My smart kids
Nov. 24th, 2004 07:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
velvetpageI just finished marking a French assignment, and I have to boast. I have some really smart kids.
The assignment was a set of ten questions based on the play we're doing, which is Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The questions are basic recall, with the possibility of pulling answers directly from the play. There are four possible correct responses to most of the questions.
C level: found the one-word answer that correctly answers the question, without putting it into a sentence of any kind.
C+ or B- level: lifted a complete sentence from the play. The mark difference relates to whether they copied it correctly.
B level: Took the words from the question and formed a new sentence with the correct answer. THis is the mark to which I led them while going over each sentence individually. Most students did, in fact, manage this.
A level: Took the B level answer and added a fragment or words to the sentence to make it say more. If they tried for this but made serious errors, I still gave them a B+ for effort. This was not possible on all questions, though two of my girls found ways to do it where I didn't think of any. THey're the kids who got A+'s.
Now, the thing is, I tried doing similar assignments with my grade 7's and 8's in previous years. I walked them through the answers, underlining question words that should not reappear in the answer, circling subjects and verbs that should, etc, etc. I never once in two years of that had a student hand in an assignment that these kids would have gotten a B+ for. Not once.
I had four A-'s, two A's, three B+'s, and only three marks below a B-, out of 26 kids. There are three papers that were not turned in, and two for which the students were away the first day and therefore handed in an incomplete assignment. The most common mistake was forgetting to move the "est" to the other side of the subject in a question that said, "Comment est la chaise de Bébé Ours?"
This means that more than three-quarters of my class are working at or above grade level in French. (I'm extrapolating that the kids who were away would actually have done a good job if they'd been here. I'm also guessing that the outstanding assignments were not completed at all.) Those who are below it still did enough that I know they understand the play. They can't put a sentence together in English, but they can take a shot at it in French.
I'm so pleased. I've boasted to every teacher who has a smattering of French already. Now I get to pump up my kids by telling them, truthfully, that none of my grade 7's could have done as well as they did on these questions!
The assignment was a set of ten questions based on the play we're doing, which is Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The questions are basic recall, with the possibility of pulling answers directly from the play. There are four possible correct responses to most of the questions.
C level: found the one-word answer that correctly answers the question, without putting it into a sentence of any kind.
C+ or B- level: lifted a complete sentence from the play. The mark difference relates to whether they copied it correctly.
B level: Took the words from the question and formed a new sentence with the correct answer. THis is the mark to which I led them while going over each sentence individually. Most students did, in fact, manage this.
A level: Took the B level answer and added a fragment or words to the sentence to make it say more. If they tried for this but made serious errors, I still gave them a B+ for effort. This was not possible on all questions, though two of my girls found ways to do it where I didn't think of any. THey're the kids who got A+'s.
Now, the thing is, I tried doing similar assignments with my grade 7's and 8's in previous years. I walked them through the answers, underlining question words that should not reappear in the answer, circling subjects and verbs that should, etc, etc. I never once in two years of that had a student hand in an assignment that these kids would have gotten a B+ for. Not once.
I had four A-'s, two A's, three B+'s, and only three marks below a B-, out of 26 kids. There are three papers that were not turned in, and two for which the students were away the first day and therefore handed in an incomplete assignment. The most common mistake was forgetting to move the "est" to the other side of the subject in a question that said, "Comment est la chaise de Bébé Ours?"
This means that more than three-quarters of my class are working at or above grade level in French. (I'm extrapolating that the kids who were away would actually have done a good job if they'd been here. I'm also guessing that the outstanding assignments were not completed at all.) Those who are below it still did enough that I know they understand the play. They can't put a sentence together in English, but they can take a shot at it in French.
I'm so pleased. I've boasted to every teacher who has a smattering of French already. Now I get to pump up my kids by telling them, truthfully, that none of my grade 7's could have done as well as they did on these questions!
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-24 04:10 pm (UTC)Having a dedicated, focused, skilled teacher who really believes in language skills and bilingualism helps a lot, too.
Good job to you and your kids.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-24 06:25 pm (UTC)My grade 7's were terminally lazy. They would fool around as much as they could during lessons, then when i assigned the work, they'd claim I hadn't taught them how to do it. Also, it's the middle school attitude of, "I don't understand French." Well duh!! Of course they didn't understand it! My job was to teach it to them, and their job was to use the brains God gave them to figure it out! The only time that excuse ever held water with me was 1) when there was a learning disability present, or 2) when they'd missed one or more of the preparation classes for the assignment.
I have yet to hear that excuse from a grade five. I only heard it once from a grade four, from a kid whose sister I'd had the year before in grade seven. He got a C, not because he couldn't do French, but because he decided he couldn't and then didn't work at it.
In any case, I just praised them to the skies, got lots of smiles, and they actually figured out the last few questions on their own. Granted, two of the last three questions were the same formula as the one before, but still - they did the work because they believed in themselves and they had the knowledge they needed to back up the belief. I'm even more proud of them than I was this morning. Even one of my LD kids, who had trouble following the oral elements of the lesson, managed to come up with the right one-word answers ON HIS OWN. I'm going to call home and tell his dad. :)