Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do other school districts in the area also have an honors-for-all system?

There isn’t an honors for all system in this district. Some schools seem to implement it, but it’s not a policy.

Anonymous wrote:Do other school districts in the area also have an honors-for-all system?

Anonymous wrote:Former principal literally said it is to inflate gpa.

Anonymous wrote:I have one kid who went through all of the MCPS humanities focused magnets from CES through high school. He is now in his first year of college and is doing very well in classes that are writing intensive. My younger child is in a regular MCPS high school program and there is no way she will be prepared the way he is. The college transition is going to be painful. Her AP language teacher does provide feedback but it’s just one class and she still gets good grades so I’m not sure she pays sufficient attention to the comments. He had class after class of feedback and tons of writing assignments. He did not start off as a natural writer but is a great writer now.

Anonymous wrote:The principals are the ones making these decisions. Make a fuss and advocate by speaking to your principals.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the curriculum has been changed significantly, I just think there is a lot more "for completion" grading, peer feedback exercises rather than teachers reviewing assignments, and very little teacher feedback on writing assignments.

My English teachers in HS marked every grammar mistake in a paper (short or long) and you lost a .5 of a point for each mistake. They also provided feedback about structure and content.

If you are old enough to have grammar mistakes marked, then the curriculum has changed dramatically since then.

This. MCPS teachers at our MS are not correcting grammar. My kid has had grammar mistakes in her assignments and nobody is taking points off for it.

It became less relevant as a life skill with free grammar and spell check programs. Similar to cursive falling out of the curriculum. My two youngest learned cursive and diagramming sentences in private school, but not any computer skills. Guess which one of the three they use every day?

Yeah - I'm guessing that they were REALLY behind when they started using computers, right? Not. I'm glad that my own children can function without the assistance of a machine.

DP.. as someone who has worked in high tech for the past 20 years, I agree that it's still important that people be able to function without relying on tech. HOWEVER, almost all work (whether it's at work or school) is done online, and almost all applications have spell check and grammar correction software. Heck, even dcum uses some kind of spellcheck -- dcum for example, is underlined in red even as I type this.

In the grand scheme of things, grammar and spelling are less important than critical and creative thinking skills. This is one of the reasons why I was willing to give 2.0 curriculum a shot, but of course, MCPS botched that.

Even so, it does bug me when I read my kids' essays and find all kinds of grammar mistakes. I have a thing about commas, and the lack thereof in their writing. It's become a running joke in our house. My kids are teens. Very smart, straight As, but the comma usage (or lack thereof) really bugs me. A misplaced comma can change the meaning of a sentence. I keep reminding my kids this.

And somehow, the creative people who invented computers had time to learn spelling, grammar and handwriting along with their "critical thinking" skills. We can do this people. Or we can watch IQs decrease and neurons shrink.

How do you know the writing skills of the creative inventive people? They actually often have terrible writing skills. There is a reason why there are tech writers.

As for handwriting, seriously.. my kids learned it in ES, but it really is useless. They don't use it at all, anywhere. I never see handwriting script, ever, at work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the curriculum has been changed significantly, I just think there is a lot more "for completion" grading, peer feedback exercises rather than teachers reviewing assignments, and very little teacher feedback on writing assignments.

My English teachers in HS marked every grammar mistake in a paper (short or long) and you lost a .5 of a point for each mistake. They also provided feedback about structure and content.

If you are old enough to have grammar mistakes marked, then the curriculum has changed dramatically since then.

This. MCPS teachers at our MS are not correcting grammar. My kid has had grammar mistakes in her assignments and nobody is taking points off for it.

It became less relevant as a life skill with free grammar and spell check programs. Similar to cursive falling out of the curriculum. My two youngest learned cursive and diagramming sentences in private school, but not any computer skills. Guess which one of the three they use every day?

I agree with you, but, why doesn't MCPS require kids to run their papers through a grammar checker? Teach kids that it is important to turn in quality work free of errors.

Are grammar checkers free?

Grammarly is free, but even so, it isn’t great. I teach social studies. Grammarly freaks out over many historical terms and quotes from primary sources. I removed the app for my school account because it was a PITA.

I’d rather we required use of a plagiarism checker in middle school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the curriculum has been changed significantly, I just think there is a lot more "for completion" grading, peer feedback exercises rather than teachers reviewing assignments, and very little teacher feedback on writing assignments.

My English teachers in HS marked every grammar mistake in a paper (short or long) and you lost a .5 of a point for each mistake. They also provided feedback about structure and content.

If you are old enough to have grammar mistakes marked, then the curriculum has changed dramatically since then.

This. MCPS teachers at our MS are not correcting grammar. My kid has had grammar mistakes in her assignments and nobody is taking points off for it.

It became less relevant as a life skill with free grammar and spell check programs. Similar to cursive falling out of the curriculum. My two youngest learned cursive and diagramming sentences in private school, but not any computer skills. Guess which one of the three they use every day?

I agree with you, but, why doesn't MCPS require kids to run their papers through a grammar checker? Teach kids that it is important to turn in quality work free of errors.

I take points off on assessments if grammar is atrocious or in a texting format. Run-on sentences, no capitalization, periods, commas. At a point it becomes difficult to understand a student response in complicated sentences involving claim and evidence. Students are supposed to be able to write a five paragraph essay by 7th grade and I remind them about that when I explain why I take off points for poor writing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the curriculum has been changed significantly, I just think there is a lot more "for completion" grading, peer feedback exercises rather than teachers reviewing assignments, and very little teacher feedback on writing assignments.

My English teachers in HS marked every grammar mistake in a paper (short or long) and you lost a .5 of a point for each mistake. They also provided feedback about structure and content.

If you are old enough to have grammar mistakes marked, then the curriculum has changed dramatically since then.

This. MCPS teachers at our MS are not correcting grammar. My kid has had grammar mistakes in her assignments and nobody is taking points off for it.

It became less relevant as a life skill with free grammar and spell check programs. Similar to cursive falling out of the curriculum. My two youngest learned cursive and diagramming sentences in private school, but not any computer skills. Guess which one of the three they use every day?

I agree with you, but, why doesn't MCPS require kids to run their papers through a grammar checker? Teach kids that it is important to turn in quality work free of errors.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the curriculum has been changed significantly, I just think there is a lot more "for completion" grading, peer feedback exercises rather than teachers reviewing assignments, and very little teacher feedback on writing assignments.

My English teachers in HS marked every grammar mistake in a paper (short or long) and you lost a .5 of a point for each mistake. They also provided feedback about structure and content.

If you are old enough to have grammar mistakes marked, then the curriculum has changed dramatically since then.

This. MCPS teachers at our MS are not correcting grammar. My kid has had grammar mistakes in her assignments and nobody is taking points off for it.

It became less relevant as a life skill with free grammar and spell check programs. Similar to cursive falling out of the curriculum. My two youngest learned cursive and diagramming sentences in private school, but not any computer skills. Guess which one of the three they use every day?

I agree with you, but, why doesn't MCPS require kids to run their papers through a grammar checker? Teach kids that it is important to turn in quality work free of errors.

Are grammar checkers free?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the curriculum has been changed significantly, I just think there is a lot more "for completion" grading, peer feedback exercises rather than teachers reviewing assignments, and very little teacher feedback on writing assignments.

My English teachers in HS marked every grammar mistake in a paper (short or long) and you lost a .5 of a point for each mistake. They also provided feedback about structure and content.

If you are old enough to have grammar mistakes marked, then the curriculum has changed dramatically since then.

This. MCPS teachers at our MS are not correcting grammar. My kid has had grammar mistakes in her assignments and nobody is taking points off for it.

It became less relevant as a life skill with free grammar and spell check programs. Similar to cursive falling out of the curriculum. My two youngest learned cursive and diagramming sentences in private school, but not any computer skills. Guess which one of the three they use every day?

I agree with you, but, why doesn't MCPS require kids to run their papers through a grammar checker? Teach kids that it is important to turn in quality work free of errors.