"So easy a baby can do it!"

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

In this blog:

1. Three Days left!!!!
2. Zinn
3. P.S. my baby loves Zinn!

1. Hi all--well, there's only three...er, make that two class days left in the trimester now. Many students made significant strides...some are stuck in place...and some...well, let's just say there's always room for improvement. Grades are fairly accurate in the online gradebook now, but I do have two assignments still to be graded. Also, and most importantly: students have their 5 page essay on the question: When, if ever, is it appropriate for people to rebel against authority. Students must use 3 protests/rebellions from their recipes to support their thesis. The essay is worth 100 points and is due Monday (no unexcused exceptions). Students have the rubric for how they will be scored and will use part of class time on Thursday to work on the papers. Students may also email me or stop by my room ANYTIME I do not have classes to ask for help.

If students complete their essays early, they can take advantage of an extra credit opportunity to revise their recipes for rebellion into a nicely presented cookbook. This cookbook will add 10 points to their final score (or, if you prefer, if a student scores and 80 on their essay, it really becomes a 90).

Also, students have a 20 point homework assignment on protest art due Thursday. Students worked on this in class over the past 2 days, so those who were on task should have little to do. The art pieces and assignment are posted on my website: www.mrpond.org

2. After weighing comments from parents and students, I'm going to make some changes next trimester to better support students reading from the Zinn text. The struggle with Zinn (and perhaps reading in general) was especially evident in an OPEN-BOOK quiz that I gave last week (making it open book was my gift to students for a recently ultra-positive class) in which 1/2 of all students score a 60% or lower (the quiz consisted of 5 short answer questions).

Essentially, the open-book did not help because too many students didn't read the chapter and thus spent too much time searching the book for answers (and not enough time writing them). For my part, I will try to be better about getting parents daily assignments in advance--but I also need your help in asking students about their assignments to keep them on task.

3. Lastly, my son Henry seems to love Howard Zinn--as evidenced by this picture! See, it's so easy a baby can do it! ;o)