Reply to Benchmark, almost one year done. How are people feeling about it?

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Reply to "Benchmark, almost one year done. How are people feeling about it?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Let’s get back to the point.  Benchmark still sucks after a year.  And yes, I’m a teacher.  I’m a pretty decent teacher who used to do rigorous, challenging work in reading and writing, and creative projects with my upper elementary kids.  Now that I’m doing Benchmark there’s no time to do any of that, and I hate teaching language arts.  Needless to say, my students, who are smart, hate it too.  I’ve got to find a way to get back to what I used to do, when kids were more excited and inspired.[/quote]

Decent or Good or Great?

Leaving that alone I want to know what your challenging and rigorous writing and work entailed? Did you cover spelling, affixes, comprehension strategies, annotations, grammar introduction and reinforcement? Did you provide and critical feedback and correct on the writing assignments?

Please note I’m not accusing I’m seeking clarity and details.[/quote]

I am a different teacher and I whole heartedly agree. The one thing I do like about benchmark is the mix of genres focused on a specific subject. But the readings chosen aren’t very engaging and some are dated. Last year my kids did a ton of creative writing. While I like that there are essays, there is very little creative writing. I always gave feedback on their writing. The vocabulary instruction for upper is a joke and I did more with greek/latin roots previously. They don’t hit greek/latin roots in the 6th grade curriculum until Unit 5. We have had two lessons so far on some roots and have on more coming up. Last year, the majority of the word study I did was greek and latin roots. I plan on making adjustments next year. [/quote]

Nice to hear about adjustments you are planning.  Quick question, 6th grade for roots and affixes???  None of it is covered in grades 3-5?[/quote]

So I just looked at scope and sequence. 3rd introduces suffixes in Unit 9 and 10 which we are not doing. 4th does some prefixes/suffixes but it starts later and is sporadic. 5th starts Greek and Latin roots at Unit 5, but again only a few lessons since we aren’t doing Units 9 and 10. Same with 6th but some of the roots are repeated from 5th grade. What a waste! Meanwhile, in previous years the kids in 6th were only focused on affixes and roots. They got new roots to learn every week. So yeah, benchmark vocabulary instruction in grades 4-6 is not good. [/quote]

Teacher posters:  Could you please explain why certain units are not being completed? It seems like the curriculum was meant to be used as constructed, right?  Did the training eliminate those units?[/quote]

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