Are You Qualified to Teach High School English?
You are totally, completely, and 100% qualified! Not because you know English perfectly, or even because you know how to grade perfectly, but because you are their parent. The one who knows them and loves them best.
Teaching English in high school is not about grading criteria or percentages. It's about getting lots of writing practice - and having your students write a lot. It's also about editing their papers. Just read them, circle things that are obvious spelling or grammar errors (OBVIOUS errors, that's all.) It is also about discussing their ideas: "What did you mean when you said....." Or "please rewrite this it doesn't make sense." But you're not doing anything magical, you're just reading it over. It's just like if a friend said "would you please read this?" That's all!
Remember that some public school English teachers don't have an English degree. They may not even have the English background that you do! The only reason they use rubrics and other grading criteria is because they have to grade so MANY students, and be consistent between them. Not us! We want to encourage each student to do THEIR best, and that means we don't really want to treat all our students the same. We want each to excel in their own way.
Another advantage that homeschoolers have is the student-teacher ratio with English. In public school, kids are lucky if they get one paper a semester to be assigned and carefully edited. With 20-30 kids in the class, teachers aren't necessarily expected to read everything. I bet you'll read and give more feedback on your kids papers than they would ever get in public school! We can read their history or science papers for quality writing as well, because we evaluate them in all their subjects.
Husbands and wives can often share the burden of grading English papers. That happened to be a HUGE chunk of homeschooling where my husband helped.
I want you to know that even though I didn't "Grade English Papers" - my boys still got full tuition scholarships to college. They both still got into the Honors program. And they still get As and Bs on their college papers.
Blessings,
Lee
Get your daily dose of wisdom from my blog on your e-mail reader
(http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheHomescholar)
Teaching English in high school is not about grading criteria or percentages. It's about getting lots of writing practice - and having your students write a lot. It's also about editing their papers. Just read them, circle things that are obvious spelling or grammar errors (OBVIOUS errors, that's all.) It is also about discussing their ideas: "What did you mean when you said....." Or "please rewrite this it doesn't make sense." But you're not doing anything magical, you're just reading it over. It's just like if a friend said "would you please read this?" That's all!
Remember that some public school English teachers don't have an English degree. They may not even have the English background that you do! The only reason they use rubrics and other grading criteria is because they have to grade so MANY students, and be consistent between them. Not us! We want to encourage each student to do THEIR best, and that means we don't really want to treat all our students the same. We want each to excel in their own way.
Another advantage that homeschoolers have is the student-teacher ratio with English. In public school, kids are lucky if they get one paper a semester to be assigned and carefully edited. With 20-30 kids in the class, teachers aren't necessarily expected to read everything. I bet you'll read and give more feedback on your kids papers than they would ever get in public school! We can read their history or science papers for quality writing as well, because we evaluate them in all their subjects.
Husbands and wives can often share the burden of grading English papers. That happened to be a HUGE chunk of homeschooling where my husband helped.
I want you to know that even though I didn't "Grade English Papers" - my boys still got full tuition scholarships to college. They both still got into the Honors program. And they still get As and Bs on their college papers.
Blessings,
Lee
Get your daily dose of wisdom from my blog on your e-mail reader
(http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheHomescholar)
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