Greg Coode

Poudre High School

World Geography
Fall Semester

Introduction
Hello and welcome to World Geography! My name is Mr. Coode and I will be your teacher for
this semester! Throughout the semester we will be looking at various parts of the world at
different times. This includes the enlightenment, antebellum, industrial revolution, and antiquity
to name a few. We will be looking at these periods through the lens of a historian, which means
that we will look at things from the people of the time. We will then relate that to our modern
day thinking and compare the two thought processes. You will find that while some things
change in history over time, other things stay the same. My personal philosophy is that I think it
is really important to teach and reinforce skills that will transfer to other subjects. Things like
coding text, analyzing sources, formatting an essay, and building an argument. We will focus our
unit around these things and less around memorizing dates and names. While those are also
important and you will need to know them, your formative and summative assessments will be
more to those skills than just memorization. I consider myself to be a lifelong learner and hope
that you all can be ones as well. I think it is important to always strive to learn and grow because
that is what history does. History doesn’t change, but what does change over time are ideas and
thoughts. That is how I hope you all approach your lives.

Classroom Expectations
When you are in this class the expectation is that you are here to learn and participate in
whatever is going on that day. This means that once the bell rings you are in your seat and
awaiting instructions for the day or doing the “do now” warm up of the day. There are students
from all walks of life and backgrounds in our classroom. This needs to be acknowledged so that
you are aware that there will be varying perspectives as we navigate this course. We need to
make sure that we are treating everyone with kindness and respect and don’t belittle or bully
anyone in the class for their opinions, appearance, ethnicity or race, religious preference, or for
anything else. This will be a place that we will respect each other at all times, even if we don’t
agree with everything someone has to say. We will as a class figure out specific classroom
expectations for daily things as well as for during classroom discussions, but what I have
mentions is my non-negotiables.
You need to make sure that every day you are bringing in your laptop and charger, if you have
one, otherwise you will need to bring in a notebook of your choice. You will also need to bring
in a pen (blue or black ink) or pencil to write with. If you can bring in a 3-ring binder that would
be awesome, but if not then I can provide you with one for this class. Other than that, everything
else will be provided for you for this class.

Grading
This class operates on a 0-5 scale. This means that a F will be a 0-.9, a D will be a 1-1.9, a C will
be a 2-2.9, a B will be a 3-3.9, and an A will be a 4-5. This allows for the most equitable grading
in my opinion and allows equal opportunity for success as it does failure.
For this course you will be graded on binder checks weekly, discussion participation, 1 formative
assessment per unit, and 1 summative assessment per unit. Discussions will be graded in a
different way than many of you are likely used to. In order to get credit for this you will either
need to contribute to the discussion or you will need to demonstrate active listening throughout
the discussion. This means that you are showing non-verbal ques that you are paying attention
and listening to what others are saying. I allow for this because I know that not everyone likes to
speak during discussions, but my hope is that by the time we have done this a few times
everyone will feel comfortable enough to participate.

Absence/Tardy Policy
If you have an excused absence then I will email you what you have missed in class and give you
details about how to access everything through google classroom. I will also check in with you
when you return to class to make sure that you understood everything. If you have an unexcused
absence then it will be on you to look for the information on google classroom and to initiate a
conversation with me if you have any questions or concerns about what you missed. Regardless
of if your absence is excused or not, everything you will need will be posted on google
classroom. I will initiate things if it is excused, as opposed to you having to initiate it if it is
unexcused.
Tardies will follow the same process as absences. If you have a good reason for being tardy then
let me know. I understand that life happens and some things are out of your control but
communication is the best way for me to know this. Likewise, if you don’t have a good reason
then it will be up to you to approach me and to see what you have missed so far in class.

Late Work Policy

I will accept all late work and allow re-dos up until the last week in the semester. This is because
I think it is more important for you to develop the skills that I am teaching you and to take
feedback that I give you to apply to your assignments. In my mind, what is the point of feedback
if you aren’t allowed to apply it to your work and fix it? That being said this falls on you and is
up to you to take advantage of. There will be some exceptions to this, like weekly binder checks,
because I can’t just grade you on one. For anything that there is an exception on you will have
prior notice.

Extra Credit
Extra credit will be given out to those who go above the expectations. For example, those who
are constantly contributing meaningfully to class discussions, or for those who are constantly
turning work in on time or taking advantage of me allowing re-dos and taking my feedback into
consideration.

Communication
I will make it a point to communicate with everyone at least 2 times per unit in a one-on-one
setting. During this time, I will let you know how you are doing in the class and things that you
can improve upon. The only time I will involve parents or initiate communication to them is if I
feel that things are trending down for you and I think you can use additional support. The
communication is for that added support and not meant to simply get you in trouble. That being
said, parents are welcome to contact me whenever throughout the semester if they have questions
concerning their child or their performance. I will do my best to get to these emails in a timely
manner and request that this only be done bi-weekly at the most unless we have already
discussed something different for your child.

Please tear or cut this signature line below and return to me within one week of receiving it. If
you or your guardian has any concerns about my syllabus feel free to reach out to me.

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