Grading policy and class structure

I weight my grades: 50% of a student's grade comes from major assessments (papers, Humanities projects, etc) and 50% comes from classwork.

Because of the separate categories, your student's grade may be wildly impacted - or not impacted at all - by any given assignment. I post all assigned work and grades on Schoolloop, and update grades as often as I can.

My classroom will be a change for many students. Many students conceptualize history as a list of names and dates to be memorized. However, in my class ore of their grade will be based on their ability to create and defend arguments in writing and orally about a wide variety of history-related topics. I expect students to read critically and evaluate the content they are engaging in, always looking for bias and seeing issues from multiple perspectives. This is a change from a stereotypical history class, but I have gotten very positive feedback from students and parents about this emphasis.