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Announcements
SSR Every Thursday!! Bring Something- No more Library. Vocabulary Presentations: Find the rubric here. Use Owl Purdue's VERY HELPFUL Website for your MLA Citations: A link to Purdue's MLA Style Guide A Note on English II Grading: A FAILING GRADE AT THIS POINT IN THE TERM DOES NOT INDICATE THAT A STUDENT IS FAILING!! This is why: As grades are sent home some students are worried about the reaction that their parents will have to their grade percentage. In the case of Standards Based Grading (which we are using in this class), low grades are expected and used as a tool for learning which areas students are struggling in. I have broken down the standards into small chunks or "Learning Targets" (all students keep a learning target log-ask them to show you!). Students are assessed on each learning target and the results are used to form the curriculum on a daily and weekly basis. For example, if students are struggling with Plot Structure, I will know right away and have the ability to return to that concept and reteach/reassess. The Learning Targets that students score low in also give them an idea of what they need to study and improve upon. Therefore, before our unit exam students can study their weakest areas, rather than feel that they need to study everything that was covered in the unit. Furthermore, the Unit Exam is not the end-all of learning for students. Unit Exams (which will be what students' grades are based on) will be broken down into standards for grading. With this concept, if a student scores 50% on a particular standard that student may retake a test only on that standard, rather than all of the content covered. Students will be permitted to retake test portions only after they have completed another formative assessment and/or come for tutoring. I know this grading style is confusing for some, but trust me, we will all get used to it. I like it better than traditional grading because it is easier to track student progress and intervene with specific areas of struggle. This system also allows for student test re-takes and promotes the philosophy that learning is a continuous process. If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact me! |