Homework

You get quizzes and tests every so often that you'll find yourself having to study for at least 10 minutes every day. (And yes, you do get quizzes in Humanities as well). In Humanities, you have a common assessment on every unit. Common assessments are normally essays or creative writing. One thing I wished I'd have known at the beginning of this year is that your teachers grade you on almost every single piece of work that you do, and if you don't keep up with all the work, your grade will drop down like an anchor in the sea!

First of all I would like to tell you some challenges that will come your way, academically. Homework. In seventh grade you get a much larger amount of homework. This year is a sort of ‘turning point’ in school. Everything gets harder, and you are getting prepared for high school. I know everyone hates homework, and it is difficult, but there are some things that you can do to keep yourself from not handing in all of your assignments late. I know this doesn’t sound like the best idea, but if you do the homework right when you get it, it makes your life so much easier. Once you’re done with it, you feel so much better with the load off your back and you are free to do whatever you wish. If you do it at the last moment, it is usually rushed, and most of the time you are tired or whatever from what you just came back from. Another piece of help is to always check your work. You can lose easy points from simple mistakes that can be easily changed. Sometimes, sadly, I do have to agree, teachers are correct about some things.

Don’t start bad habits. Schedule your weekends and leave some time for homework. Don’t let your homework pile up and make sure you make note of your assignments so that you hand them in on time. I do have to say though, from my personal experience, sleep is the most useful thing when it comes to school. If you don’t sleep much, the next day will be boring as ever, you’ll tend to not pay as much attention to your teachers, and you end up not learning much and whining about boring classes. Some days when I sleep a lot, I feel much brighter and I learn a lot in classes and in the end I feel good. Finally I would like to warn you about tests. When I was in sixth grade I really didn’t care much about tests and quizzes. I never needed to study. But like I said before, this is a ‘turning point’ and a lot of things change. I made a big mistake at the end of the year by not studying for tests. Really, it helps. Score two for the teachers. Once again you’ll feel better when you get a good grade on your tests and maybe your parents will give you a higher allowance, or let you hang out with friends more often. Maybe that will change your mind.

Do NOT procrastinate. Trust me, I do that a lot. I've learned not to because when you do that, homework starts piling up, and before you know it, you have a stack of homework right in front of you that's due the next day. I know that people say you learn from your own mistakes, but I also think that you can learn from other people's mistakes. So don't follow what I did and procrastinate. Just work hard, do your best, and be prepared.  Homework in seventh grade is not that much when you are passing the first few weeks of confused. Homework seems to increase when you are just starting the new year, but when you get used to it there is not much to worry off. Teachers in seventh grade start off with not much work, but when time passes more comes to hand. Teachers check every single assignment you have to hand in and will grade harder on your work. This makes it seem hard to make your grade get higher. But I know that if you try hard and practice a lot you new seventh graders can accomplish any work you get so good luck in seventh grade.

This year you will be receiving more homework which is more difficult than in 6th grade. Be sure to do all your homework each night, or you will find on PowerSchool that your grades are going down. Try not to copy each others' homework at school in the morning, unless you need to.  Be sure to read the homework questions before answering, because you may find that you did extra work that was not needed.  If you miss a day of school, be sure to check with friends or the teacher about homework that you missed, so that you will be able to catch up, and keep your grades remaining at the way they were.

Lesson number one: Do NOT put off your homework until the next day. You have Humanities and Math everyday of your school week, and you have homework due almost always on the next day. Not only will you not be able to finish it in time, but you will get a big zero on your PowerSchool, which won’t make your parents happy. Given that you do actually finish your work, it will probably be given a very low score, because your teacher can tell whether you rushed it or not.

You probably already know this, but EVERY thing is important for your final grade, because everything that comes on Powerschool will stay with you for an entire semester; it’s easier to get your grade down than getting it back up again, that’s why you should always try your best, even when you can go to the movies with your friends instead.  In 6th grade, we didn'’t get as many homework assignments and the teachers are much nicer when it comes to turning in late assignments. But, in 7th grade, the teachers are so strict about late homework assignments and sometimes, they give you an F! At the beginning of 7th grade, I didn’t turn in my homework most of the times. I have realized that my grades have been going down dramatically. This was because I haven’t turned in my homework assignments. My advice to you is, turn in all of your homework assignments on time.

There is more homework to be done in a limited amount of time and less free time to do other activities that appeals to your liking. At the beginning of the year, when I had just become a 7th grader, I always left my homework and projects until the last minute. Well, it worked, but not for long. As we got further into the year, there was a rapid increase of homework and the teachers always have high expectations on you to push you to be the best student you can be. And by doing it in a last minute rush does not bring out your best work at all, then resulting as a bad grade. When a big holiday like the winter break comes up, we’d get a lot more homework and exams to do. Then when you’re really happy that you’re going to be homework for the next couple of weeks of winter break, you’d still get “holiday homework” from some classes so that hopefully you don’t forget anything during the summer.  At the beginning of the year, I used up my free time playing games and other useless but fun stuff instead of doing homework that was due on the day after tomorrow and so forth. In the end, I’d have to stay up until around 2:00 am finishing last minute homework due in a couple of hours. Although, this sounds really cheesy but now I’ve learnt to do my homework beforehand so when I actually have free time, I can do better things to my liking. The teacher’s expectations will increase as well from the start of the year until the end of the semester.

More About Homework