Tone and Grades
By Mark Heintz
Sep 11, 2019

Day 22

Student contributions by Joey, Luke, Dev, and Mohib

Overview of the Period

In class today, we deciphered a paragraph about the post-classical era and wrote about its meaning. It was a passage from Robert Strayer in his attempt to define the post-classical era. As a group, we interpret, attempted to at least, not only the meaning but his purpose and tone. 

Afterwards, we used what we had learned to create a 50-word story, a picture, an 8-word vocabulary matching quiz, and 2 truths and a lie

How have you grown as a learner?

I have partially grown as a learner in the sense that I strive to understand the curriculum and be able to connect it to my life and to the world in general instead of just memorizing terms and knowing the definitions of words. I am, however, still completely motivated by my grade instead of wanting to intake as much information as possible at all costs.

How do you feel you are preparing for the AP exam?

I feel that the writing portion of class is preparing me to answer questions in the format of the AP test by making me be more specific in my writing and using less vague terms such as “it” and “they”.

What should we be doing differently?

Right now, everything that we are learning that is new has been in the homework and then we review it in class. I’d prefer that the teacher to teaches us about the new concepts and make the homework review so that I already have a strong understanding of what the homework is about.

My Response

I changed up the responses today. I asked four students to write instead of one. My hope is they reflect together and write a little more.

Even though they have one grade right now and only for eligibility, they still cited grades as being important. I’m going to have them reflect on the “grade” tomorrow. I’ll report on if that helps minimize the importance of the grade.

As for the homework…I moved away from the textbook five years ago. I have thought about moving away from the videos, too. Sometimes, I think it helps, but I have no evidence that it does. I like their idea. I’m going to mull that over and hope to make the class better for them.

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