Reply to Parents are pulling their children out of Basis FAST!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I wasn't talking or asking about your child that does not attend Basis.  I was asking parents of 5th graders at Basis what types of assignments they are getting? Who would give a child an assignment saying "go write five pages about horses?"  But if I decide to go to Basis I would like for them to be assigning literary critiques and persuasive essays which are the types of assignments my DC is currently getting who is also in a public school.  Writing is a life-long process that can always use improvement a.k.a. multiple drafts.  Maybe if you went to a few more open houses at the upper tier privates and actually read the essays posted on the bulletin boards (not the typed ones) you would understand what I was talking about.  I am not a private school booster but this seems to be the one area that they try to excel in.  I don't think they are as accelerated as good publics in math.

Do any 5th grade Basis parents have any information to share?  If it is an area that I am going to need to supplement, I would like to know this going in.  In the areas my son is really interested in , they seem strong.  No mean responses please.[/quote]
Here's a piece from the Atlantic about writing at BASIS:

www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/what-the-best-writing-teachers-know/263573/

An excerpt:

"I have been lucky enough to experience an awakening to the second dimension of writing firsthand. At my high school, a BASIS charter school in Scottsdale, Arizona, every student must take both honors language and honors literature as a freshman. In other words, we take two English classes a day, five days a week. As an incoming ninth grader, I was skeptical of this system. To me, English was English. Wouldn't doubling our intake just be redundant?

I couldn't have been more mistaken. In both language and literature, we read and learn to compose essays. However, the key difference is that literature calls for discussion where language calls for rhetorical analysis. After being encouraged to engage with (and not just pick apart) what I was reading, I learned to recognize writing's second dimension. Instead of churning out formulaic essays, I found myself formulating novel opinions and writing in my own voice (with the purpose of lucid communication always in mind). In this way, between the two classes, I picked up the nitty-gritty nuances of syntax and diction along with a more audience-conscious perspective."
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