Course Guidelines and Expectations

Blea 1

PROCEDURES AND EXPECTATIONS - MS. BLEA (rev. 8/17)

Please read all of the following. You do not need to print this out. Daily activities As soon as the students come in, I expect that the students will check the back homework board to see what the scheduled homework will be for that evening as well as the remainder of the week. They are to check daily for any updates. There may be additional work assigned for homework during class, but it is the responsibility of the students to do both the work assigned on the board and during class. After the students have checked the homework board, they will need to check the front of the room for the assignment to begin as soon as the bell rings. Students are expected to continue working silently until they are given the next task. Students do not need to bring the textbook to class on a daily basis as there is a class set of textbooks, but they are expected to bring any needed supplies and/ or supplemental books we are covering.

Attendance Students are expected to come to class on time. Students who are late to class without a written excuse from a teacher or administrator will be assigned a lunch duty or another appropriate consequence. Three tardies will result in a "T" on the report card while six will result in a "U." If a student enters during the middle of a test or quiz, s/he may be asked to wait outside until their entrance will not be a disruption to the flow of the class. If the quiz is a shorter quiz or a pop quiz, the student may have to come in on their own time to make up the quiz so that other class activities are not missed. Failure to adhere to such rules may result in after school detention or an equivalent consequence. District guidelines will regulate the number of unexcused absences that may be incurred before losing credit for the course. To save valuable class time, students who miss class for any reason have the responsibility of checking the class web site or the assignment book that may be found at the front of the room. The web site and the assignment book contain a record of what is done in class, what was handed in, and the homework assigned that day. I will not answer questions regarding the work if the student has not first looked elsewhere as the written directions will be more explicit and encompassing. If the student needs a handout, they may ask before class begins. Because I am to monitor the halls during passing periods, I may not be able to get it immediately, and I will not be able to go over the assignments in detail at that time. However, if there is a need to talk to me directly about the work that has been missed, please make an appointment (if you just drop by, you risk me being in a meeting or otherwise unavailable) to see me before school. If you need to contact me while you are out, it is best e-mail me ([email protected]), be sure to include your name and period in the message. I will get back to you as soon as I can during school hours. If you need a more immediate answer, you may use remind.com to contact me.

Homework / Grades Grades will be entered as they have been graded and received, but I will continue to work with the new system and try and put the assignments in early so that expected due dates and points possible are visible. The grading scale for the class is the normal scale (90-100% = A, 80- 89% = B, etc.) and the class is not weighted (not even the honors class). Much of the homework assigned for class will be reading. It is suggested that students purchase their own copies of a book to allow the student the opportunity to mark in the book as they read. Students will be expected to participate in active reading which would be easier if the student could highlight and Blea 2 write in the margins of a text. Also, as there will not always be enough copies of any particular book for each student to take a copy home, having one's own copy allows the student the time and opportunity to read outside of class. If we are short of copies, I occasionally offer extra credit for donations at the end of the unit. There may not always be an assignment to be turned in every day. However, assignments to be collected need to be turned in to the appropriate basket at the front of the room as the student enters. If the student gets up to turn in the assignment after the bell has rung, it will be considered late and late papers receive no credit. This may seem harsh, but this is to encourage students to do their homework at home and not in class on the day it is due, to allow class time to be used for the assignments of that day, and to prevent distractions during instruction. While I do not allow exams to leave the room, students are allowed and encouraged to come in before school to see their exams. Again, I encourage them to make an appointment first to ensure I will be available that morning and may even have it out and ready when they arrive. The Sabino High School Policy regarding make-up work will be followed. Arrangements to make up an exam need to be made the day the student returns to school and taken within three school days. Students will need to make up any assignments missing due to absences to receive the points; the grade will remain a zero until the student has turned in the work. Late work will not receive credit unless turned in with a coupon. Students will receive three coupons that are good for either going to the restroom or turning in an assignment late with a minimal penalty or may be turned in for extra credit at the end of the semester as a reward for planning wisely. Extra credit may be offered periodically. However, all of the other assignments for that grading period must be turned in to receive extra credit. Extra credit is just that, extra. Extra credit opportunities will exist to benefit the borderline students who have been trying but may have had difficulty with a particular task and not for those students who have not been keeping up with the normal work-load. For the purposes of extra credit, a student may turn in an assignment late for no points.

Technology In keeping with the times, there will be more technological requirements for the course. Students will all need an email address for the purposes of turnitin.com. Turnitin.com is a learning tool that helps students see how to improve their paper and to see how much of a paper is their own versus someone else’s words and ideas. I also encourage students to use it as a revision tool. If a piece is submitted early, the program has a way to check for errors as well. Just be sure to allow twenty-four hours for a resubmission of the revision. Typed pieces will be required to be submitted before any credit is given. I also strongly encourage students and parents to sign up for remind.com. I will give out the directions to the students in class and parents may e-mail me for the directions as well. Remind.com allows me to send text reminders as well as allow students to send me messages via their phones. This allows students to get clarification about an assignment or last-minute updates as well. Please, do not use this to ask about grades, but rather to get help while working on an assignment. Please, e-mail me about grades and graded work as most of that information will be handled when I have a chance at work. I am still getting used to the new system, but I do try and put reminders and assignment attachments in the StudentVue and ParentVue on occasion. However, my website will have all the attachments and students may text me via Remind.com to ask for attachments they are having Blea 3 difficulty accessing. Due dates of major writing assignments can also be found on the calendar in Turnitin.com although they may be subject to change.

Behavior Students are expected to follow the school as well as the class guidelines. Students should act in accordance with the pillars of Character Counts. Infractions will be given a lunch detention for minor infractions and a referral for more serious offenses. This included following the school phone policy. Phones should be on silent and not on vibrate (as that can sometimes be heard and distracting). If the phone goes off during class, the student should request permission to turn it off and will be given only a lunch detention if done in a timely manner. However, if there are repeat occurrences of the phone going off in class, the student does not admit to the issue and deal with it in a timely manner, or the student is using the phone during class time without permission, it will be confiscated and taken to the office for pick up by a parent, and the student will receive a lunch detention. Students caught cheating on homework assignments and tests will be given an automatic zero with no chance to revise the grade. This includes any of the work being verbatim or if the assignment is too similar to someone else’s work. If there are multiple students involved, all students involved in the incident will receive a zero (those who copied and those whose paper was copied alike). Allowing someone to copy is as much cheating as is copying or working together on what was assigned as an individual assignment. See the Time Tracker for more details on what is considered cheating and academic dishonesty.

Passes Students will be given three bathroom passes per semester. It is up to the students to keep track of the passes and use these passes wisely. If the student cannot hand me a pass, I will not allow the student to go to the restroom during class. The passes are for emergency purposes. I use the passes to help teach responsibility and teach them to use their time wisely and plan accordingly. Any passes that are left over at the end of the semester may be exchanged for extra credit points. Students will not be allowed to go anywhere other than the restroom or the nurse during class.

Journal Writing For the purpose of daily in-class writing assignments, the student is expected to have a journal explicitly for English. This is not the same as a notebook. The journal will be collected periodically and should only contain such writing assignments as were assigned for the journal. Collections may have no prior notification; thus, the student should be ready to hand in the journal at any time.

The Purpose: The purpose behind journal writing is to get the student to express herself or himself in writing. Many times what a person thinks is not easily expressed in words. By writing down one’s thoughts as they come, often times one’s true ideas become clearer. The point of writing in a journal is to help this process become more natural. I expect students to write the entire time they are given in class (generally five minutes). It is more important that the student continue to write than to keep on topic the entire time. Sometimes an occasional sidetrack helps one come back to a better knowledge of one’s original thought. However, students should try Blea 4 and keep on the given topic as much as possible. Often the journals will be used for the beginning of a discussion or the rough draft of an essay. The more thought the student puts into the journal, the more prepared the student will be for the next tasks. Those students who wander off topic too often will be given a warning and if the problem persists in the future, they will lose credit.

Regulations: - The book itself is to be a one-subject notebook (no more than 120 sheets of paper), college ruled, and normal size (8.5 by 11) or be college-ruled paper in a pronged folder - The journal is to be brought to class daily. - Only “journal” assignments are to be included in the book (notes are not to be in the journal) - Students are to write in black or dark blue ink only. - Students are to single space in the journal. - Students may write on both sides of the paper only if the ink used does not bleed through the page. - Students are not to use a sharpie or any thick-tipped pen. - Each entry needs to start at the top of a page. - Students are to put the date at the top of each entry.

Grading: - Journals will be randomly collected and graded. - Students must have their journals at the time they are requested or they will not be accepted. - If a student has an excused absence the day journals were collected the student will be expected to submit the journal the day after returning with both that day's and the previous day's entries completed. - Students will be graded more on thought and length than mechanics. This does not mean students should not strive to do their best writing, but does mean that they should not spend all their time worrying about spelling versus getting their thoughts down. - Each completed entry will be worth one point. No partial credit will be given. - I will not go back and re-grade entries previous to the last grade given. - I will grade the entry based on length, coverage of topic, and adherence to the rules. - The length will be given in class and changed as the year progresses, but will be no less than a quarter of a page. - If the handwriting is deemed excessively large, the student will be expected to write for more of the page. Fewer than an average of seven words per line will be seen as excessively large.

Miscellaneous: - If a student wishes me not to read a particular entry, they may write "Do not read" visibly at the top of the page and I will simply check to see if it is done. However, abuse of this privilege will lead me to think that there are serious problems to be dealt with and appropriate action (such as parental notification and/or a referral to the counselor) will be taken and/or the privilege will be revoked. - If a student wishes to put a brief title on the page, this is permissible but does not count as part Blea 5

of the entry itself. - If the student does not finish in class, they will be expected to finish at home for homework. This will not be posted on the board, but is an automatic expectation for the class. Notification If there is an occasion for a parent or student to contact me, the most expedient means is via e-mail ([email protected]). If a more immediate reply is needed outside of school hours (such as a question on an assignment due the next day ), please use Remind.com. As we are getting more infused with technology and even attendance is on-line, I have various moments at the computer during which I can check to see if I have any messages. The same is not true for the phone. In fact, in the past there have even been instances where phone messages did not get through immediately or are inaudible. For this reason, I would also appreciate having the e-mail addresses of the parents and the students. So, if at all possible, please e-mail me instead of phoning. If there is no response within two business days, please send another message as the first may not have gotten through (on rare occasions the system has issues). If you wish to see me, you need to make an appointment. I am not available for drop-by conferences.