Das Bloggenstein

Yikes! It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here, my apologies. I need to build in to my schedule time to write more posts.

Here are some things we’ve been doing, or will be doing, in no particular order:

• New grading scheme: I am in the process of converting from a 100% grading scheme to 4.0 (GPA). The main advantage is that this eliminates the inequality of the F in the 100% scenario: meaning that in with percents and “A” is 10% (100%-90%), a “B” is 10% (89%-80%) but an “F” is 59%-0. In a 4.0 scheme an A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1 and F=0. This also helps makes the average of scores more equal and realistic.
• An eye on the WASL: The WASL is one week after Spring Break, or about 6 weeks away. At this time of the year we are reviewing reading and writing strategies as well as continuing with the Junior Great Books. We will also throw some older released WASL items in to the mix so the students are used to the format.
  • My personal view on the WASL: It’s a good measure of what needs to be taught at any grade level but it is one measure and it doesn’t set the bar very high. I set my expectations and requirements higher than the test in my classes but still keep in mind what the test is testing.
• Accelerated Reader (AR): ALL students have a bookmark which includes their goal they set themselves for AR. It was to be signed 2 weeks ago and they are working on meeting their goal by March 13^th. The next week we will evaluate whether they met their goal or not and adjust accordingly.
• Persuasive Writing: We are finishing up our unit on writing persuasively. The 6^th grade students will be completing our very own SLMS WASL writing prompt and they will be expected to follow the writing process and write to a persuasive prompt.
• Highly Capable Core: Students are working in two different Junior Great Books series: The Ecology Reader and Series 6: Semester 2. They read and answered questions on the first section of the Ecology Reader titled, “What is our relationship with nature?” They will then write a position paper about their agreement or disagreement with a quote from one of the selections they read. They are also reading The Veldt by Ray Bradbury from the other series. After they finish their current project in writing where they are creating a persuasive brochure they will finish the persuasive unit and continue on to the second section of the ecology reader.

This entry was posted on March 3, 2009 at 11:29 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.