Op, you're lucky with 2 weeks. We've had an occasional FCPS high school English teacher take months. Months. And the Principal knows this. Nothing changes.

There are now online critiques of writing assignments. I've heard of schools where kids upload their documents and get critiqued by each other during the draft phase. This along with some teacher comments during the school day I would think would be enough and then the final can be critiqued by the teacher.

This is a resource problem, not a teacher problem. You need to advocate for smaller teaching loads and more teachers in school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many kids does this teacher teach? Is it a middle school or high school where a writing teacher teaches 100-150 kids?

If so, step back and oet your kid handle it. They are old enough where they should be working these kids of things out on their own with the teacher and without your intervention.

Also remember it takes a long time to edit and review 100s of essays.

Former teacher. Yes, grading isn't fun, but part of the job and you plan your life to accommodate it. Don't want to grade essays? Don't teach English.

Let kid handle it? Not sure what you mean because there is nothing to handle. He will do fine and move along. What he isnt getting is high quality instruction and that is a pity.

You must not have been an English teacher.

It takes a long time to give thoughtful and valuable critiques to a hundred plus essays.

Having been a high school writing teacher myself, I would think that a teacher returning those essays in less than two weeks is really not doing their job very well and is just putting in the minimum to get by.

(See post by the current high school English teacher for more details)

Anonymous wrote:English Teachers.

Please grade essay writing assignments quickly. When you don't, much of the opportunity for learning goes away.

We learn to write by doing it again, and again. We learn to write from editing our own work. You aren't teaching when you don't do this.

Two weeks is just too long.

Vent over.

Do you think the English teacher is purposefully delaying grading them in the hopes that they will age well and improve?

Dear Parent,

I collected 103 essays last week. To thoroughly read each and then write comments/feedback on each, I need to devote 30-40 minutes per essay. That is 3090 minutes in total IF I go quickly: 51.5 hours. Contrary to what parents like you typically believe, I do not have much planning time at school to do this because of meetings, and because I need to work one-on-one with certain students out of class. In addition, please remember that I also plan lessons, so this adds more hours.

So, no, they won't be done within two weeks, and I don't care what you think about it. These compositions are important and require careful reading and feedback, and then the kids will produce a second draft; this is all essential. You don't know what you are talking about, but in the past, I have sometimes cut all corners for the students of parents like you, slopping down a few vague comments in the margins, just to get you to leave me alone so that I can put proper time and care into the work of students whose parents don't try to command me to (stop sleeping?) get things back sooner.

I am a VERY "high quality instructor", and this is because I do put time into reading each essay carefully. My colleague, who doesn't read them at all, has papers back with a rubric grade within two days. You'd like her a lot. (Her students don't get the high AP scores that my classes achieve each year).

Signed,

High School English Teacher

I know this is frustrating, and you are right that the sooner you get the work back the better. But it is VERY time-consuming to grade drafts and provide meaningful feedback for revision. Now, after about 15 years of teaching, I can do it fairly quickly, but blocking out time to read the drafts multiple times and communicate revision strategies effectively is not simple. Writing assignments pile up and become daunting very quickly.

I think one week is fairly typical and two weeks is not unreasonable though not ideal. I've even gone a month before when I was truly overwhelmed in the early days.

The student should talk to the teacher directly. Don't go over her/his head. And don't demand graded work back. But explain why you feel it would be useful to have the work back sooner. If the teacher is not receptive, speak to a counselor or department chair who would be in a better position to help.

I had teachers growing up that were notorious for taking forever to return papers. It's not that big of a deal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many kids does this teacher teach? Is it a middle school or high school where a writing teacher teaches 100-150 kids?

If so, step back and oet your kid handle it. They are old enough where they should be working these kids of things out on their own with the teacher and without your intervention.

Also remember it takes a long time to edit and review 100s of essays.

Former teacher. Yes, grading isn't fun, but part of the job and you plan your life to accommodate it. Don't want to grade essays? Don't teach English.

Let kid handle it? Not sure what you mean because there is nothing to handle. He will do fine and move along. What he isnt getting is high quality instruction and that is a pity.

Let the kid talk to the teacher if essays are taking too long to grade.

A high school junior is way too old for mom to get involved with this one. He is closer to having babies to being a baby and this close to coloege should be managing most of his schooling himself.

Anonymous wrote:How many kids does this teacher teach? Is it a middle school or high school where a writing teacher teaches 100-150 kids?

If so, step back and oet your kid handle it. They are old enough where they should be working these kids of things out on their own with the teacher and without your intervention.

Also remember it takes a long time to edit and review 100s of essays.

Former teacher. Yes, grading isn't fun, but part of the job and you plan your life to accommodate it. Don't want to grade essays? Don't teach English.

Let kid handle it? Not sure what you mean because there is nothing to handle. He will do fine and move along. What he isnt getting is high quality instruction and that is a pity.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How long is the writing assignment?

30 min in class HS juniors.

Grading is part of the job.

He/she only has one class of students?

Anonymous wrote:How long is the writing assignment?

30 min in class HS juniors.

Grading is part of the job.

How many kids does this teacher teach? Is it a middle school or high school where a writing teacher teaches 100-150 kids?

If so, step back and oet your kid handle it. They are old enough where they should be working these kids of things out on their own with the teacher and without your intervention.

Also remember it takes a long time to edit and review 100s of essays.

How long is the writing assignment?

English Teachers.

Please grade essay writing assignments quickly. When you don't, much of the opportunity for learning goes away.

We learn to write by doing it again, and again. We learn to write from editing our own work. You aren't teaching when you don't do this.

Two weeks is just too long.

Vent over.