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I have never really taken grades for my boys, who have been schooled the CM way mostly. My oldest dd (grown now) was schooled using a more traditional textbook approach, and I just kept her grades in a notebook. It was fairly easy--she answered the questions asked in the book, I graded it and wrote it down (she hated to read and was in ps for many years, so we just continued along the ps style when we brought her home).

But now my oldest son is approaching high school. He will be in 8th grade this coming year, and I thought it would be a good idea to start keeping grades for him as practice (for both of us ) for the following year when we must track grades for high school transcript purposes.

Math is easy, as is grammar. But how does one grade a notebook page? I know we don't need to take grades on everything (oral narration and dictation come to mind), but I need to have enough grades to give a grade in the course.

So, for those of you who do grade, especially with older students, how do you do it? Also, does anyone have a good writing rubric link?

Thanks!

This is (loosely) the way I did it:
A= highly exceeds expected results, plenty of thought and time, neat and organized
B= above expected results, expresses thoughts well, neat and organized
C= expected results, average thought, fairly neat and organized
F= not up to expected results, sloppy, unorganized (may re-do for a max C grade)

I also gave grace for things I knew were difficult but I could see the effort in his time spent, neatness, etc.

I am his teacher, so I tried not to be swayed by "how public school would do it". If I was unsure I would have dh read it over, or even perhaps a close friend. This was especially true for research papers.

hth.

Thank you!


Anybody else?

The portfolio method of assessment is often used in upper levels of education. HOD has dc create a 3 ring binder portfolio, which provides an excellent assessment tool. The History Student Notebook your ds will create in RTR can be used as an assessment for many different areas, and as it is 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 RTR teacher's guide as his syllabus for all his coursework. He should be able to pick up the RTR manual, and use it as he would 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

The Medieval History Based Writing Lessons 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