How? Just...how?

How do 90% of my students fail a test on verbs and adjectives? How do they fail it after we spend so much time on them? We go over them as a class, I model them, they practice identifying them in small groups. They even have a homework assignment on verbs, identifying them in their own writing. And yet they still fail the quiz.

Not all of them do, of course. The ones that I know will pass it -- K and J and B all make As, as expected, bless their souls. They hardly even need the review. That is what this is supposed to be -- a review. That is the most frustrating thing about this. This is all supposed to be a review.

This is supposed to be something that these students were to learn in 3rd grade -- and maybe some of them did -- but they lost it somewhere, or maybe they just did not get it when they were supposed to. At any rate, I am stuck trying to catch them up, and they are just not getting it. On no less than three papers did students label blueberry as a linking verb. How does one blueberry, exactly? That is the question.

And, at the same time I am frustrated, I am absolutely baffled. I said that most of my students failed the verb and adjective quiz spectacularly -- and that is no lie -- but many of them did well -- splendidly, in fact -- on the preposition and adverb quiz I gave them on Friday. How does that make sense? These children do not know the different between an adjective and a verb, but they can tell the difference between an adverb and a preposition and can label the preposition in a prepositional phrase, which I've always considered the hardest part about learning the 8 Parts of Speech.

I am absolutely frustrated, baffled, and maybe just a little bit pleased. I just hope that they can remember that long enough to do well on their project. And hold onto that information for the rest of their lives, hopefully.