I hate to say this, but we haven't seen it get any better in middle school. If anything, it's gotten worse.
Dd12 is an 8th grader and has been having ongoing issues with her literacy teacher, whom she loves but who doesn't give them due dates for virtually anything.
I fear that broaching it at conferences has shot her in the foot. I told him that she's having a hard time prioritizing b/c she doesn't know when any of his assignments are due beyond the "sometime this quarter" or "within the next two weeks" type of stuff he's giving them. For that reason, she's putting his things down as low priority and finishing work for other classes first. More than once she's been caught off guard when she finds out that his big essay is due tomorrow suddenly.
His assertion is that she should know that she needs to be working on it b/c she got it a week ago, for instance, even if he didn't tell them until the last minute when it was due. When I told him that it wasn't working that way and she's winding up writing the whole thing the night before at 8 p.m., he kind of insinuated that she isn't giving him her best effort and he may grade her more harshly in the future.
I believe that the exact quote was something to the effect of how well she had done on a recent essay (an A) until he found out that it had been written the night before it was due at which point he said that he would give her a "D for effort." I really hope that doesn't translate into her getting Bs or Cs on future essays b/c they aren't massively better than the quickly written one.
She really is an excellent writer and, despite last minute work that is stressing her, she turns out quality work on short notice.
