Saturday, November 5, 2011

Onward to Fairy Tales

So, changes made, grades decent, we were all ready to move on to the next unit - Fairy Tales.

The students seemed to be resigning themselves to the idea that the flip wasn't going away. We were settling into a groove. Students were watching videos, work was getting done. I did a cute warm up with vocabulary flash card pictionary that went well. Then, it came.......the Benchmark Assessment.

Who would have guessed....the grades were TONS better. The were mostly Bs and Cs. Hardly a 37 in sight! Thank goodness, I felt so much better. Some kids still needed to improve, but across the board it was so much better. I was actually happy to give the assessments back.

We continued on. The kids did fairy tales in Spanish skits. I found a great book with shortened skits and the majority of the kids dressed up, memorized their lines and everything!! (On a side note, one of the APs got hit with a flying pumpkin from the Cinderella skit, which was amusing!)

Benchmark Assessment 2  came, Sadly, the kids didn't do as well. This time, I was writing notes on the top of papers, telling kids who hadn't done well on any of them to come see me. Guess what, when they came to see me, some were honest about the fact that they hadn't studied. I have a few who have decided to come in for extra help. I have a few I think I have convinced that they should ask questions, not just say "I'm ok" if I ask if they need help.

I know have a briefcase full of fairy tales to grade. A quick perusal tells me that the translator wrote a few of them. I actually had a student come to me yesterday to check over a story that she had pretty much totally written via translator. Did she think I wouldn't notice? Sigh. She rewrote the story in her own words, thankfully. We shall see how the grades turn out.

I am already contemplating re-writes. Should I let them do it? I actually gave them a chance to turn in rough drafts and hardly anybody did it. Hmm.....fodder for another entry later.

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