I teach "regular," honors and AP US history this year. I hate the term "regular" but it's what students, administrators, and faculty refer to them as.

Anyways, my regular students are disgustingly behind my other students. I honestly wonder what they have been learning in school for 10 years. Clearly not much. I don't mean to make them sound stupid, because they are anything but. Their sense of humor, capacity to relate to the material, and personalities astound me. However, many cannot write a gramatically correct sentence. I truly realized how bad it was this week because I'm trying to teach them the 5 paragraph essay.

I design this great activity to teach them about a thesis, topic sentences, details, and concluding sentences and realize many cannot write a sentence with a subject and verb. I love teaching American History, but I'm going to focus solely on writing with my regular students.


John