This week we have been working on the Pyramid of Action (plot diagram) and understanding the different components of a story.  Today we got out marking period 2 grades. Many students grades have gone up, but some have dropped due to lack of turning in homework or retaking assessments. Grades for marking period 2 are posted and we are now in marking period 3.  We took a closer look at the student’s Argumentative writing scores and I helped them to better understand. Since writing rubric are performance based, I do not look at their scores from an A, B, C, D, E point of view.  When looking at their performance on a writing assignment, they lie in 4 different categories:  Advanced, Proficient, Partially Proficient, and Unsatisfactory. Advanced (100%-94%) means they went above and beyond what was asked and are writing above a 6th grade level. Proficient (93%-70%) means they met all of the requirements of the essay. Partially Proficient (69%-50%) means they may have missed a certain part (or two) of the requirements. Unsatisfactory (49%-0%) means they missed a lot of requirements for the essay or did not turn in a complete essay. Please note students were given two weeks to complete this assignment, as well as the option to work on it over Thanksgiving Break. Students will be conferring with me in the coming weeks to look at their graded rubric and better understand what their score means and set goals for future writing assignments.  Due to the fact that the district rubric is performance based, I opted to weigh the assignment in the grade book to be more fair and it didn’t impact their grades as much as a quiz or test would have.

Homework

• LIBRARY TOMORROW!!! Please bring all library books, they will be late if you don’t!
• Read 20 minutes and respond on reading log (we are back to 5 responses this week!!!)
• 10 more Read Theory quizzes by December 23rd! (we will have computers in class periodically to help students complete this requirement, please encourage your student to continue with this program once they complete their required 10 though!)