Grades for High School

[ncmomof5]

Hello All,

For those of you who are using the middle school guides for highschoolers, how are you providing grades for their transcripts? I have been looking on past posts and on the sticky note posts about how to bump up the current guides to make them high school worthy, and I get how to do that. But, I can't find any info on how to evaluate their work in objective ways in order to give them a letter grade. I really don't want to give them a subjective grade where I just say, "Yeah, I think they did "A" work this quarter", and I don't want to say, "They completed all of their assignments and did their reading. They get an "A". I want a way to evaluate how much of the material they have assimilated and have a letter/number grade to put on a transcript.

Anyone here know what I'm saying and can help me see how you do this?

Thanks,
RuthAnn

[TrueGRIT]

I'd like to know this myself.

[raceNzanesmom]

I didn't have HOD to use for my now graduate, but used a similar style. His math and english were graded according to how many right/wrong, since they were textbooks (Teaching Textbooks and Rod & Staff). For other things I leaned toward "effort" as a guide for his grades. If he did just the basics, enough to call it done, he got a C. If he put more effort into it, but I felt more could have been done, then he received a B. An A was given when he really put his all into it. These grades were subjective to what I felt he "could do". Each child's ability will be different.

[ncmomof5]

I didn't have HOD to use for my now graduate, but used a similar style. His math and english were graded according to how many right/wrong, since they were textbooks (Teaching Textbooks and Rod & Staff). For other things I leaned toward "effort" as a guide for his grades. If he did just the basics, enough to call it done, he got a C. If he put more effort into it, but I felt more could have been done, then he received a B. An A was given when he really put his all into it. These grades were subjective to what I felt he "could do". Each child's ability will be different.

Thanks so much for responding. I am really afraid to use effort and my evaluation of their effort as a guide. Maybe I shouldn't be. Maybe it will really be fine to do that. But when I think of doing that, I feel uneasy and insecure. I have 2 students who I would be putting in MTMM next year. One will be 9th and the other 10th. The 10th grader will put all her effort into everything she does, but if she were graded on what she actually knew from her studies, she would be hard pressed to get an A based on her effort alone. However, my 9th grader would probably do C work all the time and do okay on a test of the material (if one were provided).

I really feel like my 10th grader needs tests/evaluations to help her see where she needs to focus her efforts and my 9th grader needs tests/evaluations to help him see that he needs to work harder.

Thanks again for your input. Any other thoughts and experience about using HOD with high school and what that looks like, is appreciated.

In His love,
RuthAnn

[chillin'inandover]

I will get back to you as to what I used for HS grades although it wasn't HOD. This was used for home economics, compostion, art, karate, and history that did not use the traditional textbook and test format. I have to get going here on our relaxed project day as we prepare for co op presentations. Tammy

[LynnH]

I don't know what Carrie is planning, but I do know that many CM homeschoolers using Rubrics. You can find many examples if you do a google search. You can customize these to any subject and you can put objective and more subjective measures on them.

[raceNzanesmom]

I didn't have HOD to use for my now graduate, but used a similar style. His math and english were graded according to how many right/wrong, since they were textbooks (Teaching Textbooks and Rod & Staff). For other things I leaned toward "effort" as a guide for his grades. If he did just the basics, enough to call it done, he got a C. If he put more effort into it, but I felt more could have been done, then he received a B. An A was given when he really put his all into it. These grades were subjective to what I felt he "could do". Each child's ability will be different.

Thanks so much for responding. I am really afraid to use effort and my evaluation of their effort as a guide. Maybe I shouldn't be. Maybe it will really be fine to do that. But when I think of doing that, I feel uneasy and insecure. I have 2 students who I would be putting in MTMM next year. One will be 9th and the other 10th. The 10th grader will put all her effort into everything she does, but if she were graded on what she actually knew from her studies, she would be hard pressed to get an A based on her effort alone. However, my 9th grader would probably do C work all the time and do okay on a test of the material (if one were provided).

I really feel like my 10th grader needs tests/evaluations to help her see where she needs to focus her efforts and my 9th grader needs tests/evaluations to help him see that he needs to work harder.

Thanks again for your input. Any other thoughts and experience about using HOD with high school and what that looks like, is appreciated.

In His love,
RuthAnn

Knowledge was still needed, but not as specific as might be needed for a test. For example, if he could sit and discuss with obvious knowledge on a subject then I didn't care if he knew every exact detail. I know a lot of people that can spout names and dates and not really have any true knowledge on the subject. I wanted more than that (main reason we switched to living books in 8th grade). When I grade for effort, that would be different for every child. Full effort (for their ability) and a decent amount of real knowledge is likely to get an A from me. That may be different for you, and that's ok.

[ncmomof5]

Angie,

Thanks for the specifics on how you graded without using a traditional test. I can see how that would be better than just being able to spout a list of unrelated facts for a test. However, doing it that way means I have to have a good working knowledge of the subject I am evaluating him on. Correct? I am a little afraid of that since I will have 5 children in school next year from Kindergarten to 10th grade. Maybe it won't be as formidable as it currently seems to me.

Lynn,

I haven't looked up the CM rubrics, yet, but I will. Thanks for suggesting that. I know that Charlotte Mason used exams, so I know that her students were expected to be able to intelligently discuss what they had learned about. I'm not sure what they looked like, but I would imagine that it was not a traditional multiple choice, fill in the blanks, matching kind of test. Thanks for responding.

Chillinanover,

I look forward to seeing what you have to share when you get a minute.

Thanks, everyone, for taking the time to help me think through this dilemma.

In His love,
RuthAnn

[my3sons]

The portfolio method of assessment is often used in upper levels of education, and blessedly, HOD students create a 3 ring binder portfolio each year from CTC through MTMM, which provides an excellent assessment tool each year. The Student Notebooks dc create can be used as assessments for many different areas, and as the notebooks are put in order from the start to the finish of the year, academic gains can easily be seen by paging through the binder. By completing the assigned work within its entirety in a neat, complete, and organized way, dc can receive an "A" for their work. So, your student should see the HOD teacher's guide as the syllabus for all the coursework, and he/she should be able to pick up the HOD manual, and use it like a syllabus.

That being said, subject areas such as grammar and math can easily be graded. A goal for dictation can be set at the beginning of the year, and ds can strive to achieve that goal (i.e. 1 level of dictation completed in a year). The "Written Narration Skills List" can be used as an editing rubric, though this list is something for dc to grow into, one skill at a time. Perhaps you'd have a rubric with the first "x" number of skills to be portrayed within a student's written narrations for the first quarter of school. The second "x" number of skills to be portrayed within a student's written narrations for the second quarter of school, etc. You can make this more of a complete writing rubric by using the assessment tools provided in the daily plans as starting points. For example, in the written narration box, you could assign points for...
- is 8-12 sentences in length
- includes who or what topic the reading was about
- descriptors of the important things that happened
- a strong closing sentence

Many of the writing programs have their own set of assessment criteria. The Medieval History Based Writing Lessons, for example, each have their own rubric, so that will be easy to use. You can also type 1 oral narration your ds gives each quarter (or however often you wish to). This will show growth in this area. The completed DITHOR student notebook logs growth in reading. The Science Lab Sheets along with the science noteobooking can be kept behind tabs in a 3-ring binder with plastic sleeves as a portfolio based assessment as well. Those are just a few ideas I had - hope that helps!

In Christ,
Julie