topham's attic: first weekend of autumn

Friday, September 24, 2010

first weekend of autumn

As the temperature plummets...

Tonight, at Stevenson High School, two unbeaten football teams meet on the gridiron. It will be the first time either team has ventured beyond the comforts of its home stadium this fall. One, highly acclaimed, gets to remain the home team for one final week, and is ranked in the Tribune's Top 15 and among the most feared in the state. The other, the visitor, leaving home for the first time this year, wonders if it has what it takes to compete against the Big Guys on their turf.

Tonight we will learn the answers in...

FOOTBALL WARS.

Stevenson? Really? Well, uh, I guess...I mean they only have 5 million students and a school the size of a small planet. Sure, no problem!

In the meantime...here's some news about homework this weekend:

General note: starting now, all assignments are fully explained in the HW calendar at the bottom of the blog, so they will forever be easy to find if you miss something or forget what it was.

E3H: In class today we finished discussing "Examination" and found it to connect to the art quotes we started the year with. Then in small groups we shared our thoughts about the poems we read last night. Homework for the weekend:

Be sure to have commented on at least three of your classmates' metapoems by the end of the weekend. When you have received enough feedback, (a conference plus 2-3 FB posts) try doing a revision draft of the metapoem. You may post that if you wish.
Start a new thread under E3H>Poetry>E3H Metapoems using the name of one of the poems you studied last night as your subject. Copy the poem and your own notes and thougths about it into the post. (NB: Check to see if anyone else has begun a thread about that poem first; we don't need two threads about the same poem. If they have, then you should just post a reply to that thread and start a new thread with a different poem.) You are not required this weekend to discuss in these threads, but you are certainly encouraged to do so if you wish.

E2CP: In class today we discussed the appalling job so many of you did on yesterday's reading quiz. I explained that the lowest quiz grade would vanish when grades come out, but that is only one crappy grade; you can't afford another one. When we discussed the relevant section of the play, we talked about Bailey's ignorance and Thoreau's gift to him: his name. Then we discussed why Henry quit his job: the flogging. Your assignment for the weekend:

Post your Transcendentalist Pieces (see Friday 9/24).
Read TNTSIJ through page 30. (Actually the top of p.31)
If you happen to be Lindsay: Have a happy birthday!

CW: Today in class we shared stories about our childhood objects. Your homework for the weekend: Write a piece whose intended audience is children. You select the age group. You may incorporate your object if you wish. Be sure that you focus the narrative voice according to your selected audience. This is a link to a useful article on process. Also, the articles located here might help.

And finally, as we enter fall, for Lindsay and for all of those summer birthdays we missed, and just because sometimes you need a total "feel-good" video, here is my other favorite birthday song.

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, September 24, 2010

first weekend of autumn

0 comments:

Important Links

Great Grammar (Etc.) Help from The Oatmeal

Vocab Lists

Portfolios!

Archive

Notes to Parents

Profile