Anonymous wrote:With the new opt out policy, teachers are even more beleaguered. The RT at my school was concerned about showcasing the texts her teachers were using at BTSN because she worried that parents would flip through them and complain.

Could a parent opt out of Magic Fish and All American Boys and in effect force A Separate Peace?

With the new opt out policy, teachers are even more beleaguered. The RT at my school was concerned about showcasing the texts her teachers were using at BTSN because she worried that parents would flip through them and complain.

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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

PP I've always wondered how teachers/English departments make these decisions. Is it based on number of copies available, teacher choice, student preferences, student reading level, or other? Also in other grades, the Q1 list of curriculum books is longer so teachers have more choices to make than you do.

Long time ninth grade teacher here… To answer your question, the county gives us a number of books we can teach. Most of the time, it is teacher preference however, it also depends on how many copies of the book we have. Not all the teachers can read the same book at the same time.

My students will be reading All American Boys.

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Anonymous wrote:Is it typical of English curricula across the country to read one book per quarter and for that book to potentially be 3-4 grade levels below grade level?

No it’s not typical. It varies widely. We are not in DMV. 9th graders at our school read 6-7 book during the school year. They are the traditional ones - Romeo & Juliet, Of Mice & Men, Catcher in the Rye, and so on. There is no “personal choice” book either.

My kid got a video, no book of Romeo and Juliet in class. Not even a pdf. We had to buy one. MCPS reads 2-4 books a year at best.

That MCPS has students watch a Shakespeare movie and then counts that as the full-length text for the quarter tells you all you need to know about the HS English curriculum. This is why we are supplementing with an MCPS teacher as an em English enrichment tutor — to make sure our kid is reading grade-level texts and completing appropriate tasks so he will be ready for AP English. The tutor says she is offering enrichment, and it is compared with the HS English curriculum, but it is actually focused on grade-level readings and tasks.

I’d never use an Mcps teacher as a tutor as most of the English teachers aren’t great. We found one online that does it all.

We use a terrific teacher. Obviously from a different school from ours.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it typical of English curricula across the country to read one book per quarter and for that book to potentially be 3-4 grade levels below grade level?

No it’s not typical. It varies widely. We are not in DMV. 9th graders at our school read 6-7 book during the school year. They are the traditional ones - Romeo & Juliet, Of Mice & Men, Catcher in the Rye, and so on. There is no “personal choice” book either.

My kid got a video, no book of Romeo and Juliet in class. Not even a pdf. We had to buy one. MCPS reads 2-4 books a year at best.

That MCPS has students watch a Shakespeare movie and then counts that as the full-length text for the quarter tells you all you need to know about the HS English curriculum. This is why we are supplementing with an MCPS teacher as an em English enrichment tutor — to make sure our kid is reading grade-level texts and completing appropriate tasks so he will be ready for AP English. The tutor says she is offering enrichment, and it is compared with the HS English curriculum, but it is actually focused on grade-level readings and tasks.

I’d never use an Mcps teacher as a tutor as most of the English teachers aren’t great. We found one online that does it all.

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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.

Are your co-teachers ELD (ESOL) teachers?

No. They are ELA teachers and I am the Special Ed LAD teacher. I am expected to co teach the class to the whole class and not necessarily cater solely to the students with IEPs. I actually prefer this

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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?

Totally agree. My HS English class in 1986 probably read twice as many books. I remember we read Great Expectations, catcher in the rye, Frankenstein, a Shakespeare play, the Iliad, and I’m sure there were a couple more I’m forgetting now (maybe Huck Finn?) And I went to public school in a random state so I feel like it’s achievable for McPS.

Note that Shakespeare and poetry are covered in the English classes but its usually not listed as the quarterly novel or reading.

What Shakespeare in read in 9th grade? A scaffolded-down version of Romeo and Juliet?

Thatbis an option in MP4. No other Shakespeare. -DP

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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.

Are your co-teachers ELD (ESOL) teachers?

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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?

Totally agree. My HS English class in 1986 probably read twice as many books. I remember we read Great Expectations, catcher in the rye, Frankenstein, a Shakespeare play, the Iliad, and I’m sure there were a couple more I’m forgetting now (maybe Huck Finn?) And I went to public school in a random state so I feel like it’s achievable for McPS.

Note that Shakespeare and poetry are covered in the English classes but its usually not listed as the quarterly novel or reading.

What Shakespeare in read in 9th grade? A scaffolded-down version of Romeo and Juliet?

So 2 of the 3 anchor text options for Honors English 9 in this marking period are at the elementary school reading level? That’s bad even for MCPS. Agree that at a minimum they should be pairing these books with full-length challenging books.

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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.

Magic Fish is HL (400L), aimed at older students (interest level / content themes) with elementary school technical reading level

All American Boys is also HL (770K), aimed at upper high school students interst level, with middle school technical reading level.

Both may be fine books for readers at their level, but absolutely substandard challenge for high school honors English.

I can see pairing All American Boys with something like Beloved or The Invisible Man, both of which are short books but at a much higher reading level and would pair nicely for the themes. I think my kid at RM in the IB program read Invisible Man in either 9th or 10th grade. Or maybe even A Tree Grows in Brooklyn?
I feel like there's a real value in reading a book that was written before the 21st century, for perspective, word choice, and stylistic approach. MCPS is very heavily weighted towards books published in the last 2 decades.
I would love an honors approach that had 2 short books (one more accessible and one more a reach) or one long challenging book per semester, and then potentially essays or poems on theme to supplement.

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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.

Magic Fish is HL (400L), aimed at older students (interest level / content themes) with elementary school technical reading level

All American Boys is also HL (770K), aimed at upper high school students interst level, with middle school technical reading level.

Both may be fine books for readers at their level, but absolutely substandard challenge for high school honors English.

770 is below 25th percentile for all of MS.

https://hub.lexile.com/lexile-grade-level-charts/

Yeah, 400 is like a 2nd/3rd grade level and 770 is around a 4th/5th grade level.

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.

Magic Fish is HL (400L), aimed at older students (interest level / content themes) with elementary school technical reading level

All American Boys is also HL (770K), aimed at upper high school students interst level, with middle school technical reading level.

Both may be fine books for readers at their level, but absolutely substandard challenge for high school honors English.

770 is below 25th percentile for all of MS.

https://hub.lexile.com/lexile-grade-level-charts/

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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.

He had to keep some institutional knowledge for basic functionality. Enough of them circled the wagons, unfortunately such that Hazel/Porter and McGuire both avoided the axe and slid in to fill the upper level voids created, and these, then, were able to influence to keep some allies (Franklin, e.g.) in important spots.

What it appears he didn't do was to lay down conditions for their remaining tied directly to certain kinds of change the community seeks. Whether that is because it was too early for him to have understood that, whether he, himself, had a vision not aligned with the community's (despite broad opening language that might have been interpreted as their being aligned) or whether he agreed to more MCPS-institutionally entrenched priorities as part of his being selected by the BOE, who knows...

Moran is meh.

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.

Magic Fish is HL (400L), aimed at older students (interest level / content themes) with elementary school technical reading level

All American Boys is also HL (770K), aimed at upper high school students interst level, with middle school technical reading level.

Both may be fine books for readers at their level, but absolutely substandard challenge for high school honors English.

I looked up Magic Fish. Wow, I cannot believe a school is offering that for their 9th grade students - let alone honor students!!!