From Tim Geerlings:
Ben,
Can you post the following question to the group?
I have two students in my Spanish 2A class who will not, period, do freewrites. They are otherwise GREAT students, who pay attention, volunteer phrases in Spanish, and seem to understand every single of the hundreds of questions/ statements I make every day.
Any suggestions on how to get reluctant kids to try a freewrite?
Right now freewrites are a fairly large part of my grading system, as in my mind they measure whether or not a student can actually do something with all the input they have received better than any other measure. I am tempted to just quietly put “exempts” in the gradebook – I know the two kids are learning the stuff, and I don’t like the idea of forcing someone to write in L2 when they do not want to. (Most of my students, when I explain that I AM NOT grading based on grammar, spelling, etc., are more than happy to write in Spanish.)
Neither of these kids are the grade crazy kids that will check E-school (our district’s online grade system) and will realize what I did; my grade book has never been audited so I’m sure I wouldn’t have give myself a problem with exempting them from one of the class “tests.”
Thanks in advance,
Tim