Is it true all 9th graders take “honors” English?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn't read all the comments, but Honors English in 9th and 10th grade is a JOKE. The level is ABYSMAL. My children just read their own books or did other homework during English. The curriculum advances at an elderly snail's pace, and students are not expected to finish any book addressed in the line-up. Apparently teachers just pick a few segments, study them, and move on to another book.

So far in 10th grade "Honors" English at BCC, my daughter had to read snippets of the Odyssey (she's finishing the rest on her own), the Penelopiad (same story from Penelope's point of view by Margaret Atwood), and they're just starting 1984 (which DD has already read). Most of the questions asked are just surface level, "did you crack open the book or google the answer" sort of knowledge question, like who Telemachus is. In the meantime, DD has had time to read Frankenstein, Dracula and several other novels, just during English class, on Sora, the online MCPS library.

Last year in 9th grade Honors English, they were assigned a graphic novel with hardly any words in it. DD liked the artwork, but the study questions had not been adapted to the graphic novel form, and thus asked for quotations from the text... WHAT TEXT????

Any kid with more than two neurons to rub together is bound to go crazy in such classes.

By the time your kids grow up to attend 9th grade, OP, I hope MCPS has completely overhauled the English curriculum. Parents have been complaining for ages. MCPS is great at STEM. English is its Achilles' heel.

That's not normal. In 9/10th we had one book a semester for most semesters, not all so maybe three books a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't read all the comments, but Honors English in 9th and 10th grade is a JOKE. The level is ABYSMAL. My children just read their own books or did other homework during English. The curriculum advances at an elderly snail's pace, and students are not expected to finish any book addressed in the line-up. Apparently teachers just pick a few segments, study them, and move on to another book.

So far in 10th grade "Honors" English at BCC, my daughter had to read snippets of the Odyssey (she's finishing the rest on her own), the Penelopiad (same story from Penelope's point of view by Margaret Atwood), and they're just starting 1984 (which DD has already read). Most of the questions asked are just surface level, "did you crack open the book or google the answer" sort of knowledge question, like who Telemachus is. In the meantime, DD has had time to read Frankenstein, Dracula and several other novels, just during English class, on Sora, the online MCPS library.

Last year in 9th grade Honors English, they were assigned a graphic novel with hardly any words in it. DD liked the artwork, but the study questions had not been adapted to the graphic novel form, and thus asked for quotations from the text... WHAT TEXT????

Any kid with more than two neurons to rub together is bound to go crazy in such classes.

By the time your kids grow up to attend 9th grade, OP, I hope MCPS has completely overhauled the English curriculum. Parents have been complaining for ages. MCPS is great at STEM. English is its Achilles' heel.

That's not normal. In 9/10th we had one book a semester for most semesters, not all so maybe three books a year.

PP you replied. I know, right? I went to school in France, where we had a mandatory summer reading list of classics, we had in-depth analyses of literature (and woe to anyone who didn't read the books in their entirety), and we learned to write long-form essays starting in 10th grade. Every Saturday morning, 3hrs of "dissertation". I can still feel my wrist aching

This MCPS way of teaching English feels quite disrespectful vis-a-vis the literary canon. Thank goodness there's AP Lang and AP Lit available for 11th and 12th, but even they don't teach kids to write long essays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't read all the comments, but Honors English in 9th and 10th grade is a JOKE. The level is ABYSMAL. My children just read their own books or did other homework during English. The curriculum advances at an elderly snail's pace, and students are not expected to finish any book addressed in the line-up. Apparently teachers just pick a few segments, study them, and move on to another book.

So far in 10th grade "Honors" English at BCC, my daughter had to read snippets of the Odyssey (she's finishing the rest on her own), the Penelopiad (same story from Penelope's point of view by Margaret Atwood), and they're just starting 1984 (which DD has already read). Most of the questions asked are just surface level, "did you crack open the book or google the answer" sort of knowledge question, like who Telemachus is. In the meantime, DD has had time to read Frankenstein, Dracula and several other novels, just during English class, on Sora, the online MCPS library.

Last year in 9th grade Honors English, they were assigned a graphic novel with hardly any words in it. DD liked the artwork, but the study questions had not been adapted to the graphic novel form, and thus asked for quotations from the text... WHAT TEXT????

Any kid with more than two neurons to rub together is bound to go crazy in such classes.

By the time your kids grow up to attend 9th grade, OP, I hope MCPS has completely overhauled the English curriculum. Parents have been complaining for ages. MCPS is great at STEM. English is its Achilles' heel.

That's not normal. In 9/10th we had one book a semester for most semesters, not all so maybe three books a year.

PP you replied. I know, right? I went to school in France, where we had a mandatory summer reading list of classics, we had in-depth analyses of literature (and woe to anyone who didn't read the books in their entirety), and we learned to write long-form essays starting in 10th grade. Every Saturday morning, 3hrs of "dissertation". I can still feel my wrist aching

This MCPS way of teaching English feels quite disrespectful vis-a-vis the literary canon. Thank goodness there's AP Lang and AP Lit available for 11th and 12th, but even they don't teach kids to write long essays.

+1

And honors English 9/10 don’t prepare kids for AP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't read all the comments, but Honors English in 9th and 10th grade is a JOKE. The level is ABYSMAL. My children just read their own books or did other homework during English. The curriculum advances at an elderly snail's pace, and students are not expected to finish any book addressed in the line-up. Apparently teachers just pick a few segments, study them, and move on to another book.

So far in 10th grade "Honors" English at BCC, my daughter had to read snippets of the Odyssey (she's finishing the rest on her own), the Penelopiad (same story from Penelope's point of view by Margaret Atwood), and they're just starting 1984 (which DD has already read). Most of the questions asked are just surface level, "did you crack open the book or google the answer" sort of knowledge question, like who Telemachus is. In the meantime, DD has had time to read Frankenstein, Dracula and several other novels, just during English class, on Sora, the online MCPS library.

Last year in 9th grade Honors English, they were assigned a graphic novel with hardly any words in it. DD liked the artwork, but the study questions had not been adapted to the graphic novel form, and thus asked for quotations from the text... WHAT TEXT????

Any kid with more than two neurons to rub together is bound to go crazy in such classes.

By the time your kids grow up to attend 9th grade, OP, I hope MCPS has completely overhauled the English curriculum. Parents have been complaining for ages. MCPS is great at STEM. English is its Achilles' heel.

That's not normal. In 9/10th we had one book a semester for most semesters, not all so maybe three books a year.

PP you replied. I know, right? I went to school in France, where we had a mandatory summer reading list of classics, we had in-depth analyses of literature (and woe to anyone who didn't read the books in their entirety), and we learned to write long-form essays starting in 10th grade. Every Saturday morning, 3hrs of "dissertation". I can still feel my wrist aching

This MCPS way of teaching English feels quite disrespectful vis-a-vis the literary canon. Thank goodness there's AP Lang and AP Lit available for 11th and 12th, but even they don't teach kids to write long essays.

+1

And honors English 9/10 don’t prepare kids for AP.

Then why are lots of kids able to get 4s and 5s on the AP tests?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't read all the comments, but Honors English in 9th and 10th grade is a JOKE. The level is ABYSMAL. My children just read their own books or did other homework during English. The curriculum advances at an elderly snail's pace, and students are not expected to finish any book addressed in the line-up. Apparently teachers just pick a few segments, study them, and move on to another book.

So far in 10th grade "Honors" English at BCC, my daughter had to read snippets of the Odyssey (she's finishing the rest on her own), the Penelopiad (same story from Penelope's point of view by Margaret Atwood), and they're just starting 1984 (which DD has already read). Most of the questions asked are just surface level, "did you crack open the book or google the answer" sort of knowledge question, like who Telemachus is. In the meantime, DD has had time to read Frankenstein, Dracula and several other novels, just during English class, on Sora, the online MCPS library.

Last year in 9th grade Honors English, they were assigned a graphic novel with hardly any words in it. DD liked the artwork, but the study questions had not been adapted to the graphic novel form, and thus asked for quotations from the text... WHAT TEXT????

Any kid with more than two neurons to rub together is bound to go crazy in such classes.

By the time your kids grow up to attend 9th grade, OP, I hope MCPS has completely overhauled the English curriculum. Parents have been complaining for ages. MCPS is great at STEM. English is its Achilles' heel.

That's not normal. In 9/10th we had one book a semester for most semesters, not all so maybe three books a year.

PP you replied. I know, right? I went to school in France, where we had a mandatory summer reading list of classics, we had in-depth analyses of literature (and woe to anyone who didn't read the books in their entirety), and we learned to write long-form essays starting in 10th grade. Every Saturday morning, 3hrs of "dissertation". I can still feel my wrist aching

This MCPS way of teaching English feels quite disrespectful vis-a-vis the literary canon. Thank goodness there's AP Lang and AP Lit available for 11th and 12th, but even they don't teach kids to write long essays.

+1

And honors English 9/10 don’t prepare kids for AP.

Then why are lots of kids able to get 4s and 5s on the AP tests?

It's not "a lot", particularly not for AP Lit. And those kids must like to read and write. It's perfectly possible to get a good score on the AP English exams, thanks to natural abilities and good teachers. What some of us are saying is that Honors English in 9th and 10th grade do nothing to widen that circle to kids who might not be acclimated to reading complex texts at home already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't read all the comments, but Honors English in 9th and 10th grade is a JOKE. The level is ABYSMAL. My children just read their own books or did other homework during English. The curriculum advances at an elderly snail's pace, and students are not expected to finish any book addressed in the line-up. Apparently teachers just pick a few segments, study them, and move on to another book.

So far in 10th grade "Honors" English at BCC, my daughter had to read snippets of the Odyssey (she's finishing the rest on her own), the Penelopiad (same story from Penelope's point of view by Margaret Atwood), and they're just starting 1984 (which DD has already read). Most of the questions asked are just surface level, "did you crack open the book or google the answer" sort of knowledge question, like who Telemachus is. In the meantime, DD has had time to read Frankenstein, Dracula and several other novels, just during English class, on Sora, the online MCPS library.

Last year in 9th grade Honors English, they were assigned a graphic novel with hardly any words in it. DD liked the artwork, but the study questions had not been adapted to the graphic novel form, and thus asked for quotations from the text... WHAT TEXT????

Any kid with more than two neurons to rub together is bound to go crazy in such classes.

By the time your kids grow up to attend 9th grade, OP, I hope MCPS has completely overhauled the English curriculum. Parents have been complaining for ages. MCPS is great at STEM. English is its Achilles' heel.

That's not normal. In 9/10th we had one book a semester for most semesters, not all so maybe three books a year.

PP you replied. I know, right? I went to school in France, where we had a mandatory summer reading list of classics, we had in-depth analyses of literature (and woe to anyone who didn't read the books in their entirety), and we learned to write long-form essays starting in 10th grade. Every Saturday morning, 3hrs of "dissertation". I can still feel my wrist aching

This MCPS way of teaching English feels quite disrespectful vis-a-vis the literary canon. Thank goodness there's AP Lang and AP Lit available for 11th and 12th, but even they don't teach kids to write long essays.

+1

And honors English 9/10 don’t prepare kids for AP.

Then why are lots of kids able to get 4s and 5s on the AP tests?

Certainly not because of English 9 and 10.

[Anonymous]

All this district cares about is compressing all students together in the name of "equity." To hell with excellence.