Why isn't your kid a better writer? After all, she studies English every day.

[Anonymous]

I can't believe how low standards are around here for monolingual schools. These kids speak and write English no better (and mostly significantly worse) than mine -- who spend half of their schooldays in Chinese classrooms. It's just appalling.

(The point I'm actually making is that it's silly to condemn Yu Ying or other language immersion schools soley because most of their students don't achieve fluency. If those students aren't giving up anything in English, math, or anywhere else, and still are achieving dramatically more proficient foreign language abilities than they would have in monolingual elementary schools, isn't that success? Or at least something better than abject failure?)

[Anonymous]

I have always maintained that in my experience, DCPS fails miserably in teaching writing to students. Both of my dc's receive outside tutoring to better develop that very important skill.

[Anonymous]

we have a had a lot of DCPS interns in our office, I would say most of the HS kids write on a 3rd or 4th grade level. Its shameful and worse how celebratory every one is as the graduation rates. (or that lame Ballou stunt -Every kid accepted to college!!). a lot of functionally illiterate. Any for profit college will take and their student loans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:we have a had a lot of DCPS interns in our office, I would say most of the HS kids write on a 3rd or 4th grade level. Its shameful and worse how celebratory every one is as the graduation rates. (or that lame Ballou stunt -Every kid accepted to college!!). a lot of functionally illiterate. Any for profit college will take and their student loans.

I think you mean:

We have had a lot of DCPS interns in our office. I would say most of the HS kids write on a 3rd or 4th grade level. It's shameful. Worse is how celebratory everyone is about the graduation rates (or that lame Ballou stunt: every kid accepted to college) when a lot of graduates are functionally illiterate. Any for-profit college will take these students and their student loans.

Writing is hard to teach, even for good writers. And most teachers are not good writers.

[Anonymous]

It's because they're not taught the mechanics of writing in a rigorous and sufficiently in depth manner, and they don't receive individual feedback on their work, which is absolutely crucial.

My kids are in MCPS but it's the same problem. The only teacher my middle schooler ever had who was a good writing coach was his 4th grade teacher: she was the only one who wrote full sentences of constructive criticism on his papers. She left at the end of that year because she couldn't bear the public school system!

Before and after, he's had teachers who painted a big smiley face at the top of his paper, or who wrote NOTHING. That was last year in 6th grade, and that kind of "English" teacher should be fired.

[Anonymous]

I was forced into a high school English teacher position when the original teacher quit mid-year. During my first evaluation, I was reprimanded for not sticking to the curriculum and "wasting" class time teaching vocabulary and grammar. I was told that, with A/B block scheduling, I didn't have time to waste on writing techniques because reading comprehension was the big concern for the SRI and PARCC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was forced into a high school English teacher position when the original teacher quit mid-year. During my first evaluation, I was reprimanded for not sticking to the curriculum and "wasting" class time teaching vocabulary and grammar. I was told that, with A/B block scheduling, I didn't have time to waste on writing techniques because reading comprehension was the big concern for the SRI and PARCC.

Lovely.

[Anonymous]

Because they are taught from a worthless curriculum by total incompetents.

I bet they all can recite the "gender is fluid" mantra, however.

[Anonymous]

It's short sighted. I posted in the DCI thread. My child is learning math, science, social studies, writing and reading in her target language. To me that's better than just learning how to speak the language and knowing a lot of vocabulary.

Is my child fluent? No, but I wouldn't expect that unless all she did all day was practice speaking in the target language.

[Anonymous]

People who aren't prolific readers struggle with writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have always maintained that in my experience, DCPS fails miserably in teaching writing to students. Both of my dc's receive outside tutoring to better develop that very important skill.

One correction - the issue is not limited to DCPS. It's an issue with any public system (and probably private too). Even upper level Eng courses such as AP Lit and AP Lang, they are not "writing" courses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People who aren't prolific readers struggle with writing.

A lot of prolific readers (my son included, who reads at a college level in 7th grade) struggle with writing. It needs to be explicitly taught.

[Anonymous]

And not everyone has the same abilities in writing. Some people will be great writers despite poor teaching and some people will be not-so-great writers despite good teachers and plenty of practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It's because they're not taught the mechanics of writing in a rigorous and sufficiently in depth manner, and they don't receive individual feedback on their work, which is absolutely crucial.

My kids are in MCPS but it's the same problem. The only teacher my middle schooler ever had who was a good writing coach was his 4th grade teacher: she was the only one who wrote full sentences of constructive criticism on his papers. She left at the end of that year because she couldn't bear the public school system!

Before and after, he's had teachers who painted a big smiley face at the top of his paper, or who wrote NOTHING. That was last year in 6th grade, and that kind of "English" teacher should be fired.

Yes, exactly this. But my DC is now attending a DCPS middle school, and her current ELA teacher seems committed to focusing on mechanics and has offered feedback. Finally! I am very grateful, and I am so hopeful that the new Chancellor will support initiatives in this direction.

[Anonymous]

Teaching in the USA is quite different than many other countries. In lower elementary children mostly learn to respect rules and regulations and follow directions.