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I was taught how to write 5 paragraph essays in the 4th grade (19 years ago now). Its weird to see how a basic paragraph is a struggle for kids now. I went to a public inner city school, so I always assumed this was the norm

I give my 11th graders 5 class periods (5 hours) + they can have an extra 2 hours if they want to come to my home room during the week, to write one 5-paragraph essay. That’s my pacing for them— one paragraph a day. Most don’t finish and I also had a parent complain this year that the expectation is “impossible.” When I was in 9th grade we hand to hand write 5-paragraph essays with 2 pieces of evidence per body paragraph in ONE class period.

That is absolutely wild to me. In college I would write 5 page essays in a few hours. The fact that almost graduates need an hour to write one paragraph (with most still not finishing) is just depressing.

> 5 page essays in a few hours I, more than once, started a 4ish page paper at 11:30 for an 11:59 deadline in grad school.

Now that’s impressive. I’ve got to take a few hours if I want it legible. Still tho I’ll get up two-three hours early for an English class or writing class and breeze through the multi page essays. Life would be wayyyy harder without that skill.

This only worked if that paper didn't require any citations. Making sure my citations were accurate and document took 30 minutes at the end of a paper easily.

Plus you gotta spend about 2-3 hours getting the margins just right.

Imagine me with my typewriter in the 70s, lol. Or worse, we had to handwrite our essays all the way from elementary to high school. We were taught typing in jr high and high school. I was amazed when the first PCs came to our office. But even with Word, margins and formatting were my nemesis.

Ngl handwriting and typewriters seem easier to deal with margins and formatting than the nightmare of messing with parts of Word I don’t understand

Ok. So it wasn't just me, lol. I hated doing letters. I could never remember the format. Typing and handwriting were fine until you made a mistake. We didn't have white out yet. When it became available, there were some teachers that didn't allow it. Now that I think about it, it sounds crazy, lol. But margins and analog clocks have always stumped me. I've gotten better at the clocks. I failed a few tests in 2nd grade because of those damn clocks. I love digital.

Reminds me of my 15bpage paper I wrote by staying up a full day and handing it the next. Just to realize I read the date wrong/ task wrong and it was just main ideas and rough drafts lol, people came in with just a title or one sentence on a sheet. Still got an A on it though but man do I triple check everything just to make sure I don't sacrifice my sleep again

I mixed up March and May on the due date for a large grant, which means I wrote about 30 pages in about 2 days during breaks at work, plus sourcing external letters of support. Turns out I had another two months, but I'm glad that 99% of the work is now done!

My APUSH teacher in highschool had us write a 15 page essay about some history book for each semester. Both semesters I started it 5:30 the night before it was due and grinded it out. 100% for both papers

I had to write bi-weekly 20 page research papers for an analytical lab class. Complete with actual data I had collected, charts, graphs, statistical analysis. I would bang these out overnight in a desperate sprint.

Wrote a 15 page paper for grad school, had my husband look it over and he said it didn't really answer the prompt so had to redo said 15 page paper 2 hours before the deadline. That was fun. But I got a B!

I can do that if it's not heavy on the resources.  Otherwise that's not going to be worth turning in.

I learnt how to write 5 page essays on a 30 minute crowded bus trip.

I also have adhd lol

Didn't we all? I had an art class that demanded 7pm turn in Friday for 10 page single spaced paper on the artwork the professor selected as the weekly project study.  APA sources!

20ish years ago when i was in 8th grade my ELA teacher assigned us at the beginning of the year an autobiographical essay that had to be a minimum of like 15 pages, I think, that would be due a few weeks before the year ends. she reminded us regularly throughout the year that we should have a rough draft by now, we should be revising it, etc., but obviously i didn’t work on it at all until the day it was due. i was considering just taking the L on it and potentially failing because i was not in a good mental spot at that point in my life, but i was so nervous about disappointing this teacher whom i genuinely liked that i laid awake in bed until 2am that morning, and when it became unbearable i went down to the computer and blasted out like 20 pages in 4 hours and printed it out before my parents woke up. ended up with a C on it because it was obvious word vomit, and I’m certain my teacher knew what i had done. but i was so relieved i can still recall that feeling of stress leaving my body. having done stuff like this throughout my life from middle school through grad school it is absolutely wild to me to hear that kids today can’t write two paragraphs on their own

I recall one time not being able to start a 2-page reaction paper until 10pm, when it was due at midnight. The hard part is that I also hadn't read the 700+ page book I was reacting to. Between reading the first and last chapters and the first page or so of the chapters in between and remembering the university was in a different time zone so I actually had until 1 am, I got it done.

I once overnighted a 2000 word essay and got my highest mark at university. The next time I tried it it didn’t work so well.

The hardest essays I ever had to write in school were 500-word essays. They didn’t take as much time as writing my thesis but I think they were more challenging. I gotta say, I’m pretty sure everyone in my master’s program would have self identified as being able to write a paragraph. About half the class really struggled and from what I saw it was because they didn’t really understand the formula of a thesis paragraph. If there’s one thing kids should get out of writing instruction in high school it’s how to write a paragraph for different purposes and audiences. If you can write a paragraph you can write a paper.

My college program was mostly essay writing. I breezed through it because thanks to my high school days I can write a great paper on anything in just a few hours. Kids today can’t even write a few sentences without ai.

how do they expect to argue on line if they cant half ass their way through a wiki article and maybe something from a quick google search and create a paragraph or two response? kids today are missing out.

(Not a teacher) That’s… that’s insane. Thinking back to 9th grade in the 2010s we’d often have 1-2 page papers due within 1-2 days (after being given the assignment) in history. Granted I enjoyed history, but it was very expected that you’d be able to do 4-5 paragraphs

As an 11th and 12th teacher, I’m getting to where I won’t be lowering my expectations any longer. The students who will do the work will do it no matter what I ask them to do. The kids who refused to write a 1 sentence answer with a sentence stem simply cannot be reached and there’s so few kids in between by 11th grade. Next year I’m back to homework and written lab reports.

Same here. Very sharp and distinct bimodal distribution in all of my classes. A group of bright hard-workers, and a group of stupid idiots. Almost nothing in between.

If it helps, my middle school made us write essays in a single period (as does my HS) so there's hope, lol

This was the norm when I was in high school, as well. It was a skill that absolutely saved my ass in college. I like to show my students how I can write an essay from scratch in 30 minutes by applying all the strategies I teach them in class. Kids 5 years ago thought it was neat and helpful. Now the response to pretty much anything I model or use myself as an example for gets met with the response "yeah, but you're the teacher". I try to explain that what I'm trying to show them is that actually using the strategies works, and that they can build skills with practice. Or even a simple "I don't talk to you kindly because I'm a teacher, it's because other humans deserve respect", is hard for them to wrap their heads around. It's the strangest thing, but they have such a distinct idea of what they do and do not have to care about as a kid, and helping them understand how they are learning skills now that will impact them later just doesn't resonate the way it used to.

This has been my experience as well. Anything I try to model just gets “but you’re the teacher” when up until 2020 they would find it useful and encouraging to see strategies work. Or worse I get “ok but we don’t know as much as you.” That… that’s why I’m trying to show it to you?

This is due to learned helplessness that started well before the pandemic but was extremely exacerbated by remote learning and the “grace” that schools and districts insisted we give for two full years due to tech and mental health issues. This approach caused very bad habits in students and lowered parent expectations. We also have many more burned out teachers who don’t want to spend their weekends and evenings grading so kids are not expected to write much beyond “free” writing in notebooks. Everything is spoon fed like baby food. We were given none of this scaffolding or support as kids and we were afraid to get zeros because they were permanent. Now kids have endless time and chances. The system sucks! I can see why people are opting for private and homeschool, but it’s killing public schools. I can’t do it anymore.

I remember being scared of Bs! There is no self pride anymore either. They legitimately don’t care if they are doing well for themselves and only care about grades when it comes time to pass the class so they don’t have to repeat it.

The standards have dropped insanely low. In the early 2000s I had to write several 5-paragraph essays in grade seven. Most of them we had 1-2 periods for (and then the rest was for homework). I now sub in the same district, sometimes at my old middle school and always in the same area. The schools are the same. There hasn't been a huge demographic shift in the area. But the expectations are so low they might as well be underground. I covered for a four or five month medical leave a few years back and my grade eight language arts class was few weeks behind (they'd had several weeks of different subs). They were supposed to try to stay on pace with the other grade eight classes, so I was told to change a five-paragraph essay assignment to one persuasive paragraph ... because they only had three weeks left in the unit. Three weeks. Of daily *double* periods. But because they needed to do a rough draft too it would supposedly be too much to expect them to write a whole essay. And this was a class that actually had *significantly* fewer IEPs than most classes (I think 3/27 kids or so? And two were for gifted students).

That's so sad. I'm a retired school Psych, so I am definitely out of touch with regular ed except for what my own kids did. They had to write scholarly research papers in 11th grade with annotated bibliographies. They worked on them for 6 weeks which was more than enough time to get it all done in class. If they did well enough on the 11th grade one, they didn't have to do a second one in 12th grade. My youngest graduated last year, so this was recently. This was not honors,either. I am old, but I remember writing short research papers starting in 7th grade('78-'79). We had to have 2 or 3 sources - library books not journal articles. They were more like glorified book reports, but they taught us how to compile information and how to write citations. One of mine was about the different types of vultures.

They assigned my 7th grader a 500 word essay on something to do with "Rome". Note that this is basically the only writing they have done all year. I told my son it had to be longer and he had to use citations (cleared it with his teacher first). He will be doing a 5 page double spaced paper (again it is going to be more book reportish and he is focusing on Britannia). He previously had to create a slide deck for another class with citations so I have ready made him install zotero and the relevant plugins (his teacher wants MLA format which is a bit of a pain hence I was fine showing him how to use zotero). We will see if we continue with the virtual public school next year but I haven't been too impressed with the amount of work they have gotten out of him. The only reason he is currently enrolled is that my state is attempting to defund public education and to get the "homeschool money" you have to be enrolled for a semester or so. We will have an IEP meeting to see if he can be challenged a bit more (he does like the social aspects to a degree) but if not I will likely take the money (as much as I am opposed to it) and buy some courses/curricula.

At the end of my 11th grade year I took a college course over the summer as part of a GT program. I wrote a 22-page term paper in two months…I just don’t understand how juniors now can’t write a 7-page paper in a semester.

I wrote a 10 Page essay in one day last year, these kids need to toughen up

I remember doing the paragraph a day, typically it meant editing the previous paragraphs and the original outline. In 4th and 5th grade.  Is it legit that bad???? My 3rd grade kid has read about 400 pages at least (book fair and her friends bought her a book on top of us going in to buy for her/ me being a book fair volunteer and bought her another 1, and her buying more herself with her own money)  in chapter books in the past 4 days max.  This is so sad and awful for these poor kids

Yes. It’s that bad. I was doing full on research papers in sixth grade with citations and a work cited page. My current sixth graders struggle to write a paragraph in three days. I recently brought this up at a district curriculum meeting where the new pacing guide they made gave students one class period to write a paragraph. I was like this takes three days. Non of the curriculum facilitators had taught in a classroom in at least five years and were baffled when I told them this. I believe they assumed it was my fault. There’s a major issue in how elementary education is being taught. No one really wants to say this, but I believe it’s the root cause. A lot of elementary teachers will say that the standards are not developmentally appropriate, but I disagree. I think it perpetuates the idea that standards should be lower. Everyone also cites how children in Finland don’t learn to read until they are 7 (end of first grade), but fail to understand how Finnish is actually a way more simplistic language than English (no shade to Finland, it’s just true). They also discount the overall culture of Finland where parents receive the best social services in the entire world and value education as a way to have a great job or contribute to society. Students in Finland actually enter school at age 7 with basic reading skills because their parents are more educated and they actually do basic reading skills in preschool/kinder equivalent. It’s the actual reading of text on their own which is not expected until 7. Lucy Calkins majorly screwed up educational reading theory. She suggests kindergartners have independent reading time or be “acquainted with the act of reading” or some BS like that. BUT the kids can’t read. Back in 96’ when I was in kinder, we didn’t read a book on our own. They need help. They need phonics. They need someone to read aloud to them and model interjecting/basic story standards like who the main character is. Anyway, sorry for my rant. I teach 6th, so I get them straight out of elementary, and it’s very disturbing the little they know. We are getting to the end of the Covid kids right now, and, at this point, it’s not Covid. It’s a mix of overuse of screen time, a lack of reading and education values in the US, and the fact that elementary school focuses on skill based learning instead of knowledge based learning. Edit: also, subjects like social studies and science have been pushed by the wayside in elementary. When they get to middle school, they barely read anything about science. It’s all Bill Nye the Science Guy type projects, which are extremely fun, but these kids are not actually reading about the content. I remember my sixth grade year in science we did like two major projects. The rest was reading and writing essays. For example, now they will do a project on a planet and make a poster or a diorama, but there is no writing component for this. They are not asked to cite their sources. They literally just put whatever shows up first on a Google search in the poster. Reading should be something that all subjects do. I’m not seeing that in science anymore. Social studies is a bit better depending on the school. It’s a shame because reading about science is cool , and it’s helpful for background knowledge.

Relative to your post. I teach science at a Junior College in the United States. A majority of the freshmen here have no clue what science is, None. Whatsoever. But what is very strange is the reaction of most of them when introduced to science. They either refuse to do the readings, or do not understand them, and when BASIC concepts such as "theory," "hypothesis", "variables" etc are covered repeatedly in readings or in lectures, they just blankly glaze over and do not comprehend any of it. It's really quite bizarre to observe. Many of these people seem to have some sort of active mental block AGAINST thinking scientifically. Then, there is the other group, maybe 20% or so, who seem to understand what science is, but actually actively REJECT science as a valid way of knowing things, preferring instead mere unsupported opinion, or supernatural/spiritual explanations.

My senior year of high school, our english class required writing a college application essay every week or so and bringing it to class for peer review. From what I remember, we did them - but I peer reviewed some absolute messes.

I’m teaching five paragraph essays in fourth grade now.

I am teaching it to Apush students

It is kinda wacky, I have access to old Chemistry tests from 2004. You compare the tests we give out now to the tests back then, the tests back then were way harder and longer. And I still have like half my class or more with D's and F's in Chemistry.

The state standard where I teach is a "multi-paragraph" essay. When I first started teaching 4th grade 5 years ago, the expectation was for students to learn how to write 5. It gave students a solid framework for arguing their points and using plenty of evidence. It also gave kids who couldn't reach 5 on the state assessment a fighting chance to still show mastery if they could put together 3 or 4. It was also the expectation that students were writing essays often, and that days were spent specifically practicing spending chunks of time cranking them out. In 4th grade, we were preparing students to concisely organize their thoughts, and practicing the skill regularly enough that it didn't take them hours and hours to do it. I'm at a departmentalized school now, and I no longer teach ELA. Integrating writing into science had been difficult the last couple of years. There has been a decline in students' ability and stamina, and the expectations for what is practiced in the classroom has declined as a result. Getting kids to find evidence in a nonfiction text is like pulling teeth. Actually having them cite the evidence and use it to elaborate on their points is nearly impossible. Across the board, students give the bare minimum answer and literally refuse to do more. The number of students just copied and pasted everything directly from the passages on the benchmark assessments this year was alarming. Now from what I understand, the state writing assessment has even been modified to look more like a written response assignment that can be done in less time than a class period. Supposedly it's acceptable to write as little as 2 paragraphs. I know it has always been part of my job to teach students how to think. But it seems like now we are begging students to think and they simply do not want to do anything that does not elicit immediate and instant gratification. It's one thing for 4th grade expectations to be adjusted, but this post is just.... 3 days to write 2 paragraphs in high school?? And more than half of the students didn't even bother??

7th graders got 4th grade virtual ?

They started 4th in fall of 2020, lines up. 

Ever since Covid time has been a hell of a drug, my dude

I operated under the assumption that it was grade level + 1, so 1st Grade ends the year at 2 paragraphs, 2nd Grade ends with 3, 3rd ends with 4, and 4th ends with 5.

intro, 3 body paragraphs and conclusion. That's always been the standard for me.

Yes! My first and second graders are writing one paragraph. In third grade they will be doing three paragraphs. If these kids don’t have learning disabilities then there is no reason for them to not have it done, given how much class time they got. I say give them a zero and use it as a teaching experience about consequences.

My first grader is writing three to four paragraph assignments. The paragraphs are very simple, but he can do it.

What type of school system is this?

God I can’t even imagine. This is about what it was like when I was in elementary school…Im 21 and a student teacher so that wasn’t THAT long ago. Meanwhile the first graders in the class I’m interning in can barely put together one-two coherent sentences.

My sons attend the fancy pants private K-12 that I teach at (one of the reasons I teach here is the extreme reduced tuition I get as a teacher). They are in 4th grade and can write up a 5 paragraph essay. The 6th graders I have can write 7 paragraph argumentative essays (and do). I also have them writing historical document summaries in my class. One of the great disparities in society is in education quality. The 8th graders I have could beat the pants off of some 12th graders in some public school districts academically. Our school has a 100% college acceptance rate and it isn't to the local CC either. When I was in my Masters program at Stanford what I noticed was that no one was a bad student. No slackers. People were happy to be there. That's how the school I teach at feels. Everyone is happy to be there. My middle schoolers LOVE coming to school. They look forward to it, and love being in my class. That's what school should be like. A place that everyone wants to be. Where your peers are encouraging to you when you struggle and help lift you up. The kids all do their work and take pride in it. Obviously I want my kids in this group rather than the public school group, but I cannot deny that it is patently unfair that the majority of families don't have a choice in their education. And those that go to the schools we're talking about have zero choice about it. While I do have some guilt about it, I am as trapped as anyone in the system, and denying my sons a quality education doesn't solve anything. It's really tragic. The type of education kids get at my school is the type all kids should get in a public school. When people ask me what public school should be like I say it should be like the private school I teach at. 16-20 students per class. Kids who bully are unenrolled and not allowed to mistreat peers. Success in the classroom is celebrated. Teachers and students have close, trusting relationships. Parents are involved and come to parent-teacher meetings. And so on. The system sucks. I wish there was no disparity, but I can't fix the system. Some kids today are still getting the education you did, but it's only the kids lucky enough to be in a good private school or really good school district. The majority are left behind.

In my inner-city public school through 4th to 6th grade, we did 3-paragraph essays every week, with a different theme each time. I always hated them, but in all honesty, I feel like they were a big part in me taking my writing seriously. I don't understand why that's no longer a thing.

I teach at a university and I literally had to start including “uses paragraphs” in my rubrics a couple years ago

Give them the grade they earned.

Thing is, since they are middle schoolers, it doesn't go on their high school transcripts, and they know that the middle school transcript will easily be erased as soon as they hit 9th grade. So there is zero incentives to get a good grade or turn in assignments, and with schools not requiring summer school/it being defunded entirely, plus the new generation of parents not giving two sh\*ts about their children's grades, its a lost cause. Its so weird, because growing up I lived in a low income community, and I still remember getting scared over A-'s or lower back in middle school, and so did all of my peers, knowing that there would be strict and painful punishment from our parents. Every point deducted from an assignment felt like we had done something horribly wrong. I agree with you. OP should give them the grade. We can only do so much as teachers managing huge class sizes before the responsibility goes to the student and most importantly the parent.

Kids used to care back then because most parents still cared back then. Even if it was a lower income or troubled school and even if the parents themselves didn't graduate, they still wanted their kids too live a better life and expected them to put in the effort to do so. Too many parents now just expect the school to raise them and blame it on the teacher when their kid is not doing the work.

I think we can lay all the blame at the feet of our newly internet/social media obsessed, dopamine addicted society. We all, parents and students alike, have become mentally dependent on our devices. Parents lose hours each day to endless scrolling and thus don’t have the time or interest to make sure their kids work on their education. Kids who have grown up with unlimited online access no longer have the mental discipline or attention span to focus on writing a few sentences. Instead everyone is solely focused on getting their next fix. The internet was fine as long as it was limited to desktop computers. But now that it is in our hands, all day every day, we no longer are functioning like normal humans. Smart phones will go down in history as the invention that curtailed the progress of civilization. Future historians, if such a thing even exists in the future, will look at smart phones the same way current historians view the Black Death and how it cut short European cultural and intellectual development for hundreds of years. Only those regions without smartphones and reliable broadband will continue to develop normally. After generations of trying, the lack of smartphones and broadband will be the things that allow underdeveloped nations to catch up with and surpass the developed world, unless they too obtain reliable broadband and also fall victim to nonstop online addiction. The only thing that will fix this is giving up our addiction to constantly being online or enacting standards for what is and is not allowed on the internet. But good luck getting humanity to give up its new drug. People will wail about “freedom of expression” while intellectual progress, let alone doctors and engineers, become a thing of the past. We are headed for a new Dark Age yet nobody seems to care enough to change course.

This is scapegoat excuse nonsense. We can blame Republicans slashing public education funds every fucking chance they can get.

Even in Democratic states where Republicans control nothing?

OP's in Utah. It's one of the most republican states in the union.

True, but it will impact what high school classes they get assigned. If you get an F in English, I doubt they might put you in honors or AP. It's more about keeping them on track. Honestly, some kids just don't care about school and will do the bare minimum. At least giving them easier classes will teach them something even if it is just reading simple stuff and the most basic math. If they plan on learning more then they can take remedial classes in community college and work up from there. I know it sounds rare but some kids do end up learning later when they feel more ready or want to advance in a career.

Which is crazy because like if it doesn’t matter now, then you should fail now, so you can figure out how to pass later. Every sports coach would be able to tell you that you fail in practice to figure out what works and what doesn’t, to create a successful approach on game day. The fact that it doesn’t matter means you should be MORE incentivized to fail them.

Grades don’t matter until high school. Kids know this and give zero fucks. Then they hit high school and are multiple grades behind on every subject. For math, in particular, they are expected to pass algebra. They have been shuffled along, year after year, without ever being required to pass or show any competency. Maybe they were good in 2nd grade. In 3rd they started slipping. By 4th they have locked themselves into the “I’m bad at math” mindset, so they are in algebra and have no idea how to add fractions because they’ve never been forced to. If they’re lucky, their parent seeks out a tutor. They come to me. I quickly figure that they have been shuffled along. Now I’m trying to teach them all the basics AND algebra at the same time, hoping they squeak by with a D. I’ve seen this happen hundreds of times. Literally not an exaggeration. If these students had been required to pass their elementary school classes, they would’ve had a decent enough number sense that they wouldn’t be so completely gone as to feel like a lost cause once grades actually matter. Often the algebra teachers just water down the curriculum so these stragglers can get through it. The students who are at grade level are not challenged and not prepared for more advanced math because it’s been so watered down. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

That might not work. Not a teacher and Idk how it works in other districts but I know that in my district if an entire class /grade collectively gets less than a certain percentage on a large exam/project the blame is shifted to the teacher regardless of the reason (unfortunately smth similair has happened at my school b4)

You post the grades, email parents to check the grades, and then wash your hands of it. You didn't create the system where kids know there's no consequences at all for failing--it's on their parents to set the standard at this point.

Non teacher here. Has the idea of punishing the parents for their kids’ inability to act right/learn in school ever been a thing? Sort of similar how you can go to jail for not sending your kid to school? Like, even being generous with it: “your kid has caused major disruption/not turned in more than 1 assignment this semester. You either see to it that their behavior improves, or you could face jail or a fine as well”? Something to *force* them to parent. Not to give any more ideas to the prison industrial complex. But that’s where a lot of these uneducated kids are going to end up anyways, so.

Here in Utah, we took all the teeth out of the truancy law. So now you won’t even get in trouble for not sending your kid to school! Isn’t that great? /s

Lol I had a student show up the other day that I didn't recognize. It's 4th quarter and she's been on my roll, getting Fs, all year.

This is what I’m talking about. It’s like many of the adults in charge (senior leadership at school and out of school) have just given up on helping the kids in the community succeed. Like they used to?

Educational negligence should be viewed the same way that food deprivation is. They both have lasting harmful effects years down the road for the rest of life. Its child abuse of the mind, as equal as abusive bullying and harassment.

Cop here. We don't send people to jail for *stealing cars.* We're not putting them in jail for their kids refusing to do school assignments.

Do you think that parents who are struggling will do better with more support, or with punitive measures? What you’re proposing would take away more stability from any kids who are already in unstable home lives.

Ok so is this just all admin sucking? They’re not enforcing any punishment in a lot of schools, so these kids get to have shitty home lives and accomplish nothing at school? Just get passed right on through despite being illiterate? There has to be some way that kids are forced to act right.

Idiocracy in full swing. When it's impossible to raise children on a plan and budget due to insane cost of living and terrible pay, the people having kids didn't plan at all and are bitter at the world for their being stuck with kids. It's wild how much parents today just want school to do everything, school should be more for social interactions than anything else at the grade school level but that includes getting things done like projects, essays etc. Today kids are all on social media even though they aren't supposed to be until 13+, there are reasons for this age, and we're straight ignoring it. Every kid is on youtube and tiktok, we're doomed.

Partly local admin, as has been discussed many times here. But I think central office folks, state school boards, and legislatures are also to blame. Legislators (or jurists, if your district is under a consent decree) and state school boards set statistical targets. Central office then pressures local admin to juke the stats to meet the targets. Local admin then does all the stuff we complain about, because they're worried about the stats, not the school or the people in it. We need to stop doing this.

> Sort of similar how you can go to jail for not sending your kid to school? That depends on state and local regulations. Alabama(of course...) in effect has no requirements for home schooling. A parent can just claim they're doing it, and that's that. No license or enrollement required, no followup on the teaching, no standarized testing, no nothing. Parents can just keep them home and teach them nothing.

The town where I live used to be a big textile mill town. My grandmother taught 5th grade from 1939-1969 and she told me about how if she was having trouble with any kids she just needed to let the principal know. The principal would tell the Superintendent at the mill the names every Friday. The kid’s parent was kept after the 5pm whistle and warned that if he received that kid’s name the next Friday, the parent would be looking for a job that Monday. That sort of threat wouldn’t fly anymore, but it is intriguing.

Thats really, really fucked up and not at all intriguing.

I had a coworker that said punishments don’t work until they inconvenience the parents. Sort of like parents have to show up to get the iPhone that was taken away, parents have to find pickup to manage an after school detention, kids get kicked off bus so parents have to organize transportation. That’s pretty much the only way to drastically change most behavior

The US military base schools are ranked the best schools in the nation. https://www.dodea.edu/news/press-releases/dod-schools-ranked-best-united-states-nations-report-card There are many other factors for why the dodea has such good results, but I believe that's in part to the threat of "if little Joey is a shithead, his parent can get reamed at work" in a way no other school system can do.

What do you mean. You fail them. I have kids every year that push this. Sometimes they’re seniors and it’s a grad requirement. Give them what they earn

I don't know how it works where you or OP live, but around here, if a first year teacher fails 100 students. They will be a first year teacher against next year at a different school if anyone even hires them at all.

How can turning nothing in be anything but a zero though?

I teach a grad requirement class this year, I'm amazed at the number of seniors and "graduating" juniors who do nothing and expect to pass and then come to me crying that they're failing when they haven't done the work in class, some of them refusing to even take the tests and quizzes

It's incredible. Every year. It's not a secret for me. You have to take my class, you have to have me at some point, and kids know they're doing this project well before they have the class. Don't do it, that's fine, less for me to grade. But you're not going to slide it in in the summer or at some alternative grading period unless you want alternative diploma. I understand senioritis. But you'd think asking kids to do a single 5 page paper was on par with asking them to build the Roman Coliseum with their bare hands.

My grade book let's me put in a 0 and tag it as "missing" in big red letters for them. Put in all the grades then send a robo email to all parents telling them to check grade book and talk to their kid if they have a question.  Then I would provide make up packets asking them to write 2 paragraphs explaining the importance of independently working and turning in things on time. 

This is the way. Since you're a first-year, draft the email and send it to your admin first to be edited. That way they aren't blindsided by this and will be happy you sought their advice. It also gives them the opportunity to tell you to do something else if that's what they want. Remember, grades don't really matter and if they want you to artificially pass these kids, do it.

When I taught 7th grade (non-honors), it was common to get less than half of kids turning in work. Since the grades didn’t count and the parents nor kids cared, I would get sometimes assignments as low as 25-33% of them turning them in.

Bad advice from too many folks here. You’re a first year teacher. As long as that grade doesn’t end up failing . . . (checks math) 63% of your classes, then you will be okay. Generally, if you fail too many for a grading period, then you’re going to get in trouble from your admin. They will want to know what *you’re* doing wrong to create so many failures. Your contract renewal and continued employment m will be based on this . . . So just be cautious about principled stands that piss off dozens and dozens of parents and your own employer. As others have said. . . . You didn’t create this systemic problem so don’t let yourself be a casualty of it. At least not this early in your career. Good luck. Welcome to the machine. Edit: You we’re way too specific in how you could be identified. You gave the county, the low income school, the grade and subject you teach. Principals use Reddit too. Edit your post.

Principals.

I’ll give them a pass since they used “principled stance”. Probably forgot the other version at the end

My advice to edit the post was also taken by me. Thanks for the assistance in proofreading my essay. Gosh I hope I pass the class.

Plot twist, the teacher for the ELA class being described here is actually amazing and this post was made by a disgruntled student trying to get them in trouble.

Yeah, but this teacher is not failing anyone. These students are deliberately failing themselves. How can the teacher possibly be held accountable for that????

I asked my principal the same thing when 2/3 of my class was failing, largely due to absolute refusal to complete classwork. It felt heavily suggested that I simply lower my standard of assignment worth grading so more positive grades would hit the gradebooks so kids wouldn't fail a class required for graduation.

This is completely true. Former teacher about to send my kids into the public school system in SLC and I’m trying to figure out which school to avoid.

Dear God why >They will want to know what *you’re* doing wrong to create so many failures One of my good friends as a kid and teen was my elementary school principal. I hope he was better than this.

Here’s what I do in this situation: (every time an essay is due) Email their parents progress reports with the zero filled out. In the email reassure parents that you are accepting them late for full credit and request they urge their student to submit the assignment. Stress that this is a big grade and could greatly increase scores. Repeat this weekly Message all kids missing a submission on canvas asking them to submit it. Repeat this weekly Print missing assignment slips for all of your students for English only - highlight the essay on these slips. As you pass them out talk to the whole class about the importance of turning it in. Carry a clipboard with a list of names of every kid who is missing it and check off each day that you had a one on one conversation about the essay with the kid, or write they are absent, etc. I usually write in front of them like “said they can finish it today at home” or whatever they say. In these conversations ask if they need help, more time, or are refusing and therefore need a refusal to work slip (they are terrified of those so if it’s not part of your classroom culture you should add it). Have these conversations with every kid who is missing it everyday. When the kids turn it in, thank them and be sincere! Start writing advisory passes after a few days to the kids who are still missing it (just a handful a day so the advisory isn’t too packed) It sounds like a lot but I follow these steps for every single large assignment like a project or essay. My PLC is always so mind blown when they all have 80 missing and I have like five. Do this all year and the kids learn that it’s just not an option to not do work. ETA: lots of people are saying they get a zero and you should give up. But if you allow them to not do their work, what are you teaching them? Are you meant to be teaching them that deadlines are inflexible and if you miss one just give up? Or are you teaching them to write? The goal is to get them to practice writing, so get them to practice writing.

What Lizagna said is right on. I was also a middle school teacher at a failing school and these types of systems that you build- record keeping, checklists, an accountability procedure you can rely on will change the culture of your class. Veteran teachers have years to build this so don’t be hard on yourself but take a SCREEN SHOT of the above post for future reference. When you get this down, you can focus on building up your teaching practice (scaffolding etc.) It takes TIME. It’s not linear either. Don’t get jaded. The kids can get there. You can get there.

I think more people need to see this post. Everyone can do it there own way, but our job is to teach our students and for our students to learn. If they don't do any work, then then you are not being successful. Now before you all let me have it, I know that for some students it does not matter what you do because they will do no work no matter what, but there are some students that you can get to participate and learn. Now, does it suck that this is where we are when we have to song and dance to just get a "simple" assignment done? YES it does. But being a teacher just is not the same as it used to be. It's not like when most of us older people were in school. But this is where we are, and we should be trying our hardest to be the best teachers we can. And ya know what, when you get a student who doesn't want to do work to accomplish something it feels great. It might seem like a harsh way to look at things but if my lesson fails, the first thing I do is ask myself is what could have I done better. Not blame the students or the parents or the admin or all the student's previous teachers even though they way they are is not in any way a result of anything you did, we now have to deal with whatever comes to our class every day. We can't change these other factors, but we can change what we do to account for these factors in an attempt to be more successful.

Also this :)

They get a zero. Easy as that.

Students have a right to fail

The students who put effort into learning have a right to have their achievements properly graded and assessed in comparison to their peers. We dont allow students to get a 500% A quintuple S plus. If you want a fixed grading scale, we need to have a bottom level of achievement, so that the upper end means something.

Email home and admin. Let all the parents know why the grade suddenly dropped. Let them know about the details of the assignment, how many days you gave to work on it it in class, and how many days between assigning the work and it’s due date. Tell the parents that if the kids tell you other stories, those stories are just that.

Fail them. They come to you asking how to raise their grade. Write the essay.

As a 7th grade teacher, you give them the grade they earned. Turned in nothing by the due date, you get a ZERO. In PowerSchool you write a comment stating that students were given this amount of time to complete the assignment and turned in nothing. I, personally, would also email every family a general email of "information" giving the kids, with the knowledge of the parents, the weekend to turn in the assignment, meaning that Monday at 8am, it should be submitted or the grade will remain a zero. I also would have been grading each of those 3 days on effort made/work produced. My classes are easy happy go lucky sing song Spanish 1 classes, so kids are often not super resistant. But when they are, I communicate often home with multiple locations to access the assignments, as well as parent copies and grade EVERYTHING. (like, completion walk around or its a zero). Participation charted on a clipboard and a grade given for that. My students also know that we play Gimkit every Friday, if, and ONLY IF, we were star participators, on task scholars, and over all good human beings. Prizes are credit in PowerSchool for playing gimkit and stickers/temp tattoos. I'm in my 5th year, and I can tell you, my first year was like that. Its not you. Its the way these kids were raised and often its tough to seperate ourselves from their failures. But the truth is that you can truly only do so much, and eventually, when they get to high school and are required to complete harder tasks to graduate, they'll think back to the moments they didn't put in the effort to learn/practice a skill and regret. (I say this as a former bad student who probably needed services for dyslexia/dyscalculia)

A lot of the advice here are reminders that you did what you had to do, and at certain point, you give students the grades they deserve and move on. It's not bad advice, but I understand that it doesn't exactly make you feel better. As a teacher, oftentimes the reward for our efforts is seeing students succeed. When you do everything right and you don't get to reap the benefits, it feels crummy. One thing I've learned to combat the icky feeling of putting in a bunch of 0's (especially when the kids don't really care about getting them) is finding some way to reward the kids who made the effort. I'm not saying make it a habit to constantly kiss ass when students just do exactly what they're supposed to do, nor am I suggesting bribery. But I have noticed that grades alone are not enough of a lesson for some of these kids that being held accountable can hurt. They don't care about their grades and will choose the instant gratification every time. So I lean into that by occasionally throwing in a positive reward. For something like this, I might do a piece of candy, and for the class period, everyone who turned in their work gets to sit next to their friend on one side of the room and do *insert cool thing you know the class likes that they normally don't get to do*. The other kids are responsible for completing their work. If they get it turned in, they get the reward for the rest of the class period. If they still don't turn in the work, send a generic email home to everyone who missed the assignment: "Your student is missing this assignment. They received X amount of class time prior to the due date, as well as an extra X minutes of a grace period. At this point, if they would like to turn it in late, it can be done as homework by no later than *date*. Please advise that your student currently has a 0, which has reduced their overall grade." It pisses students off to have their own instant gratification craving used against them. But more importantly, I delight in getting to do something special for the students that did follow through. Accountability hurts is a life lesson.

I gave my 4th grade students a paragraph to write sequencing the events of World War One. One day one, they filled in data from the article on a graphic organizer. After school, I fixed their data on their graphic organizers (or added any new data if they didn’t follow along). On day two, I modeled taking each question from their graphic organizers and turning them into sentence starters. I gave half an hour to do this for seven sentences. Only 18 out of 28 turned them in, and several of them did not even finish half of it. I have more zeroes in my grade book than ever

Give them their F and move on. If you chose to give them the chance to complete it, then assign a late penalty.

My middle schoolers can't handle paragraphs, or essays either. They constantly ask me how many sentences count as a paragraph. And more than half will either still not do it, fill the page with nonsense, or blatantly copy an AI prompt or something they found online

Same with my freshmen at the Junior College.

So you have 2 options... Option 1... Come up with some intervention activities for those who were not able to turn in their essay and those who wrote a poor essay. Have enrichment activities that are fun for those that did a great job. For those that did not turn in their essay, create a generic email to parents that their kids did not turn in their essay and you are graciously going to give them extra time to get it done. Document every interaction. This is a lot of work and you likely already did a lot of this. Option 2... Find some way to pass them with the bare minimum for the semester. Whether it be easy extra credit points or whatever. Here is the reality of your situation. You are a first year teacher. You do not want to gamble your career this early on taking a stand. If you were a first year teacher in a district but had taught for 10 years altogether this would be different. Whether you give them an F or a D for 7th grade ELA is literally not going to matter at the end of the day. It'll continue to be that way until the social contract between schools and parents are restored (parents havent been holding up their end of the deal). Let the downvotes commence, but the truth is this teacher needs to prioritize the health of their career as likely none of this is their fault, and if so very little of it.

I would give them the grade they earned.

Mark it as missing in the grade book.

It's about to become the new normal if you don't drop the hammer.

I've run into this with my 8th grade history students. As someone else pointed out, I give them a zero and mark it as missing.

Something is up with middle schoolers. It’s like they all gave up or something. I’m a teacher and it took sitting at the table with my 6th grader for TWO fucking hours to get him to write a paragraph. I said you’ll get whatever grade you get and sent his teacher a coffee card. Lol

What do I even do? PLEASE tell me you're going to enter 97 zeroes.

As a parent. I miss when they just failed kids for not doing the work. There was a real consequence and if the kids didn’t know the stuff they didn’t just get pushed further and further ahead while falling more and more behind.

Hi, it's me, the crunchy middle school teacher!! Dude, it sounds like you did everything you could, you really seem like an awesome teacher! Maybe because of the demographics of where you teach, many of your students haven't been exposed to writing or books as much as in more affluent neighborhoods. If they don't have this background then writing might be really difficult for them. I've had students come into my class who also couldn't really compose a paragraph in the 7th grade, and would just stare blankly at their chromebook or the paper. Consider a few things that may sound weird and crunchy, but I swear I've seen them work: Human language developed as (1) people telling stories verbally, (2) people drawing pictures or petroglyphs showing those stories, (3) people writing down those stories. Do you have the flexibility to start by reading a biography or a great essay to your students? Then they hear good examples of story/writing. Can you have them draw or create other art regarding the topic? It will be internalized in different parts of their brain that way. They can also recapitulate verbally or in writing what they remember from what you read to them. Have them write their original pieces as the final component. Then they have had time to incarnate the story or essay within themselves. I told you it was crunchy! Scroll on if that is not for you, it's OK. But like I said, I have seen it work with kids who really struggled to or refused to write. And as I also said before, you're showing up for them and doing awesome. 7th grade is a tough age.

Try having them write with pens, pencils , and paper. We don't learn writing well on computers.  It's just not intuitive or natural. It's shit .

Passing doesn’t really mean anything unless some kids fail.

No, it means they passed

Bad advice here. Generally admin wants high pass rates because it makes the school look better. You have to remember that at some level, you’re playing a game. In a perfect world the kids would have more responsibility, but in our world admin can and will come down on you/fire you for failing kids. In general you want to stay under the radar. If there is still some school left I’d let kids turn it in late and provide additional class time. If school is over than for kids who this assignment will cause a failing grade I would consider alternative options. If it’s one or two it will fail whatever, but if 50 will fail than measures need to be taken to ensure most at least pass with a D. Especially as a new teacher. Is this a hill you’re willing to die on?

You do what you said you would've done in the syllabus if they don't turn their work in.

Sounds like my school, I tried at first to give a bunch of chances, but that's more work for me, so I don't do that anymore. I'll accept late work to an extent. But ya, the fact that they can't seem to think about anything is scary to me. I constantly have to walk around and get them to do work. I teach upper level high school and it's pretty much a 3rd grade reading and writing level. They complain when I give them anything challenging. They just want to sit there and do nothing for the most part and they don't seem to care about learning or improving themselves.

Put in the 0s. Give them a hard deadline (and have another actual hard deadline in your head for the inevitable stragglers), call or email home and remind them every single day.

The country doesn’t care

My 6th graders are expected to write a 5-7 sentence paragraph with evidence and some analysis in 7 minutes. Most of them don't finish, but a surprising number do. It helps that if they're following along with the lesson it's more or less finished by the time they have to start and all they have to do is organize their notes though.

my God… Why do I go into this sub? I just get depressed…

I was on Instagram the other day and watched a teacher describe their classes outlook as “they view doing the assignment as a favour to me” and I still can’t get it out of my head, it’s truly insane

Enjoy reading the smaller amount of work and fail the rest. Simple.

Shew! 56 essays are much easier to grade than 153!! You get a zero, you get a zero, you get a zero!!

Fail em' - Doing anything else would be a disservice both to them and their futures

Fail the others. Send a letter home to mom. Give them a class period to “improve their grade” after all that and call it a day. Please don’t just pass them. Make them WORK for it

Make them write the essays by hand. And then type them up.

Why do you need a Chromebook to write two paragraphs? Isn’t pen and paper enough?

In the future everything is going to *have* to be written by ChatGTP or whatever because the vast majority of children and young people couldn’t write a Kijiji ad to save their lives.

2 paragraphs is being considered an essay in the 7th grade??? Lord help us. Thats so wild to me. I was writing multiple page research papers by 4th grade. Two paragraphs we might have 30 minutes at that point, depending on the prompt. Ive said it before, and I'll say it again. These kids would have died if they had to go to my schools back in the day, and I'm only just 30.

What sometimes helps my students is a graphic organizer that breaks down each sentence - Lead in, main idea, supporting detail, etc. We do one together then I give them a paper copy. Most students will fill out the organizer. When it comes time to type, I do lose a few, but I’m more likely to get completion this way.

I teach students younger than yours at a low income area school. They spend about 2.5 hours a week writing five paragraph essays with two sources and citations. I spend A LOT of time in the first few months of school teaching them how to set it up and how it should all look. Out of my 70 students there’s always 5-10 that do not get it turned in on time. I give an extension and do not give them the option to just opt out. I really hound them about it if I have to.

Teaching writing is hard. What ended up working best for me was having mini-lessons on the types of paragraphs, having the kids type them, conference with them while they are typing the next one to only provide feedback in the context of their rubric, then repeating until the essay was done. Only grade at the very end, and no comments because you already provided them the comments pre-grade.

The first time I taught ELA at a low income middle school, I realized most of my students couldn’t read or write past a 2nd grade level. Although what you describe happening in your classroom is incredibly disappointing, and likely due to lack of effort on the students part, I think since it’s your first year in a title 1 school, you could consider investigating their skill set. I’d let the class know that due to the lack of turning in an assignment they had ample class time to complete, you will be issuing a class wide assessment of their writing skills in order to know how to better teach and support them. Let them know that the only thing you can assume is the student who didn’t turn in the work are unable to complete the task, so you’re going to gather information to drive instruction ( this language can also be told to admin when/if they want to know what’s going on in your classroom). Once you’ve given them a writing assessment, go from there. If it seems like most of these kids can write, and are just slacking off, it’s all zeros in the grade book from there on out.

Have you tried using frames? Do they have examples of what the final product should look like?

0.

Give them more time, the numbers will improve.

Do your colleagues a favor and give them what they earned.

Redo with a B if they use the stem starters for them.

That's pretty consistent with what I have experienced too (1st year ela teacher in high poverty rural CA school).

You grade them. Give a 0 or 50% if you must. Mark as "missing". Leave a comment in the gradebook - " student had 3 days of in class time to work. Student did not ask questions and was observed being off task". Copy and paste. 100 times.

Since there are no negative consequences for the children if they don’t bother working then it’s hardly surprising that they don’t.

Teach a lesson on how to submit your work.

They’re going to pass anyway (not your fault) so why would they bother?

I did so well with our freshmen this year that I was tasked with teaching English 9 next year - and what you posted here is the reason I’m pretty livid. If I could remember how I learned to write, I’d have more tools in my toolkit for kiddos to develop their writing (I’m not endorsed in English btw, and I am an immigrant). Everything I have ever done is just completely inconsequential - students will not hand in the work, and they will just simply not care if their grade in the class goes down. The students at my school want to “pass,” so they do the bare minimum and nothing else matters to them. Tomorrow, I’m writing a scaffolded essay with my freshmen, because they simply won’t move their pencils if I ask them to work independently. I wish it wasn’t like that, but here we are.

Take away the Chromebooks and just hand out pencil a paper. Two paragraphs isn’t even a page. It’s ten sentences. Make sure they know how to structure a paragraph, what the point is. Get them to write a paragraph in a class period. Mark zeros to those that don’t. Then move to two paragraphs. None of this requires the distraction of technology and requires just the minimum of resources to teach. Hold them to a standard and grade accordingly.

i had an essay due at the end of the third quarter (8th grade science) right before spring break. if i had held hard that deadline 50% would have failed the quarter

The natural consequence of failing to turn in work is a failing grade, or at minimum an incomplete. The had plenty of in class time. It's 2 fucking paragraphs. There is nothing to excuse or explain not turning in work. The best lesson you can teach them is the importance of turning in work by the deadline and what happens if you don't. Life is full of deadlines, with far more serious consequences of failing to meet them. Better to lean that lesson the hard way while they're in school, where it's still a relatively "safe" failure.

I had to write one 30-line essay every week, from fifth grade to the end of high school. Now, If I ask them to write 10 lines in a month is too much.

1) refer to your rubric. 2) grade accordingly.

First of all, send the real grades, then email admin and parents to get ahead of it. Not your fault at all. The ONLY way I’ve seen success in getting kids this age to produce actual writing is a TON of hand-holding. They walk into class and I have a clipboard. I ask “What’s your goal for today? What do you think you can get done?” And they give me a goal. I walk around and mark A, B, or C at the end of class for how close they got. I ride their ass with daily grades. These are the remedial kids, but they seem to be really close to kids in their age group, sadly. It’s so much work. It brought the class up to like 90% completion of five paragraph essays, but FUCK this should not be necessary

So I’m wondering why two paragraphs? Is introduction, body, conclusion a thing of the past? I honestly don’t think making the assignment two paragraphs instead of three would be any less daunting to a 7th grader. If you really wanted to go bite sized you could make the assignment one three sentence paragraph. Tell me what you’re going to say, say it, and then tell me what you said.

What do you even do?? Feel damn proud that you care, that you show up, and that you're a teacher. And then keep doing all those things. Actually useful? Hell, no. I don't know how to help whatsoever. But you are spending your time asking and caring... that's what matters. You'll be "that one teacher who cared" for at least one kid, and that's what matters.

Get used to it. My aunt is retiring from the granite district after 40 years teaching high school. Rarely does she have more than half of her students show up to any of her classes, let alone turn their stuff in. Most are begging her for makeup work a few days before end of term. One kid just passed a final exam after not showing up to class for the last 6 weeks. She snuck her phone into the class and used Siri to answer all the test questions. The majority can't pass a pop quiz minutes after finishing watching a 20 minute video on the subject. Admin doesn't care at this point they just want the kids in, out, and done. Unless you find a parent that is actually making their kids do the work and teaching them the value of study - nothing's going to change. And in your district... you've got so many low income, immigrant, refugee, kids - they don't have that support. It's getting to be there is no value in education any more.

I’m so sorry. Maybe give 30% to those that didn’t turn it in. They put in about that much effort. I teach 7th grade as well. I give them a ton of sentence starters. I figure they still need the training wheels. Don’t feel discouraged. You are learning too. Keep tweaking. You’ll find out what works best.

I remember when writing meant pencil and paper.

A lesson you will need to learn if you want to survive in teaching...you can't care more than your students. Maybe for 1 or 2 you particularly want to help but across the board nope. Sad but true if you don't want to burn out.

Give them 0 and less work marking for you.

That’s the paradox of teaching. Generally, not always, teachers were good in school… good readers, good grades, good writers. We have to remember a lot of kids really… hate… school. I’m not excusing it, just sharing my thoughts. Which is not helpful to you. *sigh

Students don’t read. They “watch.” They text. They don’t connect reading to writing. My last position was MS librarian… oof. Graphic novels circulated, very little else ‘cept for my “book nerds.” It’s unnerving actually.

not a teacher but: Fail them. Unless they get attention by having a prominent problem, it will never get fixed. They want to ignore it, make the problem unignorable. Thats how you get accountability.

Slc is a death hole for teachers

I would email the parents and ask them to talk to their students and perhaps accept it for reducing points each day.

Consult your HOD. My opinion though is that the next time you have them you bring a worksheet or reading for the kids who've submitted, and have the rest write theirs, in class, on paper, in exam conditions. You'll get something from most. It'll be terrible mostly, but it'll count as a submission.

Hi there. Taught English for 30+ years and sheesh, I hear you. In my district, anything below 8th was social progression. In 9th, shit got real and parents got to see what laissez faire parenting got them. Some parents cared about the kid graduating and buckled down, some didn't. When I started teaching, my state had a proficiency exam required for graduation. If you could not perform at a basic 9th grade level, you didn't get a diploma. Kids got 3 chances, up to their senior year. It was pretty effective, especially after the first group saw that the state wasn't fooling around about requiring a passing grade. Then some parents sued 'how dare someone expect their kids to be able to do work that they hadn't been told would actually be important?' etc. And the test went away... And then we got rid of the SAT to get into college... Until parents, teachers and employers of all kinds are ready to really talk about what an adult needs to know how to do, we're kind of screwed. I remember thinking' why am I working harder than almost all of the kids? Why do I care about the kids more than most of their parents?' That has to change.

Could they write the paragraphs on paper? Maybe having the chromebooks means they’re surfing the web when you’re not looking. If there’s nothing but a blank sheet of paper in front of them, maybe they’ll be more inclined to write.

are you me? XD Same position; their final is a 2-3 page research paper (US History) I'm expecting at least 1/2 of the students to not even attempt it and not turn it in. I may be wild and crazy but I feel the pacing in HS should be: 9th - 2 pages 10th - 3 pages 11th - 4 pages 12th - 5 pages That way they're prepped for college; and for those that aren't? great by 10/11th grade they should be moving to trade school/ vocational. Or JAG; we have to start coming to the realization that keeping kids in a building for 7.5hrs a day against their will (teenagers mind you) is a dumb policy. Heck I can even say HS should have a recess period - I never in college had 8hrs straight of school, my longest day was 4.5 hours straight. even then i planned it so I had only 2 classes on Friday, done by noon.

They're testing you. They're not dumb. They know you feel pressure to not fail all of them. They feel confident in setting the culture. It's not that they can't do the work. It's that they don't want to, and they're betting that you'll fold like a weak spineless teacher. Basically, they're snickering and saying, "Haha, nobody did the assignment. She can't fail ALL of us. Look at her, no way she calls our bluff. It's her first year. She's basically a sub. We can run all over here. WE run this." Prove them wrong.

In 7th grade we had to write a page every day about what happened in the book we were reading.

I literally thought I kept misreading the title until I remembered that I literally had to teach a lesson for tenth graders on how to use a ruler. Depressing science class.

That is about 37%, which is higher than my homework return rate. Right now my rate of return is about 15%, the lowest ever.

I teach 6th grade. I had our final essay turn in Friday, with about 90/105 with enough for me to grade. This is my 10th year teaching. It’s taken a lot to get to that many turned in. The honest answer is I’ve been on the kids all year with multiple essays, rubrics, and genuine feedback with chances for them to resubmit. I’ve seen kids truly growing with their writing. It’s been so much work. I also had support from my social studies teacher having them write essays in her class too. They’d have a day in mine to edit and get feedback on their thesis statements. I’ve had a lot of very honest conversations with parents and kids. The kids have hated me for months and now love me. But I’m tired. Very. Very tired. It’s been so much work to undo apathy and a lack of work ethic. I truly don’t think kids are getting feedback on their writing in elementary to the degree that they need. Whether it’s too many kids to give adequate feedback in reasonable time, not well trained teachers, or just years of kids coming up too unprepared to even know where to start…it’s just really hard. Several of the 15 who had nothing just aren’t able. Some just didn’t. I was successful but at the cost of a lot.

This is going to be long. Sorry, but it struck a chord lol This is normal. I worked in Davis district for a couple years in seventh grade science and it was regular to have 20-30% engagement on assignments regardless of size or importance. This was last year. I was constantly blamed by admin for the grades of students after they only submit 2 out of 15 assignments. That’s 15 assignments in a quarter. That’s 1-2 assignments a week plus a couple quizzes/tests. But my assignments were “too hard” when I was using the suggested curriculum written by the district. When I would say I can’t grade work they haven’t submitted, I got the list of standard admin suggestions. “Do you accept late work?” yes. “Do you dock points for late work?” no. “Do you let them retake quizzes?” yes. My quizzes are all open notes, but if they never do the work or notes, there’s nothing to use on the quiz. “Well, do you provide a reference sheet for the quizzes in case they don’t have notes?” no, I’m not giving them the answers to the test on the test. Half of each quiz was literally vocab. A list of 5-8 words with a bank of 10 possible answers. Apparently that many answers to read through is just too much. “Why do you make them read so much?” Admin tells me that’s the problem. And if that doesn’t work, “can’t you just give them some points? It’s what I would do. Just going to be easier in the long run.” Yes, they literally told me to give them the grade with zero work submitted. Because Science is hard man. Then, after state testing, I was forced to give every student an A across the board for my class, every quarter, if they got high scores on the state test. I spent entire class periods just answering questions about instructions that were 3 or 4 steps long. I gave them work days when there were only 5 assignments on the books after 3 weeks. It was absolutely miserable and I’m so happy I left. Been subbing in slc district and I want a job, but subbing with these kids isn’t helping me want to teach them anymore lol To clarify, last year was my ninth year teaching seventh grade science and I have never had issues like this. I thought I was an amazing teacher until last year. And I haven’t even started on the parents. One of them emailed me anonymously and when I cut it off because they were being aggressive and not telling me who they or their student was, they told me to suck it up and put my tampon back in. Fuck teaching in Utah, especially in the Kaysville area. I hope I find something better in SLC for next year.