Recently, the poem "Love" by Jin Naijia, a student from a blind school, won the first prize in the high school group of the second "Bing Xin Composition Award" national competition. It caused quite a stir. At first, people praised the poetry, and later they criticized it. It is not good to "forbid poetry" in compositions for middle school and college entrance examinations. Poetry should be given the same place as other literary genres. There are roughly two reasons: first, since there are talented people who write poetry among the candidates, "poetry" should not be excluded from the style of the composition examination; second, since poetry is included in Chinese textbooks, and poetry teaching is gradually declining and there is an urgent need to If it needs to be promoted, poetry should not be banned from composition papers. These two items seem to be right from a rational point of view, but they are not as easy to implement as they say.
First of all, writing poetry is not easy. Although many poetry writers think it is easy, according to my opinion, many poems nowadays are actually sentences written in separate lines, which are cobbled together without knowing the reason. Some scholars joke that people who cannot write articles can write poems. This phenomenon is obviously harmful to the ears and eyes of primary and secondary school students. Once the ban on essay writing is lifted, there will probably be far more candidates writing poems that are not poems than poetry, which will inevitably lead to misunderstandings.
Secondly, review is not easy. Exam writing is not a submission to newspapers and magazines. Whether it is used or not is only a matter of editor's choice. Examination essays must be graded by the marking teacher. Comparatively speaking, it is easy to assess the grade score of an article. Except for a few random graders, there will generally not be much difference in scores. Commenting on poetry is different. Poetry has no explanation. This saying has been true since ancient times, and it is also true today. It is difficult to agree on the poems written by famous poets, let alone the improvised poems written by candidates on the spot? For example, the poem "Love" written by Jin Naijia, some readers think that this poem has some connotations of Xu Zhimo's "Farewell Cambridge", but I read it several times and tasted it from rhyme to imagery, but it seems difficult to agree with the "very" meaning. statement. I asked several colleagues and literary friends, and everyone said it from their own perspective. It can be said that different people have different opinions. This is especially common in poetry criticism.
Third, it is not easy to be responsible for grading. "Poems have different talents." This is true for poetry writers, and poetry reviewers also need to have a unique talent. If the ban on poetry in the high school entrance examination and college entrance examination is lifted, it will require a lot of markers with "special talents", which may not be possible for a while. If you make a mistake and have a situation like "I have never seen a short man watch a theater and just follow other people's opinions", if good poems do not get good marks and bad poems get high marks, then it will not only be a problem of misleading students. Can't help but be on guard.
Fourth, it is not easy to specify the number of words in a poem. Taking the essay as an example of 700-800 words, how many lines and words should a poet write? Let's count 10 characters per line, which is 70-80 lines. Even if the candidates still have one hour to compose a poem, I am afraid that they will have to have a magical writing style like Guo Moruo who wrote "Earth, My Mother" and "Phoenix Nirvana". Otherwise, I have to make a joke: write the article in separate lines! Of course, the examination unit can also set other rules, such as 10 lines or 20 lines. If this is the case, will candidates who choose essay think it is fair?
People often criticize one of the consequences of exam-oriented education: what is tested is what is taught. This is indeed an inappropriate utilitarianism. However, whatever you advocate to teach must also be tested, which is also a kind of eagerness for quick success. In fact, these are two sides of the same copper coin. I believe that "what to teach" is ultimately about the need to educate people, not the need for examinations. Everything must rely on examinations, and even examinations have become the only goal of teaching and learning. This is not the persistence of education, but the sadness of education. If you teach poetry, you must write poems, if you teach drama, you must take a test of writing scripts, if you teach couplets, you must take a test of writing couplets... Is this necessary? Realistic?
In short, reading poetry, understanding poetry, and writing poetry can improve students' cultural literacy and cultivate students' spiritual quality. As for whether to take the exam or not, it depends on many factors, especially Practice to test. Based on the above reasons, it is appropriate to delay the ban on poetry in the middle school and college entrance examinations.