Thoughts about Grades

 Dear CHAT Writing 1 Students & Parents,

I've just finished calculating the grades for the Spring semester, and you will be finding them in your inbox in just a few minutes.  As tutors, we give you suggested grades for you as homeschooling families to consider.

Allow me to share my thoughts on grades.  As I homeschool my own children, I don’t give them grades.  I feel that grades are far too subjective, especially coming from their mother.  Instead, I teach my own children for mastery, and we don’t proceed with a topic until they are ready, no matter how long that takes.  In a class setting, knowing where each student is with regards to his/her understanding of a topic is not always possible, so any grade given is not a complete representation of what the student learned or accomplished this year.

Letter grades are a funny thing.  For some students, it becomes the only motivation for doing well.  For some, it becomes a measure of their worth as people or as  academic learners.  I personally don't like these "side effects" of the grading system.  On the other hand, grades can be a valid reflection and reward for working hard, being diligent, and understanding the materials.

When teaching students to be good writers, I give a lot of consideration for growth and improvement. Each student has a starting place; over time I look for him or her to learn the mechanics of grammar, good writing techniques, and analytical thinking skills.

For this class, I gave points for Quick Writes, short assignments, literature assignments, grammar exercises, and longer essays. The final drafts of the essay assignments were graded using a rubric that divided the papers into the following categories:  focus, content, organization, and mechanics.  

The scores for class work are divided into the following categories:  Quick Writes and Miscellanea, Writing, Literature, and Grammar.  A student may have been strong in one area and not in another, and this will be reflected in these categories.  These scores are also weighted; in other words, not all of the categories have the same importance.  The Quick Write points are 15% of the total grade, the Writing assignments are 30%, the Literature homework is 28%, and the Grammar work is 27%. (You will see that each of these categories has subcategories.  This is  for the purpose of keeping the internal category weighting correct.)

The grade breakdowns for Writing 1 are as follows:

98% - 100% (A+), 93% - 97% (A), 90% - 92% (A-),

87% - 89% (B+), 83% - 86% (B), 80 % - 82% (B-),

77% - 77% (C+), 73% - 76% (C), 70% - 72% (C-),

67% - 69% (D+), 63% - 66% (D), 60% - 62% (D-),

55% - 59% (Pass), 50% - 54% (Fail); 0% - 49% (Incomplete)

Each student (and parents) will receive an e-mail with percentages and a suggested overall grade for this semester. (Note:  You will need to scroll down to the bottom of the document.)   I’ve seen each student improve with each paper and have truly enjoyed my interactions with this class.  Good Work!

Blessings to all,

Mrs. G

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 15 (May 7)

 Greetings everyone!

We had a stupendous final day of Writing 1 at CHAT for the 2024-25 school year.  We have covered so much over the course of the year, that our heads are full; but the weeks go by so quickly that it seems hard to think that we're at the end.  

As the culminating event, students have been working towards staging our class Poetry Event.  They all had a role to play on on a committee and they worked collaboratively to make this event a success.  I am proud of the way they communicated, split up the work and let their talents shine as they organized and then performed their poetic pieces.   Though I  know that some students do not enjoy poetry, I appreciated their good attitudes and risk-taking–even the ones who do not enjoy performing.  I am proud of you all!

The stage was set, the refreshments ready and the decorations were amazing!! Thank you all for working so hard at putting this all together. It really made it special!

After a short class business meeting, then we were ready to begin. In the pre-round, all students performed the poem they have memorized this semester “The Jabberwocky.” Students who could recite it without looking at the poem received extra credit! After that, Using the beautiful student designed program our dynamic Emcee duo of Trace and Zac took charge and explained the judging criteria and the flow of the event.  A panel of judges used a scoring system to evaluate the poem and the delivery style–and though it was difficult, they did come up with the top three performances.  After a tie-breaker for third place, the winners were announced:

  

Congratulations to:

3rd place: Louisa

2nd place:  Lilabeth

1st place:  Lyla

Please watch Google Classroom for a link to the photo album from this event. Thanks to Lyla for putting that together!

Now that it is all over, I want to let you know that I am working on getting all the grading finished.  I have given students until tonight–Friday (May 8)  @ 11:59 PM  to hand any work in.  Final Grades will be out sometime next week.  If for some reason that won't work, please contact me. Look for two emails from me:  one that explains how I grade and then the grades themselves.  In the meantime, you can look at Google Classroom to get a pretty good idea of what work is missing. (Heads up:  your grade may appear higher on GC than it is especially if you are missing a lot of assignments! Remember that Google Classroom doesn't default those missing scores to zeros. That’s what happens in the grading program I use).

This has been a great year with these students.  They're bright and engaging, and they've worked hard this year. I look forward to working with some of them again in Writing 2!

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Writing 1 Class Notes--WK 14 (4/30)

 Greetings!

This week was our penultimate class for the year -- the one before the last one!

We had a lightning fast round Visual Vocabulary today in order to get our last two in before we took the Spring Visual Vocabulary Quiz.  Our words today were garrulous and abrogate.  We talked them through and students jotted down the definitions.  This was great, because the vocabulary quiz was “open worksheet.”  It is a well-deserved  reward for taking comprehensive notes all semester!

After that, I gave the students five minutes to review for the Grammar Test and to make sure all was in order for the Visual Vocabulary Quiz.  Since their homework was a Sentence Patterns Review that they finished and corrected, they should have done really well on it!  I had them help me correct it when it was all over and then we were ready to switch gears.

The rest of the class time was dedicated to committee work for the big event next week.  As we discussed, it takes a lot of work to pull off a successful event.  When students have “skin in the game” with planning and organizing an event, I find there’s a high level of ownership and engagement.  After discussing how the committee work should flow,  they were split  into groups and got busy dividing and conquering their committee’s punch list.  I encouraged them to exchange contact information.  

Their final writing assignment, a Reflection Paper, is due next week.   For this paper, they are to write about what they learned this year, what they learned about themselves this year, and what did and didn't work well this year.  At the bottom of this email is a link to an article about the value of reflection as a part of learning.

Next week is the final week, and I will accept homework until Sunday, May 10 at 11:59 PM.  My experience is that once the CHAT classes are done, students really lose momentum for completing late homework.  My plan is to get final grades out within the week.  

Blessings on your weekend!

Mrs. G

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Any old homework

-- Reflection Paper

–Practice your poems!

–Committee work

CHAT Writing 1--WK 13 (4/24)

 Hello There!

Today was another great day with this group.  They are such a blessing as we continue to work and learn together.

Instead of a Quick Write today, we took a few minutes to recite the poem we are attempting to commit to memory:  “The Jabberwocky” by C.S. Lewis. The homework was to memorize it up to stanza four. After reviewing for a few minutes, students stood up and attempted to recite it from memory. It is coming right along! The goal is to recite it at our Poetry Event on the last day of class.

After that, students had another opportunity to try their hands at writing some original poetry.  We watched a video of local poet Rudy Francisco perform a piece called “My Honest Poem” and then read an example based on his performance.  Students had time in class to compose their own “My Poem” based on the examples.  I could tell some really got into “the zone” writing these and my hope is to hear some of these performed at our Poetry Event.  

Writing

Now that students have turned in their FINAL formal essay for me (whoohoo!) they will submit a more informal Reflection Essay.  Reflect on what, you ask? At the beginning of the year, students were given a Blue Book, a simple writing prompt and a 20 minute timer. Today, I passed those same Blue Books back and gave them the same prompt and set the timer once again.  Their Reflection Essay will ask them to compare their writing from the beginning of the year and to evaluate their own writing growth. I hope students will be encouraged to witness their growth this year! I passed out the guidelines for that assignment.  It is due the last day of class (May 7).

Literature

Speaking of the Poetry Event, which will be the last day of class, I spent some time introducing this project.  It takes a lot of work to put on an event like this, and to split up the labor, each student will sign up for a role on a committee.  Their grade on this project will depend on not only their poetry performance techniques, but also how well they worked as a group. 

They are to consider which committee they want to join and as homework, they are to answer two Discussion Questions by Sunday, April 26th!  The questions are about their first and second preferences of which committee they’d like to participate in and the two poems they would like to perform.  The poems can be any combination of “found poems” and original poems. “Found poems” can be from our poetry book, your own poetry collection, from the library or another source.  Each poem should be 4-5 lines long minimum and should be CHAT appropriate!  I mentioned that if the poem is from a source outside of our class poetry book, it must be submitted to me for approval. If it is not approved by me, the poem will not be able to be performed and you will miss out on the points for this project. We will spend the bulk of next class period on committee work.

Grammar

To conclude our Grammar for the year,  I passed out a review sheet that they should complete and then correct. (The Key is on the Google Classroom assignment.)  Correcting their own work will further help them review and will be much more beneficial than waiting a week to see if they got the answers right in preparation for a Final Sentence Patterns Test that they will take in class next week. 

We have a couple fun weeks planned to finish out our year, so let's make sure you get caught up on any late work.

Blessings,

Mrs. G

Assignments for Next Week:

–Which Committee? Discussion Question—Due Sunday, April 26!!

–Which Poems?  Discussion Question

Choose 2 poems for your contribution to the Poetry Jam (Here is the scoring/committee information); Can be a combination of of “found poetry” and original poetry

–Finish composing “My Poem”( if not finished in class)

–-- Complete the Sentence Patterns Review sheet and correct it. (Bring the corrected version to class)

About the Reflection Essay

-- Reflection Essay (due May 8)

Links for This Week

Rudy Fransisco’s “My Honest Poem” video

“The Jabberwocky”

Class Blog

Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 12 (4/16)

 

The weather is really starting to turn Springy now!  

We started out with Visual Vocabulary.  Today’s words are:  fallacious and ardent.  Hopefully these students are never ardently fallacious! We only have one more installment of Visual Vocabulary before the end-of-semester quiz.

The next portion of  class was dedicated to poetry. Some students enjoy poetry and some are not crazy about it.  We talked about how poetry is art made with words.  I told them that it is said that poets are born–but the rest of us can learn how to write verse and enjoy it.  :) 

Writing

We blurred the lines between writing and literature today because we worked with a poem that is assigned for next week.  It’s actually one of my very favorites!  “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams is short and packed with imagery–we read another short one by him last week.  After discussing reading, hearing and discussing, we also read another example of “imagist” poetry by Ezra Pound. Students are assigned to try to imitate one or both poems for homework.

Literature

We had a Poetry Devices Scavenger Hunt.  After discussing different Poetic Devices like onomatopoeia, imagery, and enjambment, we practiced identifying devices together in the large group.  After that, I assigned groups and they were given time to read and “scavenge” their own poems for different devices.  We had time for a few station rotations of this.  They found that there were some favorites among this batch–especially poems by Billy Collins.

Grammar

After that, we had a very brief teaching on Simple and Compound sentences and students had time to work on the two worksheets in class.  We talked about the fact that when a FANBOY is connecting two independent clauses, it is called a compound sentence–and in that case, you must put a comma BEFORE the FANBOY.  If there is a FANBOY, but it is not connecting two independent clauses, it is a simple sentence and there is no comma necessary.

That is all!  Blessings on your weekend!

Mrs. G

Homework

Week 13 Poems

Poetry Response Packets

Imagist Poems–write 2

Week 12 Grammar 

–Simple & Compound Sentences

–Writing Compound Sentences 

Compare/Contrast Essay (if not yet finished or would like to reduce checklist)

Links for this week

Visual Vocabulary

WK 12 Poetry Discussion– “The Red Wheelbarrow”

CHAT Writing 1 Class Notes–Week 11 (4/9)

I had to travel out of state for a family event over the weekend. So, I left the class in the capable hands of my sub, Mrs. Burns.

April is Poetry Month in Writing Class!  As an English teacher, it’s probably not surprising that I enjoy poetry.  But honestly, I haven’t really gotten into it until later in life.  If they are not already enjoying it, my goal is to open a door of poetry enjoyment for my students through reading some great poetry and attempting to write some lines of our own.

Visual Vocabulary

Today, our words were:  laconic and ebullient. I know when I am feeling ebullient, and am usually not very laconic.  I usually talk a lot, and at a high volume.

Writing

Today, the Formal Critique Essay was due.  I will be working my way through grading and coding those this week. Once you receive those, the last batch of Final Edits will be due since this is our last “from scratch” essay!  

Literature

Today, since we are rolling on poetry, students got to enjoy reading a famous sonnet by “The Bard” William Shakespeare. Then, they all got out their phones and their earbuds (wow!  Did I just say that?  Usually phones are banned!  When the cat’s away…) and they spent the next few minutes enjoying a podcast that had overlapping themes. Students analyzed these themes on a worksheet and then had some time to discuss as a class.

Their homework is to read the poems for next week and respond to two.  

Grammar

After that, they watched a video about Direct and Indirect Objects to cement that concept. Then they worked on three worksheets. Please finish and correct your work.

Blessings on your weekend!

Mrs. G

Homework for this week

Read Poetry:  

• Poetry:  Wordsworth (p. 12); Browning (p. 19); Bronte (24); Carroll (p. 29); 

• Hopkins (p. 31); Burgess (39)

• Week 12 Poetry (pdfs on Google Classroom)

• 2 Poetry Responses

• Week 12 Grammar 

• Complements Worksheet (John Updike)

• Sentence Patterns (Mr. Jackson)

• Sentence Patterns Practice (Four Bakers)

CHAT Writing 1--Week 10 (3/26)

 Hello Everyone!

Time flies when you are having fun–and it sure flew once again today in Writing 1.   Read on for a recap of all we accomplished in class today!

Quick Write

Because we are coming up on Holy Week, I pivoted. We had another Quick Write responding to an allegorical animated short film that beautifully parallels the sacrifice, the death, and resurrection of Jesus and what that means for us. The best stories convey truth— I pray students will internalize the truth of God’s great love for us.

Visual Vocabulary

Our words for today were big “feelings words”:  laconic & ebullient.  The former means sparse or few words, while the latter means lively or enthusiastic.  When I feel ebullient, I am seldom laconic–I usually talk a lot!

Literature

We finished our O. Henry short stories unit with a short discussion.  After they had thoroughly discussed, they were also to come to a consensus on this question:  What was your opinion on “The Ransom of Red Chief”?  It was interesting to discuss because the story was both funny (about a boy so bad and mischievous that his family didn't want him back from the kidnappers) and sad (for the same reason).

After the discussion, I handed out their new books:  Great Short Poems.  This is an anthology of short verse that spans 400 years of English and American literary history.  Students have the books, but I will also post the poems on Google Classroom.  

We talked about how each week from here on out students will read all the assigned poems and respond to two of them.

Here are their options:

1. Fill out a Poetry Worksheet for one or both

2.  Write a paragraph about the poem(s) that analyzes the poem; discuss what you think it means and why you like or don't like it.

3.  Instead of writing a paragraph, record a video commentary about the poem.  Youtube LiveStream or some other app on a device is OK as long as it can be seen by me.

4.  Do a piece of art that connects with the content and meaning of the poem.  

5.  Make a video of your recitation of the poem.  Our poetry unit will culminate in a Poetry Jam (poetry contest.)  More details on that to come.

Writing

Last week I introduced our last “from scratch” essay–the Formal Critique. The KWO for that was due today. I circulated around the room, checked in with each student and gave credit to those who met their deadline for this assignment. After that, we talked through some more helps for this essay. I passed out a two sided-sheet with a “thesaurus” for writing this type of essay and more helpful vocabulary for discussing topics like themes, character qualities and general analysis words.  These are posted in the About the Formal Critique material on Google Classroom.  Please avail yourself of these helps when writing your essays over the break. You’ll sound as smart as you are!  The Formal Critique is due April 9th–when you get back from break.

To further support you as students write their critiques, today we watched a video on Story Types. We learned there are basically 4 types of stories:  whole, healing, broken, and twisted. After generating a few more examples of each story type, we read through the famous short story “The Little Match Girl” by Hans Christian Anderson. It was SO sad!  Though we didn’t have time to finish in class, when you finish at home over break, you will see that it is a great example of a healing and a broken story. It was healing because there was redemption for the Little Match Girl in heaven, but also broken because it is a cautionary tale of what happens when we harden our hearts to those in need. Familiarity with story types will be helpful as they write their critiques.

Grammar 

Last,I gave three worksheets for continued practice in identifying sentence elements for the various sentence patterns that have been covered this semester.  Make sure to correct your own work!

That’s all for now, folks.

Blessings on you!

Mrs. G 

 Assignments for Week 11 

–Formal Critique (due 4/9)

-- Read Week 11 Poetry (PDFs on Google Classroom)

–Raleigh (p.1); Donne (p.); Quarels (p. 4); Milton (p. 5); Bradstreet (39)

-- Poetry Response (2 Poems)

Grammar

• Nouns as Direct Objects

• Compound Direct Objects

• Finding Direct Objects