We are well into the 2nd nine weeks.  Students should be used to the rhythm of high school.  Tutoring is still on Tuesdays and Fridays.  Please let me know in advance if you are planning on attending tutoring.  The best be for all students is to review all notes on a daily basis.  Vocabluar

Grades end Friday.  GS1 moves onto prehistory next week.  GS2 is studying early exploration and colonization.  Encourage your kids to come out to homecoming and of course be sure to vote!

The first nine weeks is almost at an end.  If your child is struggling, he or she should be coming in for tutoring.   Please take the time to check over your child's homework and assignments frequently.  Most student problems start with lack of organizational skills.  Homework brings down grades when it is not done.  If you did not get an email with your child's grades, please email me so I can send you the grade report.

As always, please email if you have any questions or concerns.

By this time all students should have settled into the routine of the school year.  If your honors' level child is struggling you may need to take a closer look at his work habits.  Honors Global Studies requires more work than a CP level class.  Students may not have a homework assignment every night, but that does not mean that they should not be working every night.  Students are currently working on article review assignments.  While the next one is not due until Thursday, students should be working on them a little each night.  Students should also be reviewing notes and maps on a daily basis. 

Global 2 students should be preparing for their Renaissance and Reformation test on Tuesday.  After this test we will be moving onto exploration and colonization.  Please help your student review material (especially vocabulary) on a daily basis.  This helps build a strong foundation for learning. 

As always, please feel free to email me with any concerns or questions you may have. 

All students should have received interim reports this week.  I also emailed updated progress reports on Friday.  If you did not receive a grade for your child, please send me an email so I can correct your email address in IGPRO. 

IF your child is not doing well in my class, please encourage them to come in for tutoring.  Tutoring is available in my classroom on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3-4pm.  Before your child comes to tutoring, please review their Intouch progress reports to get a better idea of the areas in which your child needs to focus on.  Many  of the students that are not doing well have organizational or time management issues.  While I am happy to help get your child on the right track, this is an area that parents can also be very influential in.

Sorry for the late update.  Unfortunately my computer crashed over the weekend and I am just now getting to update.  Global 1 students have an article review due on Thursday.  The are studying Europe.

Global 2 students are working through the Renaissance and Reformation.

Grades went home this week, but updated ones will be emailed on Friday. 

Please email me if you have any questions.

First of all I would like to welcome my new 3rd period students to my class.  I know it can be tough to move to a new class 4 weeks into the school year.  Please let me know if I can do anything to ease the transition.
To the parents of my 7th period classes... I am very sorry to be losing your kids!  I have really enjoyed working with them so far this year.  Fortunately they will be well taken care of by Mrs. Selander.  Mrs. Selander was my mentor during my student teaching at SHS.  She has taught the Honors classes at SHS for a number of years.  She currently serves as the Freshman Academy Coordinator, in addition to teaching Global Studies on Team 5.  You can link to her website under the Team 5 Teacher Links tab above.  We will be working together to make sure the transition goes smoothly for your child.

As for my Global 1 classes...
While I have not finished grading the tests from last week, I do see that students are still struggling with labeling map locations.  In order to make sure that every child is successful in learning important geographic and political locations, we will redo the America's map on Thursday of this week.  My goal is to have every one of the students scoring high on map tests. 

The good news is that the preliminary results for the short answer portion of the tests are good.  Students are starting to analyze  countries using geography.  A good way for you to help your child study is to ask him or her about the countries we have discussed.  Talk about each countries trade and political partners, where are the countries located, and what kind of resources do they have.  To thoroughly answer a short answer question, students must be able to discuss each country from multiple perspectives. 

Of course, I am available for tutoring on Tuesdays from 3-4, or by appointment.

Please remember to come to open house in September 9th!

I am sending home grades via email or with your student on Sept 8 and 9th.  Please sign progress reports and/or email me letting me know you saw your child's grades.

I want to take a moment to explain the grades that have been posted so far.
Procedures Returned - if your child returned the procedures sheet he/she received a 100 for a homework grade.
map - The two maps of America were handed in and graded for completion. (classwork grade)
Article- students were assigned an article at the beginning of the school year.  This article was supposed to be set in or about an American country.  Students were also supposed to write the who, what, when, where and why's of the article.  This was graded on completion.  50% grades mean a student only turned in the article or the 5 W's.
Map Skills quiz - students had completed a map skills exercise and review before being given this quiz.  Students were to use their atlas to answer questions.
Journal - students had 2 journal responses due for this week.  They were graded on completion.  Students completing 1 journal were given a 50%.

If you have any questions about your child's grades, please feel free to email me. 

So, we had a few changes in plans after doing a pretest, but that is what learning is all about!

Students started to break into the routine this week.  News article homework is going to be the next hurdle we jump.  Articles this week show that students need to focus on drawing important information from an article.  This is something we will work on throughout the year.

We also started "A Long Way Gone".  Students will be starting a journal section in their binders in order to respond to the various events that are described in the book.  Journals should contain a written component, but can also include sketches for the artistic students in the class.

Our map skills quiz will focus on the use and interpretation of maps in graphs for social studies. 

Finally our first test has been rescheduled for the 9th of September.

Have a good and safe weekend!

We got off to a great start!  There are still some people with schedule issues, so we will postpone mapping the Americas until Tuesday. 

We will be reading the autobiography A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Bael over the course of the next few weeks.  Students are encouraged to buy the book if they would like to read along, otherwise I will be reading it aloud during the first few minutes of class each day. 

If you have any questions please feel free to email me!