Do High School English Teachers Carry the Heaviest Load? How to Carry It Without Breaking

0 Shares

Sometimes it feels like the expectations people have for English teachers never stop expanding: the prep never ends; the grading piles never disappear for long; and when students struggle to write a lab report in science class, decode a word problem in math class, or structure a history essay, the conversation tends to drift over to what happened or didn’t happen in ELA.

High school English teachers are under a lot of unique pressures because we are expected to deliver students who are competent in so many areas: reading, writing, speaking, listening, vocabulary, grammar, research skills, citation formats, close reading of literature, analysis of informational text, and high-stakes testing, and we’re supposed to do it all while keeping teenagers engaged, differentiating for multi-year reading gaps, and implementing every new initiative that arrives from above.

Some colleagues may disagree, but I feel it’s fair to say that no other subject is asked to absorb quite so much of the school’s literacy work while receiving so little additional prep time and additional support.

For many of us, all of these expectations result in a sense of overwhelm that it feels like you aren’t allowed to talk about. Enumerating the reasons we feel this overwhelm is the first step toward managing it.

The Prep No One Else Fully Sees

Planning an English class is often not the same as planning for most other subjects. My mom taught math, and she agreed: the English teachers cannot simply open a textbook to the next chapter and follow the sequence. English teachers have to know the texts deeply enough to guide discussion, anticipate where students will get stuck, design scaffolds for those reading two or three years below grade level, and still find ways to stretch the students who are already above grade level. Every new novel, play, poem, or article set requires fresh attention from us: fresh annotations, fresh questions, and often fresh materials because the kids’ needs, the curriculum we have to follow, and the district focus all seem to shift from year to year.

Add vocabulary instruction, trying to teach grammar in a way that actually sticks, developing ways to deliver writing instruction so students can grow beyond formulas, and the constant need to address reading skills, and the planning load truly is unique.

A solid teacher’s guide or curriculum map or purchased curriculum helps, but these rarely cover the full range of student needs in a way that helps us reach every child sitting in our classrooms. Our work is intellectual and creative and organizational all at the same time, and it does not typically get done with a single prep period each day. We’re taking a lot of this planning home with us.

GRAB MY 11TH GRADE ELA CURRICULUM MAP HERE

GRAB MY AP LIT CURRICULUM MAP HERE

The Grading Load

Essay grading remains the most time-intensive part of this vocation. Reading 120–150 papers and providing meaningful feedback is not the same as scoring a stack of multiple-choice quizzes or checking problem sets, especially when folks have access to scantrons and online forms that grade for them. Each piece of writing our students complete requires that not only they, but WE also pay attention to argument, evidence, organization, sentence control, and voice. When the school expects quick turnaround (sometimes within 48 hours on formal writing!), the demand becomes impossible inside contracted hours.

I’ve had an expectation before that I enter grades within a week of receiving something, and that was impossible when you account for the fact that not only would kids turn in up to 75 or even 125 essays all at once, but I’d also still have random quizzes, classwork, and other assignments to grade all coming in around the same time!

Many of us have heard the well-meaning advice to “leave work at school.” I found out the hard way when I was new that reality just isn’t going to allow me to do that. No matter how intricately I tried to plan across my 2 or 3 preps, it was impossible not to have major assignments or tests that required a lot of time for me to grade coming in around the same time. The only sustainable approaches, I found, involved a deliberate reduction of the volume of things I had to grade without sacrificing the rigor of my courses. This meant fewer full-length essays that required me to give deeper feedback, more targeted/skills-focused writing that could be assessed more quickly, the use of rubrics that limited my written comments to the highest-leverage issues, and selective verbal conferencing or verbal feedback via Canvas instead of trying to provide exhaustive written responses on every paper. Tracking how many students actually revised based on my feedback (I allow revisions and retakes on everything in my classes) also helps me see where it was worthwhile to give more detailed feedback, and where it wasn’t.

Differentiating Across Extreme Reading Ranges

In just one high school English classroom, it is becoming more and more common to have students reading at elementary levels sitting next to students reading well above grade level, and we also often have English learners and students with IEPs mixed in as well. We want to make learning meaningful for everyone, unpack the standards, challenge every student at his or her level, and never teach only to the middle, but the time and assistance required to do this well are rarely provided to us.

We need to be practical, not overly idealistic about meeting this challenge. I like to have leveled text sets that include accessible entry-level readings as well as more complex versions with the same ideas (jigsaws are great for when you have these sets), or I’ll provide in-text questions at key points within a reading that will help everyone understand the text. Strategic grouping, targeted small-group instruction on specific skills, and independent reading opportunities that give stronger readers room to stretch themselves while weaker readers receive more support can all help.

Remember, though, that your goal cannot be perfect individualization every day; instead, try to provide consistent access to grade-level thinking with appropriate scaffolds and extensions as often as possible, and realize these things may be materials you build over the course of your career. You can’t do it all on day one.

Conflicting Messages and Moving Targets

District and building leadership often send mixed signals. One year the emphasis is standards-driven and tightly aligned to tested skills. The next year the priority shifts toward whole texts, novel study, and the joy of reading. Then it’ll switch back. Or maybe the district says one thing, your principal says another, and your department chair says a third. Maybe you had a lit-heavy course, but now they are pushing RI skills and want you to ditch the literature.

Our curriculums change all the time, too. They buy something new before you’ve even had time to digest what they bought a few years ago and make it your own. Pacing guides tighten or loosen depending on who the curriculum director or department chair is that year. New initiatives arrive with the expectation that English will absorb them first because “literacy touches everything” and we’re often the only department that sees every kid every day.

My advice for all this would be selective fidelity. Identify the non-negotiables required by your situation: what are the tested standards, what are the required texts if they exist, and what are the must-do writing products, and then try to carry on with the practices, texts, and assignments that actually produce growth and engagement in your classroom. It can help to have a department meeting to determine what the non-negotiables are. We use a “scope and sequence” planning document to hash all of this out at my school.

I was lucky in that over time, I was able to choose my own texts, and our principal would buy new texts for me. I found that building units around texts I truly loved, while still covering the skills and standards we needed to cover, reduced my feelings of helplessness and burnout, and students enjoyed those units more as well when I was hyped about them! Try to find where you do have some wiggle room, and use it to do what you love!

GRAB MY SCOPE AND SEQUENCE PLANNING DOCUMENT FOR ELA HERE, FREE!

When Every Other Department Relies on the English Department

Students who cannot write coherent paragraphs in science, cannot parse word problems in math, or cannot structure research in history are frequently treated as the English department’s problem. People assume that literacy instruction happens primarily or exclusively in ELA. In reality, students need repeated, content-specific practice with reading and writing throughout the school day. Without that, the amount of practice with reading and writing that many students will get is simply too low for most of them to improve at the rate the system expects. Few modern students are reading and writing beyond memes and Snapchats outside of school. We ALL need to be reading and writing with age-appropriate high-level ideas every single day with the kids, but that doesn’t always happen in other departments.

High school English teachers can and should advocate for shared responsibility. Clear communication about what is taught in ELA and what must be reinforced in our students’ other classes can help. Providing citation and writing lesson slides, sentence stems, paragraph frames, essay graphic organizers, or annotation strategies that other departments can adapt has been received well by my colleagues.

At the same time, it is reasonable to push back when the expectation is that English alone will fix writing that other classes never ask students to produce at any significant volume or with significant amounts of feedback. Literacy develops through practice! If students only write seriously in one class, their progress will be limited no matter how skilled the English department is!

Citation formats illustrate the same dynamic. Teaching MLA (or APA, depending on the school’s choice) is time-consuming. When other departments ignore formatting and citation or use something different without scaffolding, students treat citation as an English-class ritual rather than a transferable academic skill. Consistency across the building helps them see that citation matters in all disciplines and reduces the teaching load on everyone!

The Expanding Definition of English

English is not one subject. It is reading, writing, grammar, speaking, and listening, each with its own instructional demands. Older educational models sometimes separated these into different courses. Modern high school schedules usually combine them into a single period while adding greater emphasis on informational text and sidelining literature. The result is a curriculum map for most of us that tries to cover more ground but ends up shortchanging a lot of key areas of competency, especially grammar, vocabulary, and literature, these days.

Protecting time for deep and sustained work with literature and writing and grammar and vocab and speaking, well, it’s a lot. But all of it is essential.

Informational text has a legitimate place, but it should not be displacing nearly every novel, play, poem, or grammar unit that we used to be able to teach. I find that students develop stronger analytical habits when they spend concentrated time with complex literary texts and then transfer those habits to nonfiction. The reverse can also work when nonfiction is taught with the same rigor and attention to craft that we English teachers tend to apply to literature. The same is true when it comes to how grammar instruction can improve academic writing skills. The key is a more intentional balance. It’s okay to speak up for keeping literature and grammar and creative writing in the curriculum (all of which have been on the chopping block lately)! I have, many times!

Practical Moves to Protect Your Energy AND Improve Student Outcomes

Here are a few ways we can stay effective without burning out:

Build units around texts and themes that YOU are passionate about! Students will be more engaged and happy in your class when you are genuinely enthusiastic about what you are teaching.
Reduce the number of fully graded major essays while increasing shorter, focused writing that targets specific skills. Quality of feedback matters more than quantity of papers.
Use clear, limited rubrics and prioritize one or two high-impact comments per paper rather than marking every error.
Create reusable scaffolds (think sentence starters, paragraph frames, annotation guides, discussion protocols) that will work for you with multiple units and multiple student groups.
Protect your instructional time from non-academic interruptions whenever possible. English is often the default class for announcements and special programs because it is required every year. Pushing some of that work into advisory or homeroom or even lunchtime announcements protects learning time.
Track what students actually do with your feedback. If revision rates are low, consider doing something else with feedback rather than writing more comments. (Find ideas here!)
Collaborate selectively with colleagues who are willing to reinforce reading and writing and citation in their content areas. Shared language and shared expectations reduce the sense that English is solely responsible for literacy outcomes.

None of this is going to eliminate the inherent demands of our subject, but it can make the demands more manageable!

Reducing the Stress of a High-Expectations Role

The pressure on high school English teachers is real, cumulative, and often invisible to those outside the department. You don’t have to feel like a complainer or like you aren’t a team player if you notice it. Our work is intellectually demanding, emotionally intense at times, and just plain overloaded. It’s okay to feel that!

At the same time, English remains one of the few places in a high schooler’s day where he or she will regularly practice the complex thinking, careful reading, and clear written and spoken expression that transfer across every other discipline and into adult life, so what we do makes a big impact.

The teachers who last in this profession cover the required ground, but they refuse to absorb every new expectation without proper additional support or time. They design instruction that is both rigorous and human. They protect their energy so they can stay present, focused, and happy for the students in front of them.

Yes, our workload is heavy. But it does not have to be carried alone or without limits. Clear-eyed recognition of what the role actually requires, combined with deliberate choices about planning, grading, differentiation, and more, can allow us to do the work well, stay in the profession, and still have something left at the end of the day.

Maintaining high standards and making what we do something that feels manageable is what students need most from each and every one of us who gets up there and teaches them to read, write, think, and speak with purpose!

Connect with Me!

How do you reduce the load? Anything I missed?

Drop a comment below to help other teachers reading this blog!

Follow English with Mrs. Lamp:
📷 Pinterest | 🏫 TPT Store | 📧 Email Newsletter

English with Mrs. Lamp