High schoolers can’t write

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP did not want a religious school. The average in MD is brought down by religious privates. -DP

Well, we can’t all have exactly what we want.

If my choice was Catholic school or crap MCPS, I’d choose Catholic school.

I wouldn't. Our neighbor's kids are at catholic school (they have 7 kids, so they're ultra catholic) and one of the kids is 3 years older than my kid and always says my kid is doing harder math. I'm not going to pay for the privilege of less qualified teachers (not to mention the social indoctrination).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:My kids go to Whitman. They are native English speakers. They get all As. Their writing is awful. Poor grammar and punctuation. Circular sentences, pointless paragraphs. In an essay, they don’t know how to build an argument. And they read more than most other kids. I am in shock. How can this be? Anyone else notice this issue with their kids?

Parents should have pulled their kids out of schools when they introduced curriculum 2.0 which was an experimental program that mandated letting kids figure out the rules of writing rather than being strictly taught them.

Right because all of us can afford 60k a year and there are enough private school spots. Great advice.

Catholic schools are as little as $10K/year. Most DCUM posters can afford that.

I looked at Catholics. Most were not interesting in having non Catholics and their practices were archaic.

What practices were archaic?

Apparently writing instruction, penmanship, and using textbooks/written notes.

I was against Catholic schools at first. We aren’t Catholic and I held my family’s negative beliefs about Catholicism. And then I toured a school to see how it compared to my local public. I loved it, and I submitted the application with fingers crossed. That was 12 years ago. I’ve now had one child graduate from Catholic schools and another on his way through.

I love the “archaic” practices. They could also be considered tried and true. It’s refreshing to see real textbooks, less technology use, high expectations for work and behavior. I love the daily writing practice. We are giving up higher math tracks, but I am not one to push my child far ahead in math “just because..” Calculus by senior year worked well for my older child’s college admissions.

Re: less technology - everyone should be very concerned with the mcps overuse of chrome books. Kids cannot spell thanks to autocorrect, and kids certainly cannot read/write in cursive or even print well.

There’s a reason why some things never change in catholic schools (and most privates): because those things deliver results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP did not want a religious school. The average in MD is brought down by religious privates. -DP

Well, we can’t all have exactly what we want.

If my choice was Catholic school or crap MCPS, I’d choose Catholic school.

I wouldn't. Our neighbor's kids are at catholic school (they have 7 kids, so they're ultra catholic) and one of the kids is 3 years older than my kid and always says my kid is doing harder math. I'm not going to pay for the privilege of less qualified teachers (not to mention the social indoctrination).

I learned about all world religions in my catholic high school—taught through the lens of isms and social justice.

All students would benefit from such an approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids go to Whitman. They are native English speakers. They get all As. Their writing is awful. Poor grammar and punctuation. Circular sentences, pointless paragraphs. In an essay, they don’t know how to build an argument. And they read more than most other kids. I am in shock. How can this be? Anyone else notice this issue with their kids?

I started to notice this in late ES when I actual saw their class and homework. I made them rewrite the paragraphs to be more coherent and also had to teach them how to use the , properly.

Yea, writing instruction in public school is awful.

Having stated that, if your kids read well written books, they should've picked up on how to write well and grammar more from reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids go to Whitman. They are native English speakers. They get all As. Their writing is awful. Poor grammar and punctuation. Circular sentences, pointless paragraphs. In an essay, they don’t know how to build an argument. And they read more than most other kids. I am in shock. How can this be? Anyone else notice this issue with their kids?

Parents should have pulled their kids out of schools when they introduced curriculum 2.0 which was an experimental program that mandated letting kids figure out the rules of writing rather than being strictly taught them.

Right because all of us can afford 60k a year and there are enough private school spots. Great advice.

Catholic schools are as little as $10K/year. Most DCUM posters can afford that.

I looked at Catholics. Most were not interesting in having non Catholics and their practices were archaic.

What practices were archaic?

Apparently writing instruction, penmanship, and using textbooks/written notes.

I was against Catholic schools at first. We aren’t Catholic and I held my family’s negative beliefs about Catholicism. And then I toured a school to see how it compared to my local public. I loved it, and I submitted the application with fingers crossed. That was 12 years ago. I’ve now had one child graduate from Catholic schools and another on his way through.

I love the “archaic” practices. They could also be considered tried and true. It’s refreshing to see real textbooks, less technology use, high expectations for work and behavior. I love the daily writing practice. We are giving up higher math tracks, but I am not one to push my child far ahead in math “just because..” Calculus by senior year worked well for my older child’s college admissions.

Re: less technology - everyone should be very concerned with the mcps overuse of chrome books. Kids cannot spell thanks to autocorrect, and kids certainly cannot read/write in cursive or even print well.

There’s a reason why some things never change in catholic schools (and most privates): because those things deliver results.

What we should be worried about is over generalization. Like kids cannot spell or read/write cursive. Plenty of kids can do all those things. Additional plenty of things change in Catholic and private school. Believe they aren’t the same as they were a decade agir more ago. The only thing that hasn’t changed is their ability to be able to self select their students.

At some point folks will stop comparing apples to oranges and focus on addressing the cause of problems. Like gettin rid of yearly testing and moving it to necessary years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AP Lang and AP Lit are the English classes where students are held to higher standards of writing. Unfortunately they don't come until 11th and 12 th grades.

I’m the teacher who posted above. IB English is also great for writing instruction. 3 of the 4 major assessments are essay-based, so teachers spend a lot of class time looking at strong writing samples and having students compose their own. (The 4th assessment is an oral component.)

The problem is students often aren’t prepared for AP or IB work at the start of 11th grade. The IB middle years program is one way to counteract this, but most schools don’t have it.

Do you recommend IB over AP for writing? Our school offers both....

DP.. My kid went through the IBDP, and they had to write essays and papers for all their classes, even the STEM ones. AP Calc didn't require writing; IB physics did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP did not want a religious school. The average in MD is brought down by religious privates. -DP

Well, we can’t all have exactly what we want.

If my choice was Catholic school or crap MCPS, I’d choose Catholic school.

I wouldn't. Our neighbor's kids are at catholic school (they have 7 kids, so they're ultra catholic) and one of the kids is 3 years older than my kid and always says my kid is doing harder math. I'm not going to pay for the privilege of less qualified teachers (not to mention the social indoctrination).

MCPS accelerates math arguably too much and it shows in the proficiency rates, which are abysmal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids go to Whitman. They are native English speakers. They get all As. Their writing is awful. Poor grammar and punctuation. Circular sentences, pointless paragraphs. In an essay, they don’t know how to build an argument. And they read more than most other kids. I am in shock. How can this be? Anyone else notice this issue with their kids?

Parents should have pulled their kids out of schools when they introduced curriculum 2.0 which was an experimental program that mandated letting kids figure out the rules of writing rather than being strictly taught them.

Right because all of us can afford 60k a year and there are enough private school spots. Great advice.

Catholic schools are as little as $10K/year. Most DCUM posters can afford that.

I looked at Catholics. Most were not interesting in having non Catholics and their practices were archaic.

What practices were archaic?

Apparently writing instruction, penmanship, and using textbooks/written notes.

I was against Catholic schools at first. We aren’t Catholic and I held my family’s negative beliefs about Catholicism. And then I toured a school to see how it compared to my local public. I loved it, and I submitted the application with fingers crossed. That was 12 years ago. I’ve now had one child graduate from Catholic schools and another on his way through.

I love the “archaic” practices. They could also be considered tried and true. It’s refreshing to see real textbooks, less technology use, high expectations for work and behavior. I love the daily writing practice. We are giving up higher math tracks, but I am not one to push my child far ahead in math “just because..” Calculus by senior year worked well for my older child’s college admissions.

Re: less technology - everyone should be very concerned with the mcps overuse of chrome books. Kids cannot spell thanks to autocorrect, and kids certainly cannot read/write in cursive or even print well.

There’s a reason why some things never change in catholic schools (and most privates): because those things deliver results.

Most white color workers use autocorrect. Heck even this forum has spell check.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are schools that don’t cost that much PP.

Do name the schools that don’t cost “much.” Except for some low-quality religious schools (whose math instruction is far worse than MCPS) most private schools in this area are extremely expensive.

The average private school tuition in the state of MD is $14,000/year.

https://www.privateschoolreview.com/tuition-stats/maryland

but not all private schools are created equally.

-dp

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids go to Whitman. They are native English speakers. They get all As. Their writing is awful. Poor grammar and punctuation. Circular sentences, pointless paragraphs. In an essay, they don’t know how to build an argument. And they read more than most other kids. I am in shock. How can this be? Anyone else notice this issue with their kids?

Parents should have pulled their kids out of schools when they introduced curriculum 2.0 which was an experimental program that mandated letting kids figure out the rules of writing rather than being strictly taught them.

Right because all of us can afford 60k a year and there are enough private school spots. Great advice.

Catholic schools are as little as $10K/year. Most DCUM posters can afford that.

I looked at Catholics. Most were not interesting in having non Catholics and their practices were archaic.

What practices were archaic?

Apparently writing instruction, penmanship, and using textbooks/written notes.

I was against Catholic schools at first. We aren’t Catholic and I held my family’s negative beliefs about Catholicism. And then I toured a school to see how it compared to my local public. I loved it, and I submitted the application with fingers crossed. That was 12 years ago. I’ve now had one child graduate from Catholic schools and another on his way through.

I love the “archaic” practices. They could also be considered tried and true. It’s refreshing to see real textbooks, less technology use, high expectations for work and behavior. I love the daily writing practice. We are giving up higher math tracks, but I am not one to push my child far ahead in math “just because..” Calculus by senior year worked well for my older child’s college admissions.

Re: less technology - everyone should be very concerned with the mcps overuse of chrome books. Kids cannot spell thanks to autocorrect, and kids certainly cannot read/write in cursive or even print well.

There’s a reason why some things never change in catholic schools (and most privates): because those things deliver results.

Most white color workers use autocorrect. Heck even this forum has spell check.

Oh, the irony.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are schools that don’t cost that much PP.

Do name the schools that don’t cost “much.” Except for some low-quality religious schools (whose math instruction is far worse than MCPS) most private schools in this area are extremely expensive.

The average private school tuition in the state of MD is $14,000/year.

https://www.privateschoolreview.com/tuition-stats/maryland

but not all private schools are created equally.

-dp

Yes, but the vast majority are better than MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids go to Whitman. They are native English speakers. They get all As. Their writing is awful. Poor grammar and punctuation. Circular sentences, pointless paragraphs. In an essay, they don’t know how to build an argument. And they read more than most other kids. I am in shock. How can this be? Anyone else notice this issue with their kids?

Parents should have pulled their kids out of schools when they introduced curriculum 2.0 which was an experimental program that mandated letting kids figure out the rules of writing rather than being strictly taught them.

Right because all of us can afford 60k a year and there are enough private school spots. Great advice.

Catholic schools are as little as $10K/year. Most DCUM posters can afford that.

I looked at Catholics. Most were not interesting in having non Catholics and their practices were archaic.

What practices were archaic?

Apparently writing instruction, penmanship, and using textbooks/written notes.

I was against Catholic schools at first. We aren’t Catholic and I held my family’s negative beliefs about Catholicism. And then I toured a school to see how it compared to my local public. I loved it, and I submitted the application with fingers crossed. That was 12 years ago. I’ve now had one child graduate from Catholic schools and another on his way through.

I love the “archaic” practices. They could also be considered tried and true. It’s refreshing to see real textbooks, less technology use, high expectations for work and behavior. I love the daily writing practice. We are giving up higher math tracks, but I am not one to push my child far ahead in math “just because..” Calculus by senior year worked well for my older child’s college admissions.

Re: less technology - everyone should be very concerned with the mcps overuse of chrome books. Kids cannot spell thanks to autocorrect, and kids certainly cannot read/write in cursive or even print well.

There’s a reason why some things never change in catholic schools (and most privates): because those things deliver results.

They cannot spell as they don’t teach spelling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mcps employee here.
-I am using the institute for excellence in writing to teach my kid how to write. My child is in 5th grade and has terrible grammar, spelling, and idea organization. I think some kids can learn to write by being avid readers (like my other kid) while many need direct instruction which mcps is not providing in a systematic way. It's shameful that they only focus on reading and math and don'teven do a good job with these subjects. Writing has just been completely thrown out the window. This curriculum has been recommended on dcum and I really like it. It is extrmely structured. You can either do it through a tutor, online classss, or you can learn the curriculum on your own. It's sad that providing a solid education has fallen on the shoulders of many parents and even more depressing that the kids who need it the most won't be able to get extra academic support from their families.

How much does it cost?

The virtual tutoring is $40 a session which is so cheap (key is to find someone in a lower cost area of the country for lower rates). Not sure how much the classes cost but I think they are reasonable. I am doing the spelling and grammar portion with my kid and have the once a week tutoring focus on the actual writing of different kinds of pieces.

[Anonymous]

I just review my kids work with them when it comes home every week in ES. If they got something wrong (math problem, science problem) I ask if they know why they got it wrong and what the correct answer should be. For papers I read what they wrote, discuss any marks or feedback from teacher, note any mistakes I found, and discuss more about the paper/book/topic. For district exams where we only see the score I tell them to go back and ask the teacher what they got wrong and why.

In MS we monitor grades on assignments. Anything below a B+ gets questions asked and a discussion. Have them read me their rough draft or final paper. Again discussion about mistakes or how things could have been worded better/expounded upon.

In HS we continue to remind about school expectations and time management. And we’re not afraid to let them know when they are slipping or not meeting expectations.

[Anonymous]

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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.

Have you seen the choices for the Honors English 9 curriculum? Many are below grade level. But yes teachers are required to use 1 anchor text per quarter — just disagreeing that limiting choice means kids are getting grade-level content. In the pilot, most teachers chose texts well below grade level.

Yes I have seen the English 9 choices and I’m fine with them. If teachers are always choosing the easiest text, then that’s a teacher and expectation setting problem. I also know that it’s the reading, analysis and writing done with each anchor text along with supplemental material that determines the quality of the class.

My problem is how much of the books they try to read in class.

Having anchor texts that are below level and reading them in class in so-called honors English is ridiculous and underscores the problem here — class time is spent reading and not learning about how to analyze text and write.

What does an anchor text mean? Is it one book that is read and then is used as a frame of reference for the rest od the school year?

It’s used as a frame of reference or culmination for the unit. Usually a few weeks or the quarter.