Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Teacher who doesn't read student essays

I would love to know more about that. Especially the academic level of the students. I've always been on board with voluminous reading making for a better reader... but writing without being able to learn from critical feedback? Naw -- the boy would fill up pages with word salad and never look back.

Thanks all. I no longer feel like I'm crazy.
Now I'm just sad. And irritated.
But mostly sad.

I think they were college students. Will look for it when I have time.

Presented here as conventional wisdom with some (not terribly recent) citations:

http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/design/instructionalstrategies/writing/respond.html

In searching I also found this, which seems both useful and entertaining:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/635/01/

In high school, we also had a teacher like that. Would offer grades based on the length, seeming to not read, and a friend tested the theory by putting random stuff in the middle. Got a high grade. I'd also want to give that a try (maybe with a backup essay in case the teacher actually does read it) and show it to the principal.

Dandy: You're definitely not expecting too much to see your DS receive meaningful feedback for his writing in 9th grade. I was pleased to finally see my own DD bring home a constructed response essay with a well-deserved F, for failing to properly respond to the prompt, and with splashes of red ink for grammatical mistakes which had hitherto gone completely ignored. This was only 4th grade.

Funny, Dude. My son and I were sifting through some of his old papers and found that the only teacher who ever consistently read & criticized his work was the amazing teacher he had in 5th grade.

If his 9th grade teacher put half that effort into her responses, I'd be happy.

This late in the year, I'm not too keen on making waves as I'd hate for him to get a vindictive grade when it might be too late for him to recover his grade. This might also happen to be the teacher who didn't understand weighted grading very well, which could really make a mess of things.

I am waiting to hear back from the counselor again -- all you peoples's responses made me realize that I wasn't nuts.

Thanks to all you all again.

Writing essays that will never be read is good practice for the SAT.

That was the only section of SAT prep my son didn't fight. He liked the challenge of creatively living down to their expectations.

Although apparently there will be no more essay after the next round of dumbing-down. Too bad.

His teacher tried this nonsense at the beginning of the year. Thankfully, a few parents got together to complain to admin after she ignored their private criticisms. Sent in actual papers with the "peer review" sheets attached. Hilarity all around. Apparently an edict came down saying no peer review on subjectively-graded assignments or some such.

I don't mind kids grading quizzes & tests with clear-cut answers because errors are easily addressed. But essays? Nope. Not having that.