Reply to APS Lucy Calkins- how does this happen?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Every year in elementary school in FCPS, my kids are asked to write (or do a powerpoint) about something they know. No research, no guidance - nothing. My daughter wrote about horses every year for 4 years straight. In 6th grade, she basically recycled the same report she did for 5th and 4th. My other daughter is currently in 3rd grade and it will be her 4th year of doing the same. They are given weeks to work on it. It is the craziest, most useless use of time I can imagine. Could they not even be asked to read a nonfiction book and write on that? Pick a sea animal and write about that? This is that Lucy Calkins dumbing down of education. [/quote]

6th grade teacher here. There is a whole research unit. Here are the following units for 6th:

Memoir, Literary NF, Journalism, Poetry, Research, Historical Fiction, Persuasive Essay, Choice Unit.

Your child should have 7-8 published pieces including 1 research project. [/quote]They wrote those 7 pieces every year and are simply re-using their work and topic from the previous year.  [/quote]+1 Yes, DC just came home and is writing on the same memoir as last year![/quote]

DP.  Not sure why y'all are bragging that your DCs are lazy and kinda cheaters.  It didn't even occur to my kids to recycle their old topic let alone their old work.  [/quote]

And the PP seems fine with it - doesn’t make her kids change the topics. 
[/quote]

I see that but why is the curriculum set up in a way where they can re-use past papers? I get they want to let kids choose and that's good but they could make the kids choose among four memoirs, four topics for research, etc. Why would a child choose to make more work for themselves? [/quote]The parent doesn’t see the child’s writing. It is all kept under wraps at school.  Maybe at the end when the piece is published is it ever shared with the parent.  This is on the teachers to ensure new topics are chosen, if that’s what they want.  The parent is not part of the writing process AT ALL at our elementary school—-quite the opposite.  Even their journals are not sent home until the last day of school.  Very little communication comes out of the educator. And, it’s clear that they do not want parent help.  It’s perceived as interference.  [/quote]

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