At the end of the last school year, I had students write a letter to this year’s students. It was, in a sense, something of an evaluation. I add the “something of” because it was not anonymous; however, it did affirm some things I’ve been trying to accomplish.

I’ve tried to make the class to be rigorous: to be challenging but not impossible. Based on the comments, I think I succeeded.

• This class is going to be one of the hardest classes that you will have so far in your life. You will learn many things in this class.
• Let me tell you Mr. Scott is probably one of the hardest teachers you might ever have.
• This upcoming year for you will take a lot of work. Mr. Scott has made this year very challenging for me. Although the work is extremely hard, I have become smarter and a better writer overall. If you think his class is tough, keep in mind that he is preparing you for what will come in high school next year. Mr. Scott is such a good teacher and helps you when you don’t understand. He actually teaches you what you need to know.
• Although this year was very challenging for me I can honestly say that I have improved my writing skills tremendously. I hope that you will do the same. All it takes is hard work, attention and not giving up.
• Even though this is a difficult class, it can also be very fun. I was never a good writer or reader, but I found many of the activities we did to be very helpful and it allows you to visualize what you are reading.
• This class is not a normal class, nor the the teacher.  [… Don’t] be a class clown.  Just respect him, and he will respect you.  […] Mr. Scott is by far the most reasonable teacher.
• The tests Mr. Scott gives you are a lot more difficult[ than the standardized, cumulative test given at the end of the course], and those are the ones you should really study for.
• Oh and the tests in this class are uber hard. I mean, its [sic] crazy.
• It’s important to always read the chapters in a novel when Mr. Scott assigns them to you.  You may think, “Oh, it won’t matter”, but Mr. Scott often has pop quizes [sic] on reading you were supposed to do.  Spark Notes can be helpful, but it’s better to just do the reading. Because you can expect the questions to be things not covered on Spark Notes.
• Coming into English 1 you might expect it to be relatively easy because of how easy the rest of your English classes have been, but it’s not.  English 1 for Mr. Scott is very demanding, there are many tough projects, and a lot of hard books to read.

If only I could get this kind of response from all of my students…