Into the home stretch

We are heading into the home stretch for the first marking period of the year! (I can't believe it, either.) I've graded students' first essay and entered grades. Students may re-write if they conference with me first before school, after school, or during Academic Advising. After they revise, I'll re-grade and enter their better-than-before essay. It's a win-win for students--writing is a skill and the best way

to improve is to get feedback, wrestle with revisions, and become a stronger and stronger writer along the way.

I'm also going to start conferencing with students about their Reading for Enjoyment books. It's quite informal--just a chat, really, about the book. I'll also ask students to read a short passage to me aloud.

You'll see in Powerschool that I'm entering more and more scores as Exemplary (4), Proficient (3), Emerging (2), and Not Proficient (1). Those grades are markers only--they're not averaged into your student's percentage grade. However, they give you some valuable insight into whether or not your student has mastered our content standards (proficient and above) or whether they have some work to do (emerging). The more I use this scale for evaluating students, the more I like it!