Reply to Top 25 NOVA High Schools

Forum Index » VA Public Schools other than FCPS

Reply to "Top 25 NOVA High Schools "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I always find the complaints about writing interesting. My kid is only in 6th, but I find that since 5th he has had a lot of writing projects. He just wrote a 5-paragraph essay and when I asked him to explain the basics of a 5-paragraph essay for history, he was able to explain what each paragraph should have in it. The essays come back graded and edited so it seems like he is getting age level appropriate writing instruction so far (and I feel like he has had grammar pounded into his head in English class this year).

Reading some of these comments in the link I really don't understand. Is it the student or the instruction? Again, my kid is in 6th grade, and he was doing citations last year in 5th for science papers/presentations. In fact, he is doing the science fair now and doing research (went to the library looked up books, made an outline for his research, wrote a bibliography, etc).

That being said, I am not sure I really received in depth writing instruction until law school. It was at that point where I was on a law journal and my editors sat me down and we went line by line through everything. It was very valuable instruction. I do write for a living now lol (even if my DCUM posts do not provide evidence of it).  [/quote]

Sounds like your kid had a strong teacher who taught good writing skills. People used to say all the time "well APS taught my kid how to read' or "Our teacher used phonics". The point is that good writing instruction isn't happening throughout the system. Just like good reading instruction wasn't the norm before APS focused on structured literacy. 
[/quote]

The complaints about writing are geared more to high school, not elementary and middle school instruction. The problem is that your 5 paragraph essay isn't going expand to full-length papers in high school. Without taking AP Research, maybe some IB classes - we're not at WL so don't know, don't expect any real writing instruction appropriate for high school students looking toward college.

Same with grammar, although I don't get the impression that grammar instruction is consistent across our elementary/middle schools. Our kiddos are now out of middle school; so maybe APS is making more effort now.....can only hope! Problem with the grammar part is that, even if you get actual grammar instruction in elementary or into middle school, it isn't going to be reinforced or enforced moving forward. It's like "we taught that, it ends in 6th grade curriculum; either they know it or they don't, we're focused on content only." One of my children's high school English teacher even told the class that they "could" spend a few days teaching grammar, but they aren't going to. Even in AP English, they are not planning any lengthy papers. Maybe one up-to-ten-pager; but that's still a maybe. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics