Sunset for the third quarter English elective at Greeley
June 13, 2008
by Christine Yeres
For more than 25 years, the English course of study for Greeley’s freshmen and sophomores has had two distinguishing features: the English classes are a mix of both freshmen and sophomores, and for the third quarter of the year students choose to study an elective course taught by a different English teacher.
In the third quarter elective, teachers and students typically explore a topic about which they share an interest that is off the beaten track of the standard curriculum, such as graphic novels or the police procedural genre, to name a few from the last several years.
Next year the English department will eliminate the third quarter elective. Many students report that, as freshmen, both the freshman/sophomore mix and the change to a new teacher for just the third quarter helped them feel more comfortable making the transition to high school. The 9/10 mix camouflaged their newness; the course change in third quarter felt college-like, they said.
The change has been under study for several years
Greeley principal Andrew Selesnick said that dropping the third quarter elective program has nothing to do with the schedule overhaul due to take effect in September 2008. The English department came close to chucking the third quarter elective for the 2007-08 year, but decided to further refine their ideas before making the change, he said, and now they’re ready.
“This is an evolution,” explained Selesnick. “We’ve asked for quite a while now: ‘What are the benefits that come with the third quarter elective and what are the costs?’ ” He cited as a major drawback the interruption of the student-teacher relationship that develops during the first two quarters of 9/10 English.
But many students find that very interruption a welcome change midyear and lament its disappearance. “It was lovely,” recalled one student. “And it was nice to get a break as well. I never felt we lost any ground by moving away third quarter.” Another student added: “It was good because it’s a different teacher and a different opportunity to get a different opinion on your work. A bit of a clean start if you don’t get on well with [your regular English teacher] or if you have only an OK grade in the main class. Because not everybody grades the same way, some teachers grade hard and some teachers grade liberally, and you get a chance to get your grades up, and a chance to read new choices of books.”
According to Selesnick, “Some students love it, some don’t. Some teachers love it; some don’t. But our teachers have been thinking about changing it for a long time. English department chair Elise Chadwick concurs, “Every year since the 80’s we’ve identified lots of pleasures and lots of dissatisfaction with it, and every year we’ve asked, ‘Is this the time to experiment with it in some way?’” Apparently, the time has come.
Administration and English faculty committed to choice for students
“We’re committed to giving students choice,” stated Selesnick. But rather than choice in the elective format, Superintendent David Fleishman suggested, “choice might have more to do with what the students are reading and writing.” .Chadwick sees this as an opportunity “to integrate choice for students in following personal passions, but with less disruption to the continuity of their education.”
English teacher Frank Ceruzzi and Chadwick formed part of the district’s “Learning Team,” which undertook an examination of the third quarter elective “We were interested to see what it would be like to have a full year’s relationship [with our students],” explained Chadwick.
Interestingly, with the exception of senior year AP English, there is no other English course offered at Greeley for which the teacher has the same students for an entire school year,. Ninth and tenth grade English have always had the third quarter elective and all other 10th, 11th and 12th grade English department offerings are one-semester electives.
Without switching out for an elective, Ceruzzi pointed out, freshman and sophomore students will remain with one teacher for the entire school year, during which they might pursue a passion in depth. Knowing a student better will make that easier. “If I have four classes first semester, then four new classes third quarter, the list of names in my grade book is substantially longer, and translates into less time in which to know more students well—as readers, writers and thinkers.”
Click here for a printable view of this article.
Click here to read more Schools articles.Click here to send a copy of this article via email.
We're interested in your opinion. Click here to submit a comment on this article, or any other.
