My daughter is taking Senior English and is struggling to figure out what the teacher wants. She took AP English last year, aced the class and got a 5 on the AP test. That teacher has taught all my kids and she is tough and does a really good job getting the best out of my kids. This new teacher has been much more difficult to read and predict. Last week, he handed out participation grades. These participation policy was not part of the original grading requirements and we assume is an effort to engage more kids in the class discussion. The problem is, the class is relatively large and with some kids taking up the bulk of the time with their comments, it's difficult to find opportunities to speak up. When he dropped the participation grades in, her grade in the class dropped 5 points.

So, teacher conferences are tomorrow. I'd like to get a better understanding of the teacher's requirements and make sure the teacher understands there is a communication issue. I'm not mad so much as I just need to get my head around his requirements so we can better support our daughter.

What would you do? I'd love to hear from some HS teachers too.