Class Rules and Grading

2011-12 School Year

You are expected to be a historian for 82 minutes every day you come to class. For most of you this will be the only time in your life you will be a historian. Historians DO NOT sleep at work, bother other historians, do work in other fields, waste time or draw undue attention to themselves. They are generally curious people who find the past a fascinating guide to what we were and what we can be. Your willingness to “become a historian” will be directly related to the grade you earn in this class.

There are many things that must happen for a classroom to run smoothly. Rules happen to be one of those things. While I try to keep them to a minimum, these are the things you need to know about how things work in my class.

TREAT OTHERS AS YOU WOULD LIKE THEM TO TREAT YOU!

It is imperative that students treat each other with respect at all times. I have a zero-tolerance policy for any comments that make fun of another student for any reason, at any time. Please refer to the bullying and sexual harassment sections of your student handbook for possible sanctions.

EVEN IF THE STUDENT SAYS IT IS OK, IT IS NEVER OK WITH ME!

Attendance is very important. When you are absent you are missing information and making it more difficult for you to do well in the class. Participation points are earned daily. If you are absent for any reason, you lose your participation points, unless all online activites/directions are completed or a two page paper is written on a topic approved by Mr. Sullivan. The daily work can be found online by typing Princeville High School into your browser. Go to PHS site, click “View teacher webpages”, click Mr. Sullivan’s page to get to my landing page. From there navigate to your class and nine weeks and find what we did that day. This is the ONLY way in class points can be obtained. Students who have failed history classes have been students who have missed numerous classes and did no make-up.

Be on time to class! I have planned for the entire period and when students come in late, it disrupts what has been planned. “Openers” will count for points and if you are not present to start the opener—you will lose those points. Plus, you lose participation points for being tardy which will affect your grade. And, the PHS tardy policy means your accumulated tardies will result in detention time.

You may not sleep in class. I will wake you up, but ultimately, you will also lose participation points if you are sleeping during class. Your parents will be notified of your tiredness. If you can not stay awake you will be instructed to stand and take notes or participate in the lesson. You do not tell me when you are going to sleep and I will not take time in class to inform you that points are being deducted from your participation/attention grade.

Please keep all conversations appropriate to the school setting. Anything I hear (overhear) in class that I feel your parents should know about…I will call them and tell them what you said in class. This is not a problem as historians rarely discuss personal matters in the workplace—KEEP ALL CONVERSATION/DISCUSSION appropriate.

Please DO NOT BRING your cell phones to class. If your phone goes off or is discovered because you forgot, please power it off and place it in the plastic bag I give you immediately. That said, if there is a family emergency, parents can always contact the office.

Occasionally, we will have a guest speaker. Attendance for guest speakers is mandatory and the points may not be made up.

REMEMBER, ATTENDANCE IS REQUIRED AND THE POINTS CAN BE MADE UP ONLY BY DOING ALL MAKE-UP OR WRITING A PAPER! Getting the assignments/topic and doing the makeup/paper is THE STUDENT’S RESPONSIBILITY.

Grading in my class is on a total point basis. The average point total for a semester is between 600 and 1500 points, depending on the assignments for the given class and semester. You can obtain 400 out of 400 points per nine weeks just by coming to class prepared and attempting to be a historian.

Both classes will follow the standard Princeville High School, grade distribution. The type of assignments depends on the class, but will include all or some of the following:

World History	Junior (JUSH) and Modern (MUSH) US History
Lecture/Discussion	Lecture/Discussion
Textbook Activities	Textbook Activities
Map Activities	Map Activities
Primary Source Activities	Primary Source Activities
Videos	Videos
Tests	Tests
Essays	Essays
Notebooks	Notebooks
Computer assignments	Computer assignments
Major Projects	Major Projects

You will be graded on every aspect of the above activities. When we watch a movie you are graded on your attentiveness. When we have discussions you will be graded on your participation/attention. All activities will be assigned some points. Your ability to be a “Historian for 82 minutes” will determine how many points you acquire.