Let me be honest. I am not a fan of my "honors" class this year (actually I am NEVER a fan of my "honors" class). Most of my dislike is not the students' fault; it is their previous teachers and perhaps parents. Many of the kids have no right to be in an honors language arts class. Although they can read, they can't write or think. This year to ease my frustrations, I started about by giving the students a contract stating that they must receive a B- or higher and that assignments could not be redone (amidst other criteria).
Wednesday I discussed the assignment they would receive Thursday with the reserve teacher. I even gave them an oral example and showed them a sheet in their journal that would help write their first paragraph of the year. After discussing my example and the journal sheet, I told them they were not to ask questions since they would have everything they needed to be successful. We talked about what a paragraph looks like and that with the ideas and support their paragraphs would have eleven sentences. Yesterday the reserve teacher gave them another instruction sheet explaining the assignment with an example of a paragraph that followed the expected format. They were also asked to write ten sentences using the third person. Before (probably during and after) they sheets were handed out, they students started asking question of the reserve. Since they are typically not able to "think" for themselves, this did not surprise me, but it did irritate me after the time we had spent discussing this on Wednesday.
Tonight I corrected the assignments. As I could have predicted, they did poorly. The first "honors" assignment I corrected was the list of ten sentences using third person. I gave this assignment to my other classes including my SPED (special education) inclusion class and my ELL (English Language Learners) class... the EXACT same assignment. Sixteen of 19 students in my honors class received lower than a B- on this simple assignment. After entering the scores of their first five assignments (three of which all other classes including SPED and ELL), only ten of the students have a B- or higher.
Now I sit back and wait for irate parents phone calls and e-mails.
Wednesday I discussed the assignment they would receive Thursday with the reserve teacher. I even gave them an oral example and showed them a sheet in their journal that would help write their first paragraph of the year. After discussing my example and the journal sheet, I told them they were not to ask questions since they would have everything they needed to be successful. We talked about what a paragraph looks like and that with the ideas and support their paragraphs would have eleven sentences. Yesterday the reserve teacher gave them another instruction sheet explaining the assignment with an example of a paragraph that followed the expected format. They were also asked to write ten sentences using the third person. Before (probably during and after) they sheets were handed out, they students started asking question of the reserve. Since they are typically not able to "think" for themselves, this did not surprise me, but it did irritate me after the time we had spent discussing this on Wednesday.
Tonight I corrected the assignments. As I could have predicted, they did poorly. The first "honors" assignment I corrected was the list of ten sentences using third person. I gave this assignment to my other classes including my SPED (special education) inclusion class and my ELL (English Language Learners) class... the EXACT same assignment. Sixteen of 19 students in my honors class received lower than a B- on this simple assignment. After entering the scores of their first five assignments (three of which all other classes including SPED and ELL), only ten of the students have a B- or higher.
Now I sit back and wait for irate parents phone calls and e-mails.
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