Tuesday May 4th

Hello all-

Class went just fine today. I devoted the class to mini-conferences, and gave about half of the students 10 minute conferences (to be completed on Friday). Sitting down with each individual student, we were able to address some of their more specific concerns and confusions, as well as discuss a general assessment of their work to date (or at least what I have graded/am aware of).

For Wednesday's teachers: I left the L7 packets I collected in the box- perhaps you guys can grade them or leave them for another teacher who can?

Also: I announced to the class today that we would not be covering L9 until next semester, and guaranteed them at least one class day off (Friday May 14th) before the coming semester. The class has seemed awfully overwhelmed for the past two weeks, and I just didn't think it was worth it to try and speed through reflexives etc in L9 for the sake of getting through the chapter. Therefore, the plan as it stands now is to test L7 and L8 next week RATHER THAN A CUMULATIVE TEST (either on Tues/Wed or Wed/Thurs) and offer review until then.

I also offered up some extra credit options for people who are seeking to pull their grade up or who have been testing poorly, etc etc. Students can write a composition (the description of which I can perhaps email out to other teachers later) and/or an oral presentation. It seems like a fair number of students will do the composition and four or five people are going to give oral presentations and have already been assigned dates. Three will be on Friday and two will be on Monday IF WE HAVE CLASS. Apparently Seth and Sharon are not teaching on Monday, so we need to see if some other teachers can come in that day to host class and hold a review. Is anyone available Monday May 10th? Unfortunately I work during the day on Monday, so am unable to come in.

I handed out the evaluation forms today and everyone in class completed them and gave them back to David Cowan. Michael Nelson, Bobby Evans, Frank Valdivia, Lamarr Mainor, and Luke Padgett were not there, but will hopefully get have evaluations delivered to their cells and turn them in either to David or to other teachers later this week. (If you receive them, just pass them on to David Cowan and he knows what to do with them).

Beyond that, we need to figure out a way to get grading done relatively quickly once the tests are collected, as well as wade through straggling homework packets etc. We also need to draft a test. Would anyone like to volunteer for this?

Additionally, from what I gathered today during conferences, it seems like each student has their own set of concerns, but overwhelmingly the two most confusing things in L7&8 for students were por/para and indirect object pronouns.

In other news, Nel got out of the hole finally and has decided to try and complete the class- he will be making up the second exam on Friday and will be taking next week's exam along with the rest of the class. He needs major support and catch-up, so if you have time to meet with him during class break or whenever, please do!

Hope all is well for everyone. Hope I don't sound bossy or awful- there's just a lot to get done in the next week and I want to make sure everything gets covered! Thanks to all...

Kara