Student Failure

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High School English Teachers Chatboard

Student Failure

by novels648

Mar 6, 2012

At my school, students who fail an English course have to repeat that ENglish course; for example, if they fail English III, they have to repeat. They are also allowed to take the next English course, i.e. English IV. This is allowed because there are no summer sessions in our district or a nearby district. This creates some problems. Some of the students don't write essays because they have another essay due in the other English class; or, they won't write a research paper because they've already done one in the other class. Any suggestions on how to deal with this situation better? Should students be allowed to double up on English courses? In my state, a student must complete and pass all four English courses in order to graduate. I am really tired of having a student tell me he isn't going to do work I assign because he's already done it in the other class or because the way I want it done is different from the other teacher's way. Thanks for any suggestions.

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Nikki We have the same problem, and I've very rarely seen a student who does well taking more than one English class at a time. What really bothers me is when it comes time to do research papers. In our department, each level English course is required to do one research paper a year. Many students who have to repeat English have to do so because they di...See More

Mar 7, 2012

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Sam J We don't have the doubling problem at my school because students have to take the "extra" English in an online class during a school class period. My first year at my school there were 6-7 students retaking English classes this way. This year there was only 1. The online classes are harder in more than one way.

We don't summer school here,...See More

Mar 7, 2012

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Steve On 3/06/12, novels648 wrote:

Well, at least it seems that teachers should agree on a common way to do it - these are struggling students - why have them jump back and forth between differing requirements? Do we want them to learn to write or do we want them to be confused?

It would make NO sense to have students take two sequenti...See MoreOn 3/06/12, novels648 wrote:

Well, at least it seems that teachers should agree on a common way to do it - these are struggling students - why have them jump back and forth between differing requirements? Do we want them to learn to write or do we want them to be confused?

It would make NO sense to have students take two sequential English courses at once unless of course the whole thing makes no sense and I've begun to consider that. Is school a series of hoops to be jumped through? Or does our curriculum have a build to it and make some sense?

It should be about mastery and with that English III should have content information upon which English IV is dependent. If not... then why call them English III and English IV??

Also worthy of wonder is why a struggling English student is writing two essays at once? That shouldn't be. Did the student demonstrate mastery of the form that is a research paper in the other class? If not, then point that out to the student and help the student to know where they need to work further. We shouldn't be assigning research papers just for the sake of giving them work to do - unless education really is just a series of hoops to be jumped through. In that case, explain to the student that they need to jump through one more hoop...

It seems some of your students are finding what's possibly inane in our system of education.

> At my school, students who fail an English course have to > repeat that ENglish course; for example, if they fail > English III, they have to repeat. They are also allowed to > take the next English course, i.e. English IV. This is > allowed because there are no summer sessions in our > district or a nearby district. This creates some > problems. Some of the students don't write essays because > they have another essay due in the other English class; or, > they won't write a research paper because they've already > done one in the other class. Any suggestions on how to > deal with this situation better? Should students be > allowed to double up on English courses? In my state, a > student must complete and pass all four English courses in > order to graduate. I am really tired of having a student > tell me he isn't going to do work I assign because he's > already done it in the other class or because the way I > want it done is different from the other teacher's way. > Thanks for any suggestions.

Apr 4, 2012

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Brittney M. Corrigan i agree with the idea that you must pass one course to proceed onto the next. Many times the skills learned in one class prepares your for the the next classroom where those skills with be built upon. While reading your post i thought about the different between 9th grade english and 10th grade english. It was not until 10th grade english were i wr...See More

Apr 19, 2012

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