AP Seminar at McLean High - brutal grading

[Anonymous]

Is anyone else's child having this experience at McLean? DC is a very strong writer and put 110% effort into the first quarter's projects but got absolute trash grades on the paper and presentation. I have an English degree and read DC's paper and observed DC's presentation and in no way, shape, or form thought the grade would be so low. DC is committed to the class (wants to show rigor, enjoys researching), but I'm frustrated on DC's behalf because DC is at a loss as to how to do sufficiently better on the remaining projects to improve the grade.

[Anonymous]

Has your DC asked to meet with the teacher to understand what they should be doing differently?

[Anonymous]

OP here. That's scheduled, but I'm also curious if this is the common experience.

[Anonymous]

isn't that class new everywhere this year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:isn't that class new everywhere this year?

no

[Anonymous]

The main things I'd try to find out is whether the teacher tends to grade harder at the beginning of the year and raise the grades over the course of the year and also whether the disappointing grades are because your DC isn't following a specific set of rules designed to result in high AP test scores.

AP courses can be great but a common complaint is that they are too geared to preparing students for the end-of-year AP exams. So I could imagine a scenario where a particular paper looks good to an English major but gets an average grade because it omits some component (for example, an introduction, a hypothesis, supporting evidence, and/or a conclusion).

[Anonymous]

AP is very, very prescribed in their response structures. I'd wonder if the paper or project is great but not in the structure asked for.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for the replies. You may be right and hopefully DC will be able to ascertain if that's the problem. It would be odd because normally DC follows instructions closely, but it's possible there were elements that DC overlooked. If that's the case, at least it will be an easy fix going forward.

[Anonymous]

We have not had that experience. DD is doing well in the class.

Seminar is a college-level class. Could that be the issue here?

[Anonymous]

The issue was English honors , ap seminar is easier

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have not had that experience. DD is doing well in the class.

Seminar is a college-level class. Could that be the issue here?

No I don't think that's the issue. DC has other AP classes, understands the expectations, works hard, and has high A's. Also has always had high A's in English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have not had that experience. DD is doing well in the class.

Seminar is a college-level class. Could that be the issue here?

Is this at McLean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have not had that experience. DD is doing well in the class.

Seminar is a college-level class. Could that be the issue here?

Is this at McLean?

Yes. DD is a senior.

[Anonymous]

As elementary of a comment sounds, make sure using headers and bolding and underlining to make certain items stand out to teachers as they grade. If know a required element of paper, make it beyond easy for teacher to find it to check off that included it.

[Anonymous]

It sounds the class involves critical reading and writing about research? Does the teacher use a grading rubric? I teach several courses at the college level where students have to read, write, and present about published research. They also have to propose a novel research question and detail how they would carry out the study. It’s a very different way of writing than what you do for English class. Someone who is a good writer can struggle with it if they don’t understand how to explain the significance of a problem, create logical flow, and synthesize rather than summarize. I rely heavily on my rubrics to help the students understand where they need to improve.