How Much Help from Mom with Writing in High School?

[merry gardens]

My son was homeschooled up to 8th grade and attends a private high school now.  ...

 

His college-prep high school expects a lot of formal essays, research papers, etc.  He needs so much help with his papers that it feels like I'm homeschooling him again--except this time it's with assignments from several other people on their schedule, not mine.  ...

 

How much help should a high school student need from a parent or teacher to write?

 

 

[Aiden]

I think that if high school teachers are expecting their students to need parental help with writing papers, there is a problem. I'm pretty sure that my parents never even read one of my papers in high school, much less helped me write it ... of course, that may have something to do with the fact that I'm a good writer and neither of them are (I once made an "emergency" trip home from college--only 1 hour away--during my senior year to proofread my then-10th-grade brother's paper the night before it was due).

 

I remember being taught how to write all along in school, with a unit in my 8th grade English class specifically on how to write a research paper. I don't recall if the other subject teachers taught me how to write one or just assumed that I'd been taught in English.

[OneStepAtATime]

Agree with Aiden, the teachers taught us how to write.  My mom read a few of my papers, but I don't recall her spending much time at all instructing me.  She would just do a bit of critiquing after the fact if I asked her to.  Of course, I was a natural writer so I rarely had issues.  My brother, on the other hand, had dysgraphia and other learning challenges.  He was also gifted.  But writing was not his strong suit.  Mom DID help him out a bit more.  But again, the teacher was teaching the writing.  Mom just helped out with proofreading and legible handwriting.

 

But I have noticed that a lot of schools seem to be moving more to this mentality.  Hand over assignments with little instruction and the kids just have to figure it out for themselves.  The teacher is so busy dealing with test prep/grading papers/administrative stuff that I guess they don't have much time to actually teach?

[EKS]

I call it "teaching by assignment."  That's how it worked in my sons' private school as well.  No instruction, not even a model paper.  This was in both middle and high school classes.  

 

I think they don't teach writing because writing is difficult to teach.  Maybe they figure that people learn to write by writing or something.  And I'm sure that some people do.  But if this were the case you would think that they would be giving more assignments and that those assignments would be scaffolded in a logical way--which they weren't.

 

My son later took two composition courses at the CC.  They *did* provide instruction and models to follow.  Amazingly, he was able to do the work for those courses without my help.  And he got As.  (And, I should mention, he has dyslexia and struggles with writing.)

 

I know what you mean about teaching someone else's assignments on their time table.  It wasn't just writing that was a problem when my kids were in school--it was math too.  My homeschool day started at 3:30 when they got home and everyone was tired.  It was a nightmare.  And since it was a private school, I was paying for the privilege.  We're homeschooling again this year and it is such a relief.

[OneStepAtATime]

I call it "teaching by assignment."  That's how it worked in my sons' private school as well.  No instruction, not even a model paper.  This was in both middle and high school classes.  

 

I think they don't teach writing because writing is difficult to teach.  Maybe they figure that people learn to write by writing or something.  And I'm sure that some people do.  But if this were the case you would think that they would be giving more assignments and that those assignments would be scaffolded in a logical way--which they weren't.

 

My son later took two composition courses at the CC.  They *did* provide instruction and models to follow.  Amazingly, he was able to do the work for those courses without my help.  And he got As.  (And, I should mention, he has dyslexia and struggles with writing.)

 

I know what you mean about teaching someone else's assignments on their time table.  It wasn't just writing that was a problem when my kids were in school--it was math too.  My homeschool day started at 3:30 when they got home and everyone was tired.  It was a nightmare.  And since it was a private school, I was paying for the privilege.  We're homeschooling again this year and it is such a relief.

I didn't think of it as homeschooling at the time since I really knew almost nothing about homeschooling, but yes, this was us as well.  Kids got in a bit before 4pm, ate a brief snack and then we pulled out all the material and I retaught everything.  Now they both had undiagnosed LDs so that was certainly a huge part of it, but for math and Social Studies and Spanish in particular there seemed to be virtually NO instruction in class.  DD especially was just perpetually confused.   I had to talk with the teachers all the time about assignments trying to figure out what they wanted.  I even attended a few classes with DD to try and understand.  And I was reteaching nearly all of the material.

 

The language arts teacher was actually quite good at instruction so even though language arts should have been the really weak subject for my kids with dyslexia, I rarely had to help them with LA assignments (the exception being spelling since she was using whole word recognition and DD struggled with that approach for all 7 years).  I was actually reteaching the vast majority of the rest of it, though, but especially in the classes that the teachers didn't actually seem to be TEACHING.

[73349]

My question is, Are the other parents doing this for their kids?

 

If yes, that is inappropriate, and the teachers have unrealistic expectations.

 

If not,

- Enough kids are cheating to make it look like they can do this (unlikely); or

- The other kids already have enough skills/experience to do what is expected without a parent coaching (Is it a K-12 school?); or

- The other kids are getting enough from the class instruction and provided resources to complete the assignments successfully from there, and yours is going to need either ongoing help from you or a transfer to a school with lower expectations if you want him to get good grades.

[merry gardens]

I call it "teaching by assignment."  That's how it worked in my sons' private school as well.  No instruction, not even a model paper.  This was in both middle and high school classes.  

 

I think they don't teach writing because writing is difficult to teach.  Maybe they figure that people learn to write by writing or something.  And I'm sure that some people do.  But if this were the case you would think that they would be giving more assignments and that those assignments would be scaffolded in a logical way--which they weren't.

 

My son later took two composition courses at the CC.  They *did* provide instruction and models to follow.  Amazingly, he was able to do the work for those courses without my help.  And he got As.  (And, I should mention, he has dyslexia and struggles with writing.)

 

I know what you mean about teaching someone else's assignments on their time table.  It wasn't just writing that was a problem when my kids were in school--it was math too.  My homeschool day started at 3:30 when they got home and everyone was tired.  It was a nightmare.  And since it was a private school, I was paying for the privilege.  We're homeschooling again this year and it is such a relief.

 

Thank you for offering me hope by sharing the story of your son at CC.  It had me worried that my son is struggling so much with high school writing. 

 

I want to homeschool this son again. We're paying for this frustration. 

[merry gardens]

My question is, Are the other parents doing this for their kids?

 

If yes, that is inappropriate, and the teachers have unrealistic expectations.

 

If not,

- Enough kids are cheating to make it look like they can do this (unlikely); or

- The other kids already have enough skills/experience to do what is expected without a parent coaching (Is it a K-12 school?); or

- The other kids are getting enough from the class instruction and provided resources to complete the assignments successfully from there, and yours is going to need either ongoing help from you or a transfer to a school with lower expectations if you want him to get good grades.

 

I don't know how the other students and parents are getting by with the writing. There are a number of very bright students there.  One of the private grammar schools that feeds into this high school boasts very high standardized test score averages--the kind of averages that are only possible if the whole class is exceptionally smart.  It's possible that the private schools feeding into this high school taught their students writing skills beyond the grammar school level so this high school doesn't have to teach those skills to everyone.  It's also possible that some of the families hire tutors and/or provide additional help at home.

[merry gardens]

I think that if high school teachers are expecting their students to need parental help with writing papers, there is a problem. I'm pretty sure that my parents never even read one of my papers in high school, much less helped me write it ... of course, that may have something to do with the fact that I'm a good writer and neither of them are (I once made an "emergency" trip home from college--only 1 hour away--during my senior year to proofread my then-10th-grade brother's paper the night before it was due).

 

I remember being taught how to write all along in school, with a unit in my 8th grade English class specifically on how to write a research paper. I don't recall if the other subject teachers taught me how to write one or just assumed that I'd been taught in English.

 

I remember being taught explicitly how to write papers in high school also.  It wasn't really help with how to choose words well, just how to write the style of paper the teacher assigned.   My mom's help by high school before we had word processors was occasionally she'd type what I'd written out. (She was a fast typist, while I had to hunt and peck, until she insisted I take a typing class in high school.)

 

You mentioned the unit of how to write a research paper in 8th grade.  In eighth grade, my son took online writing class that worked on stories, with close attention to things like word choice to set the mood and develop characters.  His first draft on his recent research paper sounded more like he was telling a story.  He didn't provide all the supporting evidence and citations expected in a research paper. What he wrote was actually interesting, but it wasn't what had been assigned.

[OneStepAtATime]

On a side note, I think my typing class was the most useful class I took in High School.  :)  When I got to college I didn't have to pay anyone else to type my papers and actually people sometimes paid me.  And I got my assignments in WAAAY faster than a lot of my peers since many did NOT take typing in High School.  Life is so different now.  Kids have been learning to type since mid-Elementary.

[Mom22ns]

We were taught how to write in grades 4-8. I received a great deal of writing instruction in those grades. In high school we were expected to know how to write. There was no instruction, only assignments. My writing was remarked on for its excellence by every college professor I had. I don't know if the district I was in was an exception, but they had a great writing program that started in grade 4 and built every year. It is quite possible that the OP is in a district that has a similar program and the kids at the high school level are expected to be able to write in all the ways already taught at least.

[merry gardens]

We were taught how to write in grades 4-8. I received a great deal of writing instruction in those grades. In high school we were expected to know how to write. There was no instruction, only assignments. My writing was remarked on for its excellence by every college professor I had. I don't know if the district I was in was an exception, but they had a great writing program that started in grade 4 and built every year. It is quite possible that the OP is in a district that has a similar program and the kids at the high school level are expected to be able to write in all the ways already taught at least.

Thank you for sharing. I wonder how common it is. Since your college professors found your writing excellent, I'd guess you also had a gift for writing in addition to strong training in grades 4-8.

[Mom22ns]

Thank you for sharing. I wonder how common it is. Since your college professors found your writing excellent, I'd guess you also had a gift for writing in addition to strong training in grades 4-8.

 

I am a natural writer, but I also made good use of the formulaic method I was taught for academic writing. I expected my kids to know how to write by the time they were in high school and need only minimal instruction once they got there. Reading this thread, I wonder how common that is though. I bet it is true in the feeder school you described though. 

[5LittleMonkeys]

I've recently been helping a public schooled friend of dd15 with essay writing.  She's in an AP English class and was unable to even write a cohesive paragraph.  I felt really bad for her and asked her if perhaps they'd placed her in the wrong level of English.  She said she didn't think so ... that most of the other kids in the AP class didn't know how to write an essay either and that they'd expressed this to the teacher.  According to her the teacher told them to either ask their parents or to look up examples on the internet (gave them several sites to go to for help including OWL), adding that they should have been taught previous to the 10th grade how to write an essay and that she didn't have permission to make the time at that point to back up and re-teach.  

 

With my help, she got a decent grade on the first essay of the year several months ago - even told that it was beyond what was expected.  I feel really badly for those students whose parents can't or won't help them though. I can't help but feel badly for the teacher as well.  Being given students that should be prepared for an AP English class show up without the skills they should have been taught already, and then not being given the permission to alter the lesson plans in order to make time to help them must be very frustrating for a good teacher. 

[merry gardens]

I was thinking more about this thread today and your experience, Momto2Ns. I explored a few websites for other high schools. They continued to offer writing instruction in upper grades--even in an AP 11th grade English class syllabus that was posted. I took a required writing class in college as an undergrad. Maybe some people don't need further writing instruction after age 12 or 13, but I have a hard time believing that the majority of students are like that.

[EndOfOrdinary]

My husband is a high school English teacher and he completely uses the "teaching through assignments" method. Our son hated it. There were fights between child and Dad Teacher. Dad got upset anytime I asked clarifying questions since child was supposed to do it on his own. Child did not understand and would inevitably be told what he wrote was not adequate. Child would ask for explicit instruction. Dad Teacher could not give it because he does not teach that way. He merely corrects. We have since outsourced writing to my mother who is a literacy specialist. She teaches the entire process. Like, actually teaches it. It has been wonderful.

 

My husband NEVER received any instruction in college on how to teach writing. It is not necessary to get certification in teaching English. You have to be well read. You have to have an idea on how to write yourself. However, you do not actually receive instruction on how to teach either thing.

 

As a result, many teachers do just what my husband does, "They just write and revise. Practice makes perfect." As far as I am concerned it is attrocious, but I think that about a lot of things done in PS.

[merry gardens]

I've recently been helping a public schooled friend of dd15 with essay writing. She's in an AP English class and was unable to even write a cohesive paragraph. I felt really bad for her and asked her if perhaps they'd placed her in the wrong level of English. She said she didn't think so ... that most of the other kids in the AP class didn't know how to write an essay either and that they'd expressed this to the teacher. According to her the teacher told them to either ask their parents or to look up examples on the internet (gave them several sites to go to for help including OWL), adding that they should have been taught previous to the 10th grade how to write an essay and that she didn't have permission to make the time at that point to back up and re-teach.

 

With my help, she got a decent grade on the first essay of the year several months ago - even told that it was beyond what was expected. I feel really badly for those students whose parents can't or won't help them though. I can't help but feel badly for the teacher as well. Being given students that should be prepared for an AP English class show up without the skills they should have been taught already, and then not being given the permission to alter the lesson plans in order to make time to help them must be very frustrating for a good teacher.

Thank you for sharing. That makes me feel better about my son's writing.

 

How sweet of you to help your DD's friend with her paper! The situation you describe would be frustrating for both students and teachers.