Most of you saw in a previous e-mail that I've been very ill for the last month, which is why I haven't posted anything in some time. It's taken everything to keep up with what's happening in the present. Because we are accredited with warning in English, we have meetings and requirements to show we are adequately preparing for the upcoming SOL. Because the date for the writing SOL was moved to March 25 and 26, we are still working on preparation for that and keeping our data up to date. I've been preparing our remediation materials, scoring them, recording the scores, creating checks, putting them into Interactive Achievement, recording that data, then analyzing it to see who still needs to work on that skill. On top of that, there are lesson plans for each day, assignments to score that have been turned in on time, then many students who aren't turning in work on time have to be pushed and pulled to complete it, then I have to score that when I finally get it.
I didn't want to start off by boring you, but I did want to explain because I have been getting some e-mails from parents asking why I haven't immediately scored late work as soon as I receive it.
Students have been completing assignments that are on SOL standards that will be covered on the writing and the reading SOLs. They haven't been easy assignments. I've had some students and parents who said they were discouraged at the scores because they were lower than what they were used to. I explained that 70% and above is good on an SOL standard.
With all that's gone on recently, I hadn't had the time to consider what I might do about balancing keeping an accurate record of how the student performs on a standard and reporting it to you and possibly equating it to our current grading scale. As I began working on this blog entry, I stopped and created a scale to equate their performance on the standard to our current grading scale. I then opened my gradebook and chose for those scores not to be part of the final grade so I could keep a record of the original score. I copied the assignment and put in the converted score. Now, if you see 69 and below, the student hasn't mastered the standard. If the student has an 85 or above, the student has mastered the standard. Those with 70-84 are getting there, but haven't yet mastered the standard.
Students took the recently released writing SOL multiple choice test. I have reposted it on Interactive Achievement if any students would like to take it for practice. It is on the school website at http://shenandoahnfms.sharpschool.net/. Scroll down under "Staff" and find the link for Interactive Achievement. The correct test after logging in is the 2015 released test. If the student doesn't finish the test in one sitting, I will need to refresh the test before the student can log in again, but, if they e-mail me, I'll refresh it as soon as I see it.
Other than preparing for tests, students have read two wonderful stories, "Hard Times" by Ron Rash and the classic "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes. They've also been writing essays and learning to use Powtoon, a cartoon-making program, to create cartoons reviewing figurative language. They will be giving those to the sixth and seventh graders as test review materials. They should also have turned in a plan for their own project. Students are researching and learning about a wide variety of topics and presenting them as documentaries, papers, puppet shows, etc. I look forward to seeing the final products.
I hope we're past the snow and spring stays in the air. With the arrival of spring, however, some students are back to old habits of not completing assignments on time. The majority of students have figured out that there's no special privilege for not getting an assignment in on time and still having it accepted because then the assignments begin piling up, and they fall behind on others. I had originally said I wouldn't put any students in working lunch, because it was their responsibility to get the work completed, but I finally started putting those who were terribly behind in working lunch because they showed no motivation to complete work otherwise. Low grades, snowballing piles of work, potential failure of the class, and nagging don't seem to bother those students, but taking their socialization time at lunch away does!
There are a lot of things that drive me batty in teaching, but spending time with your children in class isn't one of them. I'm proud to see the progress they're making and hear the ideas and thoughts they share. If we could depose the testing experts and the government gurus who never worked in education and put the students in charge, the future of education would be just fine. Important Dates
March 25-6: Writing SOL (Day 1: Multiple Choice; Day 2: Writing the essay)
March 17: Spring picture day
March 31: End of Q3
English 8 Due Dates--all assignments turned in on Google Classroom
March 10: Choice essay #2 due
March 20: Choice essay #3 Topics
April 3: Powtoons Project Due
April 17: Create Your Own Project: Project due
