TAKS WRITING ADDITION PETITION

We, the undersigned, are starting this petition to persuade the Texas Assesment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS, to give us, (the students of Texas) more room or more pages to write the final draft of our writing composition. As of Febuary 2005, we are only being given 1 page, front and back, for a total of 2 lined pages to write our whole composition. For me to fit my whole composition on these 2 pages, I am forced to write very small. This strains my hands and makes it even more difficult to focus on writing since I am focused on the size of my writing. Our schools expect us to recieve "4's" on our essays, but I simply do not see how this is possible when i cannot fully express my opinions about the prompt, because we have limited space. I believe, that in order for me, and the other 7th grade students across the state of Texas to do their absolute best on the essay, we need more space to write. I would like to see at least 1 more full page, front and back, added to the amount of space we are given to write the composition. Then, we would surely have plenty of space, a total of 4 pages, to write our whole essay and we should not be forced to limit ourself's to only 2 pages. Hopefully, with an extended amount of pages, we will be getting better scores on the TAKS. Of course, it would always be good to see the Texas Department of Education abolish the entire TAKS test, but I need to start a whole new petition for that. I simply do not see why we need to take a test, when we have been working hard all year, (most of us anyways...) I believe that as long as we have an average of a 55\% in all classes, we should be able to move on to the next grade. Some students cannot help it, but as much as they study, they will always bomb a big test, such as the TAKS. For these students, it is unfair, and I think it's time to give them a break. The TAKS is very stressfull and I simply do not agree with it. Please sign this petition if you would (1), like to see more space added to the writing section of the TAKS, or/and, (2), would like to put an end to the TAKS test. Thank you all for taking your time to read this lengthy petition.