Churchill English Department

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m an English teacher (but not at Churchill).

My department has hired 11 new teachers in the past 3 years, far more than any other department in the school.

Discipline is a problem, but it’s also the grading. A stack of essays can take 30 hours to grade and that time isn’t built into our schedules. Basic paragraphs can take 5-6 hours to get through the whole stack. The grading workload isn’t sustainable.

I'm sorry but grading essays for students is nothing new. All of my high school English teachers did the same thing and they gave good feedback. I know this sounds snarky but who did you think was going to grade student essays when you decided to be an English teacher? I'm pretty sure that the general teacher schedule (5 classes, two planning periods) hasn't changed in 30 years here in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an English teacher (but not at Churchill).

My department has hired 11 new teachers in the past 3 years, far more than any other department in the school.

Discipline is a problem, but it’s also the grading. A stack of essays can take 30 hours to grade and that time isn’t built into our schedules. Basic paragraphs can take 5-6 hours to get through the whole stack. The grading workload isn’t sustainable.

I'm sorry but grading essays for students is nothing new. All of my high school English teachers did the same thing and they gave good feedback. I know this sounds snarky but who did you think was going to grade student essays when you decided to be an English teacher? I'm pretty sure that the general teacher schedule (5 classes, two planning periods) hasn't changed in 30 years here in MCPS.

It's the number of planning periods lost to "emergency" class coverage that puts a real dent in things.

[Anonymous]

^^ number of lost planning periods plus 35+ kids in each classroom. It's too much

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m an English teacher (but not at Churchill).

My department has hired 11 new teachers in the past 3 years, far more than any other department in the school.

Discipline is a problem, but it’s also the grading. A stack of essays can take 30 hours to grade and that time isn’t built into our schedules. Basic paragraphs can take 5-6 hours to get through the whole stack. The grading workload isn’t sustainable.

Are you actually providing any feedback on the papers? If so, I can understand the time constraint. But, I've noticed that teachers don't provide feedback on essays, and they certainly don't seem to fix grammatically errors, so it seems to me teachers are just speed reading through the papers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an English teacher (but not at Churchill).

My department has hired 11 new teachers in the past 3 years, far more than any other department in the school.

Discipline is a problem, but it’s also the grading. A stack of essays can take 30 hours to grade and that time isn’t built into our schedules. Basic paragraphs can take 5-6 hours to get through the whole stack. The grading workload isn’t sustainable.

Are you actually providing any feedback on the papers? If so, I can understand the time constraint. But, I've noticed that teachers don't provide feedback on essays, and they certainly don't seem to fix grammatically errors, so it seems to me teachers are just speed reading through the papers.

Yes, my DC has received zero feedback on papers unless it's a simple mark on a rubric without explanation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an English teacher (but not at Churchill).

My department has hired 11 new teachers in the past 3 years, far more than any other department in the school.

Discipline is a problem, but it’s also the grading. A stack of essays can take 30 hours to grade and that time isn’t built into our schedules. Basic paragraphs can take 5-6 hours to get through the whole stack. The grading workload isn’t sustainable.

I'm sorry but grading essays for students is nothing new. All of my high school English teachers did the same thing and they gave good feedback. I know this sounds snarky but who did you think was going to grade student essays when you decided to be an English teacher? I'm pretty sure that the general teacher schedule (5 classes, two planning periods) hasn't changed in 30 years here in MCPS.

How about courseload? That may well have gone up.