Grading
Education should be about finding and developing one’s own personal talents.
Education is about the sharing of values and tradition.
Education is about developing the skills needed to fulfill one’s civic responsibilities.
Education is not merely about knowing; it is about becoming.
It is not best measured by a test score.
It is best measured by how high children come to believe they can soar.
-Kyleen Beers
Course Focus
Students will practice reading, writing, speaking, and thinking in Language Arts this year. Students will have a choice in the material they read and the topics they write about and discuss. It is my desire to encourage curiosity and build students’ confidence in developing ideas and communicating with others.
A wise colleague recently compared language arts class to athletics. “English is the subject most like athletics,” he said. “You don’t learn how to pitch and then stop pitching. You don’t learn how to run and stop practicing. You keep doing it, and you keep getting better.” Reading, writing, speaking, and thinking are the same.
Students will earn grades based on the growth they demonstrate in reading, writing, speaking, and thinking in class. Grades will emphasize the development of routines and processes for thinking. I will have conversations with each student to assess where they started, where they are, and plan for what they will do next with their current reading and/or writing assignment. Students will show evidence of application of reading and writing skills in their notebooks during student/teacher conversations.
Class Materials
It is important for each student to bring their independent reading material and to have a composition notebook available for writing in class every day. The composition notebook serves as a tool to record students' thinking during class, after reading, or before writing. Students should consider their notebook as similar to an artist's sketchbook: a resource for planning and creating.
Grading Policy
Grade weights: Daily work/Formative assessments (quizzes)/Homework: 70% of the total grade
Summative assessments (tests and major writing assignments): 30% of the total grade
Retest: Students may retake summative assessments with a score of less than 70% within a week of receiving the original score and earn up to a 90%. Attending tutorials is recommended before the retest. Daily work, formative assessments, and homework may be redone within a week of receiving the original score and earn up to a 70%.
Late work: Late work must be submitted within one week (5 school days) from when it was entered as missing in the gradebook. Late work will receive a maximum grade of 70%. After the late work deadline, assignments will no longer be accepted, and the “missing” in the grade book will become a zero.
Make-up work: A student has the number of days absent plus one to turn in make-up work. For example, if a student is absent for three days of class, they will have four days to turn in missed work. Extenuating circumstances will be determined on a case-by-case basis.
