October+1,+2012


 * October 1st, 2012**

**PLG Focus Questions**

-Iver teaches different levels and abilities, Kate teaches all 11th except one, 4/6 for Kim, Mary Chase teaches 3/6, Jeremy teaches all juniors, Heather teaches all, Mary Finnemore, Mixed, Laurie is all Juniors, Sara teaches 95% Sophomores, Elizabeth is all Juniors, Chris is mostly Freshmen and Sophomores.
 * 1) How many teachers in the group are teaching at grade level for the majority of their time?

Three of the members have a Junior Advisory.

- Iver (Descriptive – Quick Writes, Short Answers) - Kate (Chemistry – Expository and Persuasive – Constructed Response, Quick Write, Paragraph, Sum it Ups, Descriptive conclusions, to d) - Kim (Math – Expository – Constructed Response, Essay, Quick Writes - Mary (Social Studies – Expository and Persuasive – Quick Write, Short Answer, Constructed Response, Essay, Research paper) - Elizabeth (Expository and Persuasive – Use different techniques, do them all except Research (Although they have talked about it but do go over research skills, Essay paragraphs. Did want to clarify that it was a 3-body essay, not necessarily a five-part essay. - Descriptive and Expository – Quick Writes, Constructed Response, Short Answer,
 * 1) Brainstorm the types of writing AND the types of assignments we have students do.

Need to have a clarification between constructed response and short answers. - Guidance does do a data sheet but that is not until Senior year. - Sara – Spanish (Narrative and Expository – Paragraph and some quick writes) - Chris (Read 180)– All of them. Start with narrative, expository – Reading logs, narrative essays, persuasive essays, book reports, no lab reports or research papers

- Chris – grammar, punctuation sentence structure, topic paragraph and depth to the body. - Heather – grammar, - Iver – grammar, - Do not focus on spelling, but do correct errors, complete sentences, they will lost points for these things - Mary Finnemore (Depends on assignment, if doing it by hand then do not necessarily grade for logistics, if typed then check for spell checked, ask that they get their pronouns correct in conclusions, do they the supporting evidence. They do not have a separate grade for this. - Jeremy - the SAT does not take away points for grade, during classes he does not take off points for grammatical errors, if the assignment is typed and they have the access to technology then he expects it to be polished. - Kim – computer determines how it will graded. Looking for terminology and to ensure that they are using it correctly - Mary Chase – Clear logic, support, evidence, complete sentences, correct use of terminology - Sara – Depends on the level as well as the assignment. AP Reasoning as long as it does not interfere with the argument or purpose of the answer.
 * 1) What types of writing skills do you assess on your rubrics or in your grading of these assignments?

- Jeremy – believes it depends on the interest in the subject - Elizabeth – the students are writing and then printing - Mary – Grammar is required if technology is used and that in class work is not graded. Mary believes that it is about task done, not necessarily task done well. - Mary Chase – most student believe that they only need to write well in English, not specifically for other contents - Mary – what are they doing with our comments that we make. They need the time to actually to fix it. - Heather – having students rewrite is starting to cause a problem. Revision of the writing process– how is working? Consider averaging the grade, how about asking them to write another essay, encourage students to do the prep work and then actually write the essays in class. - TP23R(Topic, Position, 2-3 Reasons) - Kate – What kind of strategies are you using, Before strategies – organizers and then time in class.
 * 1) What are some conclusions we can draw about the student writing experience at this grade level?