Writing 2 - Categories & Scores

Another e-mail about grades

This year I am using a new online grade book, My Gradebook, and similar to Engrade, I can group homework by categories.  Below is an explanation of the categories.

Assignments:  This category is mostly Quick Writes, but it also includes the Word of the Day Test.  In part, you can view this as the classroom participation portion of the grade.  The intent of these low key assignments is to engage students with writing and with one another.  This category is also a catch-all for extra credit and miscellaneous assignments that don’t fit elsewhere.

Literature:  These are all of the assignments related to our literature selection.  They include study guide questions, vocabulary words, quizzes, tests, activities, etc.  For the most part, this is a quantity-related score.  If students did all of the assignments, their score is higher than if they had not done the homework. (Note:  I allowed students to do extra study guide questions and vocabulary; if they missed the work for one week, they could do extra the next to make that up.  That’s why you might see a high score in literature even though your students has “MIS” on some assignments.)

Grammar

This semester’s scores for the grammar portion of the class are mostly quality-related.  For work that I assigned, their scores reflect how much they got right and how much they got wrong.  Occasionally we do work in class, and that score is a participation score.

Writing:  The scores for this category reflect both quantity and quality.  Students are given a base score for the outlines and rough drafts.  Their final drafts are graded with a rubric; if they heed my comments and corrections, their papers are more likely to have higher scores.

As you can see, the different aspects of the class are weighed and scored differently.  In other words, a 100% score for Quick Writes does not carry the same importance as 100% in writing or grammar or literature. Because we do a variety of activities and homework options, grading for this class is not a strict numbers issue.  For that reason, I give the scores for the separate categories and then suggest a combined score.

Grades are coming soon,

Mrs. Prichard