Day 34: Test/Quiz corrections, spelling, and verbs

Today we did a number of random but meaningful tasks.

1. Passbacks: WordSkills Test and Noun Quiz. Please ask your student what grade they received on these two important evaluations. Many students performed below average, so we went over the procedure for doing test and quiz corrections. My policy allows students to reanswer any questions they got wrong on any evaluation for up to half the points back. Two elements must be present in the correction: 1) the correct answer and 2) an explanation of why the original answer was wrong or an explanation of why the new answer is right. Students must come in to my classroom to do test corrections on their own time. I am available before school, after school, and at lunch (A or C). There is no reason any student should fail their first quarter because they did not come in for test corrections. I went over with students 6 different examples of test corrections so everyone knows how to do them.
2. Impromptu spelling quiz. In order to allow students to succeed in the workplace and in college applications without being judged prematurely, I would like all students to be able to spell certain commonly misspelled words. Often times our writing is the first thing people see of us (emails, cover letters, resumes) and they judge us accordingly. If you have a misspelled word in a cover letter, it is likely the employer will simply move onto another applicant. I want my students to be judged by the quality of their character, not by their spelling. Therefore, spelling must be perfect. I conducted an oral pretest on the following spelling words: it’s, its, than, then, their, they’re, there, definitely, judgment, a lot, traveling, refrigerator. Could you spell all of these words? In the future, students who got 5 of these words wrong today will only have to spell those 5 words on the next test, etc.
3. Verbs charades. A verb is an action or state of being. Students gave examples of verbs and then (in some classes) we played charades with verbs related to The Odyssey.

HW: Read “The Cyclops” p. 660-670. Take notes on stickies in the margins. 2 stickies per page at least. Bring textbook. Bring WordSkills poster if it’s your day to present.

Absent students: Set up a time with me to take the spelling pretest. Come in to see me about your grade for the vocab test and nouns quiz.