October 31, 2006

Happy Halloween. No homework tonight. We are rolling along with the study of "The Highwayman."

October 30, 2006

I updated a few things on the web page. The next assignment is listed, and I have shown that grades have been updated recently. The marking period ends this week. I have three grades that need to go in the book: participation, units 1-3 quiz, and the GoMYAccess score on the favorite person essay. I should have the grades done by Friday. I will send out an e-mail.

The goal for this week is to continue our study of sentences and write the next essay on "The Highwayman." The poem and prompt are difficult, but I love the story! I know the students will appreciate the story after we have studied it, but the essay will require some thought. You can see the prompt for yourself if you go to the my web page. We will listen to a dramatic reading of the poem eventually.

I also handed out the homework schedule for the month of November. It is also listed on the web page.

October 25 & 26, 2006

I did not get to write yesterday. Actually, I forgot. I am so focused on grading the essays. Luckily, they are all done! Yeh, me! I finished section 7 and sent out the updated grades. As far as grades go, I have a few pieces of make-up work, the quiz 1-3, and another participation grade waiting to go in the book. I will also be putting in the GoMyAccess score for the My Favorite Person essay. (I do need to give the quiz to two classes, and I may curve the scores. I want to see how they all did.)

As far as what is coming up, we will begin our next essay next week. We will be studying the poem "The Highwayman." It is a great poem, but it is not very accessible to seventh graders. I am not worried, though. My students did fine on it last year. This will be another GoMYAccess prompt, but I will score this one, unlike the favorite person one.

First marking period is almost over.

October 24, 2006

Another day. Some classes were in the lab. Others were in class practicing subject/verb and introductions. Some classes have a review quiz tomorrow. Others will be in the lab. All should finish the review unit in the vocab book. It will help them study for the quiz. Sorry to be so vague.

I updated the grades for section 6. I will give the grades to the students tomorrow. I also sent out a grade update for section 6 by e-mail. If you did not get one, you should send me an e-mail to be sure you are on my list. I do get messages that bounce back. Maybe I have the wrong address.

I have graded 100 essays. Only 30 more to go. The main error seems to be knowing how to punctuate sentences. That is fine. What is not fine is a genral lack of proofreading. There are many errors that are unacceptable.

October 23, 2006

This week will be confusing. Different classes are on different schedules. Please check the calendar from MrBoZ.com . For example, sections 6 and 7 were in the writing lab. That will be their last day until 30 minutes on Friday. Section 1 has a quiz tomorrow. Section 2 will be in the writing lab for the next two days. Ugh.

Sorry I cannot be more specific.

I finished grading the essays for section 3. I have printed the grade slips and will give them to the students tomorrow. I also sent them by e-mail. Most students in the class wrote somewhat detailed essays, but their sentences had many grammar mistakes. Those mistakes kept them from getting the next highest score. In other words, had the grammar been good, they would have gotten one grade higher. Although grammar can be somewhat over looked when scoring, there is a limit, especially when mistakes become distractions. It makes me wish for the days when grammar was most important. Right now, ideas and organization are most important. We will push on. I am teaching sentences in class almost every day. They love it!

October 19th and 20th, 2006

Class is proceeding swimmingly. (I don't really know what that means, come to think about it. It sounds good, though.) I am finished grading the essays for my two largest classes. The remaining three classes should be scored by the end of next week. It's the best I can do.

As I have said before, this week and next are dedicated to grading, so the classes will be doing straight forward lessons on grammar and essay writing. We have been working on subject and verb since the beginning of the year a little at a time. We will continue that through diagramming sentences eventually. That will be fun.

The classes are now starting to get time in the lab. That does not mean that they cannot work on the essays at home on their computers. Since I will be taking the score from the computer, they should be trying as hard as they can to raise their scores.

October 18, 2006

Most classes finished listening to the ten students who volunteered to read their essays. Now we are beginning the writing lab days. Some classes will be going down while others will be in the classroom. We will be doing a variety of activites over the next few days including vocabulary, grammar, and planning for the favorite person essay.

I finished scoring the essays for section one. I plan to enter the make-up work and get out a small grade update this week. Then I will begin scoring section two. Again, scoring essays takes a lot of time, so I am trying my best to keep up with everything.

October 17, 2006

I have had a few parents asking what the current writing assignment is. You can find it here: http://www.mrboz.com/school/assignments/assignment_favorite_person_gomyaccess.html . I asked the students to have a favorite person and some reasons why they admire him/her for Wednesday.

The schedule for the essay is very hard to list. That is why I do not have due dates on the calendar. I am trying to get my students into the writing lab during the two planning periods of other the grades' teachers. Most days I can only get two classes into the lab. The district wants this essay entered by October 31, so I am trying to fit this in.

During class we studied grammar, talked a little about the topic, and we listened to students reading their essays. We will be working on little things in class for the next two weeks. I want them to focus their energies on getting the highest score they can on the GoMyAccess essay. Each day's lessons will be aimed at helping them revise their essays.

October 16, 2006

If your child says that he does not have vocab homework, he is not lying! Over the next two weeks we will be writing a GoMyAccess essay. I believe I have explained this before. This week will focus on reading some of the essays handed in and reviewing units 1-3 vocab. Any review we do will be in class.

The students should have a draft of their essay ready for Thursday. I will post the schedule soon. I really need every available minute for grading essays, so I will not have as much information on the web pages and stuff like that. Sorry.

October 11, 2006

The students took the quiz on unit 3. Since we did not spend any time on the words in class, I decided to cut them a break on the quiz. That break was dependent on their doing their homework, though. For the honors classes, I allowed them to use the completing the sentence and synonyms activities from the book. They could only use those two pages. For the academic classes, I allowed them to use their flashcards. Since the cards are supposed to have the word, definition, and part of speech, I figured they would be a big help. Plus, if the students did all the activities, they would have practiced how to use twenty more words. The quiz is just the icing on the cake.

I am not sure about our next writing assignment. I would also like to focus more on skills for a little while, so next week we will be doing more grammar and vocabulary exercises. I will take a break from Bob Dylan. The district has prompts they want me to work on anyway. However, we will be listening to 10 papers in class. These will be students who volunteered. I will record them. They love that! (not!)

October 10, 2006

We have finished typing in the Dylan essays. No, I have no idea what is next. We will probably spend some time sharing some of the better essays. Maybe we will focus on grammar for a little while. We do have a basic essay that we have to write for GoMyAccess for the next time. Maybe we will get a jump on that. Many students can use the program at home. Who knows?

All of the essays have been submitted. I am taking the score the Approximator gave the essays and making it a 50 point grade. Since we were all scored the same, I feel it was fair.(I got a 6 FYI, but my readability grade level was low.) Over the next few weeks (about 20 hours worth of reading), I will grade the essays as a human. Just because Johnny got a 6 from the computer does not mean he writes on a 6 level (out of 6). I will offer some feedback they can apply to their next essays.

There is a vocab quiz tomorrow, but since we did not do much of anything with the unit, I will be allowing the classes to use their books(shhhh). We might spend the next week reviewing units 1-3 instead of doing a regular unit. I will look at the calendar.

If I sound like I don't know what is coming up next, there is a reason. I don't. :) But that keeps it fun. I will coordinate with Ms. Wallace to keep the two of us together.

October 9, 2006

We spent the day discussing the six point rubric. I wanted to show the students the basic idea of how an essay is scored since they receive a score when they submit their essays on GoMyAccess. Then we read an essay that the computer scored as a six. Interestingly, the essay we read would not score a six if a human read the essay. So we discussed the difference between a computer scoring and a human scoring. We thought about what a computer was capable of scoring and how they could improve their essays tomorrow to increase their scores. Tomorrow I will take the computer score and give it to them as a 25 point grade; a six will be an A. I think that is fair even if the computer isn't perfect. We are all being scored by it.

I am revising my essay as well. I scored a six. I had 1500 words and a readability of grade 6.4. After having a friend read it and make suggestions, I improved the flow of the essay, reduced the size by 500 words, but I only raised the readability to 6.8. I must find a way to improve my vocabulary. I enjoy writing for all the prompts I assign.

Homework: The students should be done all of unit 3 for Tuesday. The quiz will be on Wednesday. We haven't really discussed the words, so this unit is one that they have been almost totally responsible for. I will take that into consideration for the quiz.

October 6, 2006

We were in the writing lab today. I was teaching the students how to use the tools provided by GoMyAccess to increase the scores on their essays. The program favors long, detailed essays with excellent vocabulary. There is a feature of the program that counts the number of words and syllables. That provides a grade level readability. Ideally, they should write on or above their own grade level. My writing should also be on grade level. The funny part is my essay had 1500 words but only had a readability of grade 6.4! I have a masters degree! How embarrassing.

I told them that my plan was to reduce my essay by 500 words and improve my vocabulary. I should say what I need to say in fewer words. Honestly, after a few days have passed, I see how I need to revise what I said. I can be more objective in the revision than I was when I was passionately writing.

I will be taking the GoMyAccess score as a 25 point grade. If students score a 6, they can get an A. A five will earn a B and so on. The program is good for sorting out better writers, but it is not perfect. I will score the essays myself afterwards.

October 5, 2006

We were in the writing lab today. I don't have much to write here. The students should have finished the following vocabulary work: pictionaries 1-20, synonyms, choosing, and completing the sentence. This will keep them on schedule for next week's quiz.

October 4, 2006

We did not get into the writing lab today. My plan is to use GoMyAccess to revise the papers. If your child used it last you, I think you know a little bit about the program. Basically, it is used to score papers by computer. It works best when students write prompts from the program, but it can still give general feedback for self-generated prompts from the teacher.

Homework for tonight is completing the sentence unit 3. The students should also have a draft of their essay ready to enter into the computer tomorrow. We will be focusing on revising the introductions, word choice, and transitions. Word choice and transitions are easily scored by the computer. Their scores should go up when they add better words.

October 3, 2006

I was absent yesterday. I am sure your children told you about the sub. Apparently the students were told that the essay was due the next day. I simply wanted the students to use the whole period as writing time. Oh, well. At least they are ahead of the game now because the essay is due Wednesday... but only a good rough draft.

Today we discussed the topic again since the students were not quite sure what I was asking for. So I gave them a little example using the piece I am writing. I study life a lot and think deeply. It drives my wife crazy! But I have been thinking about death and the afterlife lately. So as I was walking into school today, the song "Live Like You Were Dying" was going through my head. Then it hit me. That is what I have been thinking about. Don't our beliefs about the afterlife determine how we live our lives today? Shouldn't they?

In the song, the man who is dying states, "… someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying." Now that he sees his days winding down, he wishes the person listening would live his life as if he were dying. So is it right for me to wish that people think about their death more often? Won’t those thoughts guide how you live today?

I did not get religious in class, but I will be discussing Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism in the paper (as well as I can). I will not post the paper, nor will I share it with the students. It will not be appropriate in a public school setting. But it is what I have needed to say, what has been weighing on my heart. (If you want to read it, send me an e-mail. Hey, if you actually read all this... thanks!)