In the weeks leading up to ISTEP+, English teacher Elizabeth Elpers gave her students a sweet reminder to use paragraphs on the test. What was her idea you may ask? She used pineapples.

“It’s something fun, but it does serve a purpose,” Elpers said. “The pineapple is symbolic for paragraphs. A lot of times when we review for ISTEP+, we try to emphasize that you have to use paragraphs when writing the extended responses. It’s just a fun incentive to get the students to remember.”

While the fruit giveaway may seem silly, it had a lasting effort on students. 

“I remembered to use paragraphs,” sophomore Lane Chambers said. “I probably should’ve used more.”

The only thing a student needed to win a pineapple was luck. 

“In each of my sophomore classes, we drew a name out of a hat on Friday, and the winner got an actual pineapple,” Elpers said. “We normally do ISTEP+ review for the two weeks before ISTEP+, and both Fridays we did a pineapple drawing.”

Over the course of two weeks, Elpers gave out eight pineapples to students in her four sophomore classes. 

“I won a pineapple,” sophomore Logan Thomas said. “I ate it, too. It was good.”

However, this wasn’t the first year of the pineapple giveaway.

“The pineapples are a tradition passed down from Mrs. Mishler,” Elpers said. “I know we’ve been doing it for at least the past few years.”

With standardized testing as a regular part of each school year, it doesn’t look like the pineapple tradition will be going anywhere any time soon.