When did art become part of Language Arts?  

I can understand a little art work or creative things but this teacher goes over board. My niece had to see a coach last month about her grades and he took one look and saw she was getting a B in Language Arts. He asked "How are you getting a B in that class with all the crap work she gives out?" Now if another teacher realizes shouldn't that clue them in? Oh and no late papers allowed. If it's not done, too bad you get a 0.

She does the art work, she's a much better artist then I am. I do help with putting some stuff together. Like with the scrapbook or the mobile. I will also assist in correcting the written part. She does the rough draft and I'll type it out for her. She does do the bulk of the work.

I don't really have a problem with them doing a book a month but I think she should make the reports more reasonable. My thought is at this age you want to get them into reading, get them to enjoy it, that is more important then anything.

When you say get them into reading I never thought of your neices age so she is doing well in completeing that kind of work.

She's in 8th grade. Next year starts high school and I'm so not looking forward to it. Even with the newspaper she had a lot to draw with it. Can't remember all the parts but part was a comic strip, a head story with image etc. Lot of work. I really wonder what this teacher is thinking.

Oh wow! I didn't realize she had to draw with the newspaper too!? That's really strange!!

My niece is only in the 5th grade.

I think that this serious kind of art should be left in art class for sure.

I agree it should be. I can understand a little bit but the amount she has them doing is just unreal. I have to wonder how many of the kids really are finishing it all.

That's a good question. I wonder if anyone has talked to the principal about it.

For some reason I never got the notification on this one. We did speak to the principal on this and the response was "All the schools are doing it". Yeah sure they are. She'll be at a different school next year so hopefully it will be better.

That's okay.

Humm...nice response from the principal LOL. I hope the new school works out better :)

Thanks for best response!

You and me both. She's in 8th grade and is 13 years old. We tried complaining but the school said "All the schools are doing it"; yeah right. In other words they don't want to hear it. I'll be glad when this year is over with.

13? I would have never been able to do that when I was 13.

No they have art classes. We complained to the Principal and the teacher that is the head for the group of teachers. We were told "all the schools are doing it and the head of the department approved it". The fact that this teacher is the head of the department was not lost on us. We just have to try and get her through it and hope next year is better.

Well I can understand trying to make things interesting but the work this teacher is requiring is a bit much. For example with the one they had to do a scrap book. It entailed not only at least 5 mementos that the person would have and an explanation for each, a dairy entry for the main character (this was to be done for after the story to say what they did afterwards), a letter from the main character to the secondary character, a response letter from the secondary (both of these having to deal with the problem of the story and how to resolve it), a summary of the events of the book, 5 pictures, and the cover. There were a couple of more things with it but can't remember but once done it had a total of 10 pages typed out and glued in plus the images and mementos.

Now remember this is for a 13 year old to do and they are to read the book and to the full report within a month but they can't start the report till they finish the book since the report asks for info from all parts. Things like this are done every month and it counts for a good portion of their grade even though they have a bunch of other work to do as well.