{"id":2228,"date":"2019-10-20T10:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-10-20T15:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itslitteaching.com\/?p=2228"},"modified":"2023-09-30T12:08:01","modified_gmt":"2023-09-30T16:08:01","slug":"students-are-years-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itslitteaching.com\/students-are-years-behind\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Teach When Students are Years Behind"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You announce an essay assignment to your class and the room stops. Some drop their heads. Others pull out their phones and tune you out. One student immediately asks you how long it needs to be. That essay sounds simple to most. But to your students, who are years behind in skills and ability, you’ve basically just told them that they’ll be hiking Mt. Everest in gym class. The curriculum decrees an essay must be written, but your students can barely write a sentence. How can you teach when your students are years <\/em>behind? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I teach at an alternative Title 1 school. If you teach a similar population, you might know them. They’re the students who somehow got lost along the way…. And the educational system never really went out of its way to put them back on the right path. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet here they are, legally obligated to sit in your class and learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links that earn me a small commission, at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products that I personally use and love, or think my readers will find useful.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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\""How<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Ditching the Assumptions and Re-framing Your Idea of Class<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In my first year<\/a>, I naively thought that a group of sophomores would be well-acquainted with the structure of a five-paragraph essay. After all, by their age, I had probably written a dozen, and I had attended school in the same district. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I couldn’t have been more wrong.<\/strong> Every day was painful–for me and my students. They had no idea what a “hook” or a “clincher” was. And the more I tried to bridge their gap of knowledge, the bigger, I realized, the gap was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They didn’t just lack a basic understanding of the formal paper. They didn’t know the structure of a paragraph. And when I looked closer, I realized that many didn’t even know how to write a complete sentence. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, I felt frustrated and overwhelmed. If a sixteen-year-old can arrive in my classroom without knowing to capitalize the first word in a sentence, how can I possibly make a difference for them?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took years, but I finally feel like I’m getting to a place where I can help move the needle for my students. I can’t make up for the years of poor education. But I can help them get closer to where they should be. So can you, but you may have to change the way you envision an English classroom. <\/p>\n\n\n

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\""How<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Ditch the Essay (Or Long Speech, Or Twenty-page Story, Etc.)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ok, before I have a swarm of English teachers attack me, I don’t mean forever. But if your students can’t write a complete sentence, asking them to fill a whole page with coherent, academic writing is going to be completely <\/em>overwhelming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That would be like asking them to give a speech in Chinese during the first day of a 101 language class. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If students don’t have fundamental skills, then giving them a massive project is setting them up for failure. Students need to feel small successes to build up their skills, enthusiasm, and self-confidence.<\/strong> It’s your job to provide opportunities for those small wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t assign that big research project or multimedia presentation. But realize that you’re going to have to go slow. And you’ll have to provide students with multiple ways to practice before they show up for the big event. So for now, shelve it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Choose the Skills<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is important. You’re going to want to choose just 2-3 foundational skills that you can teach deeply. <\/strong>These skills should be the ones that you think will be the biggest bang for your students’ educational buck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(I recommend staying away from grammar skills<\/em> as your foundational skills. That doesn’t mean you can’t touch on them as you work your way through a unit. But knowing where to put a comma doesn’t help a whole lot if you don’t know how to convey an idea.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The English team at my school has done a lot of work on choosing foundational writing skills. Because our whole student body is grade levels behind, we’ve really taken a close look at the Common Core State Standards to decide what to hone in on as a whole building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n