<p>D is taking AP English Language & Composition. On Parents' Night her teacher told us that they would be writing 40 essays this year, that he would be grading each with a grade of 1-5 and that they would have no other marks on them because he just doesn't have time to mark up every paper. ISN'T THAT WHAT A COMPOSITION TEACHER DOES??!!! What will the grade tell the student except "good" or "not good." How will they improve other than guesswork?</p>
<p>If it were me I'd be at the teacher's desk after every single composition asking for a specific critique, but that isn't my D's personality. I'm not so much worried about D's grade but that she actually learn to write well. Her brother is a freshman at a nice LAC and they are expected to write lots of papers on fairly short notice. That's a strong suit of his, but not D's. I fear that she will not have the writing skills she needs in college. </p>
<p>(BTW, the teacher has already announced that this is his last year at the school, so I doubt that complaining to the department head would have much effect.)</p>
<p>Is AP English Lang and Comp a class for those who really already know how to write well?</p>
<p>I’m not sure if you would find this useful or not, but the excellent AP Language teacher at my sons’ high school had students turn in 3 copies of every paper…she would grade one copy, and randomly distribute the rest of the papers around the class. Every student had to read and critique two other papers, sometimes generally and sometimes with special attention to whatever criteria the teacher chose to emphasize. The teacher then would collect the papers, and grade the criticisms.</p>
<p>The point of this exercise is that students may see the flaws in another paper better than in their own, and by looking for the flaws in someone else’s writing, get better at recognizing them in their own.</p>
<p>Perhaps he could be persuaded to do something similar?</p>
<p>if teacher does not have time, then he should not be teaching, very unprofessional response! D. had to contiously rewrite her papers in this class. It was the hardest (along with AP history) of her Senior HS year. After that class, Honors English at college that was requirement of her Honors program was piece of cake, very easy “A”. Yes, this class requires teacher’s commitment that teacher should have been aware of by now.</p>
<p>I think it would be better to have half as many essays and actually correct them. Did any parent question his approach? I’d still complain to the department head who might tell him that he needs to do more.</p>
<p>It was my Shakespeare teacher senior year who taught my friends and I to write. As you can imagine, it is only the motivated English students who take Shakespeare as an elective…all of us “we’re God’s gift to the school” students would turn in our papers and they’d be returned covered in red ink, with the instruction that they should be redone for a higher grade.</p>
<p>The teacher’s “out” is that he said that any student who has a question about his or her grade on an essay can come see him during his tutorial hours. That’s why if it was me, I’d be in his face every single day…if 30 kids came in every single day to know what was wrong with their papers, he’d probably change his ways. But he is smart enough to know that hardly anyone will actually come to school early to meet with him, so by putting the burden the students, he’s off the hook.</p>
<p>D. also had whole tons of them. The additional difficulty for her was that they were limited in size. She had to learn to make all supportive arguments in very limited space and it was an awesome new writing skill that she got out of this class. Yes, tons of very short essays that they were rewriting forever, very very tough and time consuming class for students and teacher with great outcome for kids.</p>
<p>Have any of you ever tried to correct a pile of English comp papers? I have. It took me an average of 10 minutes per page to give meaningful substantive, organizational, and grammatical comments. Depending on class size and teacher workload, it’s a tall order for teachers to do that in a class where the kids are writing all the time. Not that they shouldn’t be doing it, of course, but something has to give somewhere.</p>
<p>My daughter was a very fluent writer – always way above grade level, whatever that was. As a result, from middle school through the end of high school she had a grand total of one teacher (for one 10-week quarter) who actually made a serious effort to critique her papers and make them better.</p>
<p>I doubt there is much you can do for you d. I encourage you to make this problem known to higher-ups though. Even though this teacher is leaving, the practice may be continued and you could save other students this grief.</p>
<p>Also, missypie, don’t mean to pick on you, but your Shakespeare teacher may not have covered grammer. “It was my Shakespeare teacher senior year who taught my friends and I to write.” ?? Should be taught my friends and ME to write. :-)</p>
<p>Mom22girls, I’m sure Mrs. Tonne would have had my head for that. Alas, I’ve been practicing law for 22+ years and consequently now I’m a terrible writer.</p>
<p>Yep, AP class should be very limited in size, I agree. I do not think that D’s class was much bigger than about 12 kids or so. D. has always been very strong writer with few writing awards and writing score being highest on all standardized tests. However, due to very diligent teacher, she has learned whole tons in her AP class. And it has been very helpful not only for college Honors English, but also for all sorts of application essays and petitions and so forth. She is college junior and is not any kind of English major/minor, she is pre-med with Music minor. However, having strong AP English class / teacher has helped her a lot and I have a strong feeling that it will continue helping her in a future.</p>
<p>Our HS pushes AP classes like crazy, so no, the class is by no means limited in size. But I agree that 20 essays with corrections would more than equal 40 essays without.</p>
<p>Can your D switch at mid-year? Mine did and it made all the difference…She has never excelled in English, but one semester with a good teacher helped her pass the AP exam with a 4. </p>
<p>Assuming there are sections available with other teachers, you might get that ball rolling NOW in the counselor’s office (or wherever you go to deal with scheduling.)</p>
<p>We’ve talked about it. She’d have to drop down to pre-AP. She might consider it, but it would also require her to change her APUSH since they’re considered a block.</p>
<p>Essays without corrections in any English class are waste of time. Kids get nothing out of it. Grades are only one aspect. The most important and most influential for the rest of their lives is what they get out of class, what new skills they develop, how it will help them in a future.</p>
<p>Wow I’m stunned. My D took that class last year and the teacher gave detailed commentary on each piece of writing. He was also an incredibly tough grader. That tired and frustrated her, but she got a 5 on the AP exam and feels that she benefited greatly.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the kinds of corrections he is being asked to make. It would not be my understanding that an advanced placement comp class should not be about grammar or those kinds of pesky things that should be a given skill by this level, especially if it is truly geared to what AP should be about. I know teachers at D’s school who if they had been snagged up on too many grammar issues would just stop reading and not grade it at all. It would be my estimation that the class is therefore about premise, content and making the bigger connection in their writing. So, my question would be to ask what rubric is he using to grade the paper in the first place? If there is no answer there, no pedagogy, thenI don’t really care if it’s last year teaching or the first, my questions would go far beyond his published Q&A, past the department head and principal - all the way to the school board.</p>