FAQs

Every day Mrs. Tichenor will do her best to have 3 sections written on the board. Left to right they will be What to do Upon Entering, Instructions, and Homework.

What to do upon entering should be like walking into a library.......

• Quietly Enter (whisper).

• Clear your desk for IEW binder, folder, paper, pencil bag.

• Turn in assignments (if needed) to the Tichenor Bin.

• Quietly, look to board for instruction.

• Quietly, wait for the teacher

At the front of the class, to the left of the whiteboard, is a small bookcase having on top of it a paper bin labeled Tichenor. All assignments are turned into this bin. At the end of the class period, Mrs. Tichenor will collect the contents of the bin. She will mark each item with the date it was collected from the bin. This date allows her to keep track of any late assignments.

Please DO NOT......

• turn in assignments to another teacher to be given to Mrs. Tichenor.

• email papers/assignments to Mrs. Tichenor. Any assignments emailed will not be accepted.

• turn in papers/assignments into the front office.

• set papers/assignments on Mrs. Tichenor's desk.

A paper/assignment would be considered late if a student.......

• does not turn in an assignment by the end of class on the date it is due (except for excused absences). 

• turns assignments into another teacher to be given to Mrs. Tichenor.

• emails papers/assignments to Mrs. Tichenor. Any assignments emailed will not be accepted.

• turns in papers/assignments into the front office.

• sets papers/assignments on Mrs. Tichenor's desk.

• does not place the paper/assignment in the Tichenor bin by the end of our class period.

• does not properly mark their topic/clincher key words, dress-ups, sentence openers, and decorations. If items are not marked (see FAQ on how to mark dress-ups), the paper will be handed back to the student as incomplete, making the paper late.

Each paper has an associated checklist that gives detailed instructions for marking anything to be graded within the paper, allowing the items to "stand out" from the rest of the composition.

This includes, but not limited to......

• Key words between the topic sentence and its clincher should be highlighted with a single-colored highlighter. If typed, then the key words can be in bold text.

• All dress-ups in every paragraph should be underlined.

• All dress-ups in every paragraph should have markings in the left margin (-ly, w/w, QA, SV, b/c, w/a, w/a/b).

• All sentence openers in every paragraph should have markings in the left margin. Its corresponding number, see checklist, with brackets. For example, prepositional and -ly adverb openers would be marked in the margin with [2] and [3].

• Decorations in every paragraph should be underlined and marked in the left margin with "dec".

Mrs. Tichenor recognizes that there are many ways to achieve one final outcome and loves all the different methods, each one reflective of a student's personality/bent, used by her students to achieve their outcomes. At times it's best to have one way to achieve a goal. Mrs. Tichenor kindly askes that you do not mark your dress-ups, openers, and decorations in the following ways.

Please refer to the other FAQ about how to mark dress-ups and other items.

Please do NOT......

• use a color-coded key to follow, example QA=green, SV=red.

• list full words in your margin along with abbreviations.

• user highlighters of all colors. The ONLY highlighting is for your topic and clincher sentences reflecting 2-3 key words (or bold, if typing)

• use the same dress-ups and openers in each paragraph.

• leave your margin blank. If it’s blank, then I will return your paper b/c you didn’t mark your dress-ups, openers, and decorations.

Each paper has an associated checklist, and on that checklist (usually the 4th item under STRUCTURE) is listed the items to be turned in and in what order.

• Checklist on top, final draft, rough draft, and the key word outline on the bottom.

Composition papers are treated as classwork/homework with regard to homework being turned in late. Per the Family Handbook late homework (not related to an excused absence) is graded as follows: 1 day late the grade starts at 75%, 2 days late the grade starts at 50%, and greater than 2 days late there is no credit given.

Yes, if it is an excused absence (please refer to the Family Handbook about what constitutes an excused absence).

All composition papers/assignments are graded as assessments but are treated like classwork and homework when it comes to absences. For every excused absence, the student gets one extra day to complete an assignment.