Regents Retching...
I spent my Sopranos-hour, as well as time in Starbucks, at my parents' dining room table, and elsewhere frantically grading midterms-- I now have two out of three classes done. However, I've come to a depressing conclusion. In helping sophomores prepare for an ELA regents-style essay, my directions have hurt their "actual" essay writing skills. These regents essays that cause them to jump around from a critical lens to two books, or from a passage to a chart to a "task," actually hurts their ability to write a clear, concise, five-paragraph essay. while they're hitting the major regents points, they;ve lost a lot of the coherence they had been building towards this fall. What they should be writing about is about two poems or one novel, or something more simple and literary. That kind of writing is a much more classic, college-oriented skill in my humble opinion. What is with all this "real-world" bullshit they stick on the test?
Perhaps I sound muddled. I'm just so frustrated by these damn exams... they remind me too much of how angry I am, of how much I care, of how biased the system remains. F*ck the regents.
On another note, this weekend was gorgeous...and fairly productive for once. I think my next locale might be in Washington Heights, at least for the summer... I have to brush up on some Spanish and be ready to jog in Ft. Tryon park instead of my lame-ass elliptical training on the upper east side! I am keeping my fingers crossed that everything works out, so I can ape the super-cool ZM and LK, the main members of my teacher crew, and spread out in some hip new digs.
*And oh, yeah finally, a former colleague of mine is doing some research for a professor at Harvard about sex-ed in the public schools. Any of you people in the teacher blogosphere/edwize readers have a copy of a sex-ed syllabus you could send her way? Let me know by posting a comment or sending me a missive. Word to your moms.
Thas it for now.
-Fellow-ette, for whom balmy weather has meant an abundance of sweet nothings whispered and/or typed into the ears of her oh-so-intelligent blog-readership.
Perhaps I sound muddled. I'm just so frustrated by these damn exams... they remind me too much of how angry I am, of how much I care, of how biased the system remains. F*ck the regents.
On another note, this weekend was gorgeous...and fairly productive for once. I think my next locale might be in Washington Heights, at least for the summer... I have to brush up on some Spanish and be ready to jog in Ft. Tryon park instead of my lame-ass elliptical training on the upper east side! I am keeping my fingers crossed that everything works out, so I can ape the super-cool ZM and LK, the main members of my teacher crew, and spread out in some hip new digs.
*And oh, yeah finally, a former colleague of mine is doing some research for a professor at Harvard about sex-ed in the public schools. Any of you people in the teacher blogosphere/edwize readers have a copy of a sex-ed syllabus you could send her way? Let me know by posting a comment or sending me a missive. Word to your moms.
Thas it for now.
-Fellow-ette, for whom balmy weather has meant an abundance of sweet nothings whispered and/or typed into the ears of her oh-so-intelligent blog-readership.
Labels: Teaching from the trenches
posted by SarahMarian at 7:47 PM
1 Comments:
A sex ed syllabus? That's a joke, right? Oh, god, I wish I had one to give you. The closest I could get is a list of the questions the kids ask in my [reading] class.
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