Tuesday, 2/15

Today's word parts:

nat means "born" like in nationality, natural, and native
paleo means "old" like paleontology or paleolithic, a word to describe the oldest people to start using rocks as tools
curs, just like curr from a couple months ago, means "run" like with cursive writing and discursive words
crypt means "hidden" like an encryption or cryptic language
cad means "fall" like a cascade or, more depressingly, a cadaver
capit means "head" like with decapitate (ouch!) or captain (Spanish: capitan)

The students started the day reviewing the ISTEP 6-point rubric and using that to reflect on their own writing. Then, they got the 20-25 minutes (depending on which class) to finish their ISTEP writing from yesterday. After that, they graded a peer's writing with the ISTEP rubric and then graded their own. We talked about the difference between objective and subjective grading. For example, if a student writes in their essay that Lynhurst students should have three hours of language arts a day, a grader shouldn't lower their grade because they disagree. Hopefully, the ISTEP people grade our work objectively.

We scratched the surface of some research review stuff we're going to be doing for the next couple days. The students are using four sources (encyclopedia, website, book, and magazine article) to practice taking notes. The subject is the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, a fire which destroyed 17,450 buildings and cost over 200 million dollars in damage. That's 200 million 1871 dollars! Only (only?) 300 people were killed though.

The students will work with the sources tomorrow and will be graded on taking notes on the note cards properly and keeping track of their source information.