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