GradeDeflationInIrvington < Kitchen

07 Apr 2006 - 15:51

grade deflation in Irvington

I am getting a C in English.

Specifically: a C in writing.

Which means I'm doing a lot worse than Ed, who is getting a B-. I'm also doing worse than our friend N., who told Ed, when they ran into each other a couple of weeks ago, 'I'm getting a B in middle school.'

On the other hand, I'm a couple of points out in front of the distinguished British historian.

She's getting a C-.

update: Ed now says she got a C+ and I "made it into a C- in my head."

We have a lot of these conversations.

my day and welcome to it

So yesterday, after spending all day at a funeral, I finally came home to a telephone call from Christopher's English teacher, Ms K. This is a different Ms. K, not the math Ms. K.

The English-teacher-Ms. K is a dedicated teacher who is paying attention, and is teaching real content. Spelling, grammar, handwriting (not trivial — we need it), and writing as a process of revision, topic statements, etc.

She's also a kind person who is wide awake as to the situation with Christopher and with us.

She was calling to tell me that Christopher had gotten a grade of 72 on his Book Share report, and had been visibly upset. He had put his head down on his desk, and she'd never seen him that way. So she wanted to call me, let me know, and talk about it.

That was great. It's above and beyond, and it's what a professional ought to do under the circumstances.

SO: my point is, I'm not having a problem with Ms. K-of-English. I'm having a problem with her grading, but not with her.

Book Share project

Here is Christopher's report.

What we have here is a failure to communicate

After a lengthy conversation with Ms. K, I don't know what's wrong with this paper.

What I mean to say is, I don't know what's wrong with it in Ms. K's eyes.

I know what I would think was wrong with this paper, if I were the teacher.

If I were the teacher, I would think the parent wrote it.

Ed said the same thing this morning, when he read. He said, and I quote, 'If I were the teacher I'd think this student had a lot of help.

so let's start there

I didn't write the paper.

Ed's take is right, however.

The paper is a hybrid. The ideas are all Christopher's, the structure is the teacher's, the pulling-it-all-together-into-a-coherent-form is mine.

Christopher came up with the thesis himself (unless his teacher taught this idea in class): he said, 'I call it a realistic fantasy story.' That is a terrific perception! I was so proud!

Christopher had to write this report Tuesday night, after being out sick for a week. He had a science test and a math test scheduled for the next day, too, and of course he'd missed all the classes covering the material that was going to be tested. Three massive projects to get through in one night.

We started with the Book Share.

Christopher sat next to my computer, I posted the list of required content next to my screen, and Christopher told me what he thought and put it into his own words. I suggested edits and more varied sentence structure as we went along.

I suspect this approach may be an effective way of teaching writing; I've done it before with other kids (not in this class or this school). Humans are observational learners, and this approach combines observational learning with doing....So I tend to think it's OK, in a pinch, to use this approach on a homework assignment. We were in a pinch. There was no way on earth we were going to get through one written report and two cram sessions in one night without doing it that way.

Long story short: this is more help than I would normally give Christopher, and more help than I've given him in the past.

Ed is right about what's wrong with this paper.

What's wrong is too much help from the parent.

what does the teacher think is wrong?

That's the rub.

I don't know.

She said two things specifically:

1. all paragraphs must have concluding sentences

me: That wasn't on the assignment sheet. I can have him write concluding sentences in all paragraphs, but I have to know you want him to write concluding sentences in all paragraphs.

teacher: It was on the other sheet.

me: I didn't see the other sheet. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep searching backpacks and notebooks for other sheets because What if This Sheet Doesn't Have The Whole Assignment?

teacher: I understand. I know you feel that way.

me: I can't go on like this.

Seriously.

That was the conversation. I am now having conversations with teachers in which I say, 'I can't go on like this.'

2. he needed to write a complete paragraph on the theme of the book

me: speechless

And that's it so far. I have no idea how he lost 28 points for not having concluding sentences in each paragraph and not having one full paragraph on the book's theme.

For that matter, I have no idea how any piece of writing can have a precise grade of 73.

I mean, what made it not a 74?

Or a 72?

I'm completely mystified.

did I mention I'm a writer?

So....we went round the mulberry bush a few times.

I said, in a non-hostile, non-rank-pulling tone, I'm a writer, I have a Distinguished Teaching Award, Ed's a writer, he has two Distinguished Teaching Awards (he's just been nominated for a third at NYU!), I taught writing to gifted kids at Johns Hopkins CTY, etc....and I said I just can't tell what she thinks good writing is.

I said I'm not quarreling with her view of good writing; I just don't know what it is.

I said professional writers don't have concluding sentences at the end of every paragraph, for instance.

She agreed.

Professional writers, she said, would not write the way she's teaching the kids to write.

She herself would not write the way she's teaching the kids to write in her own papers for graduate school.

What she wants, she said, is for Christopher to write the way an 11-year old writes in an English class, at this stage of the game.

This was not a veiled accusation that I had written the paper & not Christopher. I think she might have been saying that an 11-year old needs to learn a certain simple form first, before he tackles more sophisticated forms, the way you don't have an art student start with action paintings. He has to learn to draw first; then he can throw cans of paint on a canvas and make it work.

At least, it's possible she was saying that.

I don't know what she was saying.

She did say that it was very important for Christopher to learn to write the way she was teaching him to write, because he would need to be able to do it in 8th grade.^*

this isn't working, part 999

We left it that Ms. K would give me samples of 'A' papers.

She didn't want to do it.

First she said I shouldn't be thinking about grades.

I said If you're going to give the kids harsh, low grades on the work they do, then they're going to think about grades. If you don't want them to think about grades, stop grading them.

She basically agreed with that.

Then she said she had taught them, in class, what they were supposed to do.

She had told them, "A topic sentence is like an arrow hitting a target."

I said, 'I just don't know what that means. It's a nice analogy, it makes sense, but I just can't translate it to what that would look like on paper, to you.'

I said, 'We have to have models. We have to actually see what a good Book Share report looks like to you.

So then she tried her last tack, and said she really wanted 'just to work with Christopher directly.'

I said no.

I said, for about the 5 gazillionth time in the conversation, 'I can't go on like this.' (I also mentioned homeschooling several times.)

I said, "I want you to work with him, that's my preference, but we can't go on like this. We have to see models of what it is he's supposed to be able to do."

She said she would give us models, and she said she understood.

models t/k

So.

I'm going to take a look at the models Ms. K supplies, and see what's what.

I'm thinking there's a specific formua for paragraph writing that she wants the kids to master.

I'm thinking, too, that in this case 'report' actually means 'list of paragraphs.' Christopher did his last Book Share project completely on his own - we didn't even see it - and he got a grade of 86.

He wrote separate paragraphs answering each question individually. No thesis, no transition sentences, etc.

Separate paragraphs are fine, although he's capable of creating a simple organizational structure and of writing transitions between paragraphs and ideas.

It may be a good exercise to write highly formulaic paragraphs. I tend to think that once a child has shown he can write a simple paper, that's what he should do.

But I don't know.

So we'll see what the models look like and go from there.

But no more guessing games. I really can't live this way; more accurately, I won't live this way.

Ed worked on the CA social studies/history frameworks, and told me that a good framework (or was it standard?) tells you two things:

what a child is expected to know

what a child is expected to be able to do

I don't know either of these things about any of Christopher's classes in middle school.

Enough's enough.

waiting for me in my Amazon basket

^* The principal himself told us that the 7th and 8th grade writing programs "need work." So.....I'm guessing Ms. K knows what she's talking about here.

no grade inflation in the suburbs
grade deflation in Irvington
grade deflation in the suburbs, part 2
is there a dangerous myth of grade inflation?

gradedeflation

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

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Ah yes -- I have fond memories of reading The Trial instead of my assigned work in 11th grade detention.

-- BenCalvin - 07 Apr 2006

I don't know what she was saying.

Well, you're not alone there. I have to ask my son's teacher several times what they mean by something because not only is it a new idea to write with (inferences, sensory, idioms, etc. many of these ideas are described with a slightly different vocabulary than what I was taught), but there does seem to be a lot of little rules surrounding using these new concepts right off the bat(don't tell, show feelings) When he attempts to explain it to me he gets all bogged down and starts to confuse himself. I have no idea what he means and I realize that he doesn't get it either. That's why I think some really great samples to go over with them (with the little rubric nearby to enforce the meaning of the vocabulary) to point out when these extra things are used is helpful.

I started collecting every little handout and rubric for every essay form and report and filed it on the desktop file (thank you, The Organized Student) so that when he started hemming and hawing I could pull it out try to figure out what he's supposed to do.

Last night we had one of the Writer's Inc. books(or was it Writer's Express? They're both great for late grade school and middle school, but one is more pointed to the young crowd and one to the older.) They have samples in there that are great.

Unless she has every report done like that (with concluding sentences) it helps to have them write it down again before they run off to try it.

As far as helping goes, I try to stay away except for grammar and spelling corrections unless he is completely shut down. Then, I think, you have to kick in and coach them on how to get it going again without actually writing it. I don't think you did anything wrong there at all.

-- SusanS - 07 Apr 2006

Easy to create a false impression of rigour by making silly demands of the students, and then leaving it up to the parents to do the work.

Ideally the teachers would walk them through a couple of in-class demos, but that doesn't seem to happen very often.

-- VerghisKoshi - 07 Apr 2006

Ah yes -- I have fond memories of reading The Trial instead of my assigned work in 11th grade detention.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

Susan

Yeah, I've actually had nothing to do with his work since he moved to Ms. K's class (which was obviously a good way to go....)

This was different because there was no possible way he could get through all that in one night.

Which of course is another ludicrous aspect of the school.

It's a middle school prison; it really is.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

That's a good idea about Writer's Express. I have those books. I'll ask her if those models are OK....

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

Easy to create a false impression of rigour by making silly demands of the students, and then leaving it up to the parents to do the work.

Ideally the teachers would walk them through a couple of in-class demos, but that doesn't seem to happen very often.

We have to have models AT HOME.

I taught writing for YEARS. The kids ALWAYS had models.

They didn't have models of good student papers, which I would now remedy if I were to teach again.

But they had tons of fully analyzed models of expository writing in the specific genre they were attempting - and they read each other's papers, so they at least were able to see, in class which papers they thought were good.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

"[W]hat does the teacher think is wrong? ... I don't know."

As a former teacher of writing, I presume you speak fluent "Writing Teacher". If another teacher of writing cannot explain to you what she wants, how can she possibly explain to her far more inexperienced students what she wants?

I assume from this post and from the link to the essay that there wasn't red (or, gods forfend, purple) ink bleeding all over the paper identifying individual problems. A C- paper (translating the percentage grade to what I understand to be the most common scale) should be covered with identifications of errors and suggestions for improvement.

I consider the combination of these two failures to communicate (to steal a phrase) to be quite troubling.

FWIW, in a vacuum, the grade for the paper wouldn't trouble me; I think the occasional hard-grading teacher is useful to students. But if you're going to grade harder than most teachers, it is incumbent upon you to communicate your requirements and standards more clearly than most teachers. It's only right to give fair notice that the rules "here" are different.

-- DougSundseth - 07 Apr 2006

As a former teacher of writing, I presume you speak fluent "Writing Teacher".

Actually, no.

I was taught to teach writing at the University of Iowa (which at that time was said to have the best freshman writing program in the country), and obviously the Parade Has Moved On

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

I'm completely done with hard grading.

I'm starting to think that all the blather about 'grade inflation' is utter you-know-what.

Of course it's not; Ed's dealing with it a NYU.

But this school has harsh, punitive, and arbitrary grading — arbitrary in the sense that neither students nor parents ever has any idea what's coming at them.

It is an undermining, sabotaging, nasty place.

I'm SO done with the Mince Words moment (and, as I say, I'm not having a problem with the English teacher personally).

This is a very nasty place.

I would never treat children the way they do.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

Haven't seen the paper yet.....

A huge amount of the grading is on obedience to authority.

She said nothing about content or ideas; it was entirely that he didn't do what she told him to do.

The math teacher grades kids on getting signatures from their parents showing they've seen their lousy grades.

etc.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

It's a middle school prison; it really is.

Given that I think I regressed academically during Jr. High (grades 7 & 8) I'm sympathetic to the idea of home schooling for that period, even if you intend to go back to school for High School.

I'm not convinced that missing the the "social aspect" of middle school is a bad thing.

Even at 14 children seem to be much better at handling social relationships than in the middle school years. I think that's a reason middle schools are like prison.

I'm sure there are good middle schools. But I don't know anyone who had a good middle school experience.

-- BenCalvin - 07 Apr 2006

Sheesh, there are entire curricula out there based on imitative writing. They're all about copying a model. Two that come to mind are Classical Writing and Imitations in Writing.

-- BrendaM - 07 Apr 2006

Given that I think I regressed academically during Jr. High (grades 7 & 8) I'm sympathetic to the idea of home schooling for that period, even if you intend to go back to school for High School.

How did you regress? (If you don't mind my asking.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

oh, I'll have to look at 'Imitations in Writing'

That reminds me, I STILL haven't posted the stuff Joanne Jacobs & Ed gave me....

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

I don't know anyone who's had a good middle years experience, including me.

Definitely, 9th grade is way better.

We have a bad middle school AND a child with a middle school brain and personality.

Bad combination.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

The guy who's supposed to be one of the worst writing teachers in the 7th grade told a mom I know that he woudn't give the kids models, because 'they might copy them.'

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

I'm going to have to be an a*****e and post some of the writing that comes down from the administration.

It's unbelievably bad.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

How did you regress? (If you don't mind my asking.)

My case had some extreme factors.

7th grade was the first year of court-ordered busing, resulting in cultural conflict that the teachers couldn't handle (you know, race riots).

It was the '70s, so we had kids leaving the campus in ambulances from drug overdoses.

My mother had cancer my 7th grade term. She died in the 8th.

So I pretty much had no intellectual progress within school during that time.

I was reading extensively out of class, but not doing a lot of school work.

However, I think I can generalize that many, if not most, kids have a very difficult social experience in middle school. If anything, the social struggle gets in the way of academic progress.

I did very well once I started high school.

As I've said before, one of the reasons we have our son in a K-8 school is to have continuity in the school environment. I'm hoping it will minimize the distractions of social struggle during the middle school period.

-- BenCalvin - 07 Apr 2006

It was the '70s, so we had kids leaving the campus in ambulances from drug overdoses.

My mother had cancer my 7th grade term. She died in the 8th.

So I pretty much had no intellectual progress within school during that time.

oh boy, it's so painful to think about the things children go through

that puts a whole new light on your K-8 choice

I thought K-8 was a good idea as soon as I read about it, but now I really think it's a good idea

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

I'm pretty sure we've already got one child in 6th grade with anorexia; this week we had a child in trouble because he had a bong in his locker and a bag of oregano he was apparently trying to pass off as marijunan - AND the principal has jumped in with yet more.....oh forget it

that's for another post

suffice it to say that every time I turn around I'm hearing my Stories About the Principal, none of them good

He was insane to lose us as allies

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

We also had two or three bomb threats in the fall.

Apparently an 8th grade girl was the person who called in one of them.

-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Apr 2006

"I assume from this post and from the link to the essay that there wasn't red (or, gods forfend, purple) ink bleeding all over the paper identifying individual problems. A C- paper (translating the percentage grade to what I understand to be the most common scale) should be covered with identifications of errors and suggestions for improvement."

Duh, don't you know that writing in any colour pen other than the EXACT SAME ONE that the students are using is EXTREMEMLY DAMAGING to the students' self-esteem.

I had another 'big lecture' about that in my SOSE class. I think I really p*****off the teacher when I said that as a student I got annoyed when teachers DIDN'T write on my work with red pen.

-- SamanthaRawson - 07 Apr 2006

Several of the people I socialize with regularly are teachers. I've heard the, "never use a red pen for corrections" from these, otherwise apparently sane, people.

I've mentioned here before that I'm a tech-writer and editor. I use red because it contrasts well with both black and blue, and is generally easy to read. I expect others to do the same, and for the same reason. The last thing I want is a critical edit to be missed because it looks just like the surrounding text.

Yes, it sucks to get a paper back that's covered in red ink. It's still lots better than getting a paper back with a poor grade and only a limited understanding of why the grade is poor.

And if a student's self esteem is based on an unrealistic view his skills and the amount of work necessary to do a decent job, perhaps a little red ink is a valuable corrective.

(I'm assuming that Friday is the right time of the week to be preaching to the choir.)

-- DougSundseth - 07 Apr 2006

I'll have to get Ed to write something about his Princeton journalism teacher.

The guy had been a big editor in St. Louis forever, and he did turn their papers back with a 'blizzard of red ink' and it was great. Ed said he was completely respectful; had total belief everyone could write good copy; etc.

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Apr 2006

At this point no one has any self-esteem whatsoever.

Definitely no misconceptions left to correct.

This school is Kafka; it really is.

You always know you've done it wrong, your work is bad, you don't measure up, you failed again.

But you never know why, or what you could do to improve.

It's pure obedience to authority, except you don't even know how to obey.

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Apr 2006

Have I mentioned that I loathe this school?

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Apr 2006

Or that I would never, ever, under any circumstances treat a student in this way?

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Apr 2006

Why, yes, I believe I have!

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Apr 2006

Several of the people I socialize with regularly are teachers. I've heard the, "never use a red pen for corrections" from these, otherwise apparently sane, people.

KUMON uses red!

The ridiculous thing is that KUMON also uses red to indicate a perfect paper, as well as to indicate that you've corrected your errors.

After awhile you like seeing red on the page, because it means you've done your work; you get a feeling of accomplishment even when you see a number of errors.

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Apr 2006

My oldest sister died on Easter Sunday when I was in 6th grade. The next two years were pretty tough with that and the usual social problems. And I was in a small K-8 school. I can't imagine how much worse life would have been if I'd been at the junior high school.

-- BrendaM - 08 Apr 2006

I don't want to dispute or disrespect the pain and suffering of the other commenters, but as I recall, junior high was pretty neat.

I thought it was cool to have a locker. Of course, I had some rough days before I got the hang of the combination lock. Band worked a lot better in middle school than it had as a once-a-week grouping of musicians from five or six grade schools. In sixth grade, we played basketball games among the grade schools in the district. In junior high, though, we had real coaches and played against schools from other towns. We didn't draw big crowds for our afterschool games, but we played in gyms with bleachers, and some or our classmates stayed after school to watch. Our science classrooms were labs; that was better than anything is grade school. Even if your assigned seat in English class put you next to an obnoxious kid, you knew that you only had to endure it for an hour at a time. In grade school, you were fairly anchored in place in your homeroom. If you're next to a jerk, dems da berries. I'll admit that gym uniforms, changing, and showering were a pain, but I don't see how to make that one any better.

I realize that a high percentage of these points no longer apply as they did back in the 1970s. My first grader already has a locker. Even if she didn't, the backpacks that kids carry are equivalent to toting a locker around with you. If your kid is, say, nine years old, he or she is probably already on one or two traveling teams (baseball, gymnastics, swimming, soccer)that go not just to other towns, but to other states (other countries?). There are community art and music programs that start way before the middle school years.

I can't remember too precisely, but I'm sure my friends and I were constantly deriding one another. We were always looking to excel as wise-asses. I'm not proud of it, and it's not pretty when I see it in middle schoolers now. Still, I think they're often perfectly happy kids, just as I was.

-- DanK - 08 Apr 2006

Yeah, lockers are really cool... until some faceless jerk breaks into your locker and steals all your stuff, including your gym clothes (?!), so you get points off for not having dressed for PE that day. No, I'm not bitter. >:-P Out here in LAUSD the lockers are still there, but the kids can't use them anymore. It's all rolling backpacks and textbooks you can't take home.

Besides, DanK^?, you're talking about junior high. Junior high doesn't exist anymore. It's middle school now.

I will say, though, that at my K-8 school we got to rotate teachers and choose electives when we were in 7th and 8th grades (maybe even 6th; my brain's gone fuzzy). That part was cool.

-- BrendaM - 08 Apr 2006

Brenda M

oh my gosh

that's so painful

-- CatherineJohnson - 10 Apr 2006

Ed says he's completely repressed all of junior high!

He doesn't have one single memory from those two years.

I have memories. It was a fairly lousy time for me; my mom says it was horrible for all four of us, but I don't remember that....

-- CatherineJohnson - 10 Apr 2006

I'm having more conversations with parents telling me I can't possibly pull Christopher from the middle school because the socialization is so important.

Then, in the next breath, they tell me how miserable their kids are at school.

About five seconds later they're saying, 'Let's talk some more.' Or 'Let's look at Catholic schools.'

-- CatherineJohnson - 10 Apr 2006

I'm going to look at the two Catholic schools people say are pretty good....I don't know that I'll bother with Hackley and Masters. I'm not hearing strong recommendations of these two from parents who have their kids in them; in fact, I've heard the opposite from one parent.

For $26,000 a year, which would basically have to be more debt, the school would have to be St. Anne's (Brooklyn) or The Key School (Annapolis?)

-- CatherineJohnson - 10 Apr 2006

WebLogForm
Title:	grade deflation in Irvington
TopicType:	WebLog
SubjectArea:	IrvingtonSchools, LanguageArts, TeachersTeachingKids
LogDate:	200604061649

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grade deflation in Irvington

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