9th grade honors English update

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I co teach with two different 9th grade Honors English teachers and one of them assigned a full novel to read while the other we read excerpts of a graphic novel in class. The class with the full novel had one student out of 20 earn an A for the MP and 14 of them failed for the quarter.
I get the feeling from my colleagues that we would like to assign more reading and work in general but it is difficult to explain to admin and parents that doing so will result in more than half the class failing the course.

Sounds like a lot of kids should not be in Honors English.

This. Co-teacher PP are you in a high poverty school? Is the full novel teacher a rookie? Does your school offer non-honors English 9?

This is the co-teacher here. I am actually the first year teacher and both English teachers i teach with have done this for at least 6 years. We do not offer non honors english as honors for all seems to be a county wide policy.

The biggest thing i noticed with the full novel class is that the teacher who has established the schedule and pacing for the class has set it up so all reading is done at home with very little to no in class check for understanding. The students are given a week to read 70 pages and complete an assignment based on those pages. Rinse repeat for 4 chunks. I had 2 out of 20 students complete all 4 assignments, 4 students complete 2 of them, and 14 do none of them. That data isn’t just specific to the reading. All 4 of my classes of 9th graders complete and turn in roughly about 20% of work that is not done entirely in class.

Do you have a sense of why so few of them are doing any work outside class, and whether this is an issue of kids struggling to adjust from low demands in MS to higher demands in HS, or a broader issue that will likely continue throughout HS?

Also, curious how high the FARMS rate is at your school?

I worked in middle schools primarily before becoming a HS teacher this year and I 100% believe the biggest issue is the lack of educational consequences leading up to 9th grade. Unless a student has tiger parents, they are conditioned to do the bare minimum at all costs. Even my strong students are demanding to know word count and sentence minimums. If we say 400-600 words, every single student, to include the kids with high MAP scores, is counting words and without fail will be no more than 10 words over the minimum.

I find its the lack of curriculum, teaching, kids not recieving a good foundation in ES, and lack of books.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid just checked the graphic novel version of Count of Monte Cristo out from the library and loves it. I doubt my kid would read the other classic version which is 1000+ pages plus, but there's no need to be snobby about graphic novels. There's plenty of graphic novel version of classic books that might not be as appealing to kids in their original form.

They can read graphic novels for fun, outside of school. If we are worried that kids are not reading enough, why would we waste time on these for kids who are capable of more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The expectations in private school will always be higher. Students are expected to read and do assignments at home and that’s rare in public school due to equity. Of course they can get through a lot more.

It is more common in some private schools because the kid’s ability levels are more similar. Or at least there is an ability floor that everyone is above or they wouldn’t be admitted to the school.

MCPS has a broader range of students they need to teach to. If private seems like it makes more sense to your kid that is always an options. Wanting MCPS to be a private is not.

Um yeah private is not "always an option" for most people, jackass, since it costs tens of thousands per year.

What MCPS needs to do is offering tracking in English classes rather than insisting that everyone take the same "honors for all" English class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I co teach with two different 9th grade Honors English teachers and one of them assigned a full novel to read while the other we read excerpts of a graphic novel in class. The class with the full novel had one student out of 20 earn an A for the MP and 14 of them failed for the quarter.
I get the feeling from my colleagues that we would like to assign more reading and work in general but it is difficult to explain to admin and parents that doing so will result in more than half the class failing the course.

Sounds like a lot of kids should not be in Honors English.

This. Co-teacher PP are you in a high poverty school? Is the full novel teacher a rookie? Does your school offer non-honors English 9?

This is the co-teacher here. I am actually the first year teacher and both English teachers i teach with have done this for at least 6 years. We do not offer non honors english as honors for all seems to be a county wide policy.

The biggest thing i noticed with the full novel class is that the teacher who has established the schedule and pacing for the class has set it up so all reading is done at home with very little to no in class check for understanding. The students are given a week to read 70 pages and complete an assignment based on those pages. Rinse repeat for 4 chunks. I had 2 out of 20 students complete all 4 assignments, 4 students complete 2 of them, and 14 do none of them. That data isn’t just specific to the reading. All 4 of my classes of 9th graders complete and turn in roughly about 20% of work that is not done entirely in class.

Do you have a sense of why so few of them are doing any work outside class, and whether this is an issue of kids struggling to adjust from low demands in MS to higher demands in HS, or a broader issue that will likely continue throughout HS?

Also, curious how high the FARMS rate is at your school?

I worked in middle schools primarily before becoming a HS teacher this year and I 100% believe the biggest issue is the lack of educational consequences leading up to 9th grade. Unless a student has tiger parents, they are conditioned to do the bare minimum at all costs. Even my strong students are demanding to know word count and sentence minimums. If we say 400-600 words, every single student, to include the kids with high MAP scores, is counting words and without fail will be no more than 10 words over the minimum.

I find its the lack of curriculum, teaching, kids not recieving a good foundation in ES, and lack of books.

Nope. Not in Montgomery county where there are many books at the school media center, classrooms, and a fab county public library system. Many little free libraries too in neighborhoods. Book drives. Books are plentiful. Priorities to read questionable. Books versus screens. Books on screens or paper books.