High schoolers can’t write

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Haven’t read the whole thread and I agree that writing skills in general are getting worse and worse. However, I regularly edit writing produced by highly educated people at work, and let me tell you, lots of older people can’t write, either.

Ok so?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

I’m that poster. I left teaching in part because there are too many students who don’t care about learning to read and write well. So spending hours of my life giving feedback to students who don’t care was getting demoralizing. And you can’t just identify the ones that might care and only give feedback to those students. This is all on top of the endless bureaucratic nonsense.

I work in a completely different field now and have endless sympathy for my former colleagues. I always tell my children that if they want to become teachers, they should definitely not become English teachers because of the absolutely crushing workload.

My sympathies, Labor Day paper grader. I see you!

No one was criticizing Labor Day paper grader. She made that up herself.

I also question where she teaches because all the private schools I’m aware of in MD don’t start until after Labor Day. Which school would have started early enough for kids to have already turned in essays?

Good Counsel, Georgetown Prep, etc.

They’ve been in school for one week. The most you’d be talking about is short response papers to initial readings.

Most of the people posting are trolls.

You are a troll and not in MCPS if you don't realize the curriculum is a problem.

LOL.
The vast majority of posts in this thread are from private schools boosters.
Maybe they should worry more about paying for an inferior product instead of worry about MCPS.

[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.

I have taught writing at the high school, college, and graduate level.

It's clear to me you have not, at least not well.

No good teacher would "copyedit," as you say, a student's paper. Rather, you provide feedback by commenting on a mistake you see, explain why it is a mistake, and then tell the student to look for other instances throughout his paper. You don't correct it for them except as an example. You can assign a short cut name for this error (for example, comma splice is c-s) and provide the students with a code sheet as well as putting the code in the comment where you do correct the error. If you have time, you can mark the other "c-s" errors you find, or you can highlight other errors without explaining why. But you should point each error out at least once.

You should not copy edit a paper. Then they can just make the changes rather than having to understand and search for them themselves.

You are correct that it would be very hard for a public school teacher who has, say 30 times 5 students, to provide adequate feedback on student writing. We need smaller classroom size for writing classes.

[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.

I have taught writing at the high school, college, and graduate level.

It's clear to me you have not, at least not well.

No good teacher would "copyedit," as you say, a student's paper. Rather, you provide feedback by commenting on a mistake you see, explain why it is a mistake, and then tell the student to look for other instances throughout his paper. You don't correct it for them except as an example. You can assign a short cut name for this error (for example, comma splice is c-s) and provide the students with a code sheet as well as putting the code in the comment where you do correct the error. If you have time, you can mark the other "c-s" errors you find, or you can highlight other errors without explaining why. But you should point each error out at least once.

You should not copy edit a paper. Then they can just make the changes rather than having to understand and search for them themselves.

You are correct that it would be very hard for a public school teacher who has, say 30 times 5 students, to provide adequate feedback on student writing. We need smaller classroom size for writing classes.

I didn’t interpret the PP’s copyedit example as proof that she is correcting each instance of an error. I saw it as a way to draw comparisons, explaining to those who don’t teach how much work commenting is.

Even doing it the way you suggest above takes time. I use a code sheet. I find an error, make a brief comment, and then send students to the more extensive review via a code.

I still end up spending 15-20 minutes on most papers. Codes are great for mechanics and grammar. They aren’t great for content, and so I need to write those comments by hand every time.

There’s no getting around the grading demands placed in English teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so where does one bring their middle schooler/high schooler for writing help? any after school programs?

Writing tutor or writopia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are students even assigned to read entire books in ES and MS? My neighbor told me her kids have never been expected to read an entire book, only excerpts. WTH? Why?

I don’t think your neighbor knows what she’s talking about. In elementary school they may read excerpts, but kids definitely read whole books in middle school language classes.

While individual teachers might assign whole books, assigning excerpts from books is a common problem across MCPS in MS and HS.

They are now required to teach at least one novel study per quarter in secondary English classes in MCPS.

Our school does 2/quarter -- one whole-class novel and one in book circles that varies by reading level.

Oh boy! One novel study! How ever will the kids handle all of that.

By secondary do you mean MS or HS?

Both.

The fact that they’re only required to teach one book per quarter is utterly pathetic.

I don’t see the problem with one anchor text a quarter. So you teach The Odyssey as an anchor text. You throw in related texts, such as Atwood poetry or nonfiction about the ancient city of Troy. Students do related research to find criticism, and then write their own.

Easily enough content for a quarter.

that’s not how it was described. it was described as one book per quarter.

PP who said one book per quarter minimum. That is the minimum full-length books. It was said in response to someone who said kids read 2 books/year, which should not be happening.

The one book/quarter minimum is indeed the anchor text with other texts added on.

We've never had four books a quarter. Last year, freshman year, it was two books, excerpts and a movie for one quarter, which was absurd.

In MS, it was 1-2 books a year.

This year for 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th there is a one/quarter minimum. If you are not getting that, you need to talk to the teacher/content specialist.

Next year they will roll out the updated English 10 curriculum guide, and there will be a one/quarter minimum there too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I’m that poster. I left teaching in part because there are too many students who don’t care about learning to read and write well. So spending hours of my life giving feedback to students who don’t care was getting demoralizing. And you can’t just identify the ones that might care and only give feedback to those students. This is all on top of the endless bureaucratic nonsense.

I work in a completely different field now and have endless sympathy for my former colleagues. I always tell my children that if they want to become teachers, they should definitely not become English teachers because of the absolutely crushing workload.

My sympathies, Labor Day paper grader. I see you!

No one was criticizing Labor Day paper grader. She made that up herself.

I also question where she teaches because all the private schools I’m aware of in MD don’t start until after Labor Day. Which school would have started early enough for kids to have already turned in essays?

Good Counsel, Georgetown Prep, etc.

They’ve been in school for one week. The most you’d be talking about is short response papers to initial readings.

Most of the people posting are trolls.

You are a troll and not in MCPS if you don't realize the curriculum is a problem.

LOL.
The vast majority of posts in this thread are from private schools boosters.
Maybe they should worry more about paying for an inferior product instead of worry about MCPS.

Troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:so where does one bring their middle schooler/high schooler for writing help? any after school programs?

Writing tutor or writopia.

Writopia is for creative writing/kids who love to write. Not for the average kid struggling to write an essay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are students even assigned to read entire books in ES and MS? My neighbor told me her kids have never been expected to read an entire book, only excerpts. WTH? Why?

I don’t think your neighbor knows what she’s talking about. In elementary school they may read excerpts, but kids definitely read whole books in middle school language classes.

While individual teachers might assign whole books, assigning excerpts from books is a common problem across MCPS in MS and HS.

They are now required to teach at least one novel study per quarter in secondary English classes in MCPS.

Our school does 2/quarter -- one whole-class novel and one in book circles that varies by reading level.

Oh boy! One novel study! How ever will the kids handle all of that.

By secondary do you mean MS or HS?

Both.

The fact that they’re only required to teach one book per quarter is utterly pathetic.

I don’t see the problem with one anchor text a quarter. So you teach The Odyssey as an anchor text. You throw in related texts, such as Atwood poetry or nonfiction about the ancient city of Troy. Students do related research to find criticism, and then write their own.

Easily enough content for a quarter.

that’s not how it was described. it was described as one book per quarter.

PP who said one book per quarter minimum. That is the minimum full-length books. It was said in response to someone who said kids read 2 books/year, which should not be happening.

The one book/quarter minimum is indeed the anchor text with other texts added on.

We've never had four books a quarter. Last year, freshman year, it was two books, excerpts and a movie for one quarter, which was absurd.

In MS, it was 1-2 books a year.

Ya’ll should definitely talk to the English department at your schools because it’s been one book per quarter and one major writing assignment per quarter for awhile. That info comes directly from Central Office. Further this school year they have re-emphasized this and are limiting the number of book choices available for teachers to choose from just to help ensure it’s grade level or above content.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:so where does one bring their middle schooler/high schooler for writing help? any after school programs?

Can you work with them? We worked on and reviewed all assignments in MS.

Some parents value a qualified teacher working with their kid. I would never be so arrogant as to think I can replace that.

Or, they are unable or too lazy to help their kids. I'm amazed at people not knowing how well their teens write.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are students even assigned to read entire books in ES and MS? My neighbor told me her kids have never been expected to read an entire book, only excerpts. WTH? Why?

I don’t think your neighbor knows what she’s talking about. In elementary school they may read excerpts, but kids definitely read whole books in middle school language classes.

While individual teachers might assign whole books, assigning excerpts from books is a common problem across MCPS in MS and HS.

They are now required to teach at least one novel study per quarter in secondary English classes in MCPS.

Our school does 2/quarter -- one whole-class novel and one in book circles that varies by reading level.

Oh boy! One novel study! How ever will the kids handle all of that.

By secondary do you mean MS or HS?

Both.

The fact that they’re only required to teach one book per quarter is utterly pathetic.

I don’t see the problem with one anchor text a quarter. So you teach The Odyssey as an anchor text. You throw in related texts, such as Atwood poetry or nonfiction about the ancient city of Troy. Students do related research to find criticism, and then write their own.

Easily enough content for a quarter.

that’s not how it was described. it was described as one book per quarter.

PP who said one book per quarter minimum. That is the minimum full-length books. It was said in response to someone who said kids read 2 books/year, which should not be happening.

The one book/quarter minimum is indeed the anchor text with other texts added on.

We've never had four books a quarter. Last year, freshman year, it was two books, excerpts and a movie for one quarter, which was absurd.

In MS, it was 1-2 books a year.

Ya’ll should definitely talk to the English department at your schools because it’s been one book per quarter and one major writing assignment per quarter for awhile. That info comes directly from Central Office. Further this school year they have re-emphasized this and are limiting the number of book choices available for teachers to choose from just to help ensure it’s grade level or above content.

We have kids in MCPS. What should happen and what happens are two different things. We had two books freshman year and a video. The books were simple and lame. No substance. We were lucky in MS, we had good teachers who worked heavily on writing, but not reading comp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are students even assigned to read entire books in ES and MS? My neighbor told me her kids have never been expected to read an entire book, only excerpts. WTH? Why?

I don’t think your neighbor knows what she’s talking about. In elementary school they may read excerpts, but kids definitely read whole books in middle school language classes.

While individual teachers might assign whole books, assigning excerpts from books is a common problem across MCPS in MS and HS.

They are now required to teach at least one novel study per quarter in secondary English classes in MCPS.

Our school does 2/quarter -- one whole-class novel and one in book circles that varies by reading level.

Oh boy! One novel study! How ever will the kids handle all of that.

By secondary do you mean MS or HS?

Both.

The fact that they’re only required to teach one book per quarter is utterly pathetic.

I don’t see the problem with one anchor text a quarter. So you teach The Odyssey as an anchor text. You throw in related texts, such as Atwood poetry or nonfiction about the ancient city of Troy. Students do related research to find criticism, and then write their own.

Easily enough content for a quarter.

that’s not how it was described. it was described as one book per quarter.

PP who said one book per quarter minimum. That is the minimum full-length books. It was said in response to someone who said kids read 2 books/year, which should not be happening.

The one book/quarter minimum is indeed the anchor text with other texts added on.

We've never had four books a quarter. Last year, freshman year, it was two books, excerpts and a movie for one quarter, which was absurd.

In MS, it was 1-2 books a year.

This year for 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th there is a one/quarter minimum. If you are not getting that, you need to talk to the teacher/content specialist.

Next year they will roll out the updated English 10 curriculum guide, and there will be a one/quarter minimum there too.

I'm glad to hear they are rolling it out. Our teachers say they have no control over it and our principal doesn't care and does the absolute minimum wanted to be friends vs. an authority figure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I’m that poster. I left teaching in part because there are too many students who don’t care about learning to read and write well. So spending hours of my life giving feedback to students who don’t care was getting demoralizing. And you can’t just identify the ones that might care and only give feedback to those students. This is all on top of the endless bureaucratic nonsense.

I work in a completely different field now and have endless sympathy for my former colleagues. I always tell my children that if they want to become teachers, they should definitely not become English teachers because of the absolutely crushing workload.

My sympathies, Labor Day paper grader. I see you!

No one was criticizing Labor Day paper grader. She made that up herself.

I also question where she teaches because all the private schools I’m aware of in MD don’t start until after Labor Day. Which school would have started early enough for kids to have already turned in essays?

Georgetown Visitation, Gonzaga, Our Lady of Good Counsel, St. John's, Christ Episcopal School, many many schools have started.

[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.

I have taught writing at the high school, college, and graduate level.

It's clear to me you have not, at least not well.

No good teacher would "copyedit," as you say, a student's paper. Rather, you provide feedback by commenting on a mistake you see, explain why it is a mistake, and then tell the student to look for other instances throughout his paper. You don't correct it for them except as an example. You can assign a short cut name for this error (for example, comma splice is c-s) and provide the students with a code sheet as well as putting the code in the comment where you do correct the error. If you have time, you can mark the other "c-s" errors you find, or you can highlight other errors without explaining why. But you should point each error out at least once.

You should not copy edit a paper. Then they can just make the changes rather than having to understand and search for them themselves.

You are correct that it would be very hard for a public school teacher who has, say 30 times 5 students, to provide adequate feedback on student writing. We need smaller classroom size for writing classes.

I didn’t interpret the PP’s copyedit example as proof that she is correcting each instance of an error. I saw it as a way to draw comparisons, explaining to those who don’t teach how much work commenting is.

Even doing it the way you suggest above takes time. I use a code sheet. I find an error, make a brief comment, and then send students to the more extensive review via a code.

I still end up spending 15-20 minutes on most papers. Codes are great for mechanics and grammar. They aren’t great for content, and so I need to write those comments by hand every time.

There’s no getting around the grading demands placed in English teachers.

We greatly appreciate the english and other teachers very strict on writing, give feedback and tell the kids to fix it and work with them on the fixes if the fixes aren't right. That's how you make a good writer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:so where does one bring their middle schooler/high schooler for writing help? any after school programs?

Can you work with them? We worked on and reviewed all assignments in MS.

Some parents value a qualified teacher working with their kid. I would never be so arrogant as to think I can replace that.

Or, they are unable or too lazy to help their kids. I'm amazed at people not knowing how well their teens write.

I write for a living. I would not trust myself to be the primary person teaching my kid to write.