Grades are Coming!

Greetings Writing 2 Students and Parents!

I've just finished grading the Comparison/Contrast essays, putting all of the scores for assignments in my gradebook, and calculating the grades for the Fall semester.  Look for an e-mail from me with the individual grades.  As tutors, these are suggested grades for you as homeschooling families to consider.  I've enjoyed my time with these students -- they've worked hard and are a delightful class!

My thoughts about grades:

For those who are new to my classes, let me share my thoughts on grades.  As I homeschooled, I didn't give my children grades.  I felt that grades were far too subjective.  I taught my own children for mastery and for learning.  Many times, we didn't proceed with a topic until they were ready, no matter how long that took.  In a class setting, we don't have that luxury, but I do my best to read the students and their understanding of the material.  Sometimes I can reteach or adjust the lessons, but I can never fully know the extent to which each student has grasped information or mastered a task.  This makes giving grades a challenge, and again, subjective.

Letter grades are a funny thing.  For some students, it becomes the only motivation for doing well.  For some, it becomes a measure of their worth as a person or as an academic learner.  I personally don't like these "side effects" of the grading system.  On the other hand, grades can be a valid reflection and reward for working hard, being diligent, and understanding the materials.

When teaching students to be good writers, I give a lot of consideration for growth and improvement.  Each student has a starting place; over time, I look for him or her to learn the mechanics of grammar, good writing techniques, and analytical thinking skills.

For this class, I gave points for attendance, participation, short assignments, grammar work, quizzes, and longer essays. I tend to be an "easy grader" and like to see my students encouraged to do their best. 

My Grading Process:

To further clarify my grading, let me explain the categories.  For the past two years I've been using Engrade, an online grade book.  With this program, I can assign a category to each assignment, for example, Writing, Literature, Grammar, Assignments (in-class work.) Each category is somewhat self-explanatory, except for perhaps the "Assignments" section.  This is where I put our Quick Writes, vocabulary work, and any other class participation scores. Engrade figures percentages for total scores and for scores within each of these categories.

However, the four categories do not have the same number of assignments, so a straight averaging of the scores does not give an accurate total percentage/grade.  For example, the Assignments category had 16 scores, and 15 of them were small, 5-point Quick Writes.  Writing section had fewer assignments, but the scores were higher per assignment. 

Though the categories are not exactly even, I feel that dividing the scores like this is helpful because it helps parent, students, and teacher have a better picture of the work done in the semester.  For example, if a student scores 100% on this Assignments section, I know that he showed up and participated well in class.  A low score in the Literature section is most likely a sign of a significant number of missing assignments.  Likewise, a low score in grammar could be because assignments were not handed in, or it could be a lack of knowledge in this area. As it is with all homework assignments for any subject area, the scores reflect a mix of quantity and quality. 

I hope I haven't further confused the grading for this class.  Working with students to help them develop into first-rate thinkers and writers is my  primary goal.  Points, scores, percentages, and grades are only small parts in the learning process.  If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Blessings to all of you!

Mrs. Prichard