Subject: Re: Finnegan & Spanish
From: "Kathleen Biden" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:31:14 -0500

Kimberly,

If you're frustrated grading Finnegan's homework, hopefully you can  
imagine her frustration in trying to complete homework that is  
difficult for her.

I appreciate you keeping in touch with us about her progress. Hunter  
and I see Finnegan's commitment to her homework and know that she  
works hard and cares about her work.

If there is an area that you think we could help her, please let us  
know.

....can I send this?

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 24, 2010, at 4:29 PM, Kimberly Clarkson <[email-masked]>  
wrote:

> Hi Kathleen,
>
>
>
> I wanted to be in touch again to let you know about the final few  
> grades of the trimester and how they have impacted Finnegan's 2nd  
> trimester Spanish grade.  While she started off the trimester well,  
> she has struggled with our most recent unit on colors, clothing, and  
> adjective agreement.
>
>
>
> As we discussed, her En mi clase imaginaria assignment was late, and  
> she ended up earning a 13/20 due to a number of mistakes in her  
> paragraph.  On Monday she turned in her rough draft for her upcoming  
> Trabajo de Ropa project.  Students were not graded on grammatical or  
> spelling accuracy on the rough draft, purely on meeting the  
> requirements of the overall assignment; an introductory sentence,  
> using at least 8 articles of clothing, at least 4 of the articles  
> needed to be plural, and using at least 5 different colors.   
> Finnegan did not include an introductory sentence or any colors in  
> her rough draft paragraph, only had one plural item, and only used 6  
> total articles of clothing.  It was frustrating to grade her rough  
> draft because I wasn't able to give her significant feedback that  
> will be helpful in writing her final paragraph.  It was also  
> frustrating because it should have been quite easy for her to earn  
> the 15/15 on the assignment, as opposed to the 9.5/15 she earned.   
> On Tuesday, the class took their clothing & adjective agreement  
> quiz.  Finnegan earned a 27.25/35 (78%).  She will be bringing home  
> her Spanish folder (we call it the "carpeta") where she keeps her  
> graded work later this week so you can review the quiz with her to  
> see her areas of difficulty.  It really wasn't any one particular  
> area, but rather small mistakes scattered throughout that added up.
>
>
>
> I'm sorry to have to follow up my previous email with this,  
> especially as she had been doing fine in Spanish up until recently.   
> I have copied below her unit grades and her final 2nd trimester  
> grade.  Please let me know if you have any questions.
>
>
>
> ~Kimberly
>
>
>
> Conversation Unit (15% of overall): 95%
>
> Classroom & Colors Unit (30% of overall): 84%
>
> Oral Exam (30% of overall): 91%
>
> Clothing Unit (25% of overall): 76%
>
> 2nd Trimester Average: 86