I've commented on the 27 personal statements I've received. There were two As, five A-minuses. Those seven students should not resubmit their finals, but they do need to turn in all their prior drafts with stamps for full credit.
The other 20 can resubmit on Thursday unless they're content with their grade. And there really is nothing wrong with a B...this can be a tough essay, not everyone is going to be able to pull off an A. It won't necessarily affect your college admissions, the essay is only one part of the equation.
EVERYONE should have EVERYTHING ready to turn in on Thursday. That means EVERY stamp, and a CLEAN final draft. CLEAN means typed, double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point font. I don't care about MLA formatting, in fact, I prefer that your name be on the top right corner.
I hope you all do understand that as flexible as I can be about some things, I am completely unswayable on the subject of portfolio deadlines. This is a non-negotiable point, so have your stuff or take a zero.
And yeah, we're going to have to figure something out about the Vocab test, it was a different type of disaster this time around, wasn't it? Try to come up with some ideas, would you? I'm open to suggestions.
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6 comments:
Why can't we just have a normal vocab test?
Because "normal" vocab tests are just about rote memorization of dictionary definitions. I want you guys to learn words organically, as they're used in real life situations.
Multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank type questions don't really challenge you to understand usage, just meaning.
One of the most difficult problems I see over and over again in student writing is the misuse of complex vocabulary. Students like to throw in big, polysyllabic words, thinking it'll impress the reader, but they use it incorrectly and just come off as foolish. Dictionary definitions don't teach you HOW to use a word.
Besides, our main problem seems to be the internet.
the test is too long. Can we divide the test in half? I think one of the basic problems is the shortage of time.
Really?
50 words in 60 minutes? Does it really take you more than a minute to answer each question?
I could understand time being an issue with a slow internet connection, but with a functioning high speed service?
In any case, let me see how this second test falls out scorewise and we'll make some decisions from there.
Personally, I think the vocab tests are really neat--because it makes us actually know what the words mean, as opposed to how they are defined.
But if the Internet search is a problem... I think it would be neat to write something (article, essay, story, whatever) with the provision that we must use all 50 assigned vocabulary words somewhere in the piece (it would be due on the day as the test would normally have been given). Half of the point would be from implementing the words correctly, and the other half would be doing so in a manner that doesn't come across as super contrived.
The downside to this would be that if you only know how to use the world in one instance, chances are that's the way you're going to use it, as opposed to learning the other ways via the current version of the vocab tests.
I mean as long as its on internet but now its not as hopefully it will be fine.
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