I can't make this simpler, I swear

[Miss Fatale]

I applaud you for not imploding. Or exploding. Or incinerating. Personally I'd be gritting my teeth and saying "This.Is.The.Form. Do.Not.De-vee-ate.No.Changes.Due.Friday." One word at a time and no answers. How can this be..simpler?

Ha, maybe that's the problem, I'm using too many words.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

You see, I blame this on a combination of the "No child left behind" policy being taken at the simplest interpretation of the concept (where they will make sure that no child fails even if the means just throwing children who are having difficulties into the next grade as opposed to giving them the help they need) along with the parents who hover over their children in an attempt to protect them from anything bad happening to them.

Even if letting the child face an adverse situation may actually do more good than harm to a child.

There used to be a time when if a child had bad grades then the teacher would call in the parents and the child in question and the adults would confront the child as to the reasons for the grades and taking steps to correct the problem. Which depending on the reasons behind the poor grades could be anything from closer parental monitoring and possible restrictions in privileges or to getting the child additional assistance as needed.

Now, you find that if a child has bad grades the first action is to have the parents and the child confront the teacher and demand to know why such poor grades were handed out. Usually preceded with phrases such as "How DARE you" and "My child would/could never do that"

So when they get to the point in their scholastic lives where they are expected to do the harder work (such as essays) they tend to ignore the instructions and will try to do things their way which is usually the easiest and the least amount of effort required on their part.

[wynjara]

My fifth grade teacher gave us that basic outline. That was the first and last instruction I received on how to structure an essay. In nearly 20 years of student-hood, only that one teacher ever gave instructions, and from what I can tell none of the other fifth grade teachers did the same. I can't entirely blame my fellow students for not knowing something they were never introduced to. (Spelling and grammar, however, I will gladly smack them with a fish for screwing up.) It seemed to me through much of school that there were concepts we were just supposed to magically know by having set foot in a classroom, while the lesson plans beat the daylights out of simple things we could have done on our own (memorizing definitions? Give me the dictionary and go away.).

[Syriilord]

How many times did they ask how many sentences are in a paragraph?

To be fair, I don't recall ever being taught that. I'm not sure I actually know it even now. NOTE TO SELF: Google-fu

When I write, I tend to write the whole section (specific aspect of a topic academically or the whole kit 'n' kaboodle for short stories/novels) in one block and divide it into smaller paragraphs if necessary or if it makes it look neater.

I don't care about being told I'm wrong to do it like this, as long as it's pointed out to me in a helpful way. To date, it hasn't happened yet though.

[Chromatix]

Answer: there is *no* fixed number of sentences in a paragraph.

You simply group some sentences that are about the same idea, then leave a small gap to separate them from sentences about a different idea.

If your paragraphs are only a couple of lines each, you should try to combine ideas or say more about each one (depending on whether the overall length is sufficient).

Conversely, if each paragraph is a wall of text occupying a large fraction of a page, you should either be more concise or divide each one into two or more ideas.

I use shorter paragraphs - sometimes as little as one sentence - when writing in a short-form environment such as a forum or e-mail.

[Miss Fatale]

About paragraphs:

What I was taught, and what I tell my students, is this:

Introduction and conclusion should be 3-5 sentences, body paragraphs 5-7. That's not a hard-and-fast rule by any means, and sometimes you will need longer or shorter paragraphs.

Another good rule of thumb is to consider the overall length of whatever you are writing. A longer essay should have longer paragraphs, a shorter essay shorter paragraphs. My students rarely write anything longer than 5 double-spaced pages, so the guidelines I mention above work just fine.

(I'm referring to academic writing here. Creative writing and business writing are a whole different ball game.)

[manybellsdown]

You see, I blame this on a combination of the "No child left behind" policy being taken at the simplest interpretation of the concept (where they will make sure that no child fails even if the means just throwing children who are having difficulties into the next grade as opposed to giving them the help they need) along with the parents who hover over their children in an attempt to protect them from anything bad happening to them.

Even if letting the child face an adverse situation may actually do more good than harm to a child.

There used to be a time when if a child had bad grades then the teacher would call in the parents and the child in question and the adults would confront the child as to the reasons for the grades and taking steps to correct the problem. Which depending on the reasons behind the poor grades could be anything from closer parental monitoring and possible restrictions in privileges or to getting the child additional assistance as needed.

Now, you find that if a child has bad grades the first action is to have the parents and the child confront the teacher and demand to know why such poor grades were handed out. Usually preceded with phrases such as "How DARE you" and "My child would/could never do that"

So when they get to the point in their scholastic lives where they are expected to do the harder work (such as essays) they tend to ignore the instructions and will try to do things their way which is usually the easiest and the least amount of effort required on their part.

Speaking as a former teacher: this is all true. NCLB is a ridiculous piece of legislation. My daughter failed 7th grade. Failed it big-time, 75th out of a class of 77. She also didn't do any of the volunteer work that was "required" by the school to advance to 8th grade. Even though I insisted she'd be repeating that grade, at a different school, the first school promoted her anyway.

[42_42_42]

Wow! Colleges must really be lowering their admissions standards/requirements for those kids to have been accepted.

[Miss Fatale]

You see, I blame this on a combination of the "No child left behind" policy being taken at the simplest interpretation of the concept (where they will make sure that no child fails even if the means just throwing children who are having difficulties into the next grade as opposed to giving them the help they need) along with the parents who hover over their children in an attempt to protect them from anything bad happening to them.

I'm not fan of NCLB, but the average age of my students is 35 -- so people who were not impacted by NCLB in anyway (it didn't become law until 2001).

I think that if this website has shown us anything it's that there are people of all types who just don't want to do what they're supposed to do.

[Miss Fatale]

Wow! Colleges must really be lowering their admissions standards/requirements for those kids to have been accepted.

Where I work, we have an open enrollment policy -- anyone can attend, as long as they have a high school diploma or GED. So I do have a lot of students with very poor skills. Most community colleges have this policy -- just because someone has poor writing skills, say, doesn't mean they are dumb or don't deserve the chance to at least try college.

Most universities, however, still have admissions requirements of differing kinds, though students with poor skills still slip in.

[Geek King]

You see, I blame this on a combination of the "No child left behind" policy being taken at the simplest interpretation of the concept (where they will make sure that no child fails even if the means just throwing children who are having difficulties into the next grade as opposed to giving them the help they need) along with the parents who hover over their children in an attempt to protect them from anything bad happening to them.

Indeed, that's a complete mis-application of NCLB, as I've read it. That makes it into another silly idea from my day called "Social Promotion" that stated a child should move on with the majority of their classmates, even if they are not prepared for the next level of education. Somedays you wonder if the DoE even lives in the same world as the rest of us.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Speaking as a former teacher: this is all true. NCLB is a ridiculous piece of legislation. My daughter failed 7th grade. Failed it big-time, 75th out of a class of 77. She also didn't do any of the volunteer work that was "required" by the school to advance to 8th grade. Even though I insisted she'd be repeating that grade, at a different school, the first school promoted her anyway.

I've a good example of NCLB being used as it is supposed to be used. My own step daughter.

Just before my wife divorced her husband and took the kids, my daughter's end of the year report card came and it said "Student is struggling at basic fourth-grade skills, made zero progress this year. Promoted to fifth grade."

I've seen the card. It sickens me to no end.

So when it came time to enroll her in her new school my wife went to the school board and showed them the report card. They looked at that and the transcripts from her previous school (New Hampshire to New Jersey) and they said "Do you want us to put her back in the fourth grade?"

After the first month of school, she was out of the special help programs and was mainstreamed. Her end of year report card was all high marks (all "A" save for one "B"). She has received several presidential awards in the years to follow and she has finished her first semester in her freshman year at college and landed on the Dean's List.

THAT is what NCLB was intended to do. It was intended to find the children that need extra help or are late bloomers (not everyone is ready to go to school at the same age as everyone else) and to give them that help. Not to sit there and think "Gee, being held back a year or put into the special assistance classes (or to use the more commonly used term..."Dummy Classes") may hurt their feelings and so it is better for them to spend the next umptyscrunch years getting yelled at the teachers since they can'n master an increasingly difficult set of concepts and/or workloads."

[Dips]

This is turning into a fratching discussion about education laws. Lets get back on topic, please.