In fall of 2024, the School District of Philadelphia piloted a new English Language Arts curriculum for grades k-12. In 9th grade English, students District-wide now spend the first quarter of their high school year reading excerpts from a variety of sources curated by McGraw-Hill’s StudySync platform to address the theme of “Declaring Your Genius.” After exploring the work of a few poets, an article on the art of Georgia O’Keefe, and some fiction that highlights adaptability and survival skills such as “The Most Dangerous Game” and an excerpt of Homer’s The Odyssey, students are asked to compose an argumentative essay for their own idea of the best way to measure intelligence. The expectation of the curriculum writers, based on the model essays shared with students and teachers, seemed to be that students would predominantly argue that straight IQ tests or a view of intelligence as “all in the genes” are reductive and insufficient.

Current 9th graders were born a full decade into the world of No Child Left Behind and high stakes testing, and have been expected to know their own “data” from the earliest days. At my school during our pilot of this curriculum, many students immediately argued that IQ tests were the only necessary means of measuring intelligence; some students even disengaged from the whole assignment, unwilling to complete the first major writing of their high school career. It seems that questioning a numerical measure of intelligence is tough if most of your education has been numerically defined, and if your own number has often been “low,” you may be motivated to cut your losses.

Through reviewing some of the basics of cognition, the history of standardized testing, and several, variously well-supported examples of measurements outside of IQ tests, this unit is designed to supplement the StudySync materials used in quarter 1 of English I, both to better engage students in an understanding of the stakes and limitations of intelligence measures, and to leave them better equipped to argue productively for alternative measures.

Unit Content

How We Think and Learn

Early in our seminar with Dr. Richie, we discussed the basics of logic, and specifically of the normative model of reasoning, or how people should reason. When considering the brain as a computer, in this model, verifiable inputs can produce predictable outputs. In this model, a few key terms could be helpful to share with students.

An “conclusion” is a statement that can be assessed, and that derives from some related premises, or supporting statements. An argument is considered “valid” if, when the premises are true, the conclusion is also true. Crucially, one could have a valid argument with a false conclusion; as long as it follows logically that the conclusion would be true if the premises were also true, it’s a valid argument. If this seems challenging for students to grasp, think of it in terms of ideas like the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, or the internal logic in any fantasy story. If it is true that the only the Easter Bunny brings colored eggs, and if it is true that there are colored eggs in your living room on Easter morning, then it’s valid to conclude the Easter Bunny has visited your home. Similarly, a conclusion could be objectively true without being validly supported. If there is snow on the 4th of July, and if school closes whenever there is snow, it may be true that school is closed on the 4th of July but it’s not (usually) because there’s snow on the ground. An argument where the premises are objectively true and the conclusion is also objectively true would be considered sound.

Though it is beyond the scope of this curriculum as it is embedded within the District pacing guide for English 1, statement logic and the assessment of arguments using truth tables can be an excellent way to visualize this for students.

In addition to times when we actively examine and assess a premise, most of us regularly use “inductive reasoning,” (Goldstein 2011), drawing conclusions based on our observations, and then applying those conclusions to novel situations. We rely on a number of shortcuts, assumptions and “good enough” premises, benefiting from the ability to make quick decisions and inferences but also regularly falling into fallacies, mistakes and misunderstandings.

As Goldstein (2011) points out, we use inductive reasoning unconsciously on a daily basis: “For example, did you run a stress test on the chair you are sitting in to be sure it wouldn’t collapse when you sat down? Probably not….Inductive reasoning provides the mechanism for using past experience to guide present behavior” (p. 369). It is important to help students recognize that this unconscious reasoning, even if it feels like common sense, can lead to errors because our shortcuts are not guaranteed.

One error is “affirming the consequent,” when a thinker falls into the trap set by the 4th of July example above, where if one knows from personal experience or other evidence that the conclusion is true, one assumes the premises are as well. This is easy to catch if the premise is something you know to be absurd, such as snow in July in Pennsylvania, but less so when learning new material (Richie, 2025). A little more reliable but still prone to error are some common “heuristics,” or mental shortcut (Goldstein 2011). The “availability heuristic” describes how we ascribe greater probability to more memorable events. When given tasks like “assess the likelihood of different causes of death,” or “judge how many words have ‘r’ in the first or third position,” people are consistently incorrect because their mind fixes on things that are easy to remember or regularly publicized, like deaths from car accidents or words that begin with “r.” As Goldstein points out, an availability heuristic lets you notice that heavy dark clouds previously led to a rainstorm and prompts you to grab an umbrella before leaving home, but can also easily lead to an illusory correlation where stereotypes are formed because, say, you remember an effeminate gay man on a TV program and do not remember the many gay men who do not act in the stereotypical way. This idea of stereotypes and misjudgements also emerges when we consider the representativeness heuristic, a mental “program” we often run where we make a prediction based on how much a situation, or person, resembles our expectation of a connected class. A representativeness heuristic may not steer you wrong if, say, you are making a snap judgment on whether the apples in a grocery store are ripe, based on their resemblance to previous apples you’ve tried. However, as the Decision Lab (2025) points out, “representativeness” can also lead doctors to reject a diagnosis if the patient doesn’t demonstrate prototypical symptoms or even if they do not fit a typical patient profile in terms of age, race or gender.

Such heuristics can also be contributors to confirmation bias, or the tendency to recognize and remember information that supports our previous ideas and ignore information that argues against it (Goldstein, 2011). Goldstein compares this to a pair of “blinders,” limiting what information we can take in, and describes an experiment from 1970 where two groups, for and against the death penalty, were given studies that did or did not show a deterrent effect, that is, where the threat of execution for murder lowered the likelihood. Regardless of the strength of individual studies, people who were already against the death penalty found anti-capital punishment studies more convincing, and visa versa.

Reviewing these examples of “programming errors” in our brains is helpful for students to understand prior to the District curriculum lesson where they are asked to identify logical fallacies such as slippery slope, red herring, ad hominem, or straw man. These fallacies rely on the manipulation of certain shortcuts in our mental computation. How to measure the speed, accuracy, and connectedness of that computation has been the subject of discussion and controversy for decades, if not centuries.

How We Measure It All

History of Testing

To wrestle with questions of how our brain works and what we can and can’t know about that, students need a baseline understanding of the ways in which intelligence is measured and past and current controversies around such measurements. What do we measure when we measure intelligence? How reliable or unreliable are the current ways we measure? How are these measurements used?

Standardized testing has been the subject of ongoing debate and scholarship to determine whether it is ultimately helpful or hurtful to minoritized populations. Ibram X. Kendi, best known for his popular historical books on the impact of racism on American history, was unflinching in his condemnation of standardized testing during the pandemic: “Standardized tests have become the most effective weapon ever designed to objectively degrade Black and Brown minds and legally exclude their bodies from prestigious schools” (quoted in Rosales & Walker, 2021). A 2021 article from the National Education Association identified standardized testing and high stakes testing specifically as “instruments of racism and a biased system,” and emphasized the specifically eugenic roots of IQ testing in general and the SATs in particular.

Some of this is summed up in a student-friendly TED-ED talk by Stefan Dombrowski, “The dark history of IQ tests” (2020). Dombrowski traces the development of the IQ test from its original incarnation, intended to identify struggling students in early 20th century France, to the embedded cultural and scientific concept it is today. The  test developed by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon was designed to assess skills such as “verbal reasoning, working memory, and visual-spatial skills” and to then compare a child’s score relative to others their age. Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman then developed a similar test that remains the standard today (Rosales and Walker, 2021), of which pictures can be seen on the National Institutes of Health website (NIH, 2014). Dombrowski argues that such tests do in fact measure these particular skills fairly effectively, assuming that the test-takers are taking the test in their native language, but also highlights how rapidly the eugenics movement of the early 20th century found IQ to be useful to justify limits to employment opportunities, forced sterilization and even state-sponsored murder. While the test may not be “worthless,” “it isn’t the same thing as measuring a person’s potential” (Dombrowski 2020). Nevertheless, potential, academic and professional, is exactly what IQ tests and later the SAT have been used to assess, whether to segregate WWI soldiers into units by IQ scores or, as of this year, determine a Philly teenager’s chance at attending the University of Pennsylvania (Snyder, 2025).

The SAT, or Scholastic Aptitude Test, was a fairly direct child of the IQ test, developed by psychologist Carl Brigham out of a dissertation analyzing Binet’s work. Brigham was an unapologetic eugenicist, a New England academic who could trace his roots to the Mayflower and who believed his research proved the “superiority of the Nordic race group” (cited in Troy, 2016), and the first SAT was administered in 1926. In lieu of existing admissions exams that assessed student knowledge, the SAT purported to measure students’ general intelligence and academic potential. Initially, historian Gil Troy argues, the SAT worked counter to the eugenicist aims of its creator, providing an “objective” score that “helped talented immigrants and minorities breach the elite’s ivy-covered bunkers” (Troy, 2016). In fact, by 1930, Brigham’s study of intelligence tests in the Army and in universities constrained him to admit that “the hypothetical superstructure of racial differences collapses completely,” and that a true meritocracy would be far more diverse than he had imagined. By the 1950s, even average height at an elite school like Yale had dipped, as the doors opened to students whose childhoods had not been well-resourced (Troy, 2016).

The SAT Today

As Kendi argued, however, the SAT has been far from an unalloyed good for minoritized students. The most recent SAT numbers available from the United States government found a 9-point gap in average scores between men and women, favoring men (National Center for Education Statistics, 2024). Racial gaps are even more noticeable; the average SAT score in 2023 was 1219 for a student identifying as Asian, 1082 for a student identifying as White, 943 for a student identifying as Hispanic and 908 for a student identifying as Black. Today, one of the best ways to predict who will score highest out of a given group of students is to know the relative property values in their neighborhoods (Rosales & Walker, 2021). IQ tests track similarly with economic influences; a child adopted from a poor family into a wealthy one is likely to gain a 12 to 18 point jump to their IQ (Turkheimer & Harden, 2017). An analysis by the New York Times (Miller & Paris, 2023) found that only 0.6% of students in the bottom quintile of parental income will score above a 1300 on the SAT. The authors ascribe this disparity as much to a “shadow education” of test prep, pre-school, cultural experiences and time-intensive parenting as to inequalities in classroom education, and not at all to any inborn intelligence or lack thereof. A society that determines intellectual potential, college access and economic opportunity based on the SAT is a society perpetuating economic and racial inequality.

In a callback to Brigham’s surprised confession 90 years ago, however, some writers and researchers today argue that SATs function as a better tool for minoritized students than other methods. In “The Misguided War Against the SAT,” David Leonhardt (2024) argues that the unintentional experiment in test-blind college admissions produced by the pandemic hurt rather than helped low-income and minority students, partly because many students submitted based only on high school grades were not successful. M.I.T, one of the first elite schools to reinstate standardized testing requirements after the pandemic, found that ““Once we brought the test requirement back, we admitted the most diverse class that we ever had in our history.” Studies at the graduate school level of alternative means of assessment, such as letters of recommendation, have found such methods produce more, not less, racially and economically homogeneous groups (Dalal et al, 2022), and Leonhardt points out that wealthier students will have access to a host of activities, parental support, and less overwhelmed teachers and counselors to supplement and polish the more subjective areas of their application. In what could be seen as both an argument for and against the role of testing, 2024 research from Harvard University’s “Opportunity Insights” found that SAT and ACT test scores were the strongest predictors of college GPA, even when students’ race, gender, and socioeconomic background were accounted for. Friedman, one of the researchers, suggests that “It’s not that the test itself is biased; it’s that this is picking up enormous disparities” (Ruhalter & Rath, 2024). This suggests, of course, that standardized testing is useful for predicting the success of an individual student and helping them find the best college option, but it provides little insight into how to address these disparities in the economic and professional opportunities connected to college admission.

A Local Question

Although standardized tests at the SAT or GRE level may seem distant to current 9th graders, they enter high school having just undergone a clear lesson in the significance of such numbers and statistics. Philadelphia’s own high school application process has undergone significant changes in the last five years, rejecting and then reintegrating standardized test scores, writing samples, and other variously objective (theoretically) and subjective measures of student achievement. This process provides a microcosm of the limitations, controversies and disproportionalities that drive ongoing national conversations around standardized testing and supposedly objective measures of intelligence. The PSSA test itself, a math and reading assessment for students in elementary school, began in 1992 but took on outsize importance in Pennsylvania with the passage of No Child Left Behind, in 2001, a federal act that cemented “state-mandated standardized testing as a means of assessing school performance” (NEA 2016).

Philadelphia’s high school system, once predominantly neighborhood based, was driven towards specialization during the tenure of previous superintendent William Hite (Royal, 2022) and has come to dominate 8th grade in many elementary and middle schools throughout the city. Prior to the pandemic, high school admission was primarily the domain of individual principals, who had the leeway to accept students with slightly lower scores or more absences than admissions criteria would allow. However, concerns persisted about the equity of such systems, especially as the city’s flagship academic schools became increasingly less diverse in a school system dominated by students of color (Falk, 2021), and a lottery system was introduced that weighted students’ zip codes. After a one-year flirtation with a disastrous, AI-scored writing test (Mezzacappa, 2021), the District returned to including PSSA scores along with grades and attendance, and using this data to determine which schools students could or could not be eligible to attend. A child’s attendance, grades, math and reading scores from the spring of their 7th grade year remain the main determinant of their high school options, with some in the district praising the objective nature of these numbers and others concerned that the opaque and algorithmic process has only perpetuated disparities.

Standardized testing, in the form of end-of-course exams in high school English, Algebra and Biology, is likewise a fraught question at the state level. We are only in the third year of applying Act 158, a state law whereby high school graduating seniors are required to demonstrate certain scores on state standardized tests, or a collection of alternative measures, in order to earn a high school diploma. The initial state law making a high school diploma contingent on standardized test scores was written in 2010 to be implemented in 2017, but was pushed repeatedly back out of concerns that graduation rates would plummet (Wolfman-Arent, 2018). Act 158, passed in 2018 and implemented for the first time with the high school class of 2023, deemphasized standardized testing in favor of five “pathways” to a diploma. Pathway 1, for example, is simply to have passed all three tests with a proficient or better score; Pathway 5, by contrast, requires students who have not passed the tests to assemble evidence from a complex menu of artifacts including trade school acceptance, industry certifications, community service projects and out-of-school internships. In the first year of implementation, barely half of 12th graders had met Act 158 requirements by December of their senior year (Mezzacappa, 2022). Act 158’s myriad pathways reflect both the benefits and pitfalls of a standardized assessment. State regulators attempt to thread the needle: on the one hand, there is the danger of overemphasizing an exam whose score disparities reflect “local, state, and nationwide historical inequities” (Mezzacappa, 2022), and on the other, the risk of “diluting” a high school diploma by graduating unready students due to misguided compassion or external pressures (Wolfman-Arent, 2018). These ongoing debates about how we measure intelligence, knowledge, and academic aptitude, and the appropriate application of such measures, are debates actively and daily shaping the lives of current Philadelphia high schoolers.

What Else We Measure: Three Examples

If the history of standardized intelligence testing is complex, imagining a future without it is even more so. To help students think critically about the possibilities of alternatives to IQ measurement, as required in the end-of-unit task, this curriculum offers three ways students can think about themselves, their peers, and even the fictional characters they are exploring beyond what could be called intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence or “EQ”

Emotional Intelligence or “EQ” has been discussed and studied in educational spaces for more than two decades, after first emerging as a concept in 1983 with Howard Gardner’s “intrapersonal intelligence” (Grewal & Salovey, 2005). Emotional Intelligence or EQ measurements purport to measure four things: how well a person can perceive their own and others emotions, how well they can understand those emotions, how well they can manage emotions and how well they can apply or use emotional understanding to achieve certain goals (Dhillon et al, 2021). Emotional intelligence is often discussed not just in educational contexts but in professional ones; some research suggests that whereas IQ accounts for between 10 and 25% of job performance, emotional intelligence has a much better impact on team formation, job development, and leadership effectiveness (Cartwright & Pappas, 2008). EQ has influences on academic, familial, and even athletic success (Dhillon et al, 2021). Just as with IQ, researchers regularly explore both the measurement and mutability of EQ.

EQ is not a “fixed trait.” Only two months of emotional literacy training, involving student circles, activities, and emotional vocabulary instruction, had a significant impact on elementary students’ emotional intelligence (Coskwun & Oksuz, 2019). The emotional climate of a school, defined as school safety, relationships, teaching and general environment, had an impact on young students’ emotional intelligence in a study conducted across three countries (Gonzalez et al, 2022). A study comparing emotional intelligence and poverty in rural and urban China found lower emotional intelligence in higher poverty areas, but also found that an emotionally intelligent parenting style mediated the negative effects of poverty on children’s emotional development (Liu & Wu, 2022). Even believing that one can grow more emotionally intelligent, in and of itself, helps with growing emotional intelligence and resilience after negative experiences (Costa & Faria, 2023); resilience as a concept for young people will be discussed more later. Across age groups, genders, and nations, researchers have found that in most cases, individuals can grow more emotionally intelligent.

But how is emotional intelligence even determined? In general, EQ assessments divide into two key groups: self-reported surveys that measure individual traits, and ability tests that offer people emotionally complex situations and ask for the “right” answer (Dhillon et al, 2021; O’Connor et al, 2019). Both types of assessments are focused on measuring the person’s accurate perception of emotion and their response to witnessing or experiencing an emotion. However, trait assessments ask people to assess their habitual, normal actions, whereas ability tests are a “what would you do?” thought experiment. One way to consider it is that ability tests of emotional intelligence measure what you can do to perceive and manage emotions, but trait tests measure what you most probably do. When a college admissions committee considers a student’s SAT score, they are attempting to guess the upper range of a student’s ability, their “aptitude” for scholarship. By contrast, an article in the International Journal of Management (Dhillon et al, 2021) argues a potential employer considering someone’s EQ should pay more attention to their day-to-day actions; an employee who knows how to navigate a difficult debate over levels of responsibility in a group project but doesn’t actually apply that knowledge regularly isn’t much good to anybody.

The Schutte Self Report Emotional Intelligence Test, usually abbreviated as SREIT, is available in several free versions online and is designed to give a simple numerical score (Veritas International Training Center, 2020). The Situational Test of Emotional Management and the Situation Test of Emotional Understanding (STEM and STEU) are designed to measure the respondent’s upper limit of emotional understanding and response. A simplified version of the STEM, designed for youth, is also available online and provides a good basis for students to analyze and critique these measurement concepts and their own scores (MacCann, 2021).  Certainly teen students, in the throes of puberty, may be able to relate to a debate about whether your emotional intelligence is reflected more by your understandings or your behaviors.

Trauma & Resilience

In my experience, at least, students are also highly engaged by the opportunity to discuss mental health difficulties and traumatic experiences, and their impacts on educational and emotional health. Ideas about how to quantify childhood traumatic experiences or the protective factors that can mitigate such experiences are increasingly moving from the realm of psychological study to popular knowledge; in just one example, one can visit ACESTooHigh.com to see an ongoing collection of daily news stories examining the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences such as abuse, neglect, and home dysfunction on physical health, cognitive processing, school performance and more.

A simple “ACE” test asks the respondent to give themselves a 1 for each affirmative answer to questions like “Did a parent or other adult in your household often swear at you, insult, put you down, or humiliate you?” and “Did a household member go to prison?” A higher score suggests a greater probability of long-term effects. Childhood trauma not only impacts childhood but can continue through generations; toxic stress during pregnancy, for example, impacts fetal development (Murphy & Sadis, 2019). Unsurprisingly, given the long history of systemic racism and inequality in the United States, ACE scores are unevenly distributed among the population; ACEs have been experienced by 61% of Black children and 51% of Hispanic children, half again the numbers of White children and more than twice that of Asian children (Murphy & Sadis, 2019). Writing for the American Federation of Teachers, Murphy and Sadis also point out that this is likely an underestimate, since the ACE test does not ask about chronic stressors like bullying or child homelessness.

A higher ACE score has measurable and long-term impacts. Higher ACE scores are correlated with significant educational problems, including low grades, chronic absenteeism and poor behaviors (Stewart-Tufesco et al, 2022).  Furthermore, the lingering effects of adverse childhood experiences include trauma responses like hypervigilance, difficulty focusing and impulsive behaviors that are often misdiagnosed as ADHD in the school setting (Starechewski, 2015).

The CDC proposes that preventing ACEs would have an astonishing impact on adolescents, suggesting that limiting these traumas would “reduce suicide attempts…by as much as 89%, prescription pain medication abuse by as much as 84%, and persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness by as much as 66%” in the high school population (2024). A study conducted in Philadelphia itself found that ACE scores are linked directly to physical impacts on teenagers, not just emotional, including higher rates of obesity, hypertension, and diagnosed depression (Hall et al, 2021). Experiences early in childhood also have a measurable, visible impact on childhood brain development (McDermott et al, 2023). All of this can easily lead a student, or their teacher, to a sense of despair that these childhood losses and difficulties create an insurmountable obstacle to success.

However, this is a space where deeper research offers a more optimistic view. While discussing the impact of adverse childhood experiences, it is equally important to highlight the role of resilience, a term used to describe a person’s ability to recover from trauma. Protective factors like a caring adult, a reliable caregiver, or even a supportive school significantly mitigate the long term impacts of ACEs (Hall et al, 2021; Center for Disease Control, 2024; Williams, 2025). Videos that train parents to model and “return” emotional and verbal reactions to babbling infants can build later resiliency and strengthen parent-child attachment (Starechewski, 2015).  Targeted therapies focusing on attention and mindfulness help children’s “highly plastic” brains recover, nor does the window for such intervention close early in childhood (McDermott et al, 2023). In fact, the Center for the Developing Adolescent at UCLA has identified adolescence as a period when young people have “a brain designed for exploration and connection” (Williams, 2025) and can rebuild and essentially rewrite their relationships to risk, emotional regulation and identity. The Philadelphia study found resilience was built the most strongly when children experiencing trauma had a primary caregiver who was supportive and present (Hall et al, 2021), however, even a single supportive adult or a strong sense of personal identity and independence can decrease the negative effects of ACEs (Starechewski, 2021).

Even authors writing specifically for teachers caution against a widespread screening for ACEs (Murphy & Sadis, 2019) due to concerns about the narrow definitions of adversity and about the highly individual nature of the necessary response to each person. I have found it helpful to introduce concepts of adversity and resilience first as a literary analysis tool, and certainly students can contemplate what Odysseus’ ACE score would have been or what protective factors might have helped him recover from war and trauma. Whether students consider this test for themselves or more generally, it is crucial to include discussions of resilience side by side with discussions of trauma, especially in schools where higher ACE scores are likely to be near-universal. The ACE and resilience tests provide a useful model for students of an assessment where the data is very straightforward, a series of binary questions, but the response to that data is not clear.

Personality Traits

A final alternative for students to explore, and one that may be both less fraught and more controversial than questions of emotional intelligence or long-term trauma impact, is the Big 5, or OCEAN, personality test. In an extensive history of this test, Kabigting (2021) connects it to the classical Greek philosopher and “father of medicine,” Hippocrates, who proposed four temperaments of sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric and melancholic. While we no longer think the way to address an unnecessarily melancholic temperament is to rebalance one’s humors, the OCEAN test shows the persistence and validity of considering personality as a collection of spectrums.

The “Big 5” are big because they are broad and generalized (Kabigting 2021); OCEAN is used as an abbreviation because the test aims to measure a person’s Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.  In a student-friendly article on VeryWellMind.com, Kendra Cherry distills these respectively down to “creativity and intrigue,” “thoughtfulness,” “sociability,” “kindness,” and “sadness or emotional stability” (Cherry, 2025). A similarly useful video from Sprouts imagines five individuals stranded on a desert island, who respond with enthusiasm, preparedness, compassion, exploration or despair (Koblin, 2021). These five major traits, which are understood to be relatively independent of each other, developed gradually out of trait theory psychology in the 1930s and 40s (Kabigting, 2021) and can now be found in studies of ethics, employment, socioemotional health, and even the video game Minecraft (Shaw, 2023).

“Openness,” in this context, refers to openness to experience, and includes creativity, curiosity, and a willingness to try new adventures. Conscientiousness is a “goal-oriented” (Cherry, 2025) trait, common in people who plan ahead, pay close attention to detail, and both want to succeed and feel a strong sense of their obligations.  Extraversion is a combination of both “gregariousness” (Kabigting 2021) and a generally high-energy, excitable, and possibly impulsive temperament. Agreeableness does not quite equate to friendliness; someone with a high degree of agreeability will be prone to trust others and to reward trust placed in themselves, will be quick to show compassion and care, and is likely to privilege cooperation over competition. Neuroticism, the only definitively negative trait explored by this test, encompasses anxiety, sadness, hostility, and a general vulnerability. Tests of the “Big 5,” such as one available on VeryWellMind, assess personality for a percentage of each trait.

Extensive research has explored the different and daily impact of these personality pieces on individuals, especially in academic and professional contexts. Personality knowledge can inform how people respond to stress (Connor-Smith & Flaschbart, 2007), to ethical challenges (Simha & Parboteeah, 2020), to job demands (Holman & Hughes, 2021), academic needs (Noftle & Robins, 2007; Poput, 2009) and even to the unprecedented 2020 pivot to virtual instruction (Audet et al, 2021). As with IQ, EQ, and impacts of trauma, research suggests that these personality traits have a biological base, but at the same time, are far from fixed and determinative at birth.

Individual OCEAN traits may be highly correlated with certain tendencies or responses, but are also mediated by culture, context, and, ultimately, our own daily decisions about the kind of person we wish to become. In one example, subjects who scored highly for conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness were less likely to support unethical behavior or make arguments to justify unethical actions to achieve a goal; however, in cultures where high performance was valued, these correlations grew weaker, presumably because values of success were now in conflict with personality traits that inclined people to ethical behavior (Simha & Parboteeah, 2020). Openness to experience predicts strong SAT scores (Noftle and Robins, 2007) and seemed to be the key to academic success without a hit to well-being during covid-19 (Audet et al, 2021); at the same time, however, it was conscientiousness that helped with actual grades or achievement in both studies. While academics generally correlate well with agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness, conscientiousness is the only trait that tracks with strong academic success regardless of other measurements of intelligence (Porupat, 2009). Moreover, research suggests that, with or without conscious effort, these traits can change over time in individuals.

A study of the interaction of personality traits and the workplace over twenty years (Holman & Hughes, 2021) found that, over a long enough timeline, job demands could alter a person’s traits; as workload and responsibility for supervision increased, employees developed stronger elements of openness, agreeableness, and extraversion, whereas employees who worked in mostly self-directed roles saw less or no change in their OCEAN scores. In an opinion piece titled “I’m disagreeable — and it’s backed by science” (Hunt, 2025), one author described her own efforts to enhance her agreeableness scores. She also interviewed Olga Khazan, the recent author of Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change, a personal account of a new mother trying to expand her extraversion in order to be what she sees as a better parent. Khazan identifies two key aspects to personality trait change, mindset and follow-through: to say “I would like to be this, and I believe I can change” (Hunt, 2025) and to then actually go and do the behaviors connected to the new personality trait, to simply “go out and do it, for the rest of your life.” If our choices can be imagined as rivers, these traits may be the channels where the water will most naturally flow, but both formal research and anecdotal experiences suggest that it’s possible to change the flow.

The “Big 5” can inform our understanding of other measurements, as well. Conscientiousness, for example, aligns with academic success but does not necessarily correlate with IQ, suggesting some of the practical limits of the latter as an assessment of potential (Poput, 2009). An extensive meta-analysis of coping strategies and personality traits (Connor-Smith & Flashbart, 2007) found clear differences in response to stress and trauma based on individuals’ predominant traits. A primarily extraverted person faced with an emergency might seek additional social and practical support and focus on solving the problem, while someone with high agreeableness was more likely to seek predominantly emotional and spiritual support and practice “cognitive restructuring” such as finding humor in the situation or looking for positives. Knowing one’s OCEAN trait breakdown could perhaps be helpful in anticipating the most natural or habitual responses to the kinds of stressors identified in ACE assessments.

A number of OCEAN tests can be found online, but VeryWellMind’s basic test is quick to complete and easy for students to understand and analyze both their own scores and, perhaps, those of fictional characters, to provide some distance. After having had the opportunity to consider their own emotional intelligence, personal history, and (possibly) ingrained personality traits, students will be well equipped to engage with a debate on what we mean when we say intelligence or potential, and how we measure it.

Teaching Strategies

Jigsaw Reading

In the jigsaw reading strategy, students separate into groups to read individual sections of a common text, or different texts on a common topic, and then share their combined knowledge for the class. This strategy will be used to access some of the basic background information articles in an engaging and time-conscious way.

Sentence-level analysis

In detailed structural analysis of a sentence, students look closely at vocabulary and individual word function to test their comprehension and recognize the strategies of the authors. This is an important reading skill regularly taught and retaught in my classroom, and will be key to help students closely analyze individual test questions and structures for especially the OCEAN and EQ assessments.

Save the Last Word Discussion

Save the Last Word is a simple but effective discussion strategy where each student reads a common text, then shares a single quote or fact from the text that stood out to them, without explaining why. Other members of the small group engage with the sharer’s quote, and only after their discussion has concluded does the first speaker explain why they chose this quote or concept. The discussion then proceeds similarly around the circle. This is a useful strategy especially to help students engage with personal, anecdotal texts such as Hunt’s.

Mentor texts

When students read a mentor text, they engage with a piece of writing with the explicit goal of analyzing the author’s structural and rhetorical choices in order to generate a similar product. This approach will be used to analyze both the structure of the texts and the variously engaging and informative ways in which they are written about.

Multimodal sources

Students engage in the classroom and retain information better when information is presented in a variety of ways. In addition to the written texts at a variety of levels, students will gain their knowledge of assessment methods and their reliability from video sources such as a TED talk on the history of the SATs and a Sprouts School video explaining the Big 5, from visual and interactive sources such as the New York Times’ interactive of SAT statistics and the National Education Association’s standardized testing timeline, and graphic guides such as Table 1 from Kabigting’s history of the Big 5 that clearly visualizes the different traits and their impact.

Note for current School District of Philadelphia teachers

This is designed for 5 90-minute classes in a mini-unit beginning after Day 21 in the 9th grade School District of Philadelphia pacing guide, found in the bibliography, though to fully accommodate the lessons below I suggest moving the reading of The Odyssey excerpt to slightly earlier in the unit, before “The Origins of Intelligence.” In this way, students will have two common narrative texts, the Odyssey excerpt and “The Most Dangerous Game,” to draw upon for discussion and comparison when discussing different forms of intelligence and assessment. I also suggest skipping the unshaded lessons in the unit pacing guide to create enough time and space for this exploration. This minor readjustment  allows for this unit to embed within the larger quarter 1 pacing, building key background knowledge and student connections without losing any of the priority texts and lessons.

Day 1: Reasoning, Heuristics, & Logical Fallacies

The key objective for this day’s lesson is for students to understand the concept of their own brains as computers, and to recognize the ways in which errors in our “programming” can lead us to faulty or unsupported conclusions. This lesson can be combined with that on Day 20 in the District pacing guide that defines and explains logical fallacies and the concept of arguments and claims; return to lesson 2 in this unit after completing the suggested close read of “The Origin of Intelligence” Studysync text.

Materials Needed:

Access to School District of Philadelphia Quarter 1 English 1 Unit Pacing Guide

Access to “Logical Fallacies” skills lesson in StudySync

Paper or digital version of a logic grid puzzle such as the ones found on Brainzilla

Paper or digital way for students to document and share their group-generated fallacies, such that they can be referred back to as needed later in the unit.

Lesson Sequence:

Begin this class with a warm-up of a simple logic grid puzzle from a children’s activity book or online site. Although not directly connected, the grid provides a good visual way for students to see their own thinking and will engage students at the start of what is otherwise a fairly abstract class. (10 min)

Following the warm-up, define key terms for and with students including “conclusion,” “premise,” “claims,” “argument,” “fallacy,” and “heuristic.” Thinking of our brains as computers, heuristics can be understood as “shortcuts” that work some of the time and some of the time lead to errors and fallacies. It is key in these discussions to emphasize for students that this is a discussion about how we think and reason, not about whether any given conclusion is correct or incorrect. Flawless reasoning from faulty inputs will produce incorrect conclusions, or applying a representativeness or availability heuristic might lead you to the correct conclusion much of the time but not reliably. For each example of fallacies and heuristics, provide students with the definitions from StudySync and this unit. (15 min)

Following definitions and a few teacher-generated examples, form students into small groups to generate their own examples of two to four examples for an assigned heuristic or fallacy. Return to the whole group to share and analyze these examples. (20 min)

The StudySync lesson highlights several logical fallacies in the “Origins of Intelligence” point/counterpoint essay; at this point in the class, review these fallacies with students and the intended rhetorical effect by the author. (15 min)

Close the class and assess students’ understanding by asking each student to write two short (2-3 sentence) arguments justifying Odysseus’ or Rainsford’s actions (or another character from a known class narrative, if applicable). The first argument should be as sound and valid as students can manage; in the second, they should demonstrate a deliberate and labeled fallacy. (15 min)

Day 2: The History of IQ & Standardized Tests

By the end of this class session, students will be able to describe the history of IQ tests and their more student-relevant stepchild, the SAT, and to verbalize the arguments for and against standardized testing as a measure of intelligence and a gateway to future success.

Materials Needed:

Laptop or technology access for at least 1/4th of the class, as the New York Times article is interactive online.

Technology to play a short whole-class video.

Digital or printed copies of “The Misguided War against the SATs,” “The Racist History of Standardized Tests,” and “UPenn Will Again Require SAT or ACT Scores on Applications.”

Lesson Sequence:

At the start of this class, students complete a reflective warm-up describing their own experiences as a test-taker, whether in eighth grade during the high school application process or further back. Then, students should view “The Dark History of IQ Tests.” Prior to the video, ask students to identify three key facts that stand out to them. (15 minutes)

After modeling with a few student volunteers if necessary, allow students time to engage in a Save the Last Word discussion sharing their observations from the video (15 minutes). These student groups should be homogeneous by reading ability in order to smooth transition later in the class to jigsaw reading.

Briefly explain to students the connection between original IQ tests and the SAT. Ensure students understand the name of the test itself and the meaning implied in “Scholastic Aptitude Test.” Then, distribute digitally and on paper four different texts: the NEA.org article on “The Racist History of Standardized tests,”  the New York Times analysis of the relationship between parental income and SAT scores, Snyder’s (2025) article on the SAT being re-instituted as a University of Pennsylvania admissions requirement, and all or part of the opinion piece “The Misguided War on the SAT” (Leonhardt, 2024). These texts are listed in ascending order of difficulty. I am assuming approximately eight groups of four students, allowing for two groups to jigsaw each text. (15 minutes)

Challenge students to find valid arguments for and against the use of the SATs in each text, and then ask each group to briefly summarize their findings and opinions (10 minutes)

Close by asking students to revisit their initial reflection and argue for or against the use of standardized testing in their own education. (15 minutes).

Day 3: Emotional Intelligence & Soft Skills

            By the end of this class, students should be able to define emotional intelligence or “EQ,” distinguish between two key ways it is assessed, and reflect on scores on two different forms of emotional assessment.

Materials Needed:

Digital or printed versions of the Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT)

Digital or printed versions of a simplified Situation Test of Emotional Understanding – Youth Version (STEM-Y)

Lesson Sequence:

At the start of class, students should complete a short reflective writing answering this question: What is a clearer indication of your personality, how you feel or what you do? Why? (5 minutes)

The teacher should briefly explain and summarize the difference between EQ and IQ, including the frequent importance of and usage of EQ in professional settings. Remind students that all of this discussion is working towards an argumentative essay where they will need to not just define intelligence but to decide how to measure it, and that EQ is one example of the ways in which other aspects of a person can be measured. Review the four key things that EQ tests try to measure: emotional perception, emotional understanding, emotional management and emotional usage. Work with students to generate one example of each skill. Revisiting the first conversation between Rainsford and Zaroff in “The Most Dangerous Game” is one possibility, as Rainsford accurately identifies emotions in Zaroff and in himself, works to manage his own disgust and anxiety, and finally attempts unsuccessfully to appeal to Zaroff’s humanity. (15 minutes)

Engage students in completing Carolyn MacCann’s STEM-Y (pages 8 to 10 at this link: https://osf.io/ahdt6). For the first two questions, analyze the question and the four choices as a whole class. The first question asks a student to imagine that they helped a friend, James, with his homework and were blamed by James for his resulting bad grade. Options to resolve the issue include apologizing, withdrawing, or clearly stating that the student is happy to help but final responsibility lies with James. Emphasize again that there is no wrong answer; this is meant to help recognize some emotional actions and motivations. Using page 7 of the STEM-Y, the resulting test can be scored by students or by an automated system such as a Google Form quiz. (15 min)

Emphasize to students that this “score” is of the effectiveness of any given answer, as determined by a panel of various experts; to return to the first question, for example, while clearing the air and drawing boundaries is rated as the most effective emotional response, it does not account for how important James’ friendship is to the respondent, or if past experience suggests James will continue to avoid responsibility. (5 minutes)

Review with students the difference between a test that measures ability, or what one can do, and one that measures personality traits and what one is likely to do. Allow students time independently to complete the SSEIT. Depending on the comfort level in your class, ask students to complete it for themselves or “in character” as Zaroff, Rainsford, Odysseus, or another character from a class text. Assist students in scoring their test and identifying their (or the character’s) relationship to the mean of 125 for men and 131 for women. (15 minutes)

Revisit the first two questions of each assessment and conduct a sentence-level analysis: Identify the verbs, subjects, and key adjectives in each sentence. Challenge students to identify any phrases in the questions or choices that might seem to suggest one answer over another or imply a positive association with a given statement. If time allows, allow students in groups to suggest additional or rephrased questions. (15 minutes)

Close by asking students to assess the assessment: which test provided them with more insight, into themselves or a fictional character? Which test is a better assessment of your ability to collaborate and engage with others? What reasons support their opinion? (5 minutes)

Day 4: Trauma & Resilience

By the end of this session, students will be able to define the terms trauma, resilience, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and contrast the simple tests measuring these aspects with the more complex assessments reviewed in the previous class. Students will apply the ACEs and resilience tests to fictional characters and discuss different ways of responding to this data.

Materials Needed:

Printed copies of ACE and Resilience tests from ACESTooHigh.

Printed or digital access to the CDC’s explanation of ACES at Adverse Childhood Experiences

Digital access to CDC’s “We Can Prevent ACES.” video

Printed or digital access to research on the impact of childhood stress on physical development

Access to digital or text copies of the previous excerpt of The Odyssey and the short story “The Most Dangerous Game.”

Lesson Sequence

Begin with reflective writing: Ask students how much they think positive or negative experiences as a child can impact a person in adulthood, and why. (5 minutes)

Allow students time to access and read the CDC text. Ask students to identify only the statistic that most stands out to them in the text after reading. In small groups, allow students to engage in an abbreviated Save the Last Word discussion to share and react to these statistics. Emphasize the importance of thoughtful, respectful discussion as the class is spending today reviewing some challenging topics. (15 minutes)

Completing the first two questions as a whole class and then allowing students to work in small groups, allow students time to complete an ACE test for Odysseus or Rainsford. Engage students in a short discussion on their findings and compare scores across groups. (15 minutes)

Define the term “resilience” and explain the role of protective factors. Play for students the “We Can Prevent ACES” video. (10 minutes)

Allow students time in their group to complete the Resilience test for the same character, or for themselves. (10 minutes)

With students, read and annotate the article on childhood development and trauma impact on the brain. Ask students to return to their original journal. Does this research support or contradict your own impression on how childhood experiences impact adulthood? (15 min)

Share with students that, unlike previous tests such as EQ or the SAT, ACES and resilience tests are not recommended as universal screeners. Ask students to propose an argument for or against this suggestion. If this is useful self-knowledge, why should every student not have it? (5 minutes)

Day 5: Personality Tests & OCEAN

            This is the final lesson that explicitly focuses on alternatives to IQ tests; following this lesson, use the following lesson to transition back to School District of Philadelphia lessons and begin planning the argumentative essay.  By the close of this lesson, students should be able to define the five traits covered in the OCEAN test and reflect on their own score.

Materials Needed

Technology to play The Big 5 video from Sprouts Schools

Digital access or a printed version of VeryWellMind’s OCEAN test or Big 5 Test

Digital or printed copy of VeryWellMind’s Big 5 Article

Digital or printed copy of Table 1 from Kabigting’s article on the history of the Big 5.

Digital or printed copy of I’m Disagreeable — and It’s Backed By Science

Lesson Sequence

Begin this class by asking students to answer one of the following questions:

• What is your horoscope sign, and do you think it accurately represents you?
• What Marvel superhero or Disney character are you most like, and why?
• What animal most represents your personality, and why? (5 min)

Explain to students that after reviewing ways of measuring academic performance or aptitude, emotional wellbeing, and recovery from trauma, today we are focusing on a respected way of measuring your personality, which is often what less scientific methods like horoscopes, online “which ____ are you” quizzes, and even appropriated and misapplied ideas of “spirit animals” claim to do. Play for students the Sprouts explanation video. Prior to playing the video, direct students’ attention to specific traits. If students are seated in groups, assign a trait to focus on for each group; if not, a quick designation like “Jan-March birthdays, pay attention to… and April-May birthdays, pay attention to..” works as well. (10 min)

Briefly review the terms and ideas as a class, asking students to explain the specific traits they focused on. (5 minutes)

Project one of the Big 5 tests and complete the first three questions together, ensuring students’ understanding of the phrasing. (5 minutes)

Allow students time to complete the remainder of the Big 5 test (15 minutes).

Before students review their own results, review key concepts of each trait by using either the VeryWell article or Table 1 from Kabigting’s article. Ask students to, in their own words, write definitions for each of the five traits. Referring back to the emotional intelligence tests that distinguished between inherent personality and most likely action, ask students to also propose an action they might take that would demonstrate each trait. (15 minutes)

Ask students to reflect on the perceived accuracy of their results, either by writing or through a Turn-and-Talk with others at their table. (5 minutes)

As a class, read and annotate an excerpt of the Guardian article; start with “Khazan should know…” What argument does the author make about the changeability of personality? Where do you see support for this argument? (10 minutes)

Ask students to close by writing: What traits in your personality do you most want to cultivate? What would you like to adjust or change? (5 minutes)

Day 6: What are the stakes and means of measurement?

            In order to engage students’ interest and understanding prior to planning their argumentative essay on how to measure intelligence, it’s important for them to see how these kinds of fairly abstract questions about what we measure and how have an ongoing, significant impact on their own lives. This lesson uses local news coverage on the high school application process, something quite recent for ninth grade students, to educate students on current debates about testing. This lesson is intended to take up only half of the period, with the second half devoted to Day 29 in the District lesson plan and the initial analysis of the model argumentative essay.

Materials Needed

Digital or printed copies of the following news articles:

https://whyy.org/articles/philly-centralizes-admissions-process-for-magnet-schools-to-increase-student-diversity/

https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-public-schools-selective-admissions-process-changes/

https://www.chalkbeat.org/philadelphia/2021/12/9/22826693/writing-test-added-to-phillys-selective-admissions-process-is-being-misused-professor-says/

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/schools-need-to-teach-the-new-basics-to-prepare-kids-for-careers-leaders-say/2025/03

https://www.chalkbeat.org/philadelphia/2022/12/20/23519827/philadelphia-graduation-requirements-test-scores-seniors-state-law-public-school/

https://whyy.org/articles/after-decade-of-debate-pa-passes-new-graduation-requirements/

Lesson Sequence

Begin this class by asking students to write reflectively: What are, or should be, the core requirements to graduate eighth grade? What are, or should be, the core requirements to graduate high school? (10 minutes)

Explain that one half of the class will review writing on how assessment interacts with high school and life after high school, and one half of the class will assess how the School District has handled the role of assessment in getting into high school. Divide students into heterogeneous groups by reading ability. (5 minutes)

Allow students time to read and annotate their assigned article. (20 minutes) Each group should prepare to answer the following questions to share with the class:

• What key facts related to standardized assessment in Philadelphia or in high school and middle school generally are explained in this article?
• How do or how should the information in this article affect you, as high schoolers, or the current eighth graders?
• What is the author’s opinion of the effectiveness of the assessments being written about?
• What is your opinion of the effectiveness of the assessments being written about?

Share information class wide (10 minutes).

Ask students to briefly adopt the persona of a parent, an employer, or a state legislator and write or speak for or against one of the assessments discussed in their article. If time allows, students should debate with each other in pairs in their assumed personas (10 minutes)

Explain to students that their final task for this unit will be to propose a new or at least modified way of assessing “genius,” and transition to the District lesson reviewing the model argumentative essay in StudySync.

For Classroom Use

These sources are appropriate for student-facing instruction, with some necessary scaffolding or additional vocabulary to help students understand more complex academic articles.

ACESTooHigh LLC. (2025). ACESTooHigh: News and commentary integrating the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences. ACESTooHigh. https://acestoohigh.com/

This is a news aggregator that provides daily examples of current news stories related in some way to adverse childhood experiences and long-term trauma impacts.

ACESTooHigh.com. (2016, August). What’s Your Ace Score? And What’s Your Resilience Score? ACESTooHigh. https://cls.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3019/2016/08/From-ACESTOOHIGH-ACES-and-Resilience-questions.pdf

This test provides both questions to determine an individual’s ACE score and their “resilience” score, identifying protective factors.

Blad, E. (2025, March 10). Schools Need to Teach the ‘New Basics’ to Prepare Kids for Careers, Leaders Say. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/schools-need-to-teach-the-new-basics-to-prepare-kids-for-careers-leaders-say/2025/03

This article highlights the concerns with the emphasis on standardized testing, as coming from career leaders.

Berger, M. (2021, June 8). A link between childhood stress and early molars | Penn Today. Penn Today. https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/Penn-researchers-link-childhood-stress-early-molars

This summary of recent Penn research identifies how children who have experienced trauma

Center for Disease Control. (2024, May 16). Risk and Protective Factors. CDC.gov. https://www.cdc.gov/aces/risk-factors/index.html

This article from the CDC explains the risk factors associated with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) in childhood as well as the elements that support emotional resiliency.

Cherry, K. (2025, January 29). What Are the Big 5 Personality Traits? VeryWellMind.com. https://www.verywellmind.com/the-big-five-personality-dimensions-2795422

This site explains the five elements of the Big 5 test (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) in student-friendly language.

Dombrowski, S. C. (2020, April 27). The dark history of IQ tests – Stefan C. Dombrowski. YouTube. Retrieved April 20, 2025, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2bKaw2AJxs

This video explains the history of IQ tests in an animated, student-appropriate short format.

Falk, M. (2021, October 6). Philly centralizes admissions process for magnet schools to increase student diversity. WHYY. https://whyy.org/articles/philly-centralizes-admissions-process-for-magnet-schools-to-increase-student-diversity/

            This article summarizes 2021 changes in Philadelphia’s high school application process, including de-emphasizing standardized testing in favor of student writing.

Grewal, D., & Salovey, P. (2005, July-August). Feeling Smart: The Science of Emotional Intelligence. American Scientist. https://www.americanscientist.org/article/feeling-smart-the-science-of-emotional-intelligence

This article gives basic background on the concept of “emotional intelligence” and the ways in which EQ has been measured.

Hunt, E. (2025, April 14). I’m disagreeable – and it’s backed by science. Can I change my personality? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2025/apr/14/why-am-i-like-this-disagreeable

In this article, the author describes her experiences trying to change her personality while also reviewing a recent text on the mutability of OCEAN personality traits.

Juhasz, A. (2022, August 17). Philly public schools drop writing sample, add standardized tests back to selective admissions process. WHYY. https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-public-schools-selective-admissions-process-changes/

This news article from summer 2022 explains changes in the Philadelphia public school high school application process and concerns around adding or removing standardized testing as an element of the application.

Koblin, J. (2021, February 16). The Big Five Personality Traits – Sprouts – Learning Videos – Social Sciences. Sprouts Schools. Retrieved April 23, 2025, from https://sproutsschools.com/the-big-five-personality-traits/

This short video briefly outlines the big 5 personality traits through an analogy of five young people on a deserted island.

MacCann, C. (2021, March 10). Emotional Intelligence Test Protocol – STEM-Y (youth version). Center for Open Science. https://osf.io/ahdt6

This PDF contains a short-form, simplified version of the STEM emotional test and brief directions on scoring it.

Mezzacappa, D. (2021, December 9th). Writing test added to Philly’s selective admissions process is being misused, professor says. Chalkbeat Philadelphia. https://www.chalkbeat.org/philadelphia/2021/12/9/22826693/writing-test-added-to-phillys-selective-admissions-process-is-being-misused-professor-says/

This local news article goes into more detail on the inappropriate use of an auto-graded writing sample for a high-stakes decision like the high school application process in Philadelphia.

Mezzacappa, D. (2022, December 20). Nearly half of Philadelphia seniors still working to meet new state graduation requirements. Chalkbeat Philadelphia. https://www.chalkbeat.org/philadelphia/2022/12/20/23519827/philadelphia-graduation-requirements-test-scores-seniors-state-law-public-school/

This article covers the state law Act 158, which is both an example of a potentially controversial link between standardized tests and access to a high school diploma and an example of “alternative” measures for intelligence, as state law allows for a myriad of alternative artifacts students can use to show their preparedness for life after high school.

Miller, C. C., & Paris, F. (2023, October 23). New SAT Data Highlights the Deep Inequality at the Heart of American Education (Published 2023). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/23/upshot/sat-inequality.html

This digital interactive from the New York Times animates data on SAT scores and income inequality.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2024). Fast Facts: SAT scores . Table 226.10. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Retrieved April 20, 2025, from https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=171

This table briefly and clearly displays SAT score disparities by race and gender.

Leonhardt, D. (2024, January 7). The Misguided War on the SAT. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/07/briefing/the-misguided-war-on-the-sat.html

This article argues that the SAT, while imperfect, is still a more equitable measure than alternatives that can be equally or more biased based on income and opportunity.

Pilat, D., & Krastev, S. (2025). Representativeness Heuristic. The Decision Lab. Retrieved April 20, 2025, from https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/representativeness-heuristic

            This simple article explains the representativeness heuristic in student-friendly language with clear illustrations.

Rosales, J., & Walker, T. (2021, March 20). The Racist Beginnings of Standardized Testing. NEA.org. https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/racist-beginnings-standardized-testing

This article from a national teacher’s union addresses some of the controversies around the origins of standardized testing, especially high-stakes tests. I would definitely need to supplement this with an alternative viewpoint.

Shaw, A. (2023). Creative Minecrafters: Cognitive and Personality Determinants of Creativity, Novelty, and Usefulness in Minecraft. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, 17(1), 106-117.200

Although an academic journal article may be a stretch for a 9th grade reader, this article provides a great example of a clear application of personality test results to a milieu students will be familiar with from their childhood.

Shepalavy, N. (2021, December 07). “It Was Just A Lot of Stress”. The Philadelphia Citizen. https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/essay-requirement-philly-schools/

Snyder, S. (2025, February 14). UPenn will again require SAT or ACT scores on student applications. Philadelphia Inquirer. https://www.inquirer.com/education/university-pennsylvania-standardized-test-scores-20250214.html

This recent article provides further examples of the debate around standardized testing as a force for either fair or unfair practices around student access to academic opportunities.

Starecheski, L. (2015, March 2). Take The ACE Quiz — And Learn What It Does And Doesn’t Mean. Health News from NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/02/387007941/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean

This article gives further background on the ACE assessment and attempts to measure the impact of childhood trauma on future success.

Terada, Y. (2018, October 15). Multiple Intelligences Theory: Widely Used, Yet Misunderstood. Edutopia. Retrieved March 14, 2025, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/multiple-intelligences-theory-widely-used-yet-misunderstood/

This article, although written for teachers, gives a student-accessible review of a common cognitive theory that is still widely used in education despite some significant issues.

Troy, G. (2016, June 25). The Racist Origins of the SAT. The Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-racist-origins-of-the-sat/

This opinion article covers the origins of the SAT and is the source of much of the NEA article included elsewhere in the bibliography. Teachers may choose to use Troy’s or the NEA’s article depending on time and student ability.

Turkheimer, E., Harden, K. P., & Nisbett, R. E. (2017, May 18). Charles Murray is once again peddling junk science about race and IQ. Vox. https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/18/15655638/charles-murray-race-iq-sam-harris-science-free-speech

This article gives one example of the racist misuse of IQ as a concept and the weaponization of testing.

Veritas International Training Center. (2021). The Schutte Self Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT). Educational Resources. Retrieved April 22, 2025, from https://www.veritas-itc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-Schutte-Self-Report-Emotional-Intelligence-Test.pdf

            This site contains a simple, printable version of the SSREIT for use in the classroom.

Wolfman-Arent, A. (2018, October 16). After decade of debate, Pa. passes new graduation requirements. WHYY. https://whyy.org/articles/after-decade-of-debate-pa-passes-new-graduation-requirements/

This article provides more detail on Act 158, a law that might first have deeply embedded standardized testing into Pennsylvania educational outcomes but has instead provided alternatives.

For Unit Content

            These sources may be used in student instruction but are more likely to be cited in my unit content and used for key background for teachers to share.

Anglim, J., & Grant, S. (2016). Predicting Psychological and Subjective Well-Being from Personality: Incremental Prediction from 30 Facets Over the Big 5. Journal of Happiness Studies, 17(59-80).

This study provides some background and examples of the limits and applications of Big 5 facets.

Audet, E. C., Levine, S. L., Metin, E., Koestner, S., & Barcan, S. (2021). Zooming their way through university: Which Big 5 traits facilitated students’ adjustment to online courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Personality and Individual Differences, 170.

This article looks specifically at the applicability of Big 5 traits in the context of the sudden pandemic-mandated switch to virtual learning. Some aspects of this may be useful to share with my students as well.

Cartwright, S., & Pappas, C. (2008). Blackwell Publishing Ltd Oxford, UK IJMRnternational Journal of Management Reviews 1460-8545 © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2007 XXX ORIGINAL ARTICLES EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, ITS MEASUREMENT AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE WORKPLACE XXXX 2007 Emotional intelligence,. International Journal of Management Reviews (2008), 10(2), 149-171.

This article describes EQ and its importance from a professional perspective.

Connor-Smith, J. K., & Flachsbart, C. (2007). Relations Between Personality and Coping: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(6), 1080-1107.

This article may provide some useful resources within the meta-analysis for interactions between personality traits and recovery from traumatic experiences.

Coskun, K., & Oksuz, Y. (2019). Impact of Emotional Literacy Training on Students’ Emotional Intelligence Performance in Primary Schools. International Journal of Assessment Tools in Education, 6(1), 36-47.

This article highlights the impact of emotional literacy training and demonstrates that EQ is far from a fixed trait.

Costa, A., & Faria, L. (2025). Do students’ mindsets about emotional intelligence change over secondary school? Developmental paths in adolescence. Social Psychology of Education, 28(68).

This article emphasizes the importance of a growth mindset when discussing emotional intelligence for students as well as teachers.

Dhillon, H. S., Saisdharan, S., Dhillon, G. K., & Manalikuzhiyil, B. (2021). Emotional Intelligence – Measurement and Practical Applications. Current Medical Issues, 19, 278-81.

This article summarizes the function of EQ tests and the four areas such tests seek to measure.

Hall, A., Perez, A., West, X., Brown, M., Kim, E., Salih, Z., & Aronoff, S. (2021). The Association of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Resilience With Health Outcomes in Adolescents: An Observational Study. Global Pediatric Health, 7, 1-8.

This article gives a broad overview of the interaction between ACE scores, protective factors, and physical health.

Holman, D. J., & Hughes, D. J. (2021). Transactions between Big-5 personality traits and job characteristics across 20 years. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 94, 762-788.

Since I teach in an internship-based school with many students moving directly to employment, research on personality traits and job satisfaction or possibilities seems like a useful area to explore.

Kabigting Jr., F. (2021, June). The Discovery and Evolution of the Big Five of Personality Traits: A Historical Review. GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, 4(3).

This article provides some background on the development of the Big 5 as a test and how the specific OCEAN elements were isolated and selected.

Liu, Z., & Wu, G. (2022, February). The Influence of Family Socioeconomic Status on Primary School Students’ Emotional Intelligence: The Mediating Effect of Parenting Styles and Regional Differences. Frontiers in Psychology, 13.

Luque-Gonzalez, R., Romera, E., Gomez-Ortiz, O., Wiza, A., Laudańska-Krzemińska, I., Antypas, K., & Muller, S. (2022). Emotional intelligence and school climate in primary school children in Spain, Norway, and Poland. Psychology, Society & Education, 14(3), 29-37.

McDermott, C. L., Norton, E. S., & Mackey, A. P. (2023). A systematic review of interventions to ameliorate the impact of adversity on brain development. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, (153).

This source provides some useful additional background on responses to adverse childhood experiences and brain plasticity, all helpful for students to engage with a question around what are we measuring, and how fixed are these measurements anyway?

McDermott, C. L., Hilton, K., Park, A. T., Tooley, U. A., Boroshok, A. L., Mupparapu, M., Scott, J. M., Bumann, E. E., & Mackey, A. P. (2021). Early life stress is associated with earlier emergence of permanent molars. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(24). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2105304118

            This source documents the impact of childhood stress on physical development. A

 student-friendly summary from a press release can be found in the previous list of resources.

Murphey, D., & Sacks, V. (2019). Supporting Students with Adverse Childhood Experiences. American Federation of Teachers. Retrieved April 22, 2025, from https://www.aft.org/ae/summer2019/murphey_sacks

This post from the American Federation of Teachers suggests ways for teachers to support students with significant trauma-impacted behaviors.

Noftle, E. E., & Robins, R. W. (2007). Personality Predictors of Academic Outcomes: Big Five Correlates of GPA and SAT Scores. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(1), 116-130.

This examination of the relationship between personality traits and standardized test outcomes will provide some crucial context and allow students to transition from one idea to another in their thinking.

O’Connor, P. J., Hill, A., Kaya, M., & Martin, B. (2019, May). The Measurement of Emotional Intelligence: A Critical Review of the Literature and Recommendations for Researchers and Practitioners. Frontiers in Psychology, 10.

This is a broad review of EQ tests and their relevance and reliability.

Poropat, A. E. (2009). A meta-analysis of the five-factor model of personality and academic performance. Psychological Bulletin, 125(2), 322-338.

Similar to the previous citation, this is a broad review of multiple studies using the Big 5 and related personality tests.

Pytlik Zillig, L. M., Hemenover, S. H., & Dienstbier, R. A. (2001). What Do We Assess When We Assess a Big 5 Trait? A Content Analysis of the Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive Processes Represented in Big 5 Personality Inventories. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 847-858.

This is another source that involves some meta-analysis of the personality test, allowing students to look at how such measurements are constructed in order to argue for their own ideas.

Richie, R. (2025, February 19). Session 3 Presentation: Statement Logic. Teachers Institute of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania.

Stewart-Tufescu, A., Struck, S., Taillieu, T., Salmon, S., Fortier, J., Brownell, M., Chartier, M., Yakubovich, A. R., & Afifi, T. O. (2022). Adverse Childhood Experiences and Education Outcomes among Adolescents: Linking Survey and Administrative Data. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19.

This article highlights ways in which a high ACE score manifests throughout students’ academic careers.

Williams, J. (2025, March 7). Supporting the Connecting Brain during Adolescence. Philadelphia Learning Collaborative. Making (Brain) Waves: Connecting Adolescent Brain Science with Education Policy and Practice. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

During this mini-conference organized by the Philadelphia Learning Collaborative, teachers, students and neuroscientists discussed the adolescent brain and the implications for classroom instruction.

Pennsylvania Core Standards Addressed

Standard – CC.1.2.9-10.A

Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

Standard – CC.1.2.9-10.B

Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences and conclusions based on an author’s explicit assumptions and beliefs about a subject.

Standard – CC.1.2.9-10.C

Apply appropriate strategies to analyze, interpret, and evaluate how an author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them.

Standard – CC.1.2.9-10.E

Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas or claims are developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions of a text.

Standard – CC.1.2.9-10.H

Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing the validity of reasoning and relevance of evidence.