IB English Curriculum vs “Honors English”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - I realize that IB is not usually in 9th and 10th grade. I am concerned that "honors English" is a joke, and would like to get my child into a more challenging English curriculum in 9th and 10th grade. Not sure what my options are really.

Does your school offer AP Seminar? This is being set up to be the 10th grade AP English class. The course content/theme is designed by individual teachers, but involves research, presentations, etc.

Students are assessed with two through-course performance tasks and one end-of-course exam. All three assessments are summative and will be used to calculate a final AP score (using the 1–5 scale) for AP Seminar.
§ Team Project and Presentation — 20%
§ Individual Research-Based Essay and Presentation — 35%
§ End-of-Course Exam (2 Hours) — 45%

This is part of the AP Capstone, which was introduced to answer IB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - I realize that IB is not usually in 9th and 10th grade. I am concerned that "honors English" is a joke, and would like to get my child into a more challenging English curriculum in 9th and 10th grade. Not sure what my options are really.

Right now, your options are one of the regional IB magnet programs, Richard Montgomery IB, or one of the Humanities magnets (Poolesville or Blair CAP).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an IB English teacher. I love the program and placed my own children in it.

IB English is rigorous and extremely writing focused. There’s a curriculum change on the horizon, but currently students:
- read 13 texts over 2 years (Many units end with essays to prep for the course-end assessments)
- complete the Higher Level essay, which is literary analysis assessed by IB
- complete the Individual Oral, which is a 15 minute oral assessment. (This is a tricky task. Students are only allowed ten bullet points and they must speak for a sustained ten minutes.)
- sit for the Paper 1 and Paper 2 exams at the end of senior year

The course develops strong writers and critical thinkers. I highly recommend it.

I'm also an IB English teacher, and must note that you are describing English A: Literature. English A: Lang & Lit is the other (and more common) option, with fewer literary texts, but "non-literary" works included. OP needs to establish if her kid has the option of DP Lit or DP Lang & Lit, and make a decision according to her child's interests and abilities.

(There's also MYP Lang & Lit for middle school, which I hate but don't think is an option at most schools anyway).

DP. How many books (fiction and nonfiction) do they read in language & lit? I think that is the one they offer at my school. TIA.

In DP L&L, Standard Level kids read four literary works over two years, and Higher Level read six. A literary work can be a novel, play, group of short stories by the same author, or poems by the same author. In addition, they read multiple non-literary bodies of work; a non-literary body of work can be a group of speeches by the same person/organization, a group of ads by the same organization, a documentary, a group of articles by the same person/organization. There is a balance of literary and non-literary study in Lang & Lit, but the assessments are the same as for Lit: higher level essay, individual oral, paper 1 & paper 2 exams.

I've taught both Lit and Lang & Lit for the past 10 years, and I enjoy them both. However, in schools that offer both, kids who truly enjoy reading tend to gravitate (or are pushed by teachers) toward Lit. At my current school, my DP Lit class is a group of 8 kids who are voracious readers and love discussing literature; my DP Lang & Lit class is larger, and contains a lot of kids who may be smart, but who do not enjoy reading and do not read for pleasure at all. In the past, I've worked at a school where only Lang & Lit was offered, and there was a nice mix of readers and non-readers in the sections.

Like most experienced DP teachers, I despise the IB MYP (middle years program) course for middle schoolers, but that is another story.

Have yet to understand what is so unique about MYP in MCPS MS. Please someone break this down for our family.

Experienced IB teacher here again. The DP is a curriculum. The MYP (middle years program) is a FRAMEWORK, not a curriculum. Schools struggle to figure out what this means, and often produce watered-down nonsense that technically "fits" the fuzzy MYP grading framework, but is a disaster academically speaking. Hate hate hate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - I realize that IB is not usually in 9th and 10th grade. I am concerned that "honors English" is a joke, and would like to get my child into a more challenging English curriculum in 9th and 10th grade. Not sure what my options are really.

Does your school offer AP Seminar? This is being set up to be the 10th grade AP English class. The course content/theme is designed by individual teachers, but involves research, presentations, etc.

Students are assessed with two through-course performance tasks and one end-of-course exam. All three assessments are summative and will be used to calculate a final AP score (using the 1–5 scale) for AP Seminar.
§ Team Project and Presentation — 20%
§ Individual Research-Based Essay and Presentation — 35%
§ End-of-Course Exam (2 Hours) — 45%

This is part of the AP Capstone, which was introduced to answer IB.

I've taught AP English Lang/Lit and AP English Lit (both "old" and "new" curricula) as well as IB. The "new" AP curricula/rubrics are fluffy, and the curriculum add-ons, such as Seminar and Research, are a watered-down disaster. AP Classroom is a disaster (no, College Board, AP Classroom doesn't even compare to the IB's ManageBac). College Board is clearly struggling to throw together something that will prevent them from becoming obsolete as the IB becomes more prevelent, but this isn't good. I strongly feel CB should have doubled down on maintaining the rigor of their traditional "old curriculum"/program, which would have gained traction as people eventually realize the weaknesses of the IB's MYP, but no.

[Anonymous]

We are in the DCC with a middle schooler, and as we look at the course offerings at each school, I struggle to find one that has both strong STEM offerings and IB English. Am I missing something? Our home school, Einstein, has IB but no AP science classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are in the DCC with a middle schooler, and as we look at the course offerings at each school, I struggle to find one that has both strong STEM offerings and IB English. Am I missing something? Our home school, Einstein, has IB but no AP science classes.

We are finding the same too. Home school is Blair. My impression is that overall the English instruction is weak across the board unless in some type of special program. Math/Science seems to have more advanced options across several schools (not all - but several).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are in the DCC with a middle schooler, and as we look at the course offerings at each school, I struggle to find one that has both strong STEM offerings and IB English. Am I missing something? Our home school, Einstein, has IB but no AP science classes.

Einstein has IB science classes as well as IB English classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the DCC with a middle schooler, and as we look at the course offerings at each school, I struggle to find one that has both strong STEM offerings and IB English. Am I missing something? Our home school, Einstein, has IB but no AP science classes.

We are finding the same too. Home school is Blair. My impression is that overall the English instruction is weak across the board unless in some type of special program. Math/Science seems to have more advanced options across several schools (not all - but several).

One thing to know is that "Honors for All" for high school English is relatively new, which means that concerted advocacy could probably get it changed. Up until last year, schools with IB programs were allowed to offer "Pre-IB English 9" and "Pre-IB English 10." Schools without IB were allowed to offer Honors English 9 and 10, which were cohorted and accelerated. This year's 10th graders are the first class that has to deal with those classes going away, but it does mean that a curriculum exists and could be brought back in a matter of months, should there be any political will behind it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the DCC with a middle schooler, and as we look at the course offerings at each school, I struggle to find one that has both strong STEM offerings and IB English. Am I missing something? Our home school, Einstein, has IB but no AP science classes.

We are finding the same too. Home school is Blair. My impression is that overall the English instruction is weak across the board unless in some type of special program. Math/Science seems to have more advanced options across several schools (not all - but several).

One thing to know is that "Honors for All" for high school English is relatively new, which means that concerted advocacy could probably get it changed. Up until last year, schools with IB programs were allowed to offer "Pre-IB English 9" and "Pre-IB English 10." Schools without IB were allowed to offer Honors English 9 and 10, which were cohorted and accelerated. This year's 10th graders are the first class that has to deal with those classes going away, but it does mean that a curriculum exists and could be brought back in a matter of months, should there be any political will behind it.

This shift happened earlier than that in some cases. Current 11th graders at Einstein didn't have the pre-IB English options in 9th or 10th either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the DCC with a middle schooler, and as we look at the course offerings at each school, I struggle to find one that has both strong STEM offerings and IB English. Am I missing something? Our home school, Einstein, has IB but no AP science classes.

Einstein has IB science classes as well as IB English classes.

Yeah but are IB science classes as well regarded as AP when it comes to college admissions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the DCC with a middle schooler, and as we look at the course offerings at each school, I struggle to find one that has both strong STEM offerings and IB English. Am I missing something? Our home school, Einstein, has IB but no AP science classes.

Einstein has IB science classes as well as IB English classes.

Yeah but are IB science classes as well regarded as AP when it comes to college admissions?

If they’re HL they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the DCC with a middle schooler, and as we look at the course offerings at each school, I struggle to find one that has both strong STEM offerings and IB English. Am I missing something? Our home school, Einstein, has IB but no AP science classes.

We are finding the same too. Home school is Blair. My impression is that overall the English instruction is weak across the board unless in some type of special program. Math/Science seems to have more advanced options across several schools (not all - but several).

One thing to know is that "Honors for All" for high school English is relatively new, which means that concerted advocacy could probably get it changed. Up until last year, schools with IB programs were allowed to offer "Pre-IB English 9" and "Pre-IB English 10." Schools without IB were allowed to offer Honors English 9 and 10, which were cohorted and accelerated. This year's 10th graders are the first class that has to deal with those classes going away, but it does mean that a curriculum exists and could be brought back in a matter of months, should there be any political will behind it.

This shift happened earlier than that in some cases. Current 11th graders at Einstein didn't have the pre-IB English options in 9th or 10th either.

Interesting. I am guessing some schools were able to hold out longer than others but all were eventually assimilated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - I realize that IB is not usually in 9th and 10th grade. I am concerned that "honors English" is a joke, and would like to get my child into a more challenging English curriculum in 9th and 10th grade. Not sure what my options are really.

Does your school offer AP Seminar? This is being set up to be the 10th grade AP English class. The course content/theme is designed by individual teachers, but involves research, presentations, etc.

Students are assessed with two through-course performance tasks and one end-of-course exam. All three assessments are summative and will be used to calculate a final AP score (using the 1–5 scale) for AP Seminar.
§ Team Project and Presentation — 20%
§ Individual Research-Based Essay and Presentation — 35%
§ End-of-Course Exam (2 Hours) — 45%

This is part of the AP Capstone, which was introduced to answer IB.

I've taught AP English Lang/Lit and AP English Lit (both "old" and "new" curricula) as well as IB. The "new" AP curricula/rubrics are fluffy, and the curriculum add-ons, such as Seminar and Research, are a watered-down disaster. AP Classroom is a disaster (no, College Board, AP Classroom doesn't even compare to the IB's ManageBac). College Board is clearly struggling to throw together something that will prevent them from becoming obsolete as the IB becomes more prevelent, but this isn't good. I strongly feel CB should have doubled down on maintaining the rigor of their traditional "old curriculum"/program, which would have gained traction as people eventually realize the weaknesses of the IB's MYP, but no.

I teach AP Lang and have taught AP Seminar. I agree that CB has watered down both requirements and exams, but I disagree that AP Seminar is weak. I designed my class around a controversial decade in American history and we did all kinds of rigorous work in both English and history, resulting in an old school 20 page research paper, etc.
AP Classroom is irrelevant to my kids because I don’t use it.

I have other objections to IB, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the DCC with a middle schooler, and as we look at the course offerings at each school, I struggle to find one that has both strong STEM offerings and IB English. Am I missing something? Our home school, Einstein, has IB but no AP science classes.

Einstein has IB science classes as well as IB English classes.

Yeah but are IB science classes as well regarded as AP when it comes to college admissions?

Bizarrely, my kid's IB HL Biology got them out of a gen ed requirement at UMD, but the IB HL Lang/Lit didn't.

[Anonymous]

“Honors” English 9 & 10 are so bad. I teach in the county and there is no cohorting and you get really high fliers in the same class as kids who can barely read.

The idea is that a rising tide lifts all boats, right? And that smart kids benefit from the mixed ability classroom. But that isn’t the case. These classes often have behavioral issues too. Smart kids just keep their heads down until 11th when they take AP Lang which is just a teach to the test situation.

Unless your child gets into a magnet of some kind, English instruction in high school is grim AF for 9th and 10th.

The optics of cohorting are awful though- in a diverse school the on-level classes were full of black and brown kids with the occasional white kid and the accelerated classes were the reverse. That is not right and racial profiling happened and smart black kids got screwed. That isn’t fair.

You can always find ways to supplement math and science. Not so for English and writing.

We need to do better for our students in a way that doesn’t perpetuate racial profiling. I don’t have the answer but what we have now sucks. And what we had before was racist.