The Thursday before the storm, I left school early to go to the dentist. That Friday, I got a root canal. Then Sandy hit. Those two days back were stressful because the marking period was ending and AR was not finished. I was out Monday (yesterday) because my daughter's nose was broken and we needed to see a specialist.
In short, the grades are entered for the first marking period. We are working our way through "The Ransom of Red Chief." I have a plan for the writing piece which will be another response to literature. However, we will be watching two movie versions of the story as a compare-contrast to the written.
The Accelerated Reader program was not perfect the first marking period, but I made every attempt to be fair to the students. Now that I understand how the program works, I am going to step back and see how I will use it for the second marking period.
Achieve 3000 is up and running. We are required to get the students on the program twice a week. That is not a problem with block scheduling. Again, I am new to the program, so I am figuring out how to best use it to help the students. Right now, I am attempting to read their three sentence e-mails they are required to write for each session. We are not allowed to use the Achieve scores for grades, but I can score their writing. I have established the following rubric for earning points. I do not think that asking for three perfect sentences is too much. The students will get points for writing the e-mail even if they do not get the full five points. As of now, these grades will be used in a general way of C, B, A. And, like I said, I am trying something out with the goal of helping the students use correct grammar. The grade is not my real focus.
Achieve Grade: Use perfect grammar in communications with
your teacher!
(Use Word to double check.
Use a friend to proofread.)
0 points- Two
or more grammar errors: Spelling, apostrophes
I
send it back to you. You can fix. I hope I get back to it! (This might be impossible.)
5 points - One
error is not fine, but you should have caught them using Word.
Must be three sentences long and
make sense.
Statement, support, support
10 points- None
or one error.
Over
three sentences and well supported.
You
showed me that you really thought about your choice.
Brought
in things that you know about the topic.
Remember, the points I give you go towards your Achieve
points! I don’t know enough to say where
you should be, but getting points is good!
