The following letter will be sent home with students on Tuesday, February 2nd, to explain the changes to our course's grading rubric. This applies only to my 9th grade classes, not to my 11th grade US History class 6th period. Here's the text of the letter:
TO: Students and Parents/Guardians
FROM: Mr. Larsen
RE: Blended Modern World History 9, Semester 1 Grading Procedures
DATE: January 29, 2010
SUBJECT: Change To Grading Rubric For Semester 1
Dear Students and Parents/Guardians,
In previous years, I have required students complete one to two projects during the course of Semester 1. This “Pre-Freshman Project” was created by the 9th Grade Social Studies team to allow 9th grade students to practice selected reading/writing skills. These skills are needed for the much larger Freshman Project that we will be completing during Semester 2. This year, however, the 9th grade Social Studies teachers chose to not require a Pre-Freshman Project. Instead, the team chose to teach the essential research and writing skills in other ways. As the semester progressed, the students and I focused on necessary skills such as reading critically, note taking, and summarization skills. However, I chose not to have the students take on a project to practice these skills. Instead, these skills were demonstrated mainly through daily assignments, participation in the Socratic Seminars, and through studying for several unit tests. I do not believe, therefore, that the absence of a project during Semester 1 will negatively affect their ability to complete the Semester 2 Freshman Project
As a result of not assigning a project for Semester 1, I will have to alter the grading scale for the course from the one in the syllabus published at the beginning of the course. The changes are illustrated in the chart below, and have already been altered in the Skyward system.
Changes To Larsen’s Semester 1 Grading System
Category Original Value New Value
Employability (ELSA) 10% 10%
Homework/Classwork 60% 60%
Participation/Socratic Seminars 5% 10%
Project 15% 0%
Tests/Quizzes 10% 20%
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me at thomas.larsen@kent.k12.wa.us . Please know that since this is the end of the semester, it may be difficult to respond as promptly as I may wish. I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Thomas Larsen
KW Social Studies Dept.
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