Grading
ELA
Research shows that grading-especially grading of writing and reading-lowers student achievement and focuses students on getting “good grades” rather than truly learning.
Instead of traditional grades, you will receive scores and feedback on your work, often with descriptions of what you can do to take the next step in your learning journey. Over the course of the year in ELA, we will work towards the following learning targets or objectives:
Social Studies
This year you will become history detectives. You will be studying ancient cultures, and developing historical thinking. Because I am placing an emphasis on developing your THINKING skills, I have decided to ditch traditional grades and encourage you to engage in the deep questioning, researching, and hypothesizing that social scientists do when they investigate the past. Since giving you a “score” focuses only on the end product, we will be using a grading contract similar to that used in ELA. You will work towards the following objectives:
For both these areas students will set goals and work towards that goal. Grading will be based on the GROWTH that students show over the course of the term, NOT the scores they get on their work. In fact, the scores I give are only COMPLETION scores, and are meant to point out how much work students still have to do before demonstrating their knowledge and understanding on a particular assignment
Research shows that grading-especially grading of writing and reading-lowers student achievement and focuses students on getting “good grades” rather than truly learning.
Instead of traditional grades, you will receive scores and feedback on your work, often with descriptions of what you can do to take the next step in your learning journey. Over the course of the year in ELA, we will work towards the following learning targets or objectives:
- Reading/Writing Concepts, Skills, and Strategies
- Using Feedback
- Classroom Talk
Social Studies
This year you will become history detectives. You will be studying ancient cultures, and developing historical thinking. Because I am placing an emphasis on developing your THINKING skills, I have decided to ditch traditional grades and encourage you to engage in the deep questioning, researching, and hypothesizing that social scientists do when they investigate the past. Since giving you a “score” focuses only on the end product, we will be using a grading contract similar to that used in ELA. You will work towards the following objectives:
- Historical Thinking
- Reading for Information
- Social Studies Concepts, Skills and Vocabulary
- Research Skills
- Map Reading and Knowledge
- Multi-media writing
For both these areas students will set goals and work towards that goal. Grading will be based on the GROWTH that students show over the course of the term, NOT the scores they get on their work. In fact, the scores I give are only COMPLETION scores, and are meant to point out how much work students still have to do before demonstrating their knowledge and understanding on a particular assignment
A note about “Completion Scores”
In order to keep students and families informed about where a student is on an assignment, and to encourage revision and resubmission, I will be using PowerSchool to enter “completion grades.” These grades will indicate to students and families WHERE along the work process they are. Work with scores of less than 10/10 can almost always be revised and submitted, or replaced with alternate work that demonstrates understanding of the target skills. ***This score is NOT a grade. It is simply a way to let students know if they have more work to do on their learning journey. |