The Troubles of TDAs

By Ella Scott
5th Grade

We all know the feeling. You walk into English class, sit down in your seat, and your teacher tells you that you’re about to do a TDA. The groans and sighs that follow are inevitable. TDA’s aren’t exactly a fan favorite. Are there any reasons that TDAs should be improved, or better yet, canceled?
First of all, it’s just plain annoying. Many students have made it clear that they just don’t like it. Recently, I asked a fellow student about TDA’s. “They’re so boring,” they said. It’s true. It’s difficult and annoying to have to find evidence and write everything. For people like me with bad handwriting, doing multiple pages of writing seems pointless and tiring. If you take a while, it feels like time stretches on forever. If you finish fast, you are really bored if you have nothing to entertain yourself with. Overall, it’s a very disheartening situation.
Second, do they really make things better? Yes, text-dependent analyses are important. But the way that TDAs are structured isn’t as important. For people with testing anxiety or just in general, it’s unnerving and unnecessary. Maybe it would be better for those people or just students in general to find a new solution to the important yet stressful TDA.
Finally, there’s an easier way! Getting tested for so long is very frustrating and stressful for most people. Plus, when my class read Front Desk, we did a TDA almost every day! But we did it verbally, no paper needed, and it worked just the same. If we shared our ideas with the teacher or the class as our “TDA”. It may not be foolproof, but someone could definitely spruce it up!
In summary, if the district could help adapt TDA’s to make them less stressful, frustrating and less hated, the school would be a more enjoyable place. They don’t have to be the worst thing in our day.