Grade Categories and Weighting

There are 5 grading categories:

• Edpuzzle Video Assignments: These are the daily lecture videos and any other Edpuzzle assigned through Google Classroom. THESE ARE WORTH 10% OF THE OVERALL GRADE! This is important to understand because you cannot get higher than a F in the class if all you do are the Edpuzzles, even if you get a perfect score on every single one.

• Unit Practice Paragraph Google Docs: These are the Google Docs students get in the beginning of each unit that they fill out as we write our unit paragraphs one sentence at a time. THESE ARE WORTH 10% OF THE OVERALL GRADE! While this is not enough to pass the class alone, if you do both the Edpuzzle assignments and these correctly, then you can get a D in the class without taking a single assessment!

• World History Student Workbooks: These are the brightly colored class workbooks that we use every day! You are responsible to complete the vocabulary, notes, and practice paragraph portions of each unit to get full credit. THIS IS WORTH 10% OF THE OVERALL GRADE! If you do the Edpuzzles, Practice Paragraphs, and Workbooks perfectly, it is still only worth 30% of the grade and cannot score higher than a D in the class. You need to score points on tests to get a C or higher!

• Paragraph Unit Assessment: This is the writing portion of the unit test and assesses the paragraph students should have already written in their Practice Paragraph Google Doc and Student Workbook mentioned above. THIS IS WORTH 45% OF THE OVERAL GRADE! These paragraphs can exactly mimic the practice paragraph, but must be reproduced from memory for the test. No notes are allowed as we are measuring the student's ability to reproduce information in writing using 4th grade writing standards. RETAKES ARE AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST AT LUNCH OR AFTER SCHOOL.

• Content Unit Assessment: This is the content portion of the unit test and assesses information students learned from the workbook, Edpuzzle videos, and Kahoot reviews. THIS IS WORTH 25% OF THE OVERALL GRADE! No notes or outside resources are allowed for this as we are assessing the student's ability to recall basic information and apply it. RETAKES ARE AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST AT LUNCH OR AFTER SCHOOL.

Edpuzzle Grading and Google Classroom

Remember that this part of your grade of worth 10% and you need to do well and add points from other categories to get a C in the class!

• We linked the Aeries gradebook to our Google Classrooms and import your Edpuzzle assignment scores automatically. This is great for several reasons:

  • You do not have to tell us when you do an old Edpuzzle assignment, it will automatically update into Aeries once you complete it and we import the grades weekly.

  • If you have no grade in Aeries, but clicked 'Turned In' for the assignment in Google Classroom, it will clearly show that you are avoiding work and trying to lie about what you completed. You will get credit only for completed assignments.

  • HERE IS THE BIG ONE! Because your scores for the Edpuzzles will not be converted into the 4-Point Scale, but scored out of 100 points instead, what was a bad grade now gets a boost! Remember, a 50% on the Edpuzzle before would have been a 0 grade, but now you will get those 50 points for that assignment, which means it is the equivalent of a C. If this is confusing, don't sweat it too much, just understand that you are now getting credit and points for something that would have recieved a 0 before.

• This does not mean that you should be okay with bad scores on the Edpuzzles, but it does mean that getting a 75% will net you a good grade and getting a low score like a 50% now and then will not hurt you as much.

What you need to do to get the grade you want

Below are breakdowns of what you could do to get whichever grade you want in this class and what level of academic skill the grade represents:

GETTING AN F GRADE: (Represents a 1st grade level of academic skill.)

• It is really hard to get an F in this class. You either have to do almost nothing or fail almost everything to make this happen.

• Remember a 12.5% on the overal scale is a D- grade, so getting an F means you scored below that. You would have to score below a 50% average on the Edpuzzles, score no points on any tests, and score 1s on every practice paragraph and workbook check to make this happen. This can only happen if the student is avoiding the work at all costs. Becuase there are no penalties for late assignments and test retakes are available if a student asks. Failing is not possible unless it is the goal of the student. The entire class was built to make it easy for everyone to earn a D with a little effort.

• Getting a D is really easy in this class, getting an F is an act of pure defiance.

GETTING A D GRADE: (Represents a 2nd/3rd grade level of academic skill.)

• Getting a D is not good, but still very easy to do. You can achieve a D grade in this class doing one the following:

  • Score at least a 75% average on the Edpuzzles for the semester and a 2 average on the Practice Paragraph Doc or the Student Workbook Checks.

  • Score at least 7 out of 20 points for the semester on the paragraph unit tests.

  • Score at least 10 out of 20 points for the semester on the content unit tests.

  • Any combination of assignments that achieves an overall class score of 12.5% or the equivalent of a 0.5 GPA.

• Doing one of the above will guarantee a D, but doing ALL of the first three choices will get you a C!

GETTING A C GRADE: (Represents a 4th grade level of academic skill.)

• Getting a C is not great, but it is not bad either! This should be the minimum you aim for in this class. You can achieve a C grade in this class doing one of the following:

  • Scoring at least a 75% average on ALL the Edpuzzles for the semester and at least a 3 average on all the Practice Paragraph Docs and Student Workbooks. Averaging at least a 1.5 on each unit test.

  • Scoring at least 18 our of 20 points on the paragraph tests.

  • Scoring 20 out of 20 points on the content tests and at half the points for the Edpuzzles, workbook, and practice paragraph.

  • Doing a mix of the above that achieves a total of 37.5% or greater or 1.5 GPA for the class.

• These options are very doable and there is very little that would reasonably excuse a student from not earning a C grade.

GETTING A B GRADE: (Represents a 5th/6th grade level of academic skill.)

• Now we're getting into the grades that students earn when they (1) follow directions, (2) put in consistent effort, and (3) use the opportunities to fix mistakes. It is important to recognize that students get all the test questions and answers before the assessments and can use the resources on the website to ace the Edpuzzles and Practice Paragraph Google Docs. This class is easy if you're willing to work.

• Getting a B is good! Be proud if you showed the self-respect and grit necessary to achieve this. You can achieve a B grade in this class doing one of the following:

  • Getting at least a 3 on every unit assessment, averaging a 70% or above on every Edpuzzle video, and averaging at least a 2 on all the Practice Paragraph Google Docs.

  • Getting 30 out of 40 total unit test points for the semester, averaging a 75% or above on the Edpuzzles, and 1s on either the Practice Paragraph Docs or Student Workbooks.

  • Getting 36 out of 40 total unit test points for the semester. Acing the tests guarantees a B, even if you do no other work, but we have never seen a student successfully do this. Turns out not doing the work leads to not knowing anything!

  • Doing a mix of the above that achieves a total of 62.5% or a 2.5 GPA for the class.

• As you can see the requirements for a B are a bit more than a C and are more representative of the choice to do the things a typical student should, like: consistently completing assignments, correcting mistakes through retakes, and showing evidence of some content knowledge and writing skill. IF YOU END THE SCHOOL YEAR WITH A B IN THIS CLASS, THEN 8TH GRADE SHOULD PROVE MUCH EASIER!

GETTING AN A GRADE: (Represents a 7th grade level of academic skill!)

• There is less to say here since this basically requires that a students does almost all the assignments correctly. If you get an A, then kudos to you and I hope you keep doing whatever it is you are doing, because it works!

• To get an A in the class, you need to do ALL of the following:

  • Score 35 out of 40 points on the unit assessments for the semester.

  • Average an 87.5% on all the Edpuzzle videos.

  • Average a 3.5 on Practice Paragraph Google Docs and Student Workbook checks.

  • Doing anything that achieves a total of 87.5% or 3.5 GPA for the class.

• This is obviously much more demanding than the other grades, but that is the point. Considering you have all the answers and can do test retakes every week, this is still achievable for any student that cares to try for it.