Explained https://www.youtube.com/
Demonstrated https://www.youtube.com/
My favorite blog that explains Charlotte Mason educational philosophy is "Wildflowers and Marbles"
Grading Rubric:
Paper Grading: 4-6th grade Suggestions for anyone interested
My favorite blog that explains Charlotte Mason educational philosophy is "Wildflowers and Marbles"
Grading Rubric:
Paper Grading: 4-6th grade Suggestions for anyone interested
I thought I would share with you some experience I have had from
both teaching junior high and high school English, and - perhaps more
importantly - teaching my own kids and tutoring other people’s homeschool kids
in writing.
As the homeschooling parent, you are the teacher and you set the
standards. Therefore a good place to
begin with grading papers is to establish your purpose in asking them to write
the paper. With Schola Rosa, the purposes
are already set (for example, ILL establishes the purpose as grammar and
specific writing techniques in the lesson, so this is what the largest part of
your grade would cover. For History this
first week, the emphasis was on comparing and analyzing two great men in
scripture, Zachariah and Joseph, so the content
would be of greater emphasis on this paper.)
No matter what you decide to emphasize on each paper, let your
child know what you expect before they begin.
It’s hard for a child to put all his focus on grammar and spelling only
to be graded primarily on content.
If you have already been through a formal language arts/writing
curriculum with your child at this point, then obviously you can expect a bit
more from him or her when it comes to all the facets involved in paper
writing. If you haven’t, it’s a good
idea to use each paper as an opportunity to teach one new thing. We used the history paper, for example, as an
opportunity to teach supporting ideas. (In other words, my son had to give one
reason for each descriptive word he chose about Joseph or Zachariah. “Zachariah was doubtful because he questioned the angel Gabriel when his son was
announced to him.” It wasn’t enough just
to say he was “doubtful” or “faithful” or “brave.”
Whatever you do, don’t overwhelm them with correcting every
little thing on their first draft if they have not had formal language arts and
writing yet. And as with all things -
but especially with reluctant writers - praise, praise, praise when they do
something well. (“Good point! I don’t
really think of him as doubtful, but you’re right, he was. Good observation!”)
As far as grading (especially if your child is one who needs this
kind of structure), here is a basic guide that might help you. Feel free to take or leave it as you choose.
Use percentages to show emphasis for the grade. That is, make it clear to your child that “In
this paper, we are mostly focusing on X (content, divided quotations, or
something else, for example) so that is where the largest part of your grade
will come from.” So for a content paper,
like the one on Joseph and Zachariah, out of 100 points, 80-85 of them will go
to whether the child fulfilled the criteria asked of them (3 details for each
person in separate paragraphs, followed by a compare/contrast paragraph of the
two men, and also including a brief introduction and conclusion). 15-20 percent will go to grammar, spelling,
sentence structure, etc. Make this part
clear: “I will only mark off 1 point each for misspellings, or grammar mistakes
that we have already gone over together in the past - nothing new- on the final
draft.” (As a side note: I usually don’t
grade the first draft, but give it a “check” if its done. I edit any pertinent spelling and grammar on the first draft so they can
correct it on the final draft.) So if
they got all the content correct, this can be a B paper, and since you have
already gone over major mistakes in grammar and spelling, it is likely to be an
A paper. This creates both a fair and
encouraging start for their paper writing.
You can always increase emphasis where you like as the year
continues. But a student who has to
correct content and grammar and spelling on a final draft and be punished for
all of that without warning is just too overwhelming and creates reluctant
writers.
If you are working on grammar or writing traits and you have
shown them ahead of time what you expect, as in the ILL week 1 lesson of
Aesop’s fable, then you can be more strict on things like indentation, opening and
closing quotation marks, capitalization, and punctuation as it deals with dived
quotations (the purpose of the exercise).
If your student struggles with spelling, a paper is not the time to mark all their
words wrong. Especially not if the words
are infrequently used by them. Choose a
few to teach spelling rules if you like, but try to remember spelling can be
worked on over time. A poor speller can
become a very reluctant writer if they think that is all your looking at. (Of course, if this was a spelling exercise,
wherein you asked them to write a story using ten spelling words and they
spelled them wrong, obviously you would approach that differently.)
I have found that, especially with students between the 7th and
12th grades, writing is a real battle for students who either (A) don’t see the
relationship between the spoken and written word and so they hate the latter
while do the former very well or (B) feel like nothing they write is worth
reading because they make too many mistakes.
4th-6th grade is a great time to get them excited about writing and
praise their efforts. Charlotte Mason
narration, by the way, is the best building block to this. I believe it should definitely precede any
formal structural writing. You may want
to google “What is Charlotte Mason narration?” for help here.
I hope this is helpful.
For most of you, perhaps this was just common sense.
For anyone who would like a rubric for the two papers this week -
just to give you an idea of papers in the future, since it’s a little too late
to employ them, here you go...
ILL Lesson 104:
Application of Knowledge - Divided Quotations - 100 points
/50 Student showed correct use of opening
closing quotations, commas, periods and other punctuation marks
applicable to dividing quotations, with
minimal corrections on final draft.
/25 Student attempted to incorporate at least
(insert # here) quotations into fable.
/15 Student used indentation and paragraph
division according to rules of quotations and following the
original model of the fable.
/10 Final draft was neat and showed student’s
best effort, with all rough draft errors corrected.
History Paper:
Comparing Joseph and Zachariah in Scripture (5 Paragraphs)
/50 Student gave 3 details (with and example
for each) to describe both men. (25
each paragraph)
/25 Student gave at least (insert # here)
clear facts to compare the two men.
/10 Student wrote a brief, relevant
introduction and conclusion paragraph.
/15 Final draft was neat and showed student’s
best effort, with all rough draft errors corrected.
Again, as they get older and you want to incorporate techniques
like transitions, command of language, persuasive verbiage etc, you can. But at this point, sticking as closely to the
provided Schola Rosa objectives as possible will help your child get the hang
of formal writing quicker.
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