For Students in Regents English 11
You were assigned a practice Regents Exam on April 30. The instructional post was up on April 29.
The deadline for Part 1 was May 4. Part 2 and Part 3 were due a week later, on May 11. You had ten days to finish a three-hour exam, revise 1.5 essays1, and write two paragraphs of metacognitive analysis.
On May 11, you got this post, which gave you more time to finish. On May 14, you were given another extension.
Last week’s terrible storm disrupted our in-class plans, but for this exam-related work, it just meant another extension of the deadline. Friday and Monday were given over not to what we’d planned, but to completing these revisions, etc., and you had, as you always have, the option to do the work in almost any way you chose:
- You could handwrite all of it, including the revisions.
- You could type the revisions and metacognitive responses in Google Docs and share them.
- You could copy your writing into the Google Forms provided in that April 29 post.
#3 was encouraged, because it’s the easiest way for your two teachers to organize small-group instruction. You’ll remember that we discussed that in class, and our discussion was archived as part of this post on May 14. You always have a choice, though.
Here is a copy of what we wrote on the board on Tuesday, May 22, after dedicating another class period to these practice Regents Exams:
You can suss out what that tells us. Here is the profile for a GAP score of 5+, for reference:
“Overall, however, their successes outnumber their flaws.” After three weeks, only three students could argue that claim, and only one could argue for a profile above a 5+.
Until We Get It Right
Why did this systemic lapse happen? Well, Regents Exam prep is boring. It’s repetitive. Given the choice between gossip and an essay on algae, most of us will gossip. If the choice is between social media and literary analysis, even someone like me is going to install Instagram2.
It’s understandable, if not justifiable, that so many of you have dragged your feet like a victim of the Wendigo. You need self-control and focus, though, to make it beyond this year, and this is now an opportunity to develop some of that.
That’s the motivation: Do it until it’s right, and then we’re done. For some of you, that’ll require the Castle Learning practice exam that was outlined earlier this week, but even that will be quasi-optional. We won’t know until you finish what was assigned on April 29.
And the remarkable thing is that some of you will still see an 80 or higher, despite missing the only assignments posted over the last three weeks, because the work needs to be done. There is extraordinary flexibility built into grade abatement. And, again, the only way for us to run the triage outlined in this post about the end of the year is to see what you can do.
Which means that if you do this work, in full, with a complete revision and a significantly developed metacognitive response, we will bend space and time and say that this somehow counts for the GAP period between April 30 and May 18. It will count for the score you receive for Q4B.
Now, it only counts if your metacognitive analysis is longer than a sentence or two, and you must either copy the essay by hand in its entirely or type it through Google Drive or Google Forms (or both). Give your teachers a chance to give you feedback. Let us work out what you need to do next.
Ask questions below, too, if you have any. For now, Infinite Campus won’t have anything for Q4B. Very soon, that will change. It’s up to you what that change will be.