really don’t know the original Grimms’ tales or much about their lives. That is, most people have no clue that the Grimms’ first edition of 1812/15 is totally unlike the final or so- called definitive edition of 1857, that they published seven different editions from 1812 to 1857, and that they made vast changes in the contents and style of their collections and also altered their concept of folk and fairy tales in the process. Even so-called scholars of German literature and experts of the Grimms’ tales are not aware of how little most people, including themselves, know about the first edition, and ironically it is their and our “ignorance” that makes the rediscovery of the tales in the first edition so exciting and exhilarating. Indeed, there is still much to learn about the unique contribution that the Grimms made to folklore not only in Germany but also in Europe if we return to take a closer look at the first edition, for it was this edition that sparked the pioneer efforts of folklorists throughout Europe and Great Britain to gather tales from the oral tradition and preserve them for future generations.
2. When Jacob (b. 1785) and Wilhelm (b.1786) began collecting all kinds of folk tales and songs at the beginning of the nineteenth century, they [did not know that their] collection of tales was to become second in popularity to the 2 Go to next page
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Bible throughout Germany and later throughout the western world by the twentieth century. What fascinated or compelled the Grimms to concentrate on old German literature was a belief that the most natural and pure forms of culture – those which held the community together – were linguistic and were to be located in the past. Moreover, according to them, modern literature, even though it might be remarkably rich, was artificial and thus could not express the genuine essence of Volk [folk] culture that emanated naturally from people’s experiences and bound the people together. Therefore, all their energies were spent on uncovering stories from the past. . . . 3. Broadly speaking, the Grimms sought to collect and preserve all kinds of ancient relics as if they were sacred and precious gems that consisted of tales, myths, songs, fables, legends, epics, documents, and other artifacts — not just fairy tales. They intended to trace and grasp the essence of cultural evolution and to demonstrate how natural language, stemming from the needs, customs, and rituals of the common people, created authentic bonds and helped forge civilized communities. This is one of the reasons why they called their collection of tales an educational manual, for the tales recalled the basic values of the Germanic peoples and also other European groups and enlightened people about their experiences through storytelling. Remarkably, the Grimms at a young age wanted to bequeath the profound oral tales of the people to the German people not realizing that they were about to bequeath unusually striking tales to people of many different nations, and that these tales assumed relevance in all cultures.
4. If any of the editions that the Grimms published best represented their intentions and ideals that they kept reiterating until 1857, it was their first edition because they did not hone the stories the way they honed and refined the tales in later editions. In fact, you can hear the distinctive voices of the storytellers from whom they received the tales, and to this extent, the tales in the first edition, some in German dialect, are more authentic folk tales and have more integrity to them despite the fact that they are not as aesthetically pleasing as those in later revised versions. In other words, the Grimms let the tales speak for themselves in a very blunt if not awkward manner that lends them a sense of unvarnished truth or the educational value that the Grimms sought.
5. Turning to the tales of the first edition the first thing a reader might notice is that many of the stories were deleted in the following editions for various reasons, not because they were poorly told but because they did not meet some of the requirements of the Grimms, who at first sought primarily to publish tales that were Germanic in origin. As the Grimms continued to collect variants [of the tales] sent to them by friends and colleagues gathered from oral and book sources, they either improved the tales of the first edition 3 Go to next page
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by combining versions, omitted tales in favor of new versions, or moved tales to their footnotes.
6. The second thing a reader might notice about the tales in the first edition is that most of them are shorter and strikingly different than the same tales edited in the later collections. They smack of orality and raw contents. For instance, Rapunzel reveals that she has become impregnated by the prince and Snow White’s mother, not her stepmother, wants to kill the beautiful girl out of envy.
7. Thirdly, a reader will recognize immediately that all these tales are blunt and have little or no description. The emphasis is on action and the resolution of conflict. The storytellers do not beat about the bush. They are prone to tell the truths they know, and even though magic, superstition, miraculous transformation, and brutality are involved, the storytellers believe in their stories. Metaphor maps out the reality of listeners and engages people to learn from symbols how to engage their realities.
8. Lastly, it is important to note that the tales in the first edition were collected mainly from literate people whom the Grimms came to know quite well. The literacy of the informants, however, did not diminish the folk essence of the tales that, as the Grimms and other folklorists were to discover, were widespread throughout Europe and told more often than not in dialect. The tales came to the tellers from other tellers, or they read tales, digested them, and made them their own. Indeed, we always make tales our own and then send them off to other tellers with the hope that they will continue to disseminate their stories.
9. The Grimms have often been criticized, especially by critics in the last 50 years, for having changed and edited the tales from the first to the seventh edition. That is, they never lived up to their own words that the task of the collector is to record the tales exactly as they heard them. In other words, various critics have complained that the Grimms’ tales are inauthentic folk tales. But this is a ridiculous if not stupid argument, for nobody can ever record and maintain the authenticity of a tale. It is impossible. And yet, the Grimms, as collectors, cultivators, editors, translators, and mediators, are to be thanked for endeavoring to do the impossible and to work collectively with numerous people and their sources to keep traditional stories and storytelling alive. In this respect their little known first edition deserves to be rediscovered, for it is a testimony to forgotten voices that are actually deep within us. Hence, the irresistibility of the Grimms’ tales that are really not theirs, but ours.
✦Passage Two. Excerpt from “Five Ways the Grimms’ Fairytales
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Changed after the First Edition” by Hannah Keyser on Mental_floss Blog, April 15, 2015 (Public Domain)
10. You probably know that the original Brothers Grimm Fairytales didn’t have the same sort of child-friendly happy endings as the Disney versions. But it’s not because Jacob and Wilhelm were a pair of perverts eager to write about child abuse. When they set out to produce the two-volume first edition of their Kinder-und Hausmarchen (Children’s and Household Tales)— published in 1812 and 1815—the brothers viewed themselves not as authors or even really editors, but as collectors and literary historians.
11. The original intent of the project was to record and anthologize the oral tradition in German-speaking countries at the start of the 19th century. The Grimms were scholars, working primarily at their desks, who relied on friends and informants and the occasional written document to source the folklore that had been passed down for generations.
12. Although they added clear transitions where necessary to complete the tales, for the most part the Grimms stayed as true to the original sources as possible. These preservation efforts are seen most clearly in the first edition, with all its lewdness and violence. But once the stories started gaining popularity, the Grimm brothers found it too tempting to alter some of the more unsavory aspects to appeal to a wider audience.
13. At the same time as the Grimms were working, a literate middle class was just beginning to emerge in Europe as a result of public school becoming compulsory. With the traditionally oral stories now bound in a text, the literate middle and upper classes took an interest in the tales, but imposed their Victorian Puritan sentiments on some of the rougher aspects.
14. . . . Although the [first] text was only moderately well-received, people from across Europe began sending the Grimms their own versions of the stories, as they were told in their families. The influx of new material gave the brothers options to compare and intentionally conflate1 in an effort to get at the essence of the tale, but also as a justification for sanitizing some of the less savory aspects.
15. We rounded up some of the more surprising aspects of the first edition that were later cleaned up or scrubbed from the text altogether.
1-combine (two or more texts, ideas, etc.) into one
16. #1-THEY GOT A LOT LONGER 5 Go to next page
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Through a mix of receiving different, more detailed versions to base their text on and adding their own literary flourishes, the Grimms' subsequent editions were all much longer than the first. . . . 17. #2-BIRTH MOTHERS BECOME STEPMOTHERS If you grew up watching Disney movies, you learned that stepmothers are all evil witches, jealous of their beautiful stepdaughters—largely because of the remakes of the Grimms' fairytales. But in the original versions, it was Hansel and Gretel's own mother who tried to abandon her children in the forest and Snow White's real mom who not only hired a huntsman to murder the 7-year- old girl but also planned to eat her organs. In an interview, Professor Jack Zipes said "that the Grimms made the change in later editions because they 'held motherhood sacred,'" and that there were sociological grounds for the change—outside fear of offending potential readers—because "many women died from childbirth in the 18th and 19th centuries, and there were numerous instances in which the father remarried a young woman, perhaps close in age to the father’s eldest daughter," of whom the new wife might feel jealous.
18. #3-RAPUNZEL DOESN'T GET PREGNANT In the first version of Rapunzel, the evil fairy finds out about the Prince when her naive charge wonders aloud, "Tell me, Mother Gothel, why are my clothes becoming too tight? They don't fit me any more." The reader, or listener, is to infer from this that Rapunzel has become impregnated by the Prince during their "merry time" together. By the 1857 seventh edition, this pregnancy has been cut out of the story entirely and instead, Rapunzel accidentally reveals that she's been seeing the Prince by asking Mother Gothel why she is so much more difficult to pull up than the he is—foolish and insulting, but at least not sexually active.
19. #4-THE FAIRIES GET RECAST . . . The brothers made a particular change to the way they cast these more fantastical elements. In the first edition, the harbingers of magic were almost always fairies—unsurprising in the Fairytale genre. But during the time that the Grimms worked, the Napoleonic wars saw French occupation of much of German-speaking Europe. Somewhere along the line, they decided to stop using the French term "fairy"—or sometimes "faerie"—and instead replace each instance with some other vaguely mystical being. For example, in Rapunzel the fairy became a sorceress, and in Briar Rose, better known as Sleeping Beauty, the fairies are changed into wise women.
20. #5-SOME STORIES ARE CUT ALTOGETHER The first edition of the Grimms' Fairytales was 156 tales, and the final edition was 210—but they didn't only add stories in the interim. The deluge of similar tales they received after the first publication drew widespread acclaim gave
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the brothers plenty of material to work with, but certain tales just couldn't be sufficiently amended to fit a less gruesome standard. One such story was the aptly-named How Some Children Played at Slaughtering. In it, two children play as a pig and a butcher. As part of the game, the older brother slits his younger brother's throat, killing him. When their mother finds the scene, she becomes so enraged that she kills the older brother. While she was off doing this, the youngest son drowns in the bath. Now the mother is so despondent that she hangs herself and finally, the father returns to find his whole family dead and he, too, dies of heartbreak. Even with a liberal approach to editing, it's unlikely such a story could be Disney-ified.
✦Passage Three. Excerpt from “Evolution of Evil from Grimm to Disney” by Nicole Rodriguez on Digital Literary Analysis Blog, December 17, 2014 (Public Domain)
21. Fairy tales have been told for centuries and some of the most famous fairy tales were written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, commonly known as the Brothers Grimm. In 1812 the Brothers Grimm published “Cinderella,” “Snow White,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Rapunzel,” and “The Frog Prince.” While many people associate fairy tales with happy bed time stories of princesses, the Grimm stories featured many gruesome moments that are only found in a child’s very worst nightmare. Over a century later Walt Disney and the Disney Company used the Grimm tales as a basis for some of their most popular movies. These movies included: “Cinderella” (1950), “Snow White” (1937), “Sleeping Beauty” (1959), “Tangled” (2010), and “The Princess and the Frog” (2009). These five movies follow the same story lines as the Grimm tales, but were made for a children-based audience. One of the most popular original stories was “Cinderella.” In the Grimm version of this story the step-sisters chop off their toes so that they can attempt to fit into the glass slipper. In the end of the story, their eyes are pecked out by birds and they must resort to being blind beggars. When Disney adapted this story they took out all of these horrid instances and just left in the ill treatment of Cinderella. Disney is also known for always having a happy ending. The question then emerges did Disney remove the evil aspects of the Grimm fairytales or just make them subtle, different types of evil? Jesse Greenspan writes “… the brothers originally filled their book . . . with gruesome scenes that wouldn’t be out of place in an R-rated movie. The Grimms never even set out to entertain kids. The first edition . . . was scholarly in tone, with many footnotes and no illustrations.” So how exactly did Disney change the stories to make them more appropriate for children?
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22. From our research we can conclude that Disney has removed the obvious evils from the original Grimm stories, but has kept enough to instill some type of morals against evil and for good. Disney’s storylines often have a very strict line between good and evil, right and wrong while that line in the Grimm tales is a bit blurred. This blurred line is clearly shown in the context of the stories. While the so called good character in the Grimm tales might win, it is at the expense of severely harming the evil character. Therefore it is difficult to see what is right and wrong in the these stories. In the Disney versions the good character is good throughout and never causes harm, hence the difference between what is right and what is wrong (good and evil) is clearly shown.
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Prompt You have been asked to write an informational essay on evolution of Grimms’ fairytales as preparation for a speech you will deliver at your school’s literacy night. Write an essay that explains how and why the tales changed from their original versions. Your article must be based on ideas and information that can be found in the three Passages.
Manage your time carefully so that you can • read and review the three passages; • plan your response; • write at thorough response; and • revise and edit your response.
Be sure to • include an introduction • use evidence from all sources to support your explanation; • avoid overly relying on one source; and • include a conclusion.
Your response should be in the form of a multi-paragraph essay. Write your response in the space provided.
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13 STOP
Rubrics
Scoring Not Yet Approaches Expectations Meets Expectations Advanced Elements 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 Attempts to address prompt Addresses all aspects of prompt appropriately but lacks focus or is off task. Addresses prompt appropriately Addresses prompt appropriately and and maintains a strongly developed focus. D: Attempts to address but with a weak or uneven focus. Focus maintains a clear, steady focus. D: D: Addresses additional demands with D: Addresses additional demands Addresses additional demands sufficiently. thoroughness and makes a connection to superficially. additional demands but lacks controlling idea. focus or is off task. Attempts to establish a Establishes a controlling idea with a clear Establishes a strong controlling idea with a Controlling Establishes a controlling idea controlling idea but lacks a purpose maintained throughout the clear purpose maintained throughout the Idea with a general purpose. clear purpose. response. response. Attempts to present Presents information from Accurately presents information relevant to information in response to reading materials relevant to the Presents information from reading Reading/ all parts of the prompt with effective the prompt but lacks purpose of the prompt with materials relevant to the prompt with Research selection of sources and details from reading connections or relevance to minor lapses in accuracy or accuracy and sufficient detail. materials. the purpose of the prompt. completeness. Attempts to provide details in response to the prompt, Presents appropriate details to Presents thorough and detailed information Presents appropriate and sufficient details Development including retelling but lacks support the focus and controlling to strongly support the focus and controlling to support the focus and controlling idea. sufficient development or idea. idea. relevancy. Uses an appropriate organizational structure to Maintains an organizational structure that address the specific Maintains an appropriate organizational Attempts to organize ideas intentionally and effectively enhances the Organization requirements of the prompt, structure to address the specific but lacks control of structure. presentation of information as required by with some lapses in coherence or requirements of the prompt. the specific prompt. awkward use of the organizational structure Demonstrates a command of standard Demonstrates and maintains a well- Demonstrates an uneven Attempts to demonstrate English conventions and cohesion with developed command of standard English command of standard English standard English conventions few errors. Response includes language conventions and cohesion with few errors. conventions and cohesion. Uses but lacks cohesion and and tone appropriate to the audience, Response includes language and tone Conventions language and tone with some control of grammar, usage, purpose, and specific requirements of the consistently appropriate to the audience, inaccurate, inappropriate, or and mechanics. Sources are prompt. Cites sources using an purpose, and specific requirements of the uneven features. Inconsistently used without citation. appropriate format with only minor prompt. Consistently cites sources using an cites sources. errors. appropriate format. Attempts to include Briefly notes disciplinary content disciplinary content in Accurately presents disciplinary content relevant to the prompt; shows Integrates relevant and accurate disciplinary Content explanations but relevant to the prompt with sufficient basic or uneven understanding of content with thorough explanations that Understanding understanding of content is explanations that demonstrate content; minor errors in demonstrate in-depth understanding. weak; content is irrelevant, understanding. explanation. inappropriate, or inaccurate.
Rubrics
Informational/Explanatory Rubric for Grades 6–12 Teaching Tasks (LDC 3.0)
Ohio’s State Test Informative/Explanatory Writing Rubric, Grades 6-12 Conventions of Standard English Score Purpose, Focus, and Organization (4-points) Evidence and Elaboration (4-points) (Begins at score point 2) The response provides thorough and convincing support, citing evidence for the controlling idea or main idea that The response is fully sustained and consistently focused within the includes the effective use of sources, facts, and details. The purpose, audience, and task; and it has a clear controlling idea and response includes most of the following: effective organizational structure creating coherence and completeness. The response includes most of the following: • Smoothly integrated, thorough, and relevant evidence, including precise references to sources • A strongly maintained controlling idea with little or no • Effective use of a variety of elaborative techniques loosely related material 4 (including but not limited to definitions, quotations, • Skillful use of a variety of transitional strategies to clarify and examples), demonstrating an understanding of the relationships between and among ideas the topic and text • Logical progression of ideas from beginning to end with a • Clear and effective expression of ideas, using precise satisfying introduction and conclusion language • Appropriate style and objective tone established and • Academic and domain-specific vocabulary clearly maintained appropriate for the audience and purpose • Varied sentence structure, demonstrating language facility The response is adequately sustained and generally focused within The response provides adequate support, citing evidence for the purpose, audience, and task; and it has a clear controlling idea the controlling idea or main idea that includes the use of and evident organizational structure with a sense of completeness. sources, facts, and details. The response includes most of the The response includes most of the following: following: • A maintained controlling idea, though some loosely related 3 • Generally integrated and relevant evidence from material may be present sources, though references may be general or • Adequate use of a variety of transitional strategies to imprecise clarify the relationships between and among ideas • Adequate use of some elaborative techniques • Adequate progression of ideas from beginning to end with • Adequate expression of ideas, employing a mix of a sufficient introduction and conclusion precise and general language
Rubrics
• Domain-specific vocabulary generally appropriate for the audience and purpose • Some variation in sentence structure
Rubrics Conventions of Standard English (2- Score Purpose, Focus, and Organization (4-points) Evidence and Elaboration (4-points) points) The response provides uneven, cursory The response is somewhat sustained within the purpose, support/evidence for the controlling idea or main audience, and task but may include loosely related or The response demonstrates an idea that includes partial use of sources, facts, and extraneous material; and it may have a controlling idea with an adequate command of basic details. The response may include the following: inconsistent organizational structure. The response may conventions. The response may include include the following: the following: • Weakly integrated evidence from sources; erratic or irrelevant references or citations 2 • A focused controlling idea but insufficiently sustained • Some minor errors in usage • Repetitive or ineffective use of elaborative or unclear but no patterns of errors techniques • Inconsistent use of transitional strategies with little • Adequate use of punctuation, • Imprecise or simplistic expression of ideas variety capitalization, sentence • Some use of inappropriate domain- • Uneven progression of ideas from beginning to end formation, and spelling specific vocabulary with an inadequate introduction or conclusion • Most sentences limited to simple constructions The response provides minimal support/evidence for the controlling idea or main idea, including little The response is related to the topic but may demonstrate little if any use of sources, facts, and details. The The response demonstrates a partial or no awareness of the purpose, audience, and task; and it may response may include the following: command of basic conventions. The have little or no controlling idea or discernible organizational response may include the following: structure. The response may include the following: • Minimal, absent, erroneous, or irrelevant evidence or citations from the source • Various errors in usage 1 • Confusing or ambiguous ideas material • Inconsistent use of correct • Few or no transitional strategies • Expression of ideas that is vague, unclear, punctuation, capitalization, • Frequent extraneous ideas that impede understanding or confusing sentence formation, and • Too brief to demonstrate knowledge of focus or • Limited and often inappropriate language spelling organization or domain- specific vocabulary • Sentences limited to simple constructions
The response demonstrates a lack of command of conventions, with 0 frequent and severe errors often obscuring meaning.