<p>When Son ('09 grad) was in school, I was aware of AP study groups - not that he ever joined one, but I knew they existed. I don’t think those have developed in D’s class.</p>
<p>Meeting with the teacher is quite problematic - meeting with* any *teacher is problematic. Most have their tutorial periods before school (esp since class doesn’t start until 8:45 this year) and drill team has mandatory before school practices every day. A girl can be excused if she is failing a class, but of course, if the girl uses that excuse too many times, the director gets the impression that she really might fail and then is relucant to put her in a choice spot in the dances (due to the “no pass no play” rules around here.) The girls tend to rely on each other for tutoring/help when they need it…that works fine for classes like math (how do you do this problem?) but not at all for things like comp.</p>
<p>Why “not at all for things like comp”? Peer editing isn’t the be-all and end-all, but lots and lots of people think it’s valuable and it works for both parties involved.</p>
<p>It dosen’t work due to the amount of time and attention invovled.</p>
<p>You can be standing in a crowded locker room and a friend can take a few seconds to tell you how to work a math problem. It’s not as practical to say to your friend as she is rushing to get dressed, “can you skip straightening your hair so you can read my essay and tell me what is wrong with it?”</p>
<p>While I believe the teacher should provide some written comments, it is commendable that he is willing to discuss every paper with any student that is willing to come in. Your dd absolutely should be going in for these conferences, if they are offered. It is much more valuable for a teacher to be able to explain what is wrong with a sentence, than to simply write “awk” or “context” or something in red pen. The student can discuss what they don’t understand.</p>
<p>Being willing and able to talk to a teacher is an invaluable skill that will serve her well in college.</p>
<p>I don’t have any tips for how to deal with the teacher, but your D could benefit from the many guides to good writing available on various college websites and probably on some high school websites, too.</p>
<p>Commendable in theory, perhaps commendable to the school administration. But remember that he is working hard to portray himself as intimidating and not approachable. As I said before, that’s a pretty smart tactic if the goal is to decrease ones’s work load.</p>
<p>D1 was looking for some extra help when she took Honors Pre-Calc. The teacher told the class and parents he was ALWAYS available before school started, every day, no exceptions. She went to school half an hour early every day for three days in a row. He never showed. She talked to him and he said he would be there the next day…she showed, he didn’t. She persisted in trying to schedule a time, he kept saying just show up. He was hit or miss for the rest of the year. And she wasn’t the only one looking for help. By the end of the year he had an entire classroom filled with students looking for help. I am of the opinion that if there was an entire class of high end students looking for help than the classroom instruction must not have been adequate. We solved the dilemma with extra help from peers who had another teacher. Sometimes it is what it is. If you can move her to another teacher, do it. If she has to stay, supplement. I get the frustration…been there , done that.</p>
<p>NM, sometimes it isn’t even the teacher’s fault. I remember when Son was in 10th grade and he was in dire need of help in Chem. For about a month, the teacher was assigned “hall duty” during her tutorial time.</p>
<p>If you are a good writer, is it a good idea to take the AP English Lang and Composition test without taking the class? Does anyone have examples of kids like this?</p>
<p>Haha…our school does not have teachers do hall duty…ever!</p>
<p>Anyone can take the test. The thing is it is not just the actual essays. There is a large multiple choice section that asks for definitions of literary devices and such. Lots of people self study and take the test.</p>
<p>No authority figures roaming the halls before school starts? I know that when my BIL was first looking for a teaching job in the Chicago suburbs, his first job was as a hall guard…just walking the halls for security purposes all day every day.</p>
<p>missypie, I am not sure that Mr. Intimidating is doing it entirely (100%) to be intimidating and thus decrease his workload. </p>
<p>Long ago I made a pledge to myself: I am not going to put more time in grading/responding to a student paper than the student himself (or herself) put into it. </p>
<p>Students get as much out of a class (and learning) as they put in.</p>
<p>Suppose Terrible Writer Student puts hours and hours into his essay. Because it is terrible, does the teacher assume that the student is actually a good writer but just dashed it off in ten minutes? Doesn’t the Terrible Writer Student deserve more than a quick “1” slapped on the page while the teacher holds his nose?</p>
<p>Popchaserpop- "If you are a good writer, is it a good idea to take the AP English Lang and Composition test without taking the class? Does anyone have examples of kids like this? "</p>
<p>It depends on the level of writing ability someone has. Personally, as well as I could have written before my AP Class, I know very well that the interim time spent studying was what helped push me to get that 5. </p>
<p>As for the rest of this, I think I agree with EngProfMom. Both my AP English teachers have made themselves completely available if I put forth the extra effort to speak with them. Recently for example, my senior research paper was only peer edited. If I wanted my teacher to speak with me about it, before I turned it in, I would have to sign up for a conference. I went after school, and specifically waited for her to put up the sign up papers to make sure I had a conference with her. My paper is due friday, and I know exactly where I stand, and what needs to be edited. It would seem to me that AP English is dependent on the student’s efforts with the teacher. No teacher cares if you spend 10 hours writing a poor paper, or an hour writing an excellent one. It is the ‘poor’ or ‘excellent’ they care about. [Same, I have found, with length. The first AP grading scale paper I got a high score on 8/9 was written as an in-class assignment, on one page, front and back. The classmates who had written 3 pages were baffled, but quickly realized I had made one succinct and correct argument in that space, whereas they had wandered from topic to topic, and been less clear. It is always about quality in english.]</p>
<p>“Suppose Terrible Writer Student puts hours and hours into his essay. Because it is terrible, does the teacher assume that the student is actually a good writer but just dashed it off in ten minutes? Doesn’t the Terrible Writer Student deserve more than a quick “1” slapped on the page while the teacher holds his nose?”</p>
<p>Terrible in what sense? The student didn’t bother to spell check and the teacher should take over that function?</p>
<p>I’ve taught an amazing number of graduate students how to use spell and grammar check (handy tool! I use it all the time myself) and document map and, oh yeah, how to outline. Skills that students learn quickly when they’re ready. “You can lead a horse to water…”</p>
<p>Oh, and I forgot to add: I use a grading rubric when I read students’ preliminary drafts of essays. (When I require student to turn in what’s just a “preliminary draft,” I can mark them honestly, I don’t have to give them automatic A’s, or gentleperson’s B). </p>
<p>One quadrant of the grading rubric indicates: “Paper had more than 5 errors of Grammar, Usage, or Mechanics. The professor stopped reading. Work with the Writing Center recommended.”</p>
<p>Of course I make exceptions to the policy above. I had a fantastic student just last year. Came to the US from Russia at age 13, she’s about 23 now. Absolutely brilliant, immensely hard-working, original, great at group work, and an awful, awful speller. I tutored her, because the Writing Center folk generally don’t know that you can show a student how their errors are systematic and they can address them in a systematic way. Student got an A in the class.</p>
<p>Having taken both AP English Lang (got a 4) and freshman composition in college, I completely fail to see the purpose of writing 40 essays in a year (and then giving limited feedback on them on top of that)</p>
<p>In college, we had to write 6 essays (one semester). My teacher gave <em>extensive</em> feedback on the first one and progressively less for each paper, but there was feedback on all of them (except the very last)</p>
<p>What’s the point? Without knowing more, I would probably guess that you could pull a random selection of A-graded papers from those 40 essays and very few of them would get an A in my college class. Not because that class is full of bad writers; there’s simply not enough time for a complete writing thought process to take place, including some level of feedback, and without that you don’t get quality writing.</p>
<p>edit: of course, the reason he’s requiring such a fast turnaround is that he’s teaching to a test (AP English) which requires you to write essays absurdly fast. But that’s different than teaching people how to actually write.</p>
<p>Not to defend the teacher, but I wonder how many students are in your D’s class and how many classes the teacher is teaching? </p>
<p>Commenting is a lot of work. Writing “awkward” in the margin is not helpful to a student, for instance. So the teacher may not be able to provide helpful comments on all papers in a timely manner. That does not excuse the total lack of comments throughout the year.
I don’t think it is useful to assign 40 essays without ever giving any feedback. A better way for a teacher to handle a large workload would be to assign fewer essays and to comment on a few each time if commenting on every one is too much work.<br>
Also, it is better to do most of the commenting at the beginning of the year, to provide guidance to students as they can apply the advice to later essays.
Is there a way to discuss with the teacher different strategies for handling the coursework for both him and the students? For example at a curriculum meeting with parents and teacher rather than a one on one meeting?</p>