Recently, a fifth grade teacher here at FPD had a baby, so she was out of school for a while. My mom was the person they called to be her long-term substitute. To make a long story short, my mom isn't to up on her grammar rules so she contracted me to help her grade fifth-graders' essays.
What really struck me was the extreme range of writing ability the kids showcased. One kid would have written a pretty good, humorous paper with minimal spelling and structure errors. But then the next kid's paper would be hideously hideous! Improper usage of ques?tion marks run on sentences repeated words words badd speling this sentence is excellent compared to some of the stuff the worst fifth graders put out. I can't understand how teachers can even grade students on the same scale. You can't just fail kids who don't have a basic writing ability, can you? They're fifth graders. If they're failing now is there even hope for the future? I realize that once you get to high school classes diverge and the smart kids take honors and AP stuff, but before that the teachers must have an extremely difficult time keeping the lower kids motivated and not feeling lower. To every elementary school teacher I had, I see now how hard it must have been to put up with know-it-alls and smart-alecks like me.
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