<p>Hello parents,</p>
<p>I'm searching for answers on how to appropriately approach a teacher for a possibly unfair grade on an assignment. I am asking this in regards to a high school student (my brother- I'm the guardian) and the assignment is a research paper the entire junior class does. </p>
<p>I'm also a teacher so I do know how annoying these types of issues can become but now I'm on the other side of the fence with zero experience from this perspective.</p>
<p>Need more info. In what way do you think the grade is “unfair”?</p>
<p>Here is some additional info if anyone would like to know.</p>
<p>My brother scored a 68 on the rough draft of this paper where he lost 7 pts. for grammar mistakes alone. I e-mailed the teacher requesting for extra help. She denied b/c it would mean for her to stay after on a Friday or give him extended time to provide help another day (paper was due Monday). I helped/tutored him that weekend. We fixed content and grammar. The final draft received a 75. The score just doesn’t seem to add up to me and the teacher has not yet handed the paper back so I’m not sure what went wrong. </p>
<p>Break down of grading:
68%- rough draft with unorganized content + grammar mistakes (-7 pts)
75%- final draft with edited content + grammar
75%- if we had only edited grammar</p>
<p>I am not claiming to be the next Charles Dickens but after successfully writing so many papers for college I feel that my help/coaching was sufficient enough to earn him at least some points. If anyone really wants to read the 5 pg. paper I can always PM it.</p>
<p>I would wait until the paper is handed back and you have all the info before going to the teacher.</p>
<p>Red, ya know, I helped a student with one of her papers and she also got a mediocre grade. I was quite surprised. I learned later that it was supposed to include certain # of quotes in the paper that I didn’t know about and in a certain format that I didn’t expect. I tried to help her with particular parts so she could understand the assignment better and the ideas he was alluding to, which were already difficult for this student to comprehend. (That is, I was focused on the content and he wanted to see format.) Sadly, I think the teacher had a preconceived notion of what that student was capable of doing and that’s the grade she got. I honestly wonder what she could have done without the help I provided.</p>
<p>For a lot of high school assignments these days, there is a “rubric” which the students must carefully follow. If the adult helper doesn’t focus on that, the “help” can turn out to be counterproductive.</p>
<p>If the school uses any type of online communication where each of the teachers has a ‘page’, often the rubric, or list of expectations will be posted for important assignments. For something that the entire Jr. class was doing I would think at least one teacher would have expectations posted.</p>
<p>Once your brother receives the paper back and you can see where he either earned or lost points it is perfectly acceptable to contact the teacher for clarification. I would suggest as he is a Jr. perhaps an initial contact should come from him. Self advocating is an important step. You can certainly help him write the email. Being a teacher I’m sure you will approach her with respect and hopefully receive a thoughtful answer that will help your brother in the future. If he doesn’t get anywhere with his teacher then it would be appropriate for you to step in. Others may offer different advise, this is simply my opinion.</p>
<p>Your brother is very lucky to have you to help advocate for him.</p>
<p>Agree with the posters above. My son was taught to compose paragraphs according to a rather rigid formula, which was not in place when I went to school (when there really were “red dinosaurs” lol). I never did exactly get the knack of how to write these paragraphs, and I’m not sure whether it helped his writing quality in the long run. Maybe it did.</p>
<p>Interestingly, IIRC, the SAT and ACT writing sections also use a similar “formula” which the successful students learn to master in order to ace that section of the test. Maybe others can speak to that, but it is in your brother’s interest to learn the formula. </p>
<p>(Of course, I’m not sure this is what happened in your incident, but it sounds like it could be.)</p>
<p>I agree with others, wait until you get the paper back, see what the teacher’s comments are, and then request a side meeting with the teacher. You can talk about your brothers’ performance overall, areas he can improve, and what he could have done better on this paper.</p>
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<p>I know! Drove me crazy also–I would literally scream at the stupidity of it all.</p>
<p>I think the sole purpose is to make the papers easier to grade–it sure kills creativity.</p>
<p>I agree with the “easier to grade” result of using a rubric. And it did help the kids focus on what the teacher was looking for in a paper. But, oh, did I come to hate the word “rubric.”</p>
<p>^ It’s actually to get kids who may have had all different kinds of writing preparation all on the same page. It’s really common in 9th grade, when teachers need to get everyone up to one basic standard of essay writing, but not everyone had exactly the same instruction in middle school. One way to do that is to get them to follow a rigid formula, so everyone knows exactly what they’re supposed to do. That gives you a basic essay structure that, while it may not be pretty, gives you the rudimentary tools you need to write an analytical essay. Then, as you advance in school and presumably in skill, you can start to add on some creative flourishes. It can be really restrictive for kids that are very creative or already have a set idea how to write an essay, but I think in the end it’s very beneficial. </p>
<p>I was always considered a good writer, but I wouldn’t say I got good formalized essay instruction in middle school. In high school, I had to write essays to a strict format for the first year, whcih was annoying, but helped me to tighten up my writing and gave me a really good framework that was reliable and worked every time. I had been letting my talent and “creativity” substitute for solid analysis for a long time, and I really needed the disicipline of a formal structure, even though I didn’t know it. Oddly enough, even in college, if I didn’t know where to begin a paper, I would reach back to that rigid high school format and start writing there. It never failed to help get me over writer’s block, and it was good to know that no matter what, I knew where to begin and what to do.</p>
<p>S &P:
That’s a good insight. Thanks for sharing that. Maybe my son did benefit from that rather painful (for me) learning experience.</p>
<p>OP, why are you approaching the teacher? Shouldn’t your brother be approaching the teacher before you step in?</p>
<p>I strongly agree with mathmomvt that it is premature to complain about a grade before one even gets the paper back. Once you see the explanation, your opinion may change.
Other posters give excellent advice too, on being certain what was expected before complaining. Sometimes a student is unclear, gives partial information, or may be misunderstanding when he explains the project to someone else.</p>
<p>Once all that passes, and the grade then seems unfair, I’d look at how well the student completed the work, if all was on time, and determine why you and the student believe it deserved a better grade, and what grade you think is appropriate(the teacher might ask- be prepared).
then have the student ready to discuss this with his teacher.</p>
<p>@CTTC - I actually think it’s bad for high school students to make the first approach. High schoolers can be highly emotional, especially if they think a teacher doesn’t like them and is thus being unfair out of spite or malice. A guardian would be able to hopefully have a more rational conversation about this assignment and overall performance.</p>
<p>Wow! Thanks everyone for such great advice =) Gotta love cc </p>
<p>I did ask my brother to approach the teacher (before I step in at all) in the most respectful way possible to ask where he went wrong and to just explain the grade logically. My brother is the type of kid that tends to think many teachers hate him which tells me he probably has a bad attitude in class. Usually I don’t meddle with teachers’ grading but this time the grade doesn’t seem to add up. We’re still waiting for the paper to be handed back.</p>