Adding CPE Skills To Your Class
The skills required of students for the CPE test are skills which any class in any discipline can be, and should be, teaching them. Here are some suggestions for further improving the CPE skills utilized in your class.
Part I: Incorporating Summary1. What is summary?
Students summarize when they explain the main and supporting points of a chapter, article, or story in their own words.
2. Why do students need to summarize?
In order to pass the CPE, students need to know how to explain an authors idea in their own words.
Summary skills will also help students use secondary sources more effectively when writing research papers. And in general, summary is a valuable skill that every college graduate should have. It is important that our students be able to explain texts and ideas to their colleagues when they join the professional world or continue their academic careers.
3. Summary and the CPE
For the CPE exam, students are given a 8-10 page reading assignment two weeks prior to the test. They are expected to understand the entire article, but on the day of the exam, they are not expected to summarize the whole thing. Instead, they are given a specific topic, and asked to summarize the aspects of the longer reading that relate to this topic.
4. Developing summary assignments
1. Informal assignments
a. For homework, if there is a reading assignment, have students write a paragraph or two explaining the main points and the supporting points in their own words.
b. Or, simply have students identify, by underlining or highlighting, the main points and the supporting points
c. CPE practice: Assign a guided summary as an informal homework assignment.
Ask students to write 5 or 6 sentences explaining a specific aspect/topic in the reading, in their own words
d. Begin the days class by establishing the main point of the reading. As part of a group discussion, trace how the author develops that point
2. Formal writing assignments
a. Assign an article or chapter as a reading assignment. Have students write a summary of the main points and supporting points for a grade.
b. CPE Practice: If there is a lengthy reading assignment, instead of having the students summarize the whole reading, focus on one particular aspect of the reading, and have students summarize the reading in terms of this one point.
Part II: Linking Two Readings
About three weeks before the CPE test date, students receive Reading A. It is about 9 pages in length, and raises a number of issues and topics. Students are expected to master it before the day of the exam, when they receive Reading B. The second reading is only 1-2 pages, and focuses on only one of the many issues raised in reading A. Students are asked to write their essay about whatever the common denominator between the two pieces is. Usually, the two authors have two different viewpoints on the same topic.
An assignment resembling Task I of the CPE can easily be brought into any classroom as a midterm, final, term paper, or as a take home essay. Heres an example:
1. Choose a reading to discuss in class. It should be a focused essay, but it should also have a number of supporting arguments within it. Try to find an article that raises a debatable, or controversial viewpoint.
2. Have students familiarize themselves with the article in one of the
following ways:
a. Have them summarize it, or part of it, as a homework assignment
b. Break students up into small groups and have each group summarize a different part of the article in class, then have a discussion, or series of presentations.
c. Prepare a series of questions about key points in the article, and use them to teach the text.
3. Assign a second reading that expresses a different viewpoint than the first reading did, but on the same topic. In other words, expose your students to two sides of the debate. Once you have chosen the article you can:
a. Model the CPE exactly and go to step 4
b. Have students summarize the second article as homework
c. Discuss the article as a group
d. Have students respond to a specific question about the article in writing, in class
4. Design a writing assignment that asks students to write about an issue common to both readings. Try to be as specific as possible in phrasing the issue. So if both readings are about education, dont ask them to write about education; narrow the focus. Ask them to write about whatever the debate about education in the articles is. To model the assignment after the CPE include some or all of these directions into your assignment A.
a. Have students summarize reading A in terms of what it says about the issue you are asking them to discuss.
b. Have students compare what each author says about the issue
c. Ask students to share their own knowledge and experiences about the issue, and to compare them to what the authors say
d. Have students explain which author, if any, they agree with and why
Part III: Incorporating Task II
Task II requires that students read a very short reading, and identify two claims made by the author. They are then to analyze two charts or graphs, and explain how the first claim is supported or contradicted by one of the graphs, and how the second claim is supported or contradicted by the other claim. They do not have to compare the graphs. They do not have to write full length essay, only a response, and grammar does not count.
An assignment resembling Task II of the CPE can be brought into many classrooms.
Students generally struggle with the idea that a chart or graph, could contradict a section of text. Whenever possible, expose your students to a chart that contradicts something in an article, chapter, or book. You may even choose to take an article from a newspaper that has a graph, and tinker with the wording in the article to make it contradict the graph. Have students write a brief explanation of how the information in the charts relates to the information in the text.
