Wiki Page, ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS 10-A (H): Grading Policy

Wiki Page
2021-08-27T16:33:28-07:00

Grading policies and scales are currently being adjusted based on guidance from OSPI, and are subject to adjustment after the trimester begins. Please know that no student's grade will be adversely impacted if any changes occur after Sept. 1st, 2021.

Students in World Lit A(H) will be have their work divided by assignments versus assessments. Assignments will include tasks they do in class, like responding to a reading, or taking notes on a topic, or anything that is meant to build their skills. These will generally be graded on completion (if they do it, they get full credit) and will be worth 40 percent of their final grade.

Assessments will be work students to do show their understanding and mastery of specific skills. There will only be a few of these during the trimester - their personal narrative stories, their second timed write, their final essay on Kite Runner, and possibly a final poetry assignment (time permitting). These will be graded on a rubric and the student's mastery of a skill or skills will be evaluated. This category will be worth 60% of their final grades.

The English department has had many discussion on grading practices and the importance of making them both equitable and mathematically logical. As a department, we decided to continue the percentage break down from last year, which is as follows:

A: 88 – 100

B+: 84 – 87.99

B: 74 – 83.99

C+: 68 – 73.99

C: 58 – 67.99

Pass: 40 – 57.99

NC/I: 0 – 39.99

Furthermore, I personally feel that putting in zeros for missing work can often leave a student despairing of ever catching up, because mathematically, there is a huge gap of no credit they have to claw their way out of before turning in missing work starts to make a difference to their letter grade. As such, instead of zeros, I give students 35% of the score when a piece of work is missing. This is still a no credit grade, but it makes it easier for students to catch up and get back on track with the class.

Finally, I haven't taken points away for late work in a long time. Instead, I encourage students to let me know before the due date if they need more time and build that as an essential life skill. I work to follow up with them and then with families as needed to get in missing assignments (as you can imagine, I focus more on assessments that might be missing, unless the student is missing a number of assignments).