Comments about Grades

Dear Parents and Students,

I've just finished calculating the grades for the second semester.  Please remember that I am a ‘tutor,” and  these are suggested grades for you as homeschooling families to consider.

Some students handed in assignments on the last day of class.  If those change the score and grade, I will send adjusted grades next week.  (I’m currently on vacation in Florida!)

Before I send them, let me again 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 diligence.  We didn't proceed with a topic until they were ready no matter how long that took. 

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 reward for working hard, being diligent, and understanding the materials.  Incentives and consequences are a part of life; God uses them, too.

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 and longer papers.   I tend to be an "easy grader" and like to see my students encouraged to do their best.  Becoming a good writer is hard work, and too often students are discouraged before they’ve given themselves a chance to succeed.

Each student (and parents) will get an e-mail with percentages and suggested grades for this semester. 

Blessings,

Tammy Prichard

Writing 2 Class Notes -- May 8

Greetings!

We're done!  This has been a great group of students and I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to teach them.

Even on the last day, we had a Quick Write.  I asked the students to be a bit reflective about their involvement in the class this year.  They answered these two questions: 1)List 3 things you've learned in Writing 1 this year; and 2)Tell how you've improved in Writing 1 this year.  I had each student share something.  In addition to some funny comments, I heard statements about essay writing, literary analysis, and grammar points.  I feel confident that we've all learned some important "stuff" this year.

For the next part of our class, each student took a turn sharing some poetry they had chosen.  They don't love poetry, but I think they're developing a greater appreciation for those metered lines that rhyme and have deeper meanings.  Some enjoy it enough to try their hands at writing raps for their poor teacher to do.  

The last section of the class was an unusual, and a bit unconventional, "final exam."  We played a Bingo game in which I gave clues; the answers on their cards were from our literature and writing discussions.  The Bingo prizes were books that I had gotten from the "Great Northfield Book Raid."  ($4.00/ bag)  

Check out the Bingo Card Creator website and the Wordle website.  I used both of these sites for these week's class.

I have almost have all of the grades compiled.  A few students have handed in more assignments that need to be figured into their totals.  I'll have grades out to you next week.  

Have a great summer!  I hope to see many of these great students again next year!

Tammy Prichard

Writing 2 Class Notes -- May 1

Greetings!

We're so near the end of our CHAT classes that I almost forgot to write my weekly note to parents. 

As always, we started the class with a Quick Write.  Since Tuesday was May Day, I had the students write words that rhyme with "May" and then to use those words to write a poem.  Again, the students were creative.  As a class, they wrote a rap for me to do.  I did the rap, but not very well.  What do you expect from a teacher?

I collected the Re-Writes and any outstanding assignments.  I also handed back old assignments and their Argument Essays.  We discussed, again, some writing issues that came up in their essays.

Last month was National Poetry Month, and we continued our discussion about the poetry selections.  We started our discussion with a favorite of mine, "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams.  This is an imagist poem that some students liked, and some didn't "get."  I like it in part because of the visual image and how the phrase, "so much depend upon....."  seems to hit me.  We also discussed by son's poem which was selected from a number of entries to be part of the Sidewalk Poetry Project of Northfield.  Below are both poems. 

Next week is our last week.  I've asked the students to do some brief reviewing of the short stories, and the poetry.  I'll have a cooperate "final exam" for next week.  I also want the students to come prepared to recite a poem as part of our final.  They can choose a poem from our book or from another source.  They could also write one of their own, but it needs to be at least 8 lines long.



"The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

"Untitled"
I long for the thunder to wake me
For the lightning to shock, to shake me
For my thoughts to rule the night
For the weather's heartless bite.

Looking forward to next week.  I have some surprises for the class.
Mrs. Prichard

Quick Write Samples

THINKING ABOUT A NOUN

"Patience"
Loving someone
Teaching someone
in line at the DMV
in Traffic
God has patience with us
When thins are not going your way
With our family
School
Friends
Spiritual walk
Your enemies or people you have enmity  towards
People you disagree with

"Perseverance"
Spring break just finished and it was one of the best ones ever!  But reality set in and school starts back up tomorrow.  How can one possibly focus on school when you were just free from school for a week and you know you only have five weeks left of school.  You could very well say "oh, it's only five weeks.  I don't have to work hard at this" but how would that look on my final grade?  or on a college resume when they look at it and say, "well, looks like he can't get a good grade because he can't focus long enough.  You can choose what you want, but don't you get that awesome feeling inside when you worked hard for something even when you didn't want to and it pays off?  It feels great!  So my advice to you is even when you don't want to do something, always finish strong because it always counts and someone is always looking.

"Death"
        Death, death is the end of a story, the end of an adventure that lasts all life long.  Death, death is the end of a life.  What is life?  Life is the absence of death.  Death is the absence of life.  Death, death is cold hands inviting you into a house of darkness.  Life is the absence of darkness, life is light.  Life is a flame, illuminates the surroundings around it and brightening other flames.  death, death is snuffing out the light.  The absence of life welcomes death.  The light looks for ways to see into the dark, but it cannot.  Death, death is a void where nothing exists but the thought of the cold, unwelcoming darkness.  There is a way to defeat the darkness.  One flame has done it, an everlasting light that leads all others to live with Him eternally.
       Death, death is dead.

Mrs. Prichard

Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome,

amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, 

cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, 

fantastic, fantastic, fantastic, fantastic, fantastic, fantastic, fantastic, fantastic, fantastic, 

the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best, the best,

stupendous, stupendous, stupendous, stupendous, stupendous, stupendous, stupendous, 

crafty, crafty, crafty, crafty, crafty, crafty, crafty, crafty, crafty, crafty, crafty, crafty, crafty, 

smart, smart, smart, smart, smart, smart, smart, smart, smart, smart, smart, smart, smart,

totally tubular, totally tubular, totally tubular, totally tubular, totally tubular, totally tubular, 

the best teacher, the best teacher, the best teacher, the best teacher, the best teacher,

Week 14 Poets -- William Carlos Williams

I have a special treat for anyone who comes to class and can tell me that "The Red Wheelbarrow" is one of my favorite poems.

William Carlos Williams

1883–1963

William Carlos Williams has always been known as an experimenter, an innovator, a revolutionary figure in American poetry. Yet in comparison to artists of his own time who sought a new environment for creativity as expatriates in Europe, Williams lived a remarkably conventional life. A doctor for more than forty years serving the New Jersey town of Rutherford, he relied on his patients, the America around him, and his own ebullient imagination to create a distinctively American verse. Often domestic in focus and "remarkable for its empathy, sympathy, its muscular and emotional identification with its subjects," Williams's poetry is also characteristically honest: "There is no optimistic blindness in Williams," wrote Randall Jarrell, "though there is a fresh gaiety, a stubborn or invincible joyousness."

Born the first of two sons of an English father and a Puerto Rican mother of French, Dutch, Spanish, and Jewish ancestry, Williams grew up in Rutherford, where his family provided him with a fertile background in art and literature. His father's mother, coincidentally named Emily Dickinson, was a lover of theatre, and his own mother painted. Williams's father introduced his favorite author, Shakespeare, to his sons and read Dante and the Bible to them as well; but Williams had other interests in study. His enthusiastic pursuit of math and science at New York City's Horace Mann High School "showed how little writing entered into any of my calculations." Later in high school, though, Williams took an interest in languages and felt for the first time the excitement of great books. He recalled his first poem, also written during that time, giving him a feeling of joy.

Aside from an emerging writing consciousness, Williams's early life was "sweet and sour," reported Reed Whittemore; Williams himself wrote that "terror dominated my youth, not fear." Part of this terror, speculated James Breslin, came "from the rigid idealism and moral perfectionism his parents tried to instill in him." Williams's letters written while a student at the University of Pennsylvania to his mother exemplify some of the expectations he carried: "I never did and never will do a premeditated bad deed in my life," he wrote in 1904. "Also... I have never had and never will have anything but the purest and highest and best thoughts about you and papa." It was largely parental influence that sent him directly from high school to Pennsylvania in the first place—to study medicine. But as Breslin noted, Williams used his college experiences as a means to creativity, instead of, as his parents might have wished, as a means to success. 

Week 14 Poets -- Sara Teasdale

From the Favorite Poets and Poems website




Sara Trevor Teasdale was born on August 8, 1884 in St. Louis Missouri. She was the youngest child of Mary Elizabeth Willard and John Warren Teasdale. At the time of Sara's birth, Mary was 40, and John was 45. Teasdale had three other siblings. She had two brothers, George, who was the oldest child at 20, and John Warren Jr., was was 14. Teasdale also had a sister, named Mary (she was fondly called "Maime"), and she was 17. Mary loved her sister Sara and took very good care of her. Sara was named after her grandmother. Teasdale's first word was "pretty". According to her mother, Sara's love of pretty things was what inspired her poetry. 

Teasdale was always very frail, and caught diseases easily. For most of her life, she had a nurse companion that took care of her. Teasdale grew up in a sheltered atmosphere. She was the youngest child. Because of that, she was spoiled and waited on like a princess. She never had to do normal chores, like make her bed, or do the dishes. She was known to have described herself as "a flower in a toiling world". Because she was so sickly, she was homeschooled until she was nine. She never had communication with her peers. Teasdale grew up around adults. She was forced to amuse heself with stories and things that she made up in her own lonesome world. When Teasdale was ten, she had the first communication with her peers. Her parents sent her to Miss Ellen Dean Lockwood's school for boys and girls. When she was fourteen, she went to Mary Institute. She didn't graduate there, but switched to Hosmer Hall when she was fifteen. There, she began to put the thoughts and dreams that amused her as a girl onto paper. Thus, she wrote her first poem. Teasdale's first published poem was "Reedy's Mirror", and it was published in a local newspaper. Her first collection, "Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems", was published in 1907. In 1911, her second collection, "Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems" was published. She published many other collections including "Rivers to the Sea", "Love Songs", "Flame and Shadow", "Dark of the Moon", "Stars To-night", and finally, "Strange Victory". 

Teasdale married her sweetheart Ernst Filsinger in 1914. They had a happy marriage, but it was too good to last. They divorced in 1929, and lived the rest of her life only for her poetry. Sara was always frail and sickly, but in 1933, Teasdale caught chronic pneumonia and it weakened her not only in body but also in mind and spirit. No longer able to see the beauty in simple things, Teasdale committed suicide at age 48 in New York, NY on January 29, 1933. Her final book of poetry was published that year. 

Teasdale's works continue to be admired by poets everywhere. her works show us what a lovely person she was, and how much she appreciated the beautiful things about life. Her love for beautiful things appeared in her poetry. She was a very talented poet, and we are glad she shared her talent with us.

Week 14 Poets -- Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln, Illinois, that Hughes began writing poetry. Following graduation, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia University. During these years, he held odd jobs as an assistant cook, launderer, and a busboy, and travelled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes's first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, andWalt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in "Montage of a Dream Deferred." His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.

Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer in May 22, 1967, in New York. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem, New York City, has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been renamed "Langston Hughes Place."

In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple Stakes a Claim,Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple's Uncle Sam. He edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography (The Big Sea) and co-wrote the play Mule Bone with Zora Neale Hurston.