Today is so quiet and lovely, Katie is home for the day (teacher inservice or something) and the boys are in Indianapolis at the national band competition. I found there was live streaming available... for $29.00 membership, $14.95 for prelims, $19.95 for semifinals and @25.00 for finals. Ok I am not that dedicated I suppose. I am just cheap, it's true, I blow $2000.00 a year on band (per child) including spending money for food on the trips and I can't blow another $80.00 to see the competition.
Once again the trickle of information is slow... I text Philip and he texts right back then I say, "Wow! You text fast. So how is the competition? Are you doing ok? How are the other bands?" and I get "Not really :) " back. Sigh. So I will wait to interrogate until later.
Eliz has school today, struggling with a teacher who wants her to edit her paragraph but won't tell her what's wrong with it. Edit for what????? Teachers make me nuts sometimes. If the teacher won't mark up the paper and give suggestions, at least do peer editing. Elizabeth thinks the paper is fine, or she would have rewritten it herself.
So we are taking our little charge to the vet today, no not the puppy but a kitten we found in the woodpile that Greg christened "Woody". He was starving but once he got food he started purring and hasn't stopped. Hopefully we'll find a home for Woody -- somewhere else!
Greg built a gate in the back so the dog (hopefully) wouldn't get out but she's found a way, but she'll grow and won't be able to Houdini out of here after that!
Will post pics of the gate when I get back from the vet. :)
5 comments:
Next time E has trouble with an English teacher on editing something maybe Steve or Melanie can help. They seem to know how to edit well. E could just email them with the paragraph and ask for suggestions. They probably would be more than willing to help. That's what family is for.
THe problem isn't editing. It's knowing what the teacher wants. English is pretty subjective and I could turn her paper into a 15 page report, but that's not the point. It's knowing what the teacher wants them to do. A constant problem with teachers being clear. One time I sent a rubric stapled to the back of Elizabeth's papers and said, "Is this what you are talking about?" It had definate objectives as to what made an A paper, B paper, and so on. She acted like I gave her some alien instruction on assembling a toaster. And it wasn't what she wanted.
I don't know if they are editing for spelling and grammar alone, which Elizabeth did, or content, it was a Who What Where Why How paper and Elizabeth included elements of each (making an outline first) so I still don't know what the teacher is looking for. And though I love Steve his spelling is not the greatest (No offence Bro!)!!
It is supposed to be Elizabeth's work too, I try to guide but not write. It's her education, not mine. It's about discovering what your teacher wants.
When I took English in college the first thing I did was evaluate my teacher. Once,I had a lovely overweight teacher who I summed up as someone who loved food. I wrote all my papers in class. The first one was a place, so I wrote about Paris. I put a semicolon somewhere she didn't like which marked my paper down to a C. Note to self: No semicolons. The rest of my papers were about food. A compare/contrast paper compared and contrasted different kinds of cookies. A paper on three different things was on bar cookies, no bake cookies and drop cookies. Process paper was on Chocolate Chip Cookies. History with research paper was on the History of Chocolate. THat woman loved me. Looked forward to my papers. I got nothing but As after that. The next teacher liked technical writing so I went and did stuff that he would find interesting. Later, Greg took the same class and wrote technical papers on how to change a distributor on a car, and the female teacher had *no clue* what was under the hood of a car so gave him bad marks. You could have done this procedure with his paper, it was really clear and well written. So it really doesn't matter how much you know or how well you write if you don't know what the teacher wants. That's what it all boils down to. And if you don't know what the teacher wants and the teacher says, "I dont know, just edit it", you look at the paper and sigh and say, "I like it like this" and turn it in!
I do appreciate the offer though! One of my best friends here just got his PhD in English and is teaching at the college and I have taken Philip over there for guidance and enlightenment (sit quietly take notes while the man issued wisdom, it was amazing) and helped Philip get a better perspective on what he was writing about. It was Sir Isaac Newton and Dr. Rasmussen started out by telling us everything that was going on in the world at the time to better understand what kind of world Isaac Newton was living in. Philip wrote a great paper, but we both learned a lot there.
I do appreciate the help of experts but this is 6th grade... and the teacher is no expert in my opinion. If she can't take the time to read the paper and make suggestions herself, all the king's horses and all the king's men aren't going to write a paper to please her.
The reason I offered Steve is because he is published. What a publisher wants is what Steve has figured out. He even writes for several other blogs now, plus the other stuff. I think he knows what teachers and editors want. Plus Melanie helped me with a letter to the eye doctor about the screw up on my left eye, and with her help I received a phone call within a couple hours after I faxed it. Got their attention. I know you are good with writing yourself. No teacher wants to read rambling on, and as I said EDIT. That's different from just writing. Some people can write, some people can edit, and some people can do both. Hope everything worked out ok.
If only Elizabeth's teacher was as smart as a publisher! :) She is supposed to be TEACHING her how to edit... We do editing at home with stuff I assign but I show her what we are editing for. When you have no guidance it's impossible to please and if my 6th grader needs a PhD to proof her papers it's just not worth it, you know? This is a paragraph half a page long that was exactly what was asked for, so I don't think it's too long, and it doesn't ramble, just states the facts she asked them to list. If a teacher won't read the work and make suggestions, they aren't teaching. I may waste my writing skills on a letter to her but not on rewriting what Elizabeth and I both think is a good paper. I should never even SEE the stuff she writes, they should write it in class, turn it in, have the teacher go over it for editing ("More about this" "Too long" "Run-on" whatever) and then have her rewrite it in class. If teachers don't want to teach a kid to write, why do they teach English? And if I rewrite it for her, what good does that do? I do know kids who have graduated with mommy and daddy writing all their papers. And they get into college too. I just want the teacher to teach and that is where my frustration level is. I don't care if Elizabeth gets an A or a D on the paper as long as she puts out honest effort and follows direction of the teacher--but the teacher has to do her part and TEACH her what SHE is looking for. I assume (!) that the teacher has been talking about some kind of writing philosophy and is having the kids apply it in this paper. If I don't know what it is I can't help her any more than I already have. I just get so frustrated. Even in College my teachers marked up my papers to give me a heads up on what I should and should not be doing and why I got the grade I did. This teacher just doesn't want to take the time to evaluate the work of each child.
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