Our state just moved to the ACT Aspire test, which students will be taking this year (2015). To say teachers are a little nervous is a huge understatement. The nervousness has to do with the time element of the test (in all the subject areas). Example: a third grade student has 30 minutes to write a reflective narrative piece (that includes reading the prompt and putting together any type of graphic organizer before they write AND no dictionary or thesaurus is allowed). This is a HUGE shift for our students who we have always been told to "take their time". The online reason the ACT folks note for the short time limit has to do with "test fatigue"...as in... if students are given an unlimited amount of time their writing doesn't appreciatively improve - CLICK HERE for that explanation. I disagree and feel 30 minutes to write to an unknown prompt in grades 3-5 is highly unreasonable and not relevant in today's world (I've never been given an unknown ...