topham's attic: omg i missed two days!

Friday, November 7, 2008

omg i missed two days!

The forgotten blog

by Ima Knucklehead

Once upon a time, there was a homework blog. The blog's creator wrote in it diligently day after day after day for an entire academic quarter without fail. And then came a single crazy night in Grant Park. And things went straight to hell...

I'm back!!!

Sorry about the missing days. If someone reminds me what the journal topics and music were, I'll be happy to record them. (Or just send me a comment here, and effectively post them yourself.)

This weekend...

E3H: You should be reading Asher Lev, targeting a halfway point by midweek. Boards are open for both background and text discussions. We will continue fantasias Monday.

E2H: Boards are open for Our Town. Discuss anything you want, esp. topics in Act One. In particular, discuss the Jane Crofut letter and its significance.

Both E2H and E3H: For Monday, you need to write an essay (or bullet points or power point or whatever) of about two pages in which you either justify the score I gave you on your in-class essay or argue with it. Use the rubric. Quote from both the rubric and your essay.

CW: Post your fairy tales on the new Fairy Tale boards and provide feedback. Time to start paying attention to portfolio requirements.

And here's a music video from someone who used to go to LFHS:

j: sitting in a cafe
music: free man in paris--joni mitchell
silly 70's: spiders and snakes--jim stafford

yesterday

music: elected--alice cooper

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: For CW, you've asked us to post on the fairy tales board, but no such board exists...; November 7, 2008 at 9:43 PM
Unknown said...: it does now :-); November 8, 2008 at 2:45 PM

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Notes to Parents

8/24/14

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another (or your first) year at LFHS.

What you have heard is true. The English teacher has lost her ever-loving mind and is not going to be giving any grades at all in her classes this year. Not. One.

There will be no percentages, no numbers, no scores, no letters, no anything that will count toward anything that will end up being averaged for a final grade. But before you call in the men with the white coats, let me explain:

As I hope you have read in the doc your son or daughter (I have always hated the phrase "your student" when addressed to a parent) should have showed you, there is a wealth of research that indicates that grades--or the need to achieve them--are the single greatest thing that stand in the way of a great education. Studies show that the most influential thing a teacher can do to help a student grow academically is to allow him or her to self-grade. Most teachers would rather climb Mt. Everest dressed only in a swimsuit.

But the thing is: our academic system is severely broken. We say that our goal is to get our students to master Common Core Standards, and that is all well and good. But if that is truly the goal, then why do we care how long it takes them to master them? I'm serious. Think about it this way:

Try to remember back to when you were learning how to ride a bike. Oh, it was scary. You needed all kinds of support at first, lots of help from Daddy or Mommy. Then they let go and you were very, very wobbly. Probably you fell off, maybe several times. It took quite a while before you completely mastered the skill. But when you had...you had it down perfectly for the rest of your life.

Now imagine if you were being graded on that learning experience the way schools grade you. We would not score those first scaffolding attempts with Mommy and Daddy, but then...oh, you failed those quizzes when you fell off. And those wobbly rides? C's at best. Then a bunch of B's probably before you finally settled into 100% forever. But if we graded you right at that point, you'd probably average, oh, 83% or so. Why? You've mastered the skill perfectly. So why do you not get 100% if that is what we say we care about? Why on earth do we care about all those earlier times when you didn't have it down yet?

That will be what we go for here. Students will know what the goals are. They will understand what an "A" student looks like. And they will know when they have mastered an objective. Those who do so earlier than others will become tutors to those who have not yet done it: everyone gains from this and the newly learned skills, instead of being quickly forgotten as things studied for a test usually are, will continue being applied as masters tutor their classmates.

That is an awful lot to imagine will happen because I don't give grades this year, but what the heck: if you don't dream big, you never win big, right? The research is behind this, as is the school administration. I'm happy--well, actually I am excited--to pilot this concept at LFHS. As always, I'm glad to discuss this or anything else with you.

Karen

Feel free to email me any time at ktopham@lfschools.net.

topham's attic

Friday, November 7, 2008

omg i missed two days!

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