An archived stack of papers: September 2008
Give A Little Bit
In a stack of papers called Writing.
- Sep
- 26
- 2008
I walk around the room and give one of two lines to struggling writers. We have five minutes to write each day (actually, ten minutes today) and some want to stall the whole time. Staring at the blank page that is even more intimidating than the actual assignment, “I’m thinking” being the excuse du jour for not writing, The Shrug meeting my questioning glance, these are the students... read more
About That Support Class…
In a stack of papers called Instruction.
- Sep
- 24
- 2008
I told a protesting kid today, in very brief passing down his aisle, “No, that is not a complete sentence. It doesn’t have a subject.” He fixed the error on his own by writing “Man gets out” instead of “Gets out.” While most contain things that need to be fixed in a re-write tomorrow, just about every student finished writing their paragraph (except the... read more
From Rubric To Percentage
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Sep
- 21
- 2008
How can I take the scores from my assessment on a six-point rubric and turn them into a percentage? 3, 3, 4, 4: that doesn’t convert very well to a score out of one hundred. I have this problem every year, with varying and inconsistent solutions. This time, I’ve set Excel in place to keep my evaluations constant.
... read more
Is Gaiman A Teacher?
In a stack of papers called Instruction.
- Sep
- 20
- 2008
From a Goodreads interview with Neil Gaiman:
Normally, in anything I do, I’m fairly miserable. I do it, and I get grumpy because there is a huge, vast gulf, this aching disparity, between the Platonic ideal of the project that was living in my head, and the... read more
No Idea
In a stack of papers called Instruction.
- Sep
- 19
- 2008
I have no idea what I’m doing. No idea.
When I close that door, I’m on my own. I’ve got fifty-three minutes with a group of thirty kids who want entertainment if they want anything. I need to take those kids wherever they are and help them improve by the time they walk out the door. I need to give them at least one new idea today and one reason to come back tomorrow.
I... read more
Moving Through Some Changes
In a stack of papers called Reform.
- Sep
- 12
- 2008
I hate doing the same thing every year. It’s boring and implies, “Yup, that was perfect; no need to change that one!” I’m still looking for those lesson plans. There are a few I have that are pretty close to “good,” but “perfect” is a long way off.
Some of these are small but... read more
Too Legit To Quit?
In a stack of papers called Testing.
- Sep
- 07
- 2008
My school met AYP and API. However, due to some subgroups not meeting their goals, we missed APR. And, good news, we’re still not a PI school. But we’re a PI district so we have to behave as if we are a PI... read more
Encourage Risks
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Sep
- 06
- 2008
I like the ideas under “Creativity” on the Flickr Assessment Rubric and am thinking of something like this to emphasize risk taking in student writing. This means I’ll need to separate style and content when I assess, not letting errors in one impact the grade of the other, but I think I... read more
Writing Assessment By Numbers?
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Sep
- 01
- 2008
Having just finished grading a small writing sample from my English 1 Support students (those students who we’ve identified through test scores and grades as in need of a little extra for them to make it through English 1), I figured I’d share how I did this first one and welcome any evaluation of my method.
I struggled with how to grade this. Since this class counts as an elective... read more