MATERIALS NEEDED DAILY

Grading Policy
 Composition Notebook
 30% Assignments and Projects
(provided by teacher)
 30% Tests and Quizzes
 Writing Instruments such as
pencils, pens, highlighters  25% Homework
 Binder Papers  15% Participation

th th
7 and 8 Grade
Humanities
Integrating Writing and Reading with FLEX Literacy
Mr. Jim Vue
CLASSROOM EXPECTATIONS
Room 203
pa-dee-xiong@scusd.edu  Self-Motivated
 Works independently
and cooperatively
 Perfect Attendance
 R.O.A.R.S Policies

COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is designed for students to proficient and meet common core standards in the reading and
writing concepts. The course provides intensive instruction in writing and reading. It is to improve
writing skills, reading skills, and study skills for struggling students, EL students, newly-arrived
international students, and RSP students. The focus of this course is the composition process of
prewriting, drafting, revision, and editing. Students will have practice in improving sentence structure,
grammar usage, essay organization, and development in detail writing. They will begin with personal
writing in their Writer’s Notebook and progress to academic essays. In addition, students will read and
study short essays, do vocabulary work, comprehend different genre novels, and annotate short
stories. The intensive reading practices are to help support students to increase fluency in reading,
develop ideas through the use of different literature, and focus on critical thinking. The students will be
introduced to the new curriculum FLEX Literacy. This curriculum will assess the students in reading and
let us know their Lexile Reading Score. In addition, the students will be introduced to the library with
some research skills such as summarizing and paraphrasing. The teacher will be incorporating the use
of word processing, google docs, and internet/world-wide web technologies a few times per week in
class.
Scholars ☺
All of the students in Mr. Vue's class are scholars. A student is defined by as a person who is studying at a school. A
scholar, however, is defined as a person who is highly educated or has an aptitude for study. All scholars are students, but
not all students are scholars. When we put our minds into something that we want to learn, we become scholars. We
must see ourselves as such in order to become.

Detention
All scholars must know how to write. When you serve detention with me, you will write a letter of apology to the
teacher who assigns detention to you. Detention is served when a scholar breaks a classroom rule.

Class Rules
See behavior below...

Behavior
At the start of the school year, scholars will help Mr. Vue make a set of classroom rules based on the ROARS. You
are expected to follow those rules at all times when you are in Room 203. Failure to follow school rules will result
as follows:

When a rule Action taken Parents

is broken... contacted?
Your name will be written on the board as warning.
1 (once) This is your only warning. No

You will serve detention with Mr. Vue at lunch time.

2 During detention, you will have to write an apology Yes/No
letter to the teacher that assigns you detention.

If you do not show up to detention at lunch time, If this is your

Mr. Vue notifies your parents/guardians. You will first detention,
now have to make up detention after school. You your parents will
will now have to write 2 letters, one for your not be
teacher and the other one for your contacted.
parents/guardians.
If this is your
If you do not finish your letter of apology, you will 2nd or more,
have to keep coming to detention everyday until you then Yes.
finish it. If it takes you 1 week to finish your letter,
then you will owe me 5 days of detention.

3 If you have to serve multiple detentions, your Yes

parents will be notified, as well as Mr. Brown and
Mr. Wootton. A parent-teacher-administrator
conference may be scheduled, depending on the
situation.
Note: If you have to serve detention with another teacher and cannot come to my detention, it is YOUR
responsibility to let me know. If you don't say anything to me, I will assume that you skipped my detention and call
your parents at lunch time, so that you will serve detention with me after school.

Talking back to the teacher

Mr. Vue does not tolerate scholars who feel the need to waste everyone's time and talk back to him in class. If you
have any questions or concerns, write it down on a piece of paper and talk to Mr. Vue after class or come by after
school. For example, if you think that Mr. Vue is being unfair, do not address it in class, and write it down so that
you remember. When you talk about your business in class, you waste everyone else's learning opportunity. See the
behavior chart because the same process applies for this as any other rule that you break in class.

Gum
No gum allowed in class unless specified by your doctor. Scholars who break this rule are subjected to the behavior
chart on previous page.

Mr. Vue's desk

Students are NOT permitted to be in the vicinity of Mr. Vue's desk unless they have permission. There is a line
around my desk. Do not cross that line and touch my stuff. You would not like it if someone touched your stuff as
well.

Cell phones
Cell phones are NOT permitted in this classroom, unless a teacher has specifically asked you to pull out your phone.
This is Mr. Vue's cell phone procedure

When you have your Action taken Parents contacted

cellphone out

1 (once) Mr. Vue will kindly ask you to put it away. This is No
your only warning.

2 (twice) Mr. Vue will ask you to go to his desk and put your Yes
phone inside of his desk drawer.

If you refuse to comply, I will send you to the Up to Mr. Brown or

office so that someone can take your phone away Mr. Wootton
from you. I don't touch your stuff, but if you
don't put it away, I will ask somebody else to, so
don't do it.

Pencil Sharpener
You may not get up to sharpen your pencil at any time. Your teacher will have pre-sharpened pencils.
Restroom time
You will have 4 bathroom passes per semester. This means you can use the bathroom for 8 times total, for the
whole year in this class! Mr. Vue will hand out restroom passes at the start of the school year. Restroom passes will
only be accepted if your name is written on it. At the end of the semester, you can turn each pass in for 5 points
extra credit, each. The only way to get more bathroom passes is by having a doctor's note.

Stay in your seat!

Our classroom will have as minimal distractions as possible. Scholars make good choices by staying in their seats
and listening to whomever is talking to the class. This is also a safety issue so that every scholar keeps their hands
and feet to each other. If you get out of your seat during class without permission, this constitutes as a warming,
and follows the behavior chart.

Bullying
Bullying of any kind will not be tolerated. Mr. Vue has worked with schools in the past on adopting a bullying
protocol that ensures that all scholars have the right to come to school, learn and feel comfortable at all times.
This is an issue that is close to Mr. Vue's heart. Cases of bullying with sufficient evidence (i.e. other scholars and
teachers saw it) may result in as little as no warnings, but a straight referral to see Mr. Wootton. There is zero
tolerance for bullying in this classroom.

Sign this portion at the bottom, along with your parents. My contact information is as follows:

note: this syllabus is subject to change without notice.

============================================================================================
Scholars

I have read and understand the rules and policies of this class. If there are portions in which I do not
understand, I will talk to my teacher for clarification.

___________________________ ___________________________ __________

Scholar Name (print) Student name (signed) Date

Parents

My scholar and I have read and understand the rules and policies of this class. If there are any questions or
concerns, we will contact Mr. Vue.

___________________________ ___________________________ __________

Parent Name (print) Parent name (signed) Date
Homework
I do not assign a lot of homework because you have homework in every other class as well. I understand. However,
when homework is assigned, all scholars must complete their homework. If you do not complete your homework, you
will owe Mr. Vue lunch detention. Detention protocol is as follows:

When you miss your Action taken Parents contacted

homework

1 (once) You will spend your lunch on detention in Room 203 No

to finish your homework.

2x or more You will spend your lunch on detention AND write a You have to take
letter explaining why you did not do your your letter home and
Note: I will schedule a homework have your parents
conference with your
parents if this becomes an
sign it.
issue

Food
No food is allowed in this class unless permission is given. If you must eat for any reason, you must ask your
teacher first. You will be asked to throw out your food or finish it. If you do not immediately comply, your
name will go on the board and you will serve detention in Room 203. If you still have not thrown your food out,
you will receive a referral for failing to comply with class rules. If I see evidence that you have sneaked in
food to eat in class (i.e. crumbs/wrappers on the floor), you will also owe me detention and a letter.

Start of class procedure

All scholars will stand and line up in a straight line outside of the room. No scholar is to enter the room until
the teacher allows them to. All scholars must enter the room quietly. You must go straight to your seat and
start your warm-up. You will only have 5 minutes to complete your warm up. Each scholar will get a stamp for a
completed warm-up. Scholars who do not have a stamp because they failed to finish the warm-up in the time
allotted do not receive credit for their warm-up.

End of class procedure

When the bell rings, every scholar is to remain at their seat. The teacher will excuse you from class, not the
bell. This is a safety issue.

When the floors are dirty and materials are not put away, scholars are expected to make sure that they leave
the classroom in the same condition that they saw it when they entered the class. No one leaves until the
classroom is the same condition that it was before the class came in, no exceptions. Any scholar who
leaves before class gets dismissed by a teacher is subjected to detention and a letter of apology.

Note: 1st period scholars are expected to take the chairs down, and 6th period scholars are expected to put the chairs up.
Australia
There is a section in our class which is known as Australia. Australia is a place for us to go and relax if we are
having a bad day. Everybody has bad days, including me. The maximum time allotted to spend in Australia is 10
minutes maximum, unless your teacher says otherwise. You are still responsible for the work that you do in
class when you are in Australia. If you talk to other scholars or distract them while you are in Australia, you
will be asked to come back to your seat.

Note that Australia is strictly a place to cool off and chill out, and is not meant to be a permanent seating
arrangement. Your teacher reserves the right to refuse to have you sit in Australia for any reason, and
without explanation.

The ??? Box

If you have any questions or concerns about this class, please write it down, fold it and put it into the
Question mark box. It is always better to write your name on it, but please know that your identity will be
100% anonymous. No one else will know who wrote this but your teacher. Here are subjects that you can write
about

 Bullying (either in class or outside of class)

 Seating chart (I don't like where I sit because..)
 Subjects covered in class (Suggestions on what we should learn about in relation to our class)
 Fairness (If you think somebody in the class is being unfair)
 Breaking rules (If you see other scholars breaking class rules)
 Any other questions or concerns that you have (Something that happened in another class, at lunch, between classes,
before school, after school, away from school, on the weekend., etc.... something that I should know about )

I will address these concerns in a class meeting. Even if you write down somebody's name, class meetings will
always go nameless. Even if somebody is being mean, we do not say their name in the class meeting. Instead,
we try to address the problem as scholars.

Please write down "Private" if you do not want this to be shared with the class

This is NOT considered snitching because we are trying to make our classroom as comfortable as we can for
everyone. Even if one person is uncomfortable while the rest of the class is, we must do our part to make it
comfortable.

Lunch time help

If there is anything that you want to talk about something with me, please ask me for a lunch pass. I will only
let you in if you have a lunch pass. I do this because I do not want a scholar to take all 13 of their friends (who
are not even in this class) to the classroom, because this is not a productive environment for getting help on work. I
will not give out a lunch pass in the middle of class, just before and after class. This is a great way to get help
about the things that we are covering in class. You may also request a lunch pass if you wish to see me about a
personal matter in class, or wish to write a question in the Question box.