Reply to Honors English 9A, MP1: What is your child reading?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]All American Boys 
But they will also be reading Of Mice and Men 
[/quote]

Of Mice & Men is a choice in MP2. And it's super short. Why couldn't they read both of these in MP1?[/quote]

Totally agree.  My HS English class in 1986 probably read twice as many books.  I remember we read Great Expectations, catcher in the rye, Frankenstein, a Shakespeare play, the Iliad, and I’m sure there were a couple more I’m forgetting now (maybe Huck Finn?)  And I went to public school in a random state so I feel like it’s achievable for McPS.  [/quote]

Sorry to those of you who don't know this, but...these kids DO NOT READ! The vast majority of them, including your precious IB Magnet students, are not doing the reading. They are overwhelmed and/or do not have the stamina to read books the way you think they can.

I teach 9th grade right now. I've also taught AP Lang in the past. Their reading stamina, as previously stated, is in the garbage and has been for some time. I struggle to get them to retain information when we read books together, in class, using an audio book. It takes insane amounts of contextualization to get them to understand any text, so I've come to learn if it's going to to be challenging for them, it better be interesting too.

This year, we will do All American Boys (in Q1 - mind you, we have had significantly fewer instructional days this quarter because of various interruptions and non-instructional days), MARCH Book 3 in Quarter 2, Flowers for Algernon in Quarter 2, A Raisin in the Sun in Quarter 3, The Poet X in Quarter 4, and probably a literature circle book somewhere in there.

For anyone complaining that their kid isn't reading enough or isn't reading any "classics" - get a library card! No one is stopping you! As a matter of fact, it would be great if you and your kid read those "classics" together, and then they can have a discussion with you about the differences between those "classics" and the books they're reading in class :) [/quote]

I wonder if this is part of honors for all.  My kids have reading stamina.  They regularly read books that are multiple hundred pages, and they often complain about the stupid filler stuff in English class.  But they aren’t gojng to go to the library and get dickens or Steinbeck or Wharton.  They are reading stuff like Dune or Ready Player One or the Leigh Bardugo stuff.  Yes, I could force my kids to read something more canonical — but I guess I could also just homeschool them.  It doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask the schools to teach them some of this stuff, particularly considering that’s what was done in school for many decades.  [/quote]

We're already the "bad guys" with chores and screen time.. We need school to be the "bad guys" for challenging literature, so we can offer way books as a treat [/quote]

As a teacher, I will be more than willing to be the "bad guy" as long as parents don't completely undermine me the second their kid gets home by allowing their kid to not do any homework or supplemental learning we cannot possibly fit in a 45 minute class period.[/quote]

You can only do your part. If kids don't do their homework or assigned reading, and their parents let them not do it, then they won't get good grades.[/quote]

But saying "I can't assign challenging work in my honors class because 50% of the class won't do it" is a cop-out. Give 50% of the class a 'C' if necessary.[/quote]

50% getting a C would be great.  In one of my honors 9 classes I have 4 out of 22 kids currently above a D at interims time[/quote]

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