AmyinMD
01-11-2011, 02:10 PM
My dd is in 7th grade at ps this year. Most of the classes are fine but the language arts I'm unhappy with. The do no grammar work at all. They did have a quiz on the parts of speech definitions earlier this year but that's all they have done. Every single day they practice for the state mandated testing. My dd is getting pretty good at the BCRs (brief constructive response) and the ECRs (essay constructive response). For these they practice reading strategies and the teacher requires the kids to use a highlighter as they read. This really frustrates my dd. She has never had to read with a highlighter before. Mostly they use hand outs of short stories and poems from what I can tell. They haven't done any novels this year.
There has been no literary analysis in class at all. I remember reading Julie of the Wolves and other novels like that in 7th grade. Do 7th graders no longer read novels for class? There is one book project per term which involves literary analysis but there is no instruction in class on how the kids are to do this. For example this term they picked a book from an approved list and found 10 pictures to go with it and wrote a paragraph about each. I thought my dd could have put more into it. Most of her paragraphs were around 3-4 sentences. The teacher gave everyone that turned the project in a 100 and didn't even read any of them. Dd brought it home the day she had turned it in. I realize the teacher has 120 students and can't possibly read every word of each assignment but she hasn't provided any constructive feedback on my dd's writing all year. I figured she'd at least do that for the quarter projects.
They do vocab lists each week and fill out the exact same worksheet (definition, picture, and sentence). They read 15 min each night and write 1-2 sentences about what they read (called a book log). They practice for state testing. I'm not opposed to some practicing and I think dd is learning some good things from it but I think every day is way too much. I just checked dd's online grades for 2nd quarter and aside from the one project every single assignment is for vocab words, book log, or a BCR/ECR for test practice.
Is this pretty typical for a middle school language arts class? I feel kind of out of it since this year is the first time any of my kids have gone to school. I'd like to afterschool for LA but dd is so tired at the end of the day. I had thought of getting something like Latin Road under the disguise that we'd use it for Latin but she'd be getting English grammar along with it. I do Latin with my younger dd and my older dd keeps saying she is interested in learning it too.
We're going to go look at a couple of Christian schools here because this is one of many things we dislike about the school. I'm not sure if a Christian school would have less focus on the state testing or not. 2 of the schools also offer a part time option for homeschoolers which would be nice. I do love the bus the public school offers though.
There has been no literary analysis in class at all. I remember reading Julie of the Wolves and other novels like that in 7th grade. Do 7th graders no longer read novels for class? There is one book project per term which involves literary analysis but there is no instruction in class on how the kids are to do this. For example this term they picked a book from an approved list and found 10 pictures to go with it and wrote a paragraph about each. I thought my dd could have put more into it. Most of her paragraphs were around 3-4 sentences. The teacher gave everyone that turned the project in a 100 and didn't even read any of them. Dd brought it home the day she had turned it in. I realize the teacher has 120 students and can't possibly read every word of each assignment but she hasn't provided any constructive feedback on my dd's writing all year. I figured she'd at least do that for the quarter projects.
They do vocab lists each week and fill out the exact same worksheet (definition, picture, and sentence). They read 15 min each night and write 1-2 sentences about what they read (called a book log). They practice for state testing. I'm not opposed to some practicing and I think dd is learning some good things from it but I think every day is way too much. I just checked dd's online grades for 2nd quarter and aside from the one project every single assignment is for vocab words, book log, or a BCR/ECR for test practice.
Is this pretty typical for a middle school language arts class? I feel kind of out of it since this year is the first time any of my kids have gone to school. I'd like to afterschool for LA but dd is so tired at the end of the day. I had thought of getting something like Latin Road under the disguise that we'd use it for Latin but she'd be getting English grammar along with it. I do Latin with my younger dd and my older dd keeps saying she is interested in learning it too.
We're going to go look at a couple of Christian schools here because this is one of many things we dislike about the school. I'm not sure if a Christian school would have less focus on the state testing or not. 2 of the schools also offer a part time option for homeschoolers which would be nice. I do love the bus the public school offers though.