What can you do to help your child have a successful year?  Check your student’s agenda or my website regularly to make sure your student’s assignments are being completed, and that test preparation is taking place.  Check your child’s backpack for organization and materials.  Check to make sure your student has completed assignments, and that they are in their backpack, ready to turn in.  Check your students’ grade regularly through Power School to make sure they are not missing any work. Any “0” means the assignment was not turned in. They can turn the assignment in with a late pass.

Should you edit your child’s writing and homework?  Please do not change your child’s writing. Guide them, and give them ideas and feedback, but any changes should be made with their own words. If you make any changes, I will not be able to determine your child’s abilities and address their weaknesses.  Final copies of essays or writing assignments can be typed in 12 pt, Times New Roman font, double spaced, and in black ink.  Any handwritten final copies should be done in blue or black ink, skipping lines.

Grades  Grades will be updated about twice per week.  If there is a “0,” that means the assignment was not turned in.  If a student is absent, they have two days per day absent to make up any work or tests they may have missed.  It is the student’s responsibility to make up any work that they missed due to an absence.  Students are to write their assignments in their agenda daily, and homework is posted on my website as it is assigned.  Students were given 2 late passes for this trimester, and will be given 1 late pass per subsequent trimesters. Late work will not be accepted without a pass.

Powerschool for Parents  SMS School Code: DRMT

Common Core Focuses on students developing critical thinking skills –How students get to an answer.  Skill Overview: Think –Support answers, ideas, claims with evidence – “prove it” Express – effectively communicate thinking orally and in writing Collaborate – Work with others to broaden thinking Innovate – Apply thinking to a new challenge  Developed Through: Reading – navigate informational text, using both primary and secondary sources Vocabulary –develop academic language, elevate expressive language, build comprehension of complex text Writing – constructing argumentative essays and paragraphs, using various sources as evidence to support thesis.

What will we be doing this year?  Studying Medieval World History from the Fall of Rome through the Enlightenment.  Use the Holt Medieval World History Textbook as a tool for background information  Learning to Source, Corroborate, Contextualize, and Closely Read various primary and secondary source pieces to develop strong evidence to support ideas.  Develop an understanding of Geography and how it affects how and where people live.

Thank you for coming tonight! is the best way to reach me if you want to be answered quickly.