19 Concepts on the Wall

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. After an uncomfortable conversation with an administrator about why there are HECKA students with F grades in my second year Spanish classes, I go to Think, Thank, Thunk. That's where I go lately when I feel like a baddy for trying to put the responsibility for student learning on *drum roll* my students.

I find this post on keeping it simple, which smarter people found a long time ago and think, "Boy oh boy did I mess this one up." I find this other post on how the grades might hit the floor and lie there in a pool of their own vomit for 15 weeks or so and think, "Okay, so we're right on target". I'm going through this checklist right now:

Worried? √
Determined to see it through? √
Gonna add more concepts before finals? NO WAY. Well, maybe, but I won't assess them.
Students with F who are within four concepts of a D counted? √
Students learning in my classes? Oh, please. Of course. Like never before.

What's going well?

Up front and center, I'm having this convo with students:

Me:  "Okay, so we have to consider how everyone is doing and develop a rubric together to determine what our 'A' looks like, what our 'B' looks like, what our 'C' looks like, what our 'D' looks like and what our 'F' looks like. I'm as worried about your grades as you are.
Student 1: (Completely ignoring the rubric suggestion) Well, maybe we could have another lesson on 'x'.
Student 2: I think we need to go over the warm-ups more.
Me (to students 3 and 4): So, how about as a way of showing proficiency on Standard 1A-3 and 4, you two do a mini-lesson (aka warm-up) on them? One of you could design each one, and the other could take a supportive role, checking with individual students, making sure everyone's on task, going over the answers, etc.
Students 3 and 4: Okay, so should we e-mail that to you by Monday?

or:

Me: So I looked at your other grades and I saw that you have straight A's and this F in here. What do you think is going on?
Student: You know, I took this in middle school, and I really don't think I gave it my all or studied very hard until I saw that my grade was actually an F. Now I'm working on it much harder.

instead of:

Student: Can I have some extra credit?
Me: Oh, sure. Copy the answers to twenty workbook pages from your buddies.

Next, if my student has an A, a B or a C in my class, that means that student can do the things my grade-book says they can do, at the level my grade-book says they can do it. If my grade-book says they can't do something, that means that they haven't shown me they can do it. They didn't get it right on one of my many assessments and they haven't stepped up yet. It does not necessarily mean that the student can't do that thing.

CONTINGENCY PLAN TIME - We're gonna turn that g-thang (my classroom) into a workshop for the next two weeks.