High schoolers can’t write

[Anonymous]

Another MCPS teacher here who sends my kids to private Catholic.

We are not allowed to teach what works, only what is politically correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AP Lang and AP Lit are the English classes where students are held to higher standards of writing. Unfortunately they don't come until 11th and 12 th grades.

I wish this were true. My kid took AP Lang and the writing assignments that he got A’s on was riddled with grammatical errors and he wasn’t dinged or corrected on it. MCPS does not care to teach grammar or writing structure as a philosophical choice.

This is surprising. This is what we were counting on.

When will people learn that AP classes aren’t always rigorous?

Umm, it's not? Then what is the purpose of that designation?

So public school can brag about how many APs they offer and how many students take them (whether or not they are prepared to take them). It's the same with the graduation rate. They are probably graduating some semi or illiterate students but look at our high graduation rate!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AP Lang and AP Lit are the English classes where students are held to higher standards of writing. Unfortunately they don't come until 11th and 12 th grades.

I wish this were true. My kid took AP Lang and the writing assignments that he got A’s on was riddled with grammatical errors and he wasn’t dinged or corrected on it. MCPS does not care to teach grammar or writing structure as a philosophical choice.

This is surprising. This is what we were counting on.

When will people learn that AP classes aren’t always rigorous?

Right! When they are open to all for equity purposes, you have students in them who don't belong there. As annoying as it was, my 2nd son's Catholic HS limited APs. You have to have an A in a previous honors course to even be considered for an AP class the following year.

At my DD's Catholic HS, you have to have a B+ to qualify for an AP class. Are you saying that MCPS will allow any student to take an AP class? That doesn't sound right. I thought you had to at least have been in honors classes before.[/quote]


Honors in public school is not honors in Catholic. Honors in public school is grade level and regular classes are remedial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents refuse to raise their own kids.

Newsflash: it isn’t up to parents to provide 100% of the kid’s education.

Public schools teach the basics to the masses. You need private for more than that.

--MCPS teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents refuse to raise their own kids.

Newsflash: it isn’t up to parents to provide 100% of the kid’s education.

Public schools teach the basics to the masses. You need private for more than that.

--MCPS teacher

And that’s acceptable?

[Anonymous]

The masses these days are poor. It's been nearly 10 yrs since the majority of public school students live in poverty.

IMO, schools should teach the basics to mastery. Until then, your kid shouldn't move on.

[Anonymous]

For those of you who are wondering why teachers don’t correct all of the mistakes and provide detailed feedback, I wonder if you have ever graded a set of papers? Each paper takes the grader a significant amount of time to do what is basically copyediting, and then on top of that, you have to engage the student’s ideas and provide feedback about their logic, structure, argument building, use of supporting/relevant detail from the text, or whatever else the assignment is meant to do. Writing fulsome comments along those lines takes forever as well. So if you expect copyediting and deep, detailed comments about the substance of a paper, and you multiply that by 30 kids per class, you are talking about an infinite number of hours to grade one assignment. On top of that, teachers have to plan classes, grade other kinds of work like in-class quizzes or student presentations or whatever, and then do the rest of their job. That’s after teaching in the classroom for most of the day. It just takes too much time. What would help is if teachers in other disciplines where students submit papers, like social studies or whatever, would also focus on the actual writing and not just the substance. And it would help if students review their papers and at least run them through spellcheck and grammar check.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids go to Whitman. They are native English speakers. They get all As. Their writing is awful. Poor grammar and punctuation. Circular sentences, pointless paragraphs. In an essay, they don’t know how to build an argument. And they read more than most other kids. I am in shock. How can this be? Anyone else notice this issue with their kids?

I can see several problems in your sample here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who are wondering why teachers don’t correct all of the mistakes and provide detailed feedback, I wonder if you have ever graded a set of papers? Each paper takes the grader a significant amount of time to do what is basically copyediting, and then on top of that, you have to engage the student’s ideas and provide feedback about their logic, structure, argument building, use of supporting/relevant detail from the text, or whatever else the assignment is meant to do. Writing fulsome comments along those lines takes forever as well. So if you expect copyediting and deep, detailed comments about the substance of a paper, and you multiply that by 30 kids per class, you are talking about an infinite number of hours to grade one assignment. On top of that, teachers have to plan classes, grade other kinds of work like in-class quizzes or student presentations or whatever, and then do the rest of their job. That’s after teaching in the classroom for most of the day. It just takes too much time. What would help is if teachers in other disciplines where students submit papers, like social studies or whatever, would also focus on the actual writing and not just the substance. And it would help if students review their papers and at least run them through spellcheck and grammar check.

All of that might take up a lot of time, but it isn’t teaching kids a damn thing about writing.

So it all would seem to be a waste.

[Anonymous]

^^^ ?!?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^ ?!?!

I think I made myself clear. All these people are talking about how their kids aren’t learning to write.

So it’s fine to say teachers don’t have time to give feedback, but that doesn’t address the broader issue of why kids aren’t learning to write.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who are wondering why teachers don’t correct all of the mistakes and provide detailed feedback, I wonder if you have ever graded a set of papers? Each paper takes the grader a significant amount of time to do what is basically copyediting, and then on top of that, you have to engage the student’s ideas and provide feedback about their logic, structure, argument building, use of supporting/relevant detail from the text, or whatever else the assignment is meant to do. Writing fulsome comments along those lines takes forever as well. So if you expect copyediting and deep, detailed comments about the substance of a paper, and you multiply that by 30 kids per class, you are talking about an infinite number of hours to grade one assignment. On top of that, teachers have to plan classes, grade other kinds of work like in-class quizzes or student presentations or whatever, and then do the rest of their job. That’s after teaching in the classroom for most of the day. It just takes too much time. What would help is if teachers in other disciplines where students submit papers, like social studies or whatever, would also focus on the actual writing and not just the substance. And it would help if students review their papers and at least run them through spellcheck and grammar check.

All of that might take up a lot of time, but it isn’t teaching kids a damn thing about writing.

So it all would seem to be a waste.

Private school teacher here. I’ve spent about 5 hours today (on Labor Day, ironically) commenting on my students’ first essays of the year. Each is taking me about 25 minutes, and I have 60 of them. I’ll get these back by Weds, at which point my students will review my comments and complete a reflection. They will then have the opportunity to revise for a higher grade, taking into account my written comments and their own reflections. We will then begin essay #2.

Are you telling me I’m wasting my time providing all of this feedback? I would have loved the opportunity to go to the pool with my family today.

Back to reading essays, and wasting time apparently…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who are wondering why teachers don’t correct all of the mistakes and provide detailed feedback, I wonder if you have ever graded a set of papers? Each paper takes the grader a significant amount of time to do what is basically copyediting, and then on top of that, you have to engage the student’s ideas and provide feedback about their logic, structure, argument building, use of supporting/relevant detail from the text, or whatever else the assignment is meant to do. Writing fulsome comments along those lines takes forever as well. So if you expect copyediting and deep, detailed comments about the substance of a paper, and you multiply that by 30 kids per class, you are talking about an infinite number of hours to grade one assignment. On top of that, teachers have to plan classes, grade other kinds of work like in-class quizzes or student presentations or whatever, and then do the rest of their job. That’s after teaching in the classroom for most of the day. It just takes too much time. What would help is if teachers in other disciplines where students submit papers, like social studies or whatever, would also focus on the actual writing and not just the substance. And it would help if students review their papers and at least run them through spellcheck and grammar check.

All of that might take up a lot of time, but it isn’t teaching kids a damn thing about writing.

So it all would seem to be a waste.

Private school teacher here. I’ve spent about 5 hours today (on Labor Day, ironically) commenting on my students’ first essays of the year. Each is taking me about 25 minutes, and I have 60 of them. I’ll get these back by Weds, at which point my students will review my comments and complete a reflection. They will then have the opportunity to revise for a higher grade, taking into account my written comments and their own reflections. We will then begin essay #2.

Are you telling me I’m wasting my time providing all of this feedback? I would have loved the opportunity to go to the pool with my family today.

Back to reading essays, and wasting time apparently…

I was addressing the poster who said she doesn’t have time to give feedback.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who are wondering why teachers don’t correct all of the mistakes and provide detailed feedback, I wonder if you have ever graded a set of papers? Each paper takes the grader a significant amount of time to do what is basically copyediting, and then on top of that, you have to engage the student’s ideas and provide feedback about their logic, structure, argument building, use of supporting/relevant detail from the text, or whatever else the assignment is meant to do. Writing fulsome comments along those lines takes forever as well. So if you expect copyediting and deep, detailed comments about the substance of a paper, and you multiply that by 30 kids per class, you are talking about an infinite number of hours to grade one assignment. On top of that, teachers have to plan classes, grade other kinds of work like in-class quizzes or student presentations or whatever, and then do the rest of their job. That’s after teaching in the classroom for most of the day. It just takes too much time. What would help is if teachers in other disciplines where students submit papers, like social studies or whatever, would also focus on the actual writing and not just the substance. And it would help if students review their papers and at least run them through spellcheck and grammar check.

1. Teachers at private schools make those corrections.

2. It’s probably easier to edit/correct when you actually teach kids what they need to learn starting in K-5…instead of waiting for them to magically learn grammar, writing, etc. in AP classes during the tail end of high school.

#duh

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who are wondering why teachers don’t correct all of the mistakes and provide detailed feedback, I wonder if you have ever graded a set of papers? Each paper takes the grader a significant amount of time to do what is basically copyediting, and then on top of that, you have to engage the student’s ideas and provide feedback about their logic, structure, argument building, use of supporting/relevant detail from the text, or whatever else the assignment is meant to do. Writing fulsome comments along those lines takes forever as well. So if you expect copyediting and deep, detailed comments about the substance of a paper, and you multiply that by 30 kids per class, you are talking about an infinite number of hours to grade one assignment. On top of that, teachers have to plan classes, grade other kinds of work like in-class quizzes or student presentations or whatever, and then do the rest of their job. That’s after teaching in the classroom for most of the day. It just takes too much time. What would help is if teachers in other disciplines where students submit papers, like social studies or whatever, would also focus on the actual writing and not just the substance. And it would help if students review their papers and at least run them through spellcheck and grammar check.

All of that might take up a lot of time, but it isn’t teaching kids a damn thing about writing.

So it all would seem to be a waste.

Private school teacher here. I’ve spent about 5 hours today (on Labor Day, ironically) commenting on my students’ first essays of the year. Each is taking me about 25 minutes, and I have 60 of them. I’ll get these back by Weds, at which point my students will review my comments and complete a reflection. They will then have the opportunity to revise for a higher grade, taking into account my written comments and their own reflections. We will then begin essay #2.

Are you telling me I’m wasting my time providing all of this feedback? I would have loved the opportunity to go to the pool with my family today.

Back to reading essays, and wasting time apparently…

I was addressing the poster who said she doesn’t have time to give feedback.

Reread. She never wrote that she doesn’t provide feedback. She was simply explaining how much time it takes and how little time she has.