Le
Moyen Age
Catherine
Wiebe
www.catherinewiebe.blogspot.com / wiebe_c@4j.lane.edu
Course description:
During 18 weeks
(First trimester + 6 weeks of the second trimester), students will study
European History following the fall of the Roman Empire to roughly the XVth
century, as well as the creation of the Muslim Empire. They will study the make
of medieval society: its feudal system with its kings, knights, peasants and castles;
the building of cathedrals and monasteries, the impact of religion on society, when,
where, why and how crusades happened, and the emergence of trade. Packets from
French textbooks will be the basis of the class in the area of content.
Students will also read and study excerpts of La Chanson de Roland, an abridged version of Lancelot by Chrétien de Troyes, Crispin
by Avi, as well as stories from The
thousand and one nights. Students will switch class during the second term, and finish
the school year with Craig Wiebe to study Ancient Civilizations.
French language program
We will continue our
systematic review of important grammatical concepts using a workbook ($5 if
lost), worksheets, presentations and tests.
Present
and past tenses, adjectives agreements during fall term.
Pronouns
of all kinds, comparison, articles and gender during winter term.
Future,
Conditional, Subjunctive during spring term.
Writing skills will be
addressed in this class through reports and short essays answers, but
strengthen in Writing.
Expectations
Students are expected to .....
• listen to the teacher and
their peers
• come to class ready to
study and to participate
• come to class with a
positive and respectful attitude
• participate to the best of
their abilities to all classroom activities
• keep their French notebook
in order (class notes, most of the homework)
• use French at all times
(in this class, French is the only language we speak, write, read, hear)
• come to class with their
material (packets, books, notebook, sharpened pencils, eraser, homework
done)
Skills developed
Grammar – A systematic
revision of grammatical concepts will be an important part of this class. For 8th
graders, most of these concepts will be a nice review. On the other hand, for 7th
graders some concepts will be newly presented as a grammar topic. 7th
graders need to remember that next year they will have the “upper hand”.
Work
ethic –
a) Students need to do their own work. It is important
to read careful and more than once texts, grammatical explanations before doing
exercises, and to take ownership of your work. Giving homework answers to a
fellow student’s is not helpful; copying answers from a fellow student’s work
is not productive and will be penalized. However discussing what is the correct answer is encouraged.
b) Students need to take pride
in their work and submit neat and complete work.
Material: Students need to bring to every
class: their class packets, their grammar booklet, their history notebook (8.5
x 11 inches, with a sturdy cover AND with at least 100 usable pages), good writing
tools. Almost all HW and class work will be written in students notebook and will
be assessed for completion and accuracy regularly. It is imperative that
students develop good habits of taking notes in class, and labeling neatly and
accurately their work. History
notebook needs to be use solely for this class.
Homework: There
will be daily homework, and students should set aside a minimum of 30 minutes per night for their
French Homework. Homework will be posted daily on the board in my classroom.
Before leaving, students are expected to copy the assignments in their
Roosevelt planner. Homework will also be posted on my blog www.catherinewiebe.blogspot.com.
Homework may include:
• Reviewing for
a test.
• Learning
vocabulary.
• Reading and
answering questions.
• Researching
information for a project.
• Learning a
grammar topic and completing exercises.
• Working on a
written assignment or a journal entry.
• Reading and
reporting the section read on the student’s log.
Reading and writing are two important
skills in this class. Reading skills focus on determining the central ideas of
a text, the author's point of view and/or purpose, the ability to select parts
of the text to support one's analysis. Writing focus on presenting facts and
ideas in an organized manner and well supported by studied sources. French
proficiency will also be assessed in this class as all material will be in
French. Assignments will be graded to reflect students' proficiency on class
standards selected from Common Core state standards.
Earning grades: There is no mystery, a
good grade means producing consistently good work. Assignments will give
students multiple opportunities to show understanding of the content areas, and
their proficiency in diverse standards. Grades will be regularly posted on
Synergy. Parents and students need to frequently check their performance in
order to monitor their academic performance and to change behaviors if
necessary.
Grading: We will be using a proficiency
based grading system for this class with the following grading scale:
5 - Highly Proficient
(I can teach it.)
4 - Proficient
(I get it / I can do it.)
3 - Nearly Proficient
(I get most of it / I can do most of it.)
2 - Developing
(I get parts of it / I can do parts of it.)
1 - Not Proficient
(I'm struggling to get it / I am struggling to do it.)
NE - No Evidence
(I submitted work unrelated to assignment / ungradeable.)
M - Missing (I did not do it.)
