Reply to English class at middle school: Catholic schools vs FCPS (aap) in NoVa

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[quote=Anonymous]We're at a Protestant school (similar price to parochial), but just made the switch from FCPS AAP in 6th to private for 7th, with our younger kids also switching.

TL; DR - it's a combination of more scaffolding and direct instruction to help the kids really understand and higher expectations.

- In the elementary grades there is formal grammar instruction with a separate grammar block. My 7th grader is currently racing to catch up. The language arts teacher is able to use formal grammar terms to explain things to the kids about their writing.

- Five paragraph essays have been carefully taught since mid-elementary in our private, but are being reviewed again in 7th. My kid was never, ever formally taught how to do a thesis or topic sentence in AAP - we covered it at home when the concept was required by a project in 5th grade.

- The whole class studies a novel or play together and does related projects and writing. They really dive deeply into literary analysis as a class, instead of being given random short pieces or having a "book club" that only part of the class is doing (like in FCPS ES AAP). This allows for them to learn from both the teacher and each other. My 7th grader's teacher bribes them with a lot of food and follow-on movies to love the book. Plus I think reading something as a grade builds class cohesiveness, but maybe I'm just an English nerd. Again the kids have been reading whole class novels since elementary, starting with whole class read-alouds. They've been analyzing them since elementary in a stunning amount of depth as well. I've been impressed by the literary analysis my 5th grader is bringing home.

- The writing expectations are so much higher. My 7th grader was used to giving a passable attempt and easily earning a 4. For her most recent short story she revised several times and put a ton more thought and effort into it than she ever had before. It's possible this is just the difference between elementary and middle school, but I didn't get the sense that our FCPS MS was going to be that demanding on the quality of writing.

- To help with the writing expectations, there's a writing lab the students can visit during study hall. My kid took advantage of that and got some great feedback. And as a parent it was so nice to have someone else besides me giving her work a once-over. 
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