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Not a lot of time for serious work today. I'm still getting over the shock of learning we're going to an 8 period day.
I reviewed my Latin labels for the classroom this evening. I had OrdO with the first O short instead of long and wanted to fix that. I also didn't like what I had used for bookshelf. I used scrinium last year but the dictionary I just looked in said it's a book box or letter case (a Roman briefcase?). Pegma was possible, but it's a weirdo 3rd decl. neuter, and since librArium was an option, I switched to that.
The labels are much more detailed in some cases than last year with with colors and even a set for the walls with NESW (septentriO, OriEns, merIdiEs and occidEns).
All the while I was thinking about my "quality work" policy from last year. Quality work for me is about mechanics, spelling, formatting, etc. Trust me, it can drive you crazy to spend 10 times longer on one paper than most because of spelling issues or absolutely no punctuation. And other teachers let students walk water on this. I just don't like it detracting from their Latin grade, ya know? To get a 75 on something that was 95 Latin work because not a single sentence had a period? Unfair and frustrating.
So last year I started a QW (quality work) grade that worked like this. You started with a 100. For every mechanical error, I took a point from your QW grade. So a paper would have the Latin grade in the top middle and then over in the lefthand corner a "QW -5" notation. I skipped lines in my gradebook between students and would write the -5 below the real grade. Then in the column with the QW grade--which was kept in pencil--I'd erase the current grade and subtract the -5 so that a 100 became a 95.
The end result was that the boys with the hopeless inattentiveness to details would only have one homework grade crater and not all of them.
It worked ok. I felt like they knew that mechanics mattered somewhat. (It also helped that one of the rotation group jobs was the person supervising formatting and mechanics for the group.) No one seemed to bust a gut to get perfect QW scores though.
So now I'm thinking that perhaps I'll count it as a double homework grade this year and not a single one, just to give it more weight. I don't weight my homework that heavily anyway so I need something to make it look more important.
ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT I know I'm obsessing over stercus stultum but if I have this figured out now life will be good later. After all, it's not like I even have a CLUE as to how many students I get in less than three weeks!!!! YIKES!
Enough of this. I think I'll print these labels tomorrow just so I can feel like I have them done.
Time to read Harry Potter.
I reviewed my Latin labels for the classroom this evening. I had OrdO with the first O short instead of long and wanted to fix that. I also didn't like what I had used for bookshelf. I used scrinium last year but the dictionary I just looked in said it's a book box or letter case (a Roman briefcase?). Pegma was possible, but it's a weirdo 3rd decl. neuter, and since librArium was an option, I switched to that.
The labels are much more detailed in some cases than last year with with colors and even a set for the walls with NESW (septentriO, OriEns, merIdiEs and occidEns).
All the while I was thinking about my "quality work" policy from last year. Quality work for me is about mechanics, spelling, formatting, etc. Trust me, it can drive you crazy to spend 10 times longer on one paper than most because of spelling issues or absolutely no punctuation. And other teachers let students walk water on this. I just don't like it detracting from their Latin grade, ya know? To get a 75 on something that was 95 Latin work because not a single sentence had a period? Unfair and frustrating.
So last year I started a QW (quality work) grade that worked like this. You started with a 100. For every mechanical error, I took a point from your QW grade. So a paper would have the Latin grade in the top middle and then over in the lefthand corner a "QW -5" notation. I skipped lines in my gradebook between students and would write the -5 below the real grade. Then in the column with the QW grade--which was kept in pencil--I'd erase the current grade and subtract the -5 so that a 100 became a 95.
The end result was that the boys with the hopeless inattentiveness to details would only have one homework grade crater and not all of them.
It worked ok. I felt like they knew that mechanics mattered somewhat. (It also helped that one of the rotation group jobs was the person supervising formatting and mechanics for the group.) No one seemed to bust a gut to get perfect QW scores though.
So now I'm thinking that perhaps I'll count it as a double homework grade this year and not a single one, just to give it more weight. I don't weight my homework that heavily anyway so I need something to make it look more important.
ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT I know I'm obsessing over stercus stultum but if I have this figured out now life will be good later. After all, it's not like I even have a CLUE as to how many students I get in less than three weeks!!!! YIKES!
Enough of this. I think I'll print these labels tomorrow just so I can feel like I have them done.
Time to read Harry Potter.
