<p>Would you consider hiring a tutor to critique her essays? Ideally, the teacher would do this, but it doesn’t sound like he will. A tutor can also coach on her how to write “on demand” very quickly. It will save her the critical time she needs this year, prepare her for the SAT essay, and help her relax for the AP test. It will pay off in college too. We did this for four sessions and the results were like night and day. Good luck!</p>
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<p>But what if it *is *grammar? Should he write: This is an AP class and your grammar is so bad that I’m not even going to correct your paper? Of course, even that notation would be more helpful than a mere “1” for the quality of the work.</p>
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Also, missypie, don’t mean to pick on you, but your Shakespeare teacher may not have covered grammer.
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<p>And yours apparently didn’t cover spelling, o ye in your house of glass.</p>
<p>I think we all need to give each other a big break on what we type on message boards. I know that many of my posts are dashed out in a matter of a few seconds with no proofing or re-reading…I’m hoping that our students give a bit more time and thought to their AP exams.</p>
<p>“I just sent the teacher an email asking him to confirm that I had understood him correctly.”</p>
<p>Good luck with that. Let us know if he responds before the AP test!</p>
<p>Agreeing that, even though this guy is a lame duck, the powers that be need to hear your comments.</p>
<p>I asked myself what I would do if my child were in your D’s class. I would openly and overtly seek another professional tutor to do the job that the teacher should be doing - criticizing and providing feedback on her writing. I would discuss it with the teacher in a non-confrontational way so that he understands that your D really wants to learn to become a better writer feels that getting specific feedback on her writing would be very beneficial toward that goal. I would also add that you understand and sympathize that he has too large of workload to adequately support his students. This way you are partners instead of adversaries. If the need arises, make sure she saves the marked up rough drafts and the final papers to avoid any plagiarism or academic honesty charges. It is not academically dishonest to try to learn to write well. </p>
<p>While I think it’s unethical for the teacher to provide no feedback, you can’t be the first parent who has tried to change his approach. I think that getting confrontational with this teacher sounds like it’s going to be counterproductive. Some people are funny that way.</p>
<p>I googled and found this web site as an example, there must be others.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.hannahrgoodman.com/writingservices.html[/url]”>http://www.hannahrgoodman.com/writingservices.html</a></p>
<p>Having this guy for a teacher is such a disappointment to D. English class is not something she naturally loves, but every English teacher she’s had from 6th through 10th grades has [oh no, or is it “have”?] been the type who pours herself into the class and goes above and beyond. It’s rough (esp when the stakes are so high) to now get a “hey I’ve got a life I need time to train for marathons” type of teacher.</p>
<p>Does the teacher also provide the AP rubric so that your D can tell what a 1-5 actually means? I don’t have it in front of me but I know it exists and it is the tool CB uses to assure consistency between scorers. </p>
<p>Still the teacher should be focusing in on specific features of the 5 essay and letting students know why they aren’t reaching that mark and going to the principal with your concerns is not remotely out of bounds!</p>
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<li><p>Wow. Reading the excerpts from the teacher’s website . . . Several words come to mind that would get me kicked out of high school if I used them there. What a [deleted]!</p></li>
<li><p>He can’t possibly be as bad as his website makes him look. I’ll bet he actually does give them helpful comments, perhaps in bulk (“Many of you did the following . . . Instead, you should . . . Who thinks this applies to them?”)</p></li>
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<p>I think he* is *that bad. D came home from school talking about how she couldn’t stand her English teacher. I didn’t pay a lot of attention; I just thought that he was just making them read too much or whatever. But after 14 minutes with him at Parents’ Night, I can totally see why D can’t stand him. It’s not that *I *detest him, but I can see why D does. I’ve practiced law long enough that I can totally deal with extremely arrogant men, but little D doesn’t have the same life experience.</p>
<p>I think you should step back and allow your daughter to work through this. Encourage her to take advantage of tutorials with the teacher or make appointments.
The best way to learn how to write is to write. Practice, practice practice. It’s good he will be requiring lots of essays. I would not seek another tutor - why? The teacher wants to teach them how to write - this is what class time is for. She needs to follow his guidance and instruction not that of a tutor. There are differences in opinion in writing - i.e. commas, use of active verbs etc… If she depends on a tutor she may be mislead from what the teacher is looking for.
Unless she is totally failing the class - don’t fret too much about her grade. Getting through this class will help her next year as a college freshman. Enormously.</p>
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<p>But I don’t know if it really will help to just get through. Let’s say she gets a 3 on every single essay - from #1 to #40. Sounds to me like she will have had a huge amount of practice making the same mistakes again and again.</p>
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<p>Lots of us extremely arrogant men don’t even realize what d-bags we come across as, and we really don’t intend any harm. Sometimes, we even have something to offer, if you can get past the packaging.</p>
<p>Ahh . . . Looking at the world though my usual rose-colored glasses! I hope your daughter can get into a better class. But if she doesn’t, I still think there’s a chance that this guy is nowhere near as bad as he makes himself out to be.</p>
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<p>As always… you make me laugh.</p>
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<p>This is why I don’t understand how he can stand in front of a room of parents with a straight face! Does he not realize that this isn’t…umm…er… TEACHING??? It truly infuriates me because writing becomes so important throughout life and it matters little what you do as a career. (and I agree to not being too harsh about grammar on a flippin’ message board as I often start a sentence and somehow it changes direction so that next thing I know I am guilty of the double negative or the indirect object double back whatsiswhosis – who cares).</p>
<p>This is the kind of guy that give public schools a bad name. However… to be fair… our very tony private school also fired a teacher about five years back because she apparently was going through some personal issues (which is perfectly understandable) except that for an entire year, she never handed back one student paper. AND… as it turned out, she hadn’t been actually reading them at all! She literally randomly assigned grades A’s thru B- based on what kind of students they were in other classes or some such BS (as was rumored). Not sure about how she gave kids the grades, to be fair, but since i had some inside info, I know the not reading or grading a paper all year was accurate. But she was definitely fired. Not so easy to do with a public school teacher, although leaving at the end of this year MIGHT have something to do with the administration finally having enough “paperwork” to sever the relationship.</p>
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<p>I have some good friends who probably come across as arrogant old d-bags…but I’m trying to see it through the eyes of a 16 year old female student (instead of a 51 year old female lawyer who cuts through BS on a daily [if not hourly] basis.)</p>
<p>It’s certainly possible he just thought he was being funny with the website, but I’m baffled how not putting any comments on an essay is teaching.</p>
<p>I remember being horrified when my senior year English teacher said she was no longer going to assign essay questions. We would have to make up our own, because that’s what we’d be doing in college. After the initial shock it was actually more fun, though in the end many of my college profs actually did have suggested paper topics.</p>
<p>I doubt the teacher thought he was being humorous with his comments on his website. I would bet that he knew exactly what effect his words would have … and judging by missypie’s D’s reaction, the teacher is getting exactly what he wants. His students will leave him alone for fear he will cut them down with what he considers his “wit.” What a pitiful excuse for a TEACH-ER. He told parents he doesn’t have the time to do his job. He told students he is far too busy with his own needs to attend to theirs (even though it’s his job).</p>
<p>How sad that the school’s administration allows this man to waste these young people’s time. There is so much they can and should be learning. Practice does NOT necessarily make perfect … making the same mistakes over & over does not make one a “perfect” writer.</p>
<p>Would it be possible for your D to take a freshman comp course at a local CC? This might be a relatively painless, relatively inexpensive way to help her learn the things she won’t be learning in her AP class. I would approach the school administration & request funding for dual enrollment (if your district pays for dual enrollment classes). Our district pays for d/e if there is no corresponding course in the high school … and since this man has stated that he doesn’t plan to “teach” comp, there IS no corresponding class!</p>
<p>Same at my school.</p>
<p>D had a teacher like that her junior year for AP Lang & Comp. He was an experienced grader for AP exams, and I’ll bet read the essays the kids wrote in a few minutes (maybe seconds). Rarely a comment, correction; but only a number on the front. “Come see me” if you want comments. D never did. </p>
<p>I read some of her essays. She’s a pretty good writer, but there were always corrections – syntax, punctuation, word choice – that were needed, but weren’t noted by the teacher. You don’t learn to write by writing, unless someone also points out your mistakes. Practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect.</p>
<p>She then got the same teacher for AP Lit. I tried to get her moved out. But it turns out she enjoyed it much more – this teacher obviously loved teaching lit more than lang. But still no corrections on her papers. I get it: 5 classes, about 25-30 students per class; it’s a truckload of grading. But very disappointing.</p>
<p>She got 5s on both AP tests – I think because the teacher knew how to teach to the test, and did so very well…</p>
<p>My 11th grade S is taking the same class (different school) this year. There are 20 kids in the class. Every paper gets peer edited first by another student, goes for rewrite, then gets turned into the teacher for grading. I just looked at the semesters assignments and the kids are assigned about one paper every 1.5 to 2 weeks. All papers are thoroughly read, marked up and graded. In addition every student has been paired with another student for a long term writing assingment. This assignment will be edited by the entire class before rewrite and submittal to the teacher. I can’t imagine any teacher not marking up/commenting in the margins the good and bad aspects he sees as he reads the paper. Even just circling grammatical errors can’t take that much extra time.</p>
<p>good luck, it sounds like you will need to insist that your D go see this guy after every paper.</p>