[Leilani Vasquez]

I was hoping I could get a little advice.

My daughter just started 9th grade. She's always been an honor student. We live in Hartford and both my children go to a magnet high school, which I thought was a good school.

I just set high expectations on both my children. She's been getting straight A's in English class. Last week I read a couple of her essays. She was graded an A+ for both. The first one wasn't badly written, but the second one I read was terrible. Terrible grammar and spelling. Some of the sentences were written in that teenage text, which I can't stand. She was still graded an A+ for it.

I approached the teacher and didn't get a good response from her. Something to the fact that she has many papers to go through and graded her paper on the fact that it was a good read. This really bothers me. How do administrators think that children are supposed to get into college and do well when they're not encouraged to use proper grammar?

Writing with proper grammer and being well spoken are not only needed in school, but for the rest of your life IMO.

I'd be interested in hearing what others think of this. Am I wrong? Do you think I overreacted?

[Rich Lee]

I had English teachers in high school that provided two grades: one for context and one for content. It was very possible to get an A+ and a D on the same paper.

It sounds like your daughter's paper's content (what she said) was worthy of an A+ according to the teacher. However, you focused more on the context (the way in which she said it) which wasn't.

This is tricky. If you're confident in your own grammar and spelling capabilities, continue to give her papers a second grade. This way, your daughter will realize that in life, sometimes two different people will walk away from a situation with different impressions and that she should try to strive for perfection in order to please both.

[Leilani Vasquez]

I'd like to add that we're just waiting for our lease to finish and then we'll def. be getting the hell out of Hartford, for our children's sake. My experience with Hartford Public schools is that everyone wants to place a blame on everyone else; the parents want to blame the teachers, and the teachers want to blame the families for their failures. It's hard when you have children with 2 working parents who are heavily involved and you still aren't getting anywhere.

[Leilani Vasquez]

Originally Posted by Rich Lee

I had English teachers in high school that provided two grades: one for context and one for content. It was very possible to get an A+ and a D on the same paper.

It sounds like your daughter's paper's content (what she said) was worthy of an A+ according to the teacher. However, you focused more on the context (the way in which she said it) which wasn't.

This is tricky. If you're confident in your own grammar and spelling capabilities, continue to give her papers a second grade. This way, your daughter will realize that in life, sometimes two different people will walk away from a situation with different impressions and that she should try to strive for perfection in order to please both.

I've been blessed; the last couple of years she's had a wonderful home room teacher that really worked her to her best ability. I just don't want to lose that.

[JayCT]

Leilani - It does seem that there is less of an emphasis on grammer and spelling these days. We were at my son's school open house and his English teacher noted this and indicated that this was not the case in her class. She in fact emphasizes spelling and grammer and will significantly lower the grade for it. Not many other teachers do, even in schools that are consider to be good.

You do bring up one of the problems that inner city schools such as Hartford must face and that is large class sizes. The teachers must spend a lot of time grading papers. how can they throughly read and evaluate 200+ papers is beyond me. Jay

[Leilani Vasquez]

Originally Posted by JayCT

Leilani - It does seem that there is less of an emphasis on grammer and spelling these days. We were at my son's school open house and his English teacher noted this and indicated that this was not the case in her class. She in fact emphasizes spelling and grammer and will significantly lower the grade for it. Not many other teachers do, even in schools that are consider to be good.

You do bring up one of the problems that inner city schools such as Hartford must face and that is large class sizes. The teachers must spend a lot of time grading papers. how can they throughly read and evaluate 200+ papers is beyond me. Jay

I just thought by sending the kids to a magnet school this would be better. This is the first bad experience I've had at this school though.

My son started last year and I had a wonderful and open line of communication with all of his teachers. I was starting to wonder if it was just the teacher or maybe I'm looking too hard into this.

It was sad last year when they had the first open house, only myself and 3 other parents showed up. I've found that if you start an open line of communication with the teachers, they have more respect for you and your child.

I'm the type of person that looks at things as if there is always room for improvement in anything.

[Uconn97]

Here lies the problem with magnet schools - everyone thought and still thinks they were the solution and as years have passed, many are finding out - or will find out that they are not the solution and you are just moving the problems from one school to another. LV - sounds like you are an involved parent and frankly I don't think it matters where you live your kids will succeed because you take the time and ask the questions. Unfortunaltely many parents don't.

[Leilani Vasquez]

I don't think any child should be allowed to write in that teenage text in school. I absolutely can't stand it. For instance u instead of you. One of my bigger pet peeves is using there instead of their. A lot of my colleagues do that to this day.

[Rich Lee]

Originally Posted by Leilani Vasquez

I don't think any child should be allowed to write in that teenage text in school. I absolutely can't stand it. For instance u instead of you. One of my bigger pet peeves is using there instead of their. A lot of my colleagues do that to this day.

This is one of mine, too, among many others. If it doesn't get corrected at an early age (where minds are way more receptive to learning), then it continues on as you see on this forum.

It really is inexcusable. We expect teachers to address it but then overlook it when adults do it.

[jjbradleynyc]

Originally Posted by Leilani Vasquez

I was hoping I could get a little advice.

My daughter just started 9th grade. She's always been an honor student. We live in Hartford and both my children go to a magnet high school, which I thought was a good school.

I just set high expectations on both my children. She's been getting straight A's in English class. Last week I read a couple of her essays. She was graded an A+ for both. The first one wasn't badly written, but the second one I read was terrible. Terrible grammar and spelling. Some of the sentences were written in that teenage text, which I can't stand. She was still graded an A+ for it.

I approached the teacher and didn't get a good response from her. Something to the fact that she has many papers to go through and graded her paper on the fact that it was a good read. This really bothers me. How do administrators think that children are supposed to get into college and do well when they're not encouraged to use proper grammar?

Writing with proper grammer and being well spoken are not only needed in school, but for the rest of your life IMO.

I'd be interested in hearing what others think of this. Am I wrong? Do you think I overreacted?

that's a very tricky thing. The teacher might've graded the second paper based on the fact that your daughter understood the concept of what she wrote the paper about, and grading the grammar wasn't a huge priority. Many teachers have different teaching and grading styles. Some grade for comprehension/overall understanding--while others can grade more for grammer/spelling/general understanding, etc.

I don't think you over-reacted. It'd be typical if you read the paper and saw the "A" and realized grammar was bad and wanted to question the teacher. I'd ask the teacher about her teaching style--it doesn't mean the teacher's style is "wrong."