How do you supplement if public school education not meeting student's needs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, I'll help you out.

Classic: the author is not dead, white, or male

Oh stop the culture war bait. That has nothing to do with whether kids are expected to read books or are just being given excerpts. There ae classic books by almost every variety of human out there. Nobody is saying they should read Rudyard Kipling.

Good point. But actually, the OP had asked for suggestions on how to supplement which morphed into a discussion of why parents think they need to supplement which led to a discussion of expectations for ELA.

It's actually quite rare and refreshing to see discussions about the curriculum on this forum. And I think there are a couple of issues worth noting.

1. Only 4 anchor texts are assigned each year from grades 6-12 for ELA. Some feel that this is woefully inadequate. Others are fine with it.

2. Students are expected to read the whole text but only excerpts are mandated to be discussed in class. All of these texts are available for purchase and Deal has many copies for students who are unable to purchase them. Additionally, most texts are available as audiobooks.

3. You can't actually force a student to read a book.

4. If there are only 4 anchor texts for each year, are these really the best choices? One size fits few. I would rather see schools introduce and guide students through difficult texts, including epics, precisely because these are not necessarily choices that students would make, but they might end up with enough background knowledge and familiarity to actually read the text later on their own. I also believe that exposure to classical texts is part of becoming educated. That may or may not be the purpose of public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would start here

Why are you only requiring 4 anchor texts per year?
What is the rationale for these choices?
Why are you only assigning excerpts of each book?
Do you consider this ELA curriculum to be sufficiently challenging?
Is this curriculum something you would choose for your own child?
How does this ELA curriculum compare with charter and independent schools in this area?

in the abstract some of those choices make sense- an entire year on 4 seminal texts (especially something with layers like Moby Dick or that defines an archetype like the Odyssey) makes a ton of sense. What doesn't make sense if focusing on 4 and then barely reading them let alone concentrating on them

there is nothing comparable to Virgil or Melville on the list of anchor texts. I would hardly call Tuck Everlasting or Inside Out and Back Again seminal.

I didn’t read Virgil or Melville until *high school* so I don’t know what middle school you think is assigning Moby Dick in 6th grade or 7th grade. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, which they read in 6th grade, actually IS a classic. Even though it wasn’t written by a dead white guy at least a century ago. 🙄

IMHO, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry is a grim, tedious, gratingly woke book that no 6th grader that should be forced to read. I got much more out of the contrarian, often funny, Autobiography of Malcolm X. My vote is for giving kids some choice in selecting the classics texts they must read for school. It may be convenient for adults to push certain texts on kids, but that's not the best approach if your goal is inspire an enduring love of reading and the humanities. I tell me kids, if you hate an assigned book, just go on Amazon Books and read half a dozen long critical reviews. That's it, you're done, now pick up a meaty book you're more likely to enjoy and try hard to finish it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would start here

Why are you only requiring 4 anchor texts per year?
What is the rationale for these choices?
Why are you only assigning excerpts of each book?
Do you consider this ELA curriculum to be sufficiently challenging?
Is this curriculum something you would choose for your own child?
How does this ELA curriculum compare with charter and independent schools in this area?

in the abstract some of those choices make sense- an entire year on 4 seminal texts (especially something with layers like Moby Dick or that defines an archetype like the Odyssey) makes a ton of sense. What doesn't make sense if focusing on 4 and then barely reading them let alone concentrating on them

there is nothing comparable to Virgil or Melville on the list of anchor texts. I would hardly call Tuck Everlasting or Inside Out and Back Again seminal.

I didn’t read Virgil or Melville until *high school* so I don’t know what middle school you think is assigning Moby Dick in 6th grade or 7th grade. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, which they read in 6th grade, actually IS a classic. Even though it wasn’t written by a dead white guy at least a century ago. 🙄

IMHO, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry is a grim, tedious, gratingly woke book that no 6th grader that should be forced to read. I got much more out of the contrarian, often funny, Autobiography of Malcolm X. My vote is for giving kids some choice in selecting the classics texts they must read for school. It may be convenient for adults to push certain texts on kids, but that's not the best approach if your goal is inspire an enduring love of reading and the humanities. I tell me kids, if you hate an assigned book, just go on Amazon Books and read half a dozen long critical reviews. That's it, you're done, now pick up a meaty book you're more likely to enjoy and try hard to finish it.

I’m sorry, a book that came out of the author’s family’s experiences in the South as “woke?” Is it woke to read about segregated schools or lynching, which are a grim part of our national history? It’s a great book. And grim and tedious certainly describes some of what people here think kids should be reading in 7th grade (Moby Dick, huh?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, I'll help you out.

Classic: the author is not dead, white, or male

Oh stop the culture war bait. That has nothing to do with whether kids are expected to read books or are just being given excerpts. There ae classic books by almost every variety of human out there. Nobody is saying they should read Rudyard Kipling.

Good point. But actually, the OP had asked for suggestions on how to supplement which morphed into a discussion of why parents think they need to supplement which led to a discussion of expectations for ELA.

It's actually quite rare and refreshing to see discussions about the curriculum on this forum. And I think there are a couple of issues worth noting.

1. Only 4 anchor texts are assigned each year from grades 6-12 for ELA. Some feel that this is woefully inadequate. Others are fine with it.

2. Students are expected to read the whole text but only excerpts are mandated to be discussed in class. All of these texts are available for purchase and Deal has many copies for students who are unable to purchase them. Additionally, most texts are available as audiobooks.

3. You can't actually force a student to read a book.

4. If there are only 4 anchor texts for each year, are these really the best choices? One size fits few. I would rather see schools introduce and guide students through difficult texts, including epics, precisely because these are not necessarily choices that students would make, but they might end up with enough background knowledge and familiarity to actually read the text later on their own. I also believe that exposure to classical texts is part of becoming educated. That may or may not be the purpose of public school.

There is so much misinformation (and idiocy) in this post, but I don't care to refute it because people will continue to sprout nonsense, so it makes no difference. I am the parent of Wilson kids, and a recent grad. ELA has been weak across the country since Common Core was implemented, and it could be a lot stronger at Deal and Wilson. That's all I say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, I'll help you out.

Classic: the author is not dead, white, or male

Oh stop the culture war bait. That has nothing to do with whether kids are expected to read books or are just being given excerpts. There ae classic books by almost every variety of human out there. Nobody is saying they should read Rudyard Kipling.

Good point. But actually, the OP had asked for suggestions on how to supplement which morphed into a discussion of why parents think they need to supplement which led to a discussion of expectations for ELA.

It's actually quite rare and refreshing to see discussions about the curriculum on this forum. And I think there are a couple of issues worth noting.

1. Only 4 anchor texts are assigned each year from grades 6-12 for ELA. Some feel that this is woefully inadequate. Others are fine with it.

2. Students are expected to read the whole text but only excerpts are mandated to be discussed in class. All of these texts are available for purchase and Deal has many copies for students who are unable to purchase them. Additionally, most texts are available as audiobooks.

3. You can't actually force a student to read a book.

4. If there are only 4 anchor texts for each year, are these really the best choices? One size fits few. I would rather see schools introduce and guide students through difficult texts, including epics, precisely because these are not necessarily choices that students would make, but they might end up with enough background knowledge and familiarity to actually read the text later on their own. I also believe that exposure to classical texts is part of becoming educated. That may or may not be the purpose of public school.

There is so much misinformation (and idiocy) in this post, but I don't care to refute it because people will continue to sprout nonsense, so it makes no difference. I am the parent of Wilson kids, and a recent grad. ELA has been weak across the country since Common Core was implemented, and it could be a lot stronger at Deal and Wilson. That's all I say.

What a cop-out! Please tell us what you think is misinformation and what is idiocy.