7 ms·

>one of my professors finally got so frustrated she paused the course for three weeks to teach the class how to write a 5-paragraph essay, with introduction, th

by carlmr 2y ago

>one of my professors finally got so frustrated she paused the course for three weeks to teach the class how to write a 5-paragraph essay, with introduction, three points, and a conclusion. Our teachers in school went through massive amounts of grammar rules, literature and poems. They never taught us how to write in a simple structured way. Only when I studied for the GRE did the learning material really break down the process into simple steps. I think it's kind of a problem that some teachers can't or won't touch these basic topics, maybe assuming other teachers already did.

Ekaros 2y ago
It is strange how High School does not teach these skills. Structured writing of different types would be useful in most office jobs. And you only really need to teach a handful of structures to prepare people for most things. After that you can teach grammar and then art...
- carlmr 2y ago
  Exactly, also if you don't know the basics it's hard to build advanced writing skills on top of nothing.
alistairSH 2y ago
That must be highly localized. We were taught essay structure in middle school. And they was reinforced through high school English, history, and other courses. I grew up in northern VA (DC suburbs) and was in honors/gifted classes from 3rd grade on.
- carlmr 2y ago
  I don't think that it wasn't part of the lesson plan, I think it's more of a "fell through the cracks" problem. We had a lot of old teachers that were sick a lot. I think the substitute teachers didn't always follow up on all the planned lessons. In chemistry we had a substitute teacher the whole year in 10th grade. In 11th grade our new teacher noticed we were missing some fundamentals. Turns out we weren't taught any of the 10th grade material. She then did a 3 month crash course on 10th grade material. With the right foundation it was really easy afterwards. Having done some Math and Physics tutoring, I never tutored a kid that really _couldn't_ do math or physics. It was almost always that they lacked some fundamentals and thus couldn't learn any of the advanced material, because they lacked a mental model to grok the information.

by carlmr 2y ago

Ekaros 2y ago

It is strange how High School does not teach these skills. Structured writing of different types would be useful in most office jobs. And you only really need to teach a handful of structures to prepare people for most things. After that you can teach grammar and then art...

carlmr 2y ago
Exactly, also if you don't know the basics it's hard to build advanced writing skills on top of nothing.

alistairSH 2y ago

That must be highly localized. We were taught essay structure in middle school. And they was reinforced through high school English, history, and other courses. I grew up in northern VA (DC suburbs) and was in honors/gifted classes from 3rd grade on.

carlmr 2y ago
I don't think that it wasn't part of the lesson plan, I think it's more of a "fell through the cracks" problem. We had a lot of old teachers that were sick a lot. I think the substitute teachers didn't always follow up on all the planned lessons. In chemistry we had a substitute teacher the whole year in 10th grade. In 11th grade our new teacher noticed we were missing some fundamentals. Turns out we weren't taught any of the 10th grade material. She then did a 3 month crash course on 10th grade material. With the right foundation it was really easy afterwards. Having done some Math and Physics tutoring, I never tutored a kid that really _couldn't_ do math or physics. It was almost always that they lacked some fundamentals and thus couldn't learn any of the advanced material, because they lacked a mental model to grok the information.