Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone appalled by the state of ELA instruction in MCPS needs to reach out to these folks to let them know how you feel:

Chief Academic Officer Niki Porter
Chief of Schools Peter Moran
Superintendent Thomas Taylor

Porter has architected this as much as anyone.
Moran doesn't care.
Taylor was snowed into promoting them and others to fill the lead positions early in his tenure, and has few options to get out of it quickly enough -- none without upturning the apple cart.

Taylor wasn't snowed into promoting anyone. Let's be serious. He certainly choose other people in other positions and remove others from CO all together.

Anonymous wrote:Everyone appalled by the state of ELA instruction in MCPS needs to reach out to these folks to let them know how you feel:

Chief Academic Officer Niki Porter
Chief of Schools Peter Moran
Superintendent Thomas Taylor

I would focus on the Board of Ed, not these guys. I mean, it probably doesn't hurt, but it's not like they don't know what's going on already

Anonymous wrote:Everyone appalled by the state of ELA instruction in MCPS needs to reach out to these folks to let them know how you feel:

Chief Academic Officer Niki Porter
Chief of Schools Peter Moran
Superintendent Thomas Taylor

Porter has architected this as much as anyone.
Moran doesn't care.
Taylor was snowed into promoting them and others to fill the lead positions early in his tenure, and has few options to get out of it quickly enough -- none without upturning the apple cart.

Everyone appalled by the state of ELA instruction in MCPS needs to reach out to these folks to let them know how you feel:

Chief Academic Officer Niki Porter
Chief of Schools Peter Moran
Superintendent Thomas Taylor

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All American Boys
But they will also be reading Of Mice and Men

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

Because each MP has a central theme and Of Mice and Men fits the theme for MP2

Anonymous wrote:Blair, 9th grader: All American Boys

Seems appropriate - no complaints

HL770L

HL means High-Low -- high-interest and age-appropriate content at a lower reading level.

So these 9th graders may have interest in the book, but the reading level is 50th percentile...for winter of 5th grade!

For those wondering, somewhat opposite of HL in the Lexile world would be NC, meaning Non-Conforming -- for high-ability students who still need age-appropriate content. Ninth-graders at the 90th percentile are somewhere close to 1500L. Not that something all the way up there is an absolute must, but even 25th percentile for 9th grade is above 1000.

Anonymous wrote:All American Boys
But they will also be reading Of Mice and Men

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

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach 9th grade honors english at a HS. Half my classes are reading The Magic Fish. The other half All American Boys

Is this just because there are too few copies of the book for every student to get the same one?

No. I teach with two separate co teachers and each teacher chose a different book

??? As in you all teach the same class of students but yet each choose a different book? Are ya'll teaching different groups of students at different levels? If not, why choose different books?

I co teach 4 periods of Hon English 9. 1 period with Teacher A and 3 periods with Teacher B.

And to add since I can't edit, in Teacher B's class we are giving students a choice of what they want to read so if a student truly doesn't want to read The Magic Fish they can choose a different book from the curriculum and essentially have to do it as independent study

My kids MS teacher did the choice novel several times. And it can be good. But I also believe there needs to be some building of class unity and understanding of how to do reading and analysis, so wouldn't think they'd start the year off with this. It would be nice if they started all the same(especially in 9th) and then the teachers could build to more once they had better understanding of everyones abilities and what is needed.

Anonymous wrote:What bothers me the most as a teacher is not the level of the books but the lack of availability of them. We barely have enough for a class set so kids cannot take them home and supplement their reading at home. It means I have to spend 3 weeks basically leading independent and group reading instead of doing any actual analysis or instruction. My students with accommodations to include highlighting do not have their needs met. This year i finally caved in and bought a dozen used copies of All American Boys to provide for those students who need extra time to process and understand the material.

This is the part I can never understand. Why are there not copies of the book? At minimum why is there not an online version that students can read.

Anonymous wrote:That audit for whether "honors" English/lit courses in MS & HS are actually rigorous enough to keep the honors designation cannot come soon enough. If you care about that too, I would suggest contacting the Board of Ed members about it ASAP to make sure it gets funded, prioritized, and implemented this year, and/or planning to testify about it (there will be a vote that includes this at the 9/25 board meeting, I believe: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1290553.page)

They approved the Evaluations for the coming year already and the Honor English was not part of it. There was one from last year called HS Programs and it was cancelled for the Boundary Study. I don't understand why. I was waiting for a thorough evaluation and honestly it should have been done to include as part of the new Program Analysis/change and implementation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach 9th grade honors english at a HS. Half my classes are reading The Magic Fish. The other half All American Boys

Is this just because there are too few copies of the book for every student to get the same one?

No. I teach with two separate co teachers and each teacher chose a different book

??? As in you all teach the same class of students but yet each choose a different book? Are ya'll teaching different groups of students at different levels? If not, why choose different books?

I co teach 4 periods of Hon English 9. 1 period with Teacher A and 3 periods with Teacher B.

And to add since I can't edit, in Teacher B's class we are giving students a choice of what they want to read so if a student truly doesn't want to read The Magic Fish they can choose a different book from the curriculum and essentially have to do it as independent study

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach 9th grade honors english at a HS. Half my classes are reading The Magic Fish. The other half All American Boys

Is this just because there are too few copies of the book for every student to get the same one?

No. I teach with two separate co teachers and each teacher chose a different book

??? As in you all teach the same class of students but yet each choose a different book? Are ya'll teaching different groups of students at different levels? If not, why choose different books?

I co teach 4 periods of Hon English 9. 1 period with Teacher A and 3 periods with Teacher B.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach 9th grade honors english at a HS. Half my classes are reading The Magic Fish. The other half All American Boys

Is this just because there are too few copies of the book for every student to get the same one?

No. I teach with two separate co teachers and each teacher chose a different book

??? As in you all teach the same class of students but yet each choose a different book? Are ya'll teaching different groups of students at different levels? If not, why choose different books?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach 9th grade honors english at a HS. Half my classes are reading The Magic Fish. The other half All American Boys

Is this just because there are too few copies of the book for every student to get the same one?

It may be due to English Learners in their class. If you are just learning English, the Magic Fish would be appropriate. All American Boy isn't honors reading level. Consider that this teacher has to divide their time between two student cohorts in one class.

Why isn't it honors reading?

The book's content is secondary-school level interest, but its Accelerated Reader level is 4.9, i.e., 4th grade, 9th month. Take a look at a few pages of the text and make your own determination.

While I would agree with this, honors doesn't just mean an accelerated book. Alice and Wonderland has a AR Level of 3.9 to 7.4. Yet people do whole studies of it and Lewis Carroll at the collegiate level.

All American Boys
But they will also be reading Of Mice and Men