HB-- focus on writing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm disappointed in what I've seen and heard about writing instruction in APS. For parents of kids at HB, do you think it's any better? I thought that the smaller class sizes might mean more time for teachers to assign longer essays and give feedback on papers, etc, even while working within the same curriculum. Your feedback is appreciated.

Excellent question. I'd be interested in the answer to this, too. "Too many students" has been the main/sole excuse/reason for not being able to do more substantial writing. So a small school should theoretically be able to handle it, right? Or do HB teachers have the same # of students?

Even if they have same number of students, they have far fewer discipline problems, just look at the suspension data, they have about about 1/8-1/4 the number of suspensions of the mainstream high schools. Having involved parents really helps that, and the lottery opt in and logistics does just that.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Suspension-Data-2019-20.pdf

Entirely irrelevant to being able to assign and grade papers.

You are unaware of how much time teachers must devote to maintaining class order in these times. Send them to the office, they send them back. Being suspended or expelled takes a RIDICULOUS high bar of bad behavior and takes forever. It completely diminishes available instruction and administrative time as they must deal with it in class and document after to see any progress made.

Not buying that as an excuse for not being able to assign and grade writing pieces. Nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Each grade in high school has the same English teacher so that is the entire class load, you can see exactly how many students the teacher has based on how many kids are in that grade and all kids in a grade are getting the exact same instruction unless some are doing the AP track (which is usually offered the same time as the regular class, with extra assignments and some in-class breakouts). Some English teachers also teach an elective like film or Shakespeare.

H-B focuses a lot on research and writing. They do year-long projects where they break down how to write a long paper, they spend a whole year doing an English research paper in 9th and a whole year doing a paper on a historic person in 10th. They also spend a lot of time on different kinds of writing--persuasive, descriptive, argumentative, etc. Science classes also require papers.

But what I really appreciated was the very structured approach to writing in English classes, to help them develop the skills to develop college-length research papers: they had to develop a topic, come up with research questions, then an outline, then an introduction, then the body, write the paper, and do a presentation--all over two semesters with a very specific rubric and feedback at each step.

This is really helpful, thank you.
Can anyone comment on whether other APS schools assign similar year-long writing projects?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm disappointed in what I've seen and heard about writing instruction in APS. For parents of kids at HB, do you think it's any better? I thought that the smaller class sizes might mean more time for teachers to assign longer essays and give feedback on papers, etc, even while working within the same curriculum. Your feedback is appreciated.

Excellent question. I'd be interested in the answer to this, too. "Too many students" has been the main/sole excuse/reason for not being able to do more substantial writing. So a small school should theoretically be able to handle it, right? Or do HB teachers have the same # of students?

Even if they have same number of students, they have far fewer discipline problems, just look at the suspension data, they have about about 1/8-1/4 the number of suspensions of the mainstream high schools. Having involved parents really helps that, and the lottery opt in and logistics does just that.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Suspension-Data-2019-20.pdf

Entirely irrelevant to being able to assign and grade papers.

You are unaware of how much time teachers must devote to maintaining class order in these times. Send them to the office, they send them back. Being suspended or expelled takes a RIDICULOUS high bar of bad behavior and takes forever. It completely diminishes available instruction and administrative time as they must deal with it in class and document after to see any progress made.

Not buying that as an excuse for not being able to assign and grade writing pieces. Nonsense.

I mean, sure, teachers can assign and grade them, but students aren't able to do write them well because teachers are spending their time trying to get Johnny to sit down and shut up instead of actually teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Each grade in high school has the same English teacher so that is the entire class load, you can see exactly how many students the teacher has based on how many kids are in that grade and all kids in a grade are getting the exact same instruction unless some are doing the AP track (which is usually offered the same time as the regular class, with extra assignments and some in-class breakouts). Some English teachers also teach an elective like film or Shakespeare.

H-B focuses a lot on research and writing. They do year-long projects where they break down how to write a long paper, they spend a whole year doing an English research paper in 9th and a whole year doing a paper on a historic person in 10th. They also spend a lot of time on different kinds of writing--persuasive, descriptive, argumentative, etc. Science classes also require papers.

But what I really appreciated was the very structured approach to writing in English classes, to help them develop the skills to develop college-length research papers: they had to develop a topic, come up with research questions, then an outline, then an introduction, then the body, write the paper, and do a presentation--all over two semesters with a very specific rubric and feedback at each step.

This is really helpful, thank you.
Can anyone comment on whether other APS schools assign similar year-long writing projects?

You can't access the school Canvas pages if you aren't a parent but they do have things on their websites. For example, the H-B library page has a sidebar with suggestions for all of the H-B research projects that are regularly assigned, such as the 7th grade Heroes project and the 9th grade Sculptors of World History project.

https://hbwoodlawn.apsva.us/library-home/research/project-guides/

You can also look at the program of studies to see how they describe the classes, there is one for H-B and there is either one for each high school or one for the comprehensive high schools. The H-B program lists the specific writing and research projects in the various levels of English, social studies, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Each grade in high school has the same English teacher so that is the entire class load, you can see exactly how many students the teacher has based on how many kids are in that grade and all kids in a grade are getting the exact same instruction unless some are doing the AP track (which is usually offered the same time as the regular class, with extra assignments and some in-class breakouts). Some English teachers also teach an elective like film or Shakespeare.

H-B focuses a lot on research and writing. They do year-long projects where they break down how to write a long paper, they spend a whole year doing an English research paper in 9th and a whole year doing a paper on a historic person in 10th. They also spend a lot of time on different kinds of writing--persuasive, descriptive, argumentative, etc. Science classes also require papers.

But what I really appreciated was the very structured approach to writing in English classes, to help them develop the skills to develop college-length research papers: they had to develop a topic, come up with research questions, then an outline, then an introduction, then the body, write the paper, and do a presentation--all over two semesters with a very specific rubric and feedback at each step.

This is really helpful, thank you.
Can anyone comment on whether other APS schools assign similar year-long writing projects?

At WHS, you will get this in AP Seminar and AP Research and potentially with Senior Project, depending on what the student chooses to do for their project. Most, I believe, are not long research papers per se; but a year-long project. As far as the different kinds of writing mentioned above, yes; though much more intensely in the AP English classes. There are science reports; but I wouldn't consider them frequent or extensive (at least in the gen ed and intensified courses we've seen so far). History classes will also focus on research, citations, arguments, etc. But the bulk of writing instruction and experience (as it should be) is in the ELA department. Unfortunately, you have to take AP to do those long research papers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Each grade in high school has the same English teacher so that is the entire class load, you can see exactly how many students the teacher has based on how many kids are in that grade and all kids in a grade are getting the exact same instruction unless some are doing the AP track (which is usually offered the same time as the regular class, with extra assignments and some in-class breakouts). Some English teachers also teach an elective like film or Shakespeare.

H-B focuses a lot on research and writing. They do year-long projects where they break down how to write a long paper, they spend a whole year doing an English research paper in 9th and a whole year doing a paper on a historic person in 10th. They also spend a lot of time on different kinds of writing--persuasive, descriptive, argumentative, etc. Science classes also require papers.

But what I really appreciated was the very structured approach to writing in English classes, to help them develop the skills to develop college-length research papers: they had to develop a topic, come up with research questions, then an outline, then an introduction, then the body, write the paper, and do a presentation--all over two semesters with a very specific rubric and feedback at each step.

So one English teacher at HBW has about 100 students. Therefore, if the other high school teachers had 100 - ?? 120?? students, they would no longer be able to blame # of students for not being able to assign more, and more significant, writing? Thank you. I'm glad to finally get an idea of a feasible student load, since no teachers have ever offered a number that would allow them to do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Each grade in high school has the same English teacher so that is the entire class load, you can see exactly how many students the teacher has based on how many kids are in that grade and all kids in a grade are getting the exact same instruction unless some are doing the AP track (which is usually offered the same time as the regular class, with extra assignments and some in-class breakouts). Some English teachers also teach an elective like film or Shakespeare.

H-B focuses a lot on research and writing. They do year-long projects where they break down how to write a long paper, they spend a whole year doing an English research paper in 9th and a whole year doing a paper on a historic person in 10th. They also spend a lot of time on different kinds of writing--persuasive, descriptive, argumentative, etc. Science classes also require papers.

But what I really appreciated was the very structured approach to writing in English classes, to help them develop the skills to develop college-length research papers: they had to develop a topic, come up with research questions, then an outline, then an introduction, then the body, write the paper, and do a presentation--all over two semesters with a very specific rubric and feedback at each step.

So one English teacher at HBW has about 100 students. Therefore, if the other high school teachers had 100 - ?? 120?? students, they would no longer be able to blame # of students for not being able to assign more, and more significant, writing? Thank you. I'm glad to finally get an idea of a feasible student load, since no teachers have ever offered a number that would allow them to do this.

That's a much smaller number than they have though--right? Isn't average class size in high school more like 25, and they teach 6 periods? So more like 125-150 now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Each grade in high school has the same English teacher so that is the entire class load, you can see exactly how many students the teacher has based on how many kids are in that grade and all kids in a grade are getting the exact same instruction unless some are doing the AP track (which is usually offered the same time as the regular class, with extra assignments and some in-class breakouts). Some English teachers also teach an elective like film or Shakespeare.

H-B focuses a lot on research and writing. They do year-long projects where they break down how to write a long paper, they spend a whole year doing an English research paper in 9th and a whole year doing a paper on a historic person in 10th. They also spend a lot of time on different kinds of writing--persuasive, descriptive, argumentative, etc. Science classes also require papers.

But what I really appreciated was the very structured approach to writing in English classes, to help them develop the skills to develop college-length research papers: they had to develop a topic, come up with research questions, then an outline, then an introduction, then the body, write the paper, and do a presentation--all over two semesters with a very specific rubric and feedback at each step.

So one English teacher at HBW has about 100 students. Therefore, if the other high school teachers had 100 - ?? 120?? students, they would no longer be able to blame # of students for not being able to assign more, and more significant, writing? Thank you. I'm glad to finally get an idea of a feasible student load, since no teachers have ever offered a number that would allow them to do this.

That's a much smaller number than they have though--right? Isn't average class size in high school more like 25, and they teach 6 periods? So more like 125-150 now?

75 rising 6th graders admitted and then about 25 new spots offered to rising 9th graders. So it seems like 100/grade is about right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm disappointed in what I've seen and heard about writing instruction in APS. For parents of kids at HB, do you think it's any better? I thought that the smaller class sizes might mean more time for teachers to assign longer essays and give feedback on papers, etc, even while working within the same curriculum. Your feedback is appreciated.

Excellent question. I'd be interested in the answer to this, too. "Too many students" has been the main/sole excuse/reason for not being able to do more substantial writing. So a small school should theoretically be able to handle it, right? Or do HB teachers have the same # of students?

Even if they have same number of students, they have far fewer discipline problems, just look at the suspension data, they have about about 1/8-1/4 the number of suspensions of the mainstream high schools. Having involved parents really helps that, and the lottery opt in and logistics does just that.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Suspension-Data-2019-20.pdf

Entirely irrelevant to being able to assign and grade papers.

You are unaware of how much time teachers must devote to maintaining class order in these times. Send them to the office, they send them back. Being suspended or expelled takes a RIDICULOUS high bar of bad behavior and takes forever. It completely diminishes available instruction and administrative time as they must deal with it in class and document after to see any progress made.

Not buying that as an excuse for not being able to assign and grade writing pieces. Nonsense.

You need to sub for a few days in a school that has discipline issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Each grade in high school has the same English teacher so that is the entire class load, you can see exactly how many students the teacher has based on how many kids are in that grade and all kids in a grade are getting the exact same instruction unless some are doing the AP track (which is usually offered the same time as the regular class, with extra assignments and some in-class breakouts). Some English teachers also teach an elective like film or Shakespeare.

H-B focuses a lot on research and writing. They do year-long projects where they break down how to write a long paper, they spend a whole year doing an English research paper in 9th and a whole year doing a paper on a historic person in 10th. They also spend a lot of time on different kinds of writing--persuasive, descriptive, argumentative, etc. Science classes also require papers.

But what I really appreciated was the very structured approach to writing in English classes, to help them develop the skills to develop college-length research papers: they had to develop a topic, come up with research questions, then an outline, then an introduction, then the body, write the paper, and do a presentation--all over two semesters with a very specific rubric and feedback at each step.

So one English teacher at HBW has about 100 students. Therefore, if the other high school teachers had 100 - ?? 120?? students, they would no longer be able to blame # of students for not being able to assign more, and more significant, writing? Thank you. I'm glad to finally get an idea of a feasible student load, since no teachers have ever offered a number that would allow them to do this.

That's a much smaller number than they have though--right? Isn't average class size in high school more like 25, and they teach 6 periods? So more like 125-150 now?

75 rising 6th graders admitted and then about 25 new spots offered to rising 9th graders. So it seems like 100/grade is about right.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/57/2024/02/Class-Size-Report-SY-23-24.pdf

This data is publicly accessible! And you are severely underestimating the number of students that APS teachers are responsible for. Check out the latest class size report (belatedly released by APS). There are many classes in high schools that are ~29 students. Teaching five sections that big means over 140 kids, which is absolutely going to make it hard for teachers to give each student significant attention and feedback. Regardless of where your kids are enrolled, if you want teachers to have bandwidth for each student to get more attention (in writing, math, executive functioning, etc), then please advocate to the Schcool Board to reduce class sizes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Each grade in high school has the same English teacher so that is the entire class load, you can see exactly how many students the teacher has based on how many kids are in that grade and all kids in a grade are getting the exact same instruction unless some are doing the AP track (which is usually offered the same time as the regular class, with extra assignments and some in-class breakouts). Some English teachers also teach an elective like film or Shakespeare.

H-B focuses a lot on research and writing. They do year-long projects where they break down how to write a long paper, they spend a whole year doing an English research paper in 9th and a whole year doing a paper on a historic person in 10th. They also spend a lot of time on different kinds of writing--persuasive, descriptive, argumentative, etc. Science classes also require papers.

But what I really appreciated was the very structured approach to writing in English classes, to help them develop the skills to develop college-length research papers: they had to develop a topic, come up with research questions, then an outline, then an introduction, then the body, write the paper, and do a presentation--all over two semesters with a very specific rubric and feedback at each step.

So one English teacher at HBW has about 100 students. Therefore, if the other high school teachers had 100 - ?? 120?? students, they would no longer be able to blame # of students for not being able to assign more, and more significant, writing? Thank you. I'm glad to finally get an idea of a feasible student load, since no teachers have ever offered a number that would allow them to do this.

That's a much smaller number than they have though--right? Isn't average class size in high school more like 25, and they teach 6 periods? So more like 125-150 now?

75 rising 6th graders admitted and then about 25 new spots offered to rising 9th graders. So it seems like 100/grade is about right.

Yes, I'm saying that H-B has 100, but the other high schools are more like 150, so its a really big difference. It would be hard to get the other schools' class loads for English down from 150 to 100 per teacher, they would have to change the planning factors for that subject and hire half as many teachers as they have now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Each grade in high school has the same English teacher so that is the entire class load, you can see exactly how many students the teacher has based on how many kids are in that grade and all kids in a grade are getting the exact same instruction unless some are doing the AP track (which is usually offered the same time as the regular class, with extra assignments and some in-class breakouts). Some English teachers also teach an elective like film or Shakespeare.

H-B focuses a lot on research and writing. They do year-long projects where they break down how to write a long paper, they spend a whole year doing an English research paper in 9th and a whole year doing a paper on a historic person in 10th. They also spend a lot of time on different kinds of writing--persuasive, descriptive, argumentative, etc. Science classes also require papers.

But what I really appreciated was the very structured approach to writing in English classes, to help them develop the skills to develop college-length research papers: they had to develop a topic, come up with research questions, then an outline, then an introduction, then the body, write the paper, and do a presentation--all over two semesters with a very specific rubric and feedback at each step.

So one English teacher at HBW has about 100 students. Therefore, if the other high school teachers had 100 - ?? 120?? students, they would no longer be able to blame # of students for not being able to assign more, and more significant, writing? Thank you. I'm glad to finally get an idea of a feasible student load, since no teachers have ever offered a number that would allow them to do this.

That's a much smaller number than they have though--right? Isn't average class size in high school more like 25, and they teach 6 periods? So more like 125-150 now?

75 rising 6th graders admitted and then about 25 new spots offered to rising 9th graders. So it seems like 100/grade is about right.

Yes, I'm saying that H-B has 100, but the other high schools are more like 150, so its a really big difference. It would be hard to get the other schools' class loads for English down from 150 to 100 per teacher, they would have to change the planning factors for that subject and hire half as many teachers as they have now.

half again as many

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Each grade in high school has the same English teacher so that is the entire class load, you can see exactly how many students the teacher has based on how many kids are in that grade and all kids in a grade are getting the exact same instruction unless some are doing the AP track (which is usually offered the same time as the regular class, with extra assignments and some in-class breakouts). Some English teachers also teach an elective like film or Shakespeare.

H-B focuses a lot on research and writing. They do year-long projects where they break down how to write a long paper, they spend a whole year doing an English research paper in 9th and a whole year doing a paper on a historic person in 10th. They also spend a lot of time on different kinds of writing--persuasive, descriptive, argumentative, etc. Science classes also require papers.

But what I really appreciated was the very structured approach to writing in English classes, to help them develop the skills to develop college-length research papers: they had to develop a topic, come up with research questions, then an outline, then an introduction, then the body, write the paper, and do a presentation--all over two semesters with a very specific rubric and feedback at each step.

So one English teacher at HBW has about 100 students. Therefore, if the other high school teachers had 100 - ?? 120?? students, they would no longer be able to blame # of students for not being able to assign more, and more significant, writing? Thank you. I'm glad to finally get an idea of a feasible student load, since no teachers have ever offered a number that would allow them to do this.

That's a much smaller number than they have though--right? Isn't average class size in high school more like 25, and they teach 6 periods? So more like 125-150 now?

75 rising 6th graders admitted and then about 25 new spots offered to rising 9th graders. So it seems like 100/grade is about right.

Except HB teachers don’t all just teach one grade. It’s sort of like this in middle school and for some subjects in high school but then that subject teacher will also teach additional different classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm disappointed in what I've seen and heard about writing instruction in APS. For parents of kids at HB, do you think it's any better? I thought that the smaller class sizes might mean more time for teachers to assign longer essays and give feedback on papers, etc, even while working within the same curriculum. Your feedback is appreciated.

Excellent question. I'd be interested in the answer to this, too. "Too many students" has been the main/sole excuse/reason for not being able to do more substantial writing. So a small school should theoretically be able to handle it, right? Or do HB teachers have the same # of students?

Even if they have same number of students, they have far fewer discipline problems, just look at the suspension data, they have about about 1/8-1/4 the number of suspensions of the mainstream high schools. Having involved parents really helps that, and the lottery opt in and logistics does just that.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Suspension-Data-2019-20.pdf

Entirely irrelevant to being able to assign and grade papers.

You are unaware of how much time teachers must devote to maintaining class order in these times. Send them to the office, they send them back. Being suspended or expelled takes a RIDICULOUS high bar of bad behavior and takes forever. It completely diminishes available instruction and administrative time as they must deal with it in class and document after to see any progress made.

Not buying that as an excuse for not being able to assign and grade writing pieces. Nonsense.

You need to sub for a few days in a school that has discipline issues.

Assignments can be done outside of class. Grading of assignments should take place outside of class. So if the teacher can't give any instruction because of such egregious behavior all class long every day all year, (1) maybe they shouldn't be a teacher and (2) they can provide instruction via comments on the writing assignments they grade. If students can't get the work done in class, they are expected to finish it as homework.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Each grade in high school has the same English teacher so that is the entire class load, you can see exactly how many students the teacher has based on how many kids are in that grade and all kids in a grade are getting the exact same instruction unless some are doing the AP track (which is usually offered the same time as the regular class, with extra assignments and some in-class breakouts). Some English teachers also teach an elective like film or Shakespeare.

H-B focuses a lot on research and writing. They do year-long projects where they break down how to write a long paper, they spend a whole year doing an English research paper in 9th and a whole year doing a paper on a historic person in 10th. They also spend a lot of time on different kinds of writing--persuasive, descriptive, argumentative, etc. Science classes also require papers.

But what I really appreciated was the very structured approach to writing in English classes, to help them develop the skills to develop college-length research papers: they had to develop a topic, come up with research questions, then an outline, then an introduction, then the body, write the paper, and do a presentation--all over two semesters with a very specific rubric and feedback at each step.

So one English teacher at HBW has about 100 students. Therefore, if the other high school teachers had 100 - ?? 120?? students, they would no longer be able to blame # of students for not being able to assign more, and more significant, writing? Thank you. I'm glad to finally get an idea of a feasible student load, since no teachers have ever offered a number that would allow them to do this.

That's a much smaller number than they have though--right? Isn't average class size in high school more like 25, and they teach 6 periods? So more like 125-150 now?

75 rising 6th graders admitted and then about 25 new spots offered to rising 9th graders. So it seems like 100/grade is about right.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/57/2024/02/Class-Size-Report-SY-23-24.pdf

This data is publicly accessible! And you are severely underestimating the number of students that APS teachers are responsible for. Check out the latest class size report (belatedly released by APS). There are many classes in high schools that are ~29 students. Teaching five sections that big means over 140 kids, which is absolutely going to make it hard for teachers to give each student significant attention and feedback. Regardless of where your kids are enrolled, if you want teachers to have bandwidth for each student to get more attention (in writing, math, executive functioning, etc), then please advocate to the Schcool Board to reduce class sizes.

They're talking about HB. If there are only 100-110 students in a grade, and there is one teacher per grade level, then the grade level English teacher can't have more than 100-110 students.