Ahhh....the end of the semester

Hey Everybody:

So the end of another semester has gone. I want you all to know I will miss this class. Some good discussion happened every class and that is rare. I think you will all be great teachers. I am feeling some imposter syndrome but hopefully student teaching will help that feeling dissapate--although talking with some of you in the class room right now isn't making me fell a whole lot better!!!

I am done with my portfolio--yeah. I have an inter-session class that starts Monday, okay don't think about that...

Anyway, it think it is too bad that Missy won't be here to help another group of teachers with the writing process but sounds like she has a good gig at SEMO lined up--yeah for her.

I have learned a lot this semester and though I didn't think I would use portfolios before, now I think I will.

mj

10th post :)

Well, it is Sunday night, and I just counted up my blogs and I have done 9. So, luckily you get to hear from me one last time! :) This is actually a very personal blog, and no one has to comment, but feel free if you like.

I just got in a huge, huge fight with my mom. That is actually why I am at the computer (it is isolated in my basement at home), so I figured, as usual this fight has something to do with education. The fight stems back to the fact that my aunt (who I have told you all about before...) has been living with us for 9 years now, and it is to the point that she can barely do anything on her own now. When I come home on the weekends, I have to chose to hang out with my mom or my dad because we cannot leave Marsha (my aunt) here by herself (just in case you don't listen to me babble in class....Marsha has Down's Syndrome lol). Anyway, although I know my frustration is wrong, and I should not be so selfish....it is still there. Obviously, the fight had many other details, but one of the main arguments was this:

For my mom's own sanity, she started doing everything for Marsha instead of letting her try things on her own. Marsha is 54, so progress is out of the picture, but I do think that by doing everything for her, my mom sped up the degression. When it comes to people with special needs, doing everything for them is not the answer. It may be easier, but since when is the right thing ever easy? One of my favorite quotes is, "sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same." I guess my point is, when it comes to special needs individuals, what do we as teachers feel? I guess my mom's sanity is more important than progressing Marsha's mentality, but I cannot help but wonder. Once again, please do not feel that any of you have to respond.....just thought that it might help me to get it out, knowing that some of you will read.

I hope everyone has a wonderful summer, and it truly has been a pleasure! Hope you guys don't miss me too much! :) Wink!

Sincerely,
Tara Biggs

Finding a balance

Trying to understand the need between peer review and teacher review of a student's work is something that is hard for me. I know that students may learn valuable information from their peers within that review if it is done correctly, but it seems to me as though there is nothing that beats the reviews that an instructor gives to me over my work. Perhaps it is the fact that I am used to writing to please my instructor and the peer reviews I have gone through in my academic past have not been very helpful. What is it that you guys think of peer review? On one hand they are a valuable source of information but on the other they seem very annoying to put your students through. It almost seems like you are asking them to do more work that they might not necessarily get anything out of. I think that I am of two minds about peer review when it is done correctly.

Kids These Days

So I have a "hypothetical" question: If, as a teacher, a student comes back from lunch, and as he/she walks by you on the way to his/her desk you catch a whiff of pot... what do you do?? And furthermore, say the school happens to have open-campus lunch hours where students leave and come back... What if the illegal activities didn't happen on school ground? In the honor of this person's privacy I'll just say that recently he/she was expelled from school for a year and won't even be allowed to go to alternative school until after six months, so he/she will be a year and a half behind in school, all because of the situation above. I'm not saying it's right or wrong... but I will say that another student who stole money from a visiting basketball team during a game only got expelled for 6 months and was able to go straight to alternative school and graduate with the rest of his/her class, although he/she wasn't allowed to walk. So the pot incident was punished more harshly than the stealing incident. I can think of some justifications for that I guess. So my real question is should a teacher really be a police dog and smell all his/her students for signs of illegal substances, and get them all expelled in some master plan to "lighten" his or her workload? I'm exaggerating a little here but I mean seriously. Also, when the student is coming back from off-campus lunch and has no paraphanalia and you have no proof that it happened on-campus or that the student was actually the one smoking the pot, should you still turn them in? This is totally off-topic for this course but I thought it was interesting. I think it's probably one of those school policy situations, but I was just wondering what other peoples' thoughts were. I think that if you're sure beyond a doubt that you should do something about it, but I think sometimes there are so many variables that maybe just giving the student some sort of warning after class when you aren't positive might be ok? Or is that a completely wrong thing to do?

Comments from Mrs. O

Mrs. Oxford sent me an email about the exchange; she said:

My students and I have been having post conferences on their research
papers. During our conference, I have been pulling up your students
comments and grades. I thought that your students would want to know that
they are scoring the papers very closely to my scores. This isn't true 100%
of the time, but most are very close. That is great!!

Sounds like you're doing pretty well!

In an earlier email, she mentioned that her students have really been paying attention to your comments and talking about what you have said about their writing. There have been a few bumps. A couple students felt their SIU reader was being mean by pointing out that they didn't seem to be taking the assignment seriously. Mrs. Oxford and I discussed how students sometimes DO need to be told the truth. She also said it's important to realize that sometimes you will have students that want to only hear sugar-coated fluff even when they do work far below their capabilities. They don't deal well with the truth, but many times these students realize months or even years later how you've pushed them and how your high expectations actually forced them out of their comfort zone in a good way. The only other concern of the students was that they were marked down on some things in their final draft when those things weren't mentioned in their first drafts. Mrs. O said this is something she still has to work on, but there are times when some problems seem to be at the forefront on a rough draft and then other things draw more attention as the first things are fixed.

Overall, very nice work, folks! You should be proud of yourselves.

Giving Grades

Giving grades especially on writing was a difficult thing for me to do. It was so difficult because I felt as if I was judging them. And not having seen what they were working on, the grades that I gave just did not seem like they should have been given at least not some of them. I don't know what else to say except that it was difficult. I don't know what the rest of of did but I found it easiest just to go by the rubric that their teacher had provided yet some of the grades that I assigned with it made me unhappy because they were missing things so I had to deduct points for that. I did see a lot of improvement between the drafts and the final paper though. It was great to see that some of the students did hold valve for my comments.

Finding the Balance

I don't know if anyone else has thought about this, but my grading and comments on papers have changed significantly. When we first began grading essays in class, I would read through essays and mark every gramatical error I could find. I focused on the mechanical side of students writing. But as I finished up my final set of essays, I noticed that I was focusing on the content of the paper. Most of my changes and comments revolved around paragraphing, theses, etc. Now what i need to work on is balancing out my comments. I feel that it is important that students improve on both grammar and content. They are equally important. I think the balance is something I will achieve over time and with practice.

RHS essays

I must say that grading the essays for the RHS students was a great learning experience. I liked that many of the students, particularly the students on web cam, took what I was saying seriously and made very positive changes to their papers. It seems as though they just needed someone to point out the idea of something other than five paragraph essays. Another common problem that ran throughout most of the essays was the presence of personal opinion rather than taking a stand on an issue and supporting it with research. While there was an improvement in this problem, many students still had the presence of personal opinions throughout the paper. The only frustrating part of the experience was when students did not listen to the comments I made. It was frustrating and made me feel as though I wasted time by even giving them suggestions. I know that this is something I will simply have to get use to because it will happen throughout my career.

Alright, that's about all I've got. Just wanted to share my reaction on the essays.

Oh and about the web conferences...

Oh, I also forgot to talk about the web conferences! I meant to last week, but life got a little hectic so there is no better time than the present. :)

My web conferences had a few technical difficulties, but despite half of the time on Missy's cell, I did enjoy the experience. I got to see what it was really like to talk to a student that cares about my comments and takes notes during the conference, and I also spoke with a student who did not even bring his paper to our meeting. I did not dislike either experience despite their differences, and I actually learned more from a very close to hands-on conference with a current student. I used to be the student that really cared what the teacher said (not that I am not still), but I never really took notes. I usually was confident in my paper, and I took into consideration what the teacher said. I am aware that this sounds a little egotisitc, but unfortunately, that's how I was in high school. So, it was really educational to see the other two extremes and use my memory of being in high school in order to get through to each individual. I love being honest with the students about my study habits, because I think that it makes them listen to you more willingly. That's all for tonight, my friends...good night.

Another random thought as usual...

So, kiddos, tonight I have yet another random thought to share with all of your lovely faces. :)

Tonight is a little more generic, but I hope that you find it insightful. I am highly fascinated with how to incorporate diversity into the classroom effectively. More specficially, I have a very diverse group of friends, and I love being the young, funny, white girl. I know that sounds kind of bad, but I do not mean for it to be inappropriate in even the slightest sense. I embrace who I am and enjoy learning how to embrace other cultures. However, not every person that meets me would think that I behave in this manner. Although I do not think that I experience racism, I do feel that people assume that I will be racist, when in all reality, I am extremely far from that.

I have always wanted to teach in the inner city schools and teach to kids that actually need someone that cares. I say that I want to teach in Clayton, Missouri and be girly and wear all the designer clothes, but do I? I find so much more pleasure in helping somone that needs me. Don't get me wrong, I know all students need teachers, and every deserves a fair education, but I do feel that we focus on the schools that do well and fund unnecessary projects when students are sitting in unsafe fascilities and being taught by teachers that should be fired.

I am extremely enthusiastic to be a teacher, and I have all intentions to consider diversity in the classroom, but I also do not blend everyone into one color. I do and will see every student as an individual. I know I sound very idealistic in this blog, but sometimes a little idealism is healthy. My ultimate point is that we have to think about what diversity means to us as a person before we can understand it in the classroom.

Web Confrences

The web conferences were a brand new experience I must say. I learned that technology can be a pain in the butt when you need to use it for something. ^_^ But it was also a great experience in and of its self. I did enjoy speaking with live students. You get feed back from your feedback which is great to have. Some of my students did not understand where they wanted to go, some of them did. I have also been given the opportunity to watch several of my CT's conferences with her students. Don't be afraid to ask if you can do this. It is a great way to watch the interaction first hand.

Grading Final Set of RHS Essays

I have to say that I have enjoyed this experience- as tiring as it has been. I think that I have learned a substantial amount both personally and professionally throughout this exchange.

The last set of essays was extremely difficult to get through. I know how I am with my own writing. I can't stand to proofread over and over. I felt like that was what I was doing with these essays. Some I wanted to scream, simply because I knew that they had not taken the revision seriously. Others, did a wonderful job at taking in our comments and working them (at their discretion) into their essays. I enjoyed many of them. It really gives you a rewarding feeling when a student has taken a very rough draft and has completly morphed it into something wonderful. But, I am very thankful that I have finished grading them. I have definitely learned a valuable lesson! :)

Web Conferences

At first when we were informed that we would be going through with the web conferences I felt excited because I would be able to help these students more by actually talking to them instead of just leaving them comments and written feedback. I went back and looked at the final draft that was posted by a student from the first set of essays we responded to and I noticed that the only suggestions of mine that she applied were the grammatical ones. I felt like a spent a good deal of time and put some real effort into suggesting items for revision and then the grammar was the only thing changed. So I was hoping that the web conferences would be better. I felt like I was prepared and I had a substantial amount of feedback to share. I was not nervous until the first conference. This one did not go as well as I had wanted it to but the other three made up for it. I felt more confident during the last three interviews than the first. I felt like two of my students were truly interested in my feedback; they were taking notes and asking questions which I really enjoyed. Then, the other two were not as responsive which is typical. Hopefully, my suggestions were considered and applied more than in the last set of essays.

Student Papers-Round Two

The first round was a bit nerve racking for me. I was so worried that I was not going to be able to help the students in a way that would be beneficial to them. I was even starting to dread this second set of papers a tiny bit. But as I was putting the finishing touches on them last night, I realized how much easier this set was to comment on.

Is there anyone else who thought this as well? I am interested to find out.

I must be honest as I say I am a bit fearful of giving the students a grade on their papers. After reading one paper, however, I am looking forward to a chance to reread them though as a finished product.

Writing Center Conferences

I really was dreading the writing center conference. Since, it was a requirement, I went. I ended up enjoying the session. It is difficult to be a jr. almost sr. ;) in college and have to go to a writing center session. (Even though, I realize that I do still need instruction in mechanics and some aspects of grammar. I am a comma lover!) I enjoyed the session because it made me realize that I am not so horrible at writing. My tutor was especially nice and very helpful. She read through my essay making comments like-- nice, YES!, okay. By doing this, it allowed me to understanding what she was thinking. I know that I often question what other people are thinking while they are reading my essay. It is nice to hear her read it out loud and comment on it. I would go to the writing lab again- maybe soon. I really appreciate these "required" assignments because they often make you do things that you normally would not do. And as I have learned, I usually enjoy doing them!

Web Conferences

Talk about your experience with the web conferences. Describe how you were feeling before the conference. What did you do to prepare? Describe how you felt during the conference. Did you feel stressed? Confident? Comfortable? Like this is what you were meant to do with your life :)? After reflecting on the experience, how would you evaluate it? What went well? What went not so well? What did you learn about yourself through this experience? What did you learn about high school students? What did you learn about teaching?

Unit Plans

What did you learn from this experience? How do you feel about the work you completed? How do you see yourself using these plans in the future?

Writing Center Visit

Talk about your visit. What did you like about it? What did you dislike? What strategies did the tutor use? What can you take from this experience and apply to your future teaching?

Email...good or bad?

In one of our readings, Sharing the Fun—and the Paper Load, I noticed many similarities to what we have been doing in our class. We are using the internet and technology to communicate with students, making less paperwork for all of us. I understand the importance of this. It can be very overwhelming to constantly be bombarded with draft after draft from some times up to a hundred or more students. This makes communicating much more organized and less time consuming.

However, in my opinion, it isn’t all that it has cracked up to be. Communicating through email may be quicker and more efficient, but it eliminates the personal contact with the student. And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I often find it hard to explain without having the student right in front of me. I always find myself struggling to put into words what needs to be fixed because I am constantly wondering if the student is actually going to understand what I am trying to say or if I should try to explain it in a different way. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but I just feel like I can be a more effective teacher sitting face to face with a student.

And then there are the problems we discussed in the last class. Some students don’t have access to a computer or they have really slow internet. That can prove to make internet discussion a problem. The other problem is that students may expect too much of you, i.e. answering there questions at midnight, expecting a reply in just a few minutes. The important thing is to establish rules and expectations going into the email program.

I guess I still believe that nothing is better than the old fashion way, handing in papers and face to face feedback. Just something for everyone to think about. Let me know what all of you think!!!!!

Writing Center

Alright...so I must say that I was very skeptical about my visit to the Writing Center. Regardless, I made the trip over there on Thursday. I went in with no idea what direction I even wanted to go in with my paper...no paper, no beginning paragraph, no idea, nothing...and they still helped me!!!!

I went in and sat down with Missy's prompt. I explained that we had two choices and I wasn't even sure what choice I wanted to write about. My tutor sat with me for only about 15 minutes, and in that time, I basically planned out my whole entire paper. I found that, like Missy said, sometimes just sitting and talking with someone about your ideas really helps with starting your paper. I found that I really did know what I wanted to write about; I just needed a little encouragement to get started.

After I figured out what I was going to discuss, my tutor helped me plan how I would write my paper. We decided what topics should be included, which were more important than others, which I could leave out, and before I knew it, I was well on my way to a strong paper!

I hope everyone has a successful trip to the writing center like I did! I kind of wish I would have visited a Writing Center four years ago...I think it probably would have made my college career a little less stressful!

Notes from Class 3/26

Class began with group presentations- Natalie, Katrina, and Jenny G. were first to go.
There topic was Pre-writing. Overall, it was a fun lesson. I think that the rest of the class enjoyed "Brainstorming" with Natalie, especially Michelle. (lol) The prompt of the essay was- Qualities of your favorite teacher-
some qualities listed were: Humorous, Sympathetic, Organized, Creative, Intelligent, Involved, Friendly, Passionate, Prepared- Michelle added, HOT.

Jenny G. then introduced the "Web" idea when "Brainstorming"- We choose Physical, Personality, Emotional, Intellectual, Management skills as sub topics. The class then began to build a rough draft off of Jenny G's web with Katrina- we combined the some topics for the essay into 3 basic ones- Physical, personality, traits, and teaching styles.

This ended the lesson. Next up-

Jamie B. and Tara-- Peer Review
They began the lesson with a peer review power point presentation- listing topics to discuss and things to look for while participating in peer review.
1. Read Over Essay
2. Look for Grammar/Spelling
3. Check Content
-clarity, creativity, support, detail, examples, etc.
4. Organization
5.Discussion
-strengths and weaknesses, suggestions
6. Reactions (Tara's Do's and Don'ts)

Do- Review and Edit
Do-Writer: Listen but do not enter into conversation
Do- Ask the writer to explain
Do- Respect the Writer
Remember: Final decisions are up to the writer!

Don't- be rude
Don't-just say this is wrong, offer suggestions
Don't- just correct grammar
Don't- get offended
Remember: If you are confused, always ask the writer to explain

They then presented Skits!!!
Heaven, Joe, and Jamie W. participated
I loved the Harry Potter Topic! Great way to present how to use peer review successfully!
*Used suggestions verse criticizing
* Explanation of reasoning
*What have I learned?

They presented both a positive and negative version of peer review- it gave the class a good idea of how well peer review can work when it is really done right.

Next, the class participated in guided practice session- this ended their lesson!

Natalie R. - then presented her mini-lesson: Point of View
She talked about using 1st, 2nd and 3rd person.
She gave examples of using these POV within sentences, and then had the class- correct sentences in which the wrong pronoun was used.

We did a journal entry- Technology in the Classroom - how we have used it and what we observed. What about your comfort level using different technology? What about in our teaching?


Essay Prompt #4 was handed out- Using the RHS essays on which you've commented analyze your response practices and reflect on your understanding of your effect on student learning?


REMINDERS:
Essay #3-
April 2nd: Writing Center conference done by next Wednesday- Essay emailed to Missy
April 2nd: UNIT PLANS DUE on LIVE TEXT NEXT WEDNESDAY at 11:59pm
-make sure you include Rubric - on how you will grade the essay

NO CLASS APRIL 9th- Due to RHS video cam conferences

Go to Missy's Office: 3202 C Faner Hall for conferences

Group Projects

I wanted to post on the idea of group projects considering we are about to present on Wednesday. Fortunately, my group works well together, but not every experience is going to end up that way. Therefore, if I say anything negative, it is relating to past experience, not the current group teaching we are participating in.

The idea of group projects actually falls hand-in-hand with the topic of our current presentation: peer review. Both of these activities require teamwork that does not always exist. Just as in peer review, members of the group do not always participate at an equal level. There will always be a slacker, there will always be an overachiever, and there will always be the student that does not care either way. I, personally, have always been the overachiever, but recently I pondered upon a new idea.

I was sitting in one of my classes, and we were told to form groups. Of course, I started off offering my input and being the recorder, but then I sat back and realized that I was doing everything while everyone else just sat there really. I became more than frustrated, and now I am sitting here wondering if I should just become the slacker. It seems a lot easier, don't you think?

Although I am thinking about stepping back and becoming the underachiever, I know that I never will. Fortunately or unfortunately, I enjoy getting good grades, and if my group is suffering, I will always pick up the slack. However, there are still students that would prefer to be carried along. So as teachers, how do we handle this? Is it the right idea to have one of each catagory in a group? Or should we put all the slackers in one group, the ones who don't really care in another, and the overachievers in the next? I actually have no idea. So please, someone tell me what a teacher should do to erase this problem in group work!!! No, seriously, please....let me know. :)

*~*TaRa*~*

Where do we draw the limit on creativity?

While reading the selected assignment- "Breaking the Rules in Style," I became super excited. After years and years of continually writing- I find the usual mundane style, boring. I hate to write essays for my literature classes... It is just blah! So, when I began to read this selection, I immediately thought WOW! I am a firm believer in creativity. As the author, Tom Romano states: "For years I've sought to free students from restrictions, to create an atmosphere that removes impediments to exploration and communication." Writing should be full of freedom, of exploration, and of communication. I think that writing should be full of these techniques because it gives our students a wider view of the writing style. By breaking the rules and following these ideas listed within the selection -sentence fragments, double voice, meandering sentences, and crots to list a few- the freedom of expression is everywhere! I think that by giving our students the option to write like this will expand their view to what writing truly is. It will also give them the ability to write freely without the feeling of the "need to hold back" due to anxiety over the repercussions of stepping out of bounds. I would much rather read a flamboyant, out there article- than some blah, blah article in which the everyday style is employed. I do agree that there is an appropriate place for these styles and that one should make it a point to teach to their students- the right and wrongs of using these styles- but, it is still inevitably important to allow the students to censor themselves. They should have the choice of when to and when not to use these strategies. Overall, this article was wonderful! I really enjoyed reading the examples and I hope to one day implement these ideas into my classroom!

**Just a little Note: I am in EDUC 313 this semster. My CT uses a magazine called- Teen Ink within her classroom as a supplemental teaching tool. (This magazine publishes essays, poems, art, and pictures from high schools all over the country.) She uses it to teach various aspects of writing. She will have her students read the articles and then will have them analyze them for different styles, techniques, etc. She has found this to be very beneficial. Often times, the ways in which the students writing appears in Teen Ink follow many of the guidelines in which this "Breaking the Rules in Style" article describes. I really suggest taking a look at the website to this magazine- becuase it really is a great tool for teaching writing to teenagers: www.teenink.com

March 19, the class in review

Kevin here. For March 19, we met in a media room in Faner to present our mini grammar lessons. First to go was Heaven, who presented on the simple sentence. Heaven used the the dry erase board and delivered a straightforward and effective lesson. I went next and muddled through the comma splice. I hope I didn't bore you guys too much and that it was at least, entertaining, if not somewhat informative. Joe used power point and the smart board to inform us of run-on sentences, they just keep going, and going, and going... and he did well also. Lastly. Jamie delivered what we all voted to be the best lesson of the night- plurals. Her use of a game with words and plural endings was fun and got us all involved. She also used the smart board as well as power point.
After our presentations, we were instructed by Dr. Phegley to pull up the Robinson School papers on our computers and to find an essay that offered repetitive grammatical errors. Joe, Jamie, and Michelle taught on sentence fragments while Jaime, Jennifer, and myself taught the class about tense. All in all, I think we all did very well in our teaching endeavors, and I believe those folks who were absent for this class missed out on some really entertaining and informative lessons. That about covers it. Everyone have a great week, and I hope to see you on Wednesday-Kevin

Teaching Scenario

You've just collected journals containing two weeks' worth of entries. One of your students, who is typically reserved but does quality work, has written some things are quite disconcerting. His writing seems disjointed and contains some violent images. What do you do? How do you determine whether the student has crossed the line from creative expression to the potential for alarming behavior?

Breaking the Rules

Many have probably not read the assignments for this Wednesday, but there are a few things I would like the class to think about when reading out of To Compose. The issue we read about this week involves following grammar rules and creatively writing...where do we draw the line as teachers? Is it wrong for students to go out of the box and write in a way that is unique to our time? Is it wrong for us as teachers to penalize them for taking this step out of the box? How do we distinguish when this creativity is appropriate and when formal grammar is more appropriate? Is it wrong that we think there is a time and place for "creativity"?

These were just a few of the questions I found running through my head as I read this chapter. We are constantly encouraging students to find their inner writer, but in many cases, when those students do find their inner writer, we tell them that it is wrong. Writing, even formally, does require a degree of creativity...but where do we draw the line. As teachers, we are going to have to draw lines, provide explanations, etc, as to why certain creative writing should be left out of formal writing. But how do we decide what is too creative and what shouldn't be used?

I think that it is very important to keep in mind what we want to do as teachers as we read this chapter. This is a very difficult subject with no single right or wrong answer...so how do we decide the shades of gray in a world that is so black and white?

Mini Lesson Follow Up

I have to say that I felt like these mini lessons were just going to be busy work for the class...I didn't really feel like there would be much of a learning experience out of what we were assigned to do. Show's you how much I know....

I think the most important idea behind this small project was to get us more comfortable in being in front of the classroom. It also challenged us to be creative and engage students in the lesson, which is often looked over in the classroom. I found that it was slightly difficult for me to think of a creative way to prepare the material...I have been a part of the basic sit and listen while being lectured to for so long that when I thought about my mini lesson, that's all I could come up with. It was just a reminder that the easiest way to teach is to lecture, but it's not always the most effective.

I also thought it was very important to review the basic grammar problems in writing. I found that I was not completely aware of several rules that were gone over on Wednesday. This, again, was a helpful reminder that as teachers, we must continue to review material, as well as learn new material.

Needless to say, I will no longer question the assignments made in this class. Each of them has a purpose, maybe some not as obvious as others, but still very important to my future career!!!!!!

Great job on your presentations everyone!!!!!!!

Mini Lesson- Italicizing and Underlining

Hey Everyone! I thought that it might be helpful to post some sections from

my mini-lesson for those of you who did make it to class on Wednesday.
Also here is a little added notes regarding Wednesday's class:
I really enjoyed the rest of the student's min-lessons. I think that everyone presented great topics, I especially enjoyed- Jamie's candy throwing! Anyway, here are some good points to remember regarding Italicizing and Underlining-


DO use italics for title and names for items such as:
Books, Newspapers, Magazines, Journals, Online Journals, Websites/Home Pages, Pamphlets, Films, Television Programs, Radio Programs, Long Poems, Plays

DO NOT use italics for titles such as: Short Stories, Chapters from Books,
Short Poems, Essay Titles, Article Titles

Rules for Italicizing:
Setting off Foreign Words and Phrases
Setting off Elements Spoken as Themselves, Terms Being Defined
Using Italics for EMPHASIS!

The same concepts exist for underlining as they do for italics: Books, Plays, Journals, Magazines, Pamphlets, Newspapers, and Long Poems
— but, there are a few added rules to underlining-
*Underline names of individual air, sea, space, and land craft.
*Underline foreign words not yet accepted to English.
*Underline numbers, symbols, letters, and words used to name themselves.

The same concepts exist for underlining as they do for italics: Books, Plays, Journals, Magazines, Pamphlets, Newspapers, and Long Poems
— but, there are a few added rules to underlining-

*Underline names of individual air, sea, space, and land craft.
*Underline foreign words not yet accepted to English.
*Underline numbers, symbols, letters, and words used to name themselves.
*Underline words you wish to stress.
*Underline words you wish to stress.

Responding to Robinson High School Essays

Overall, I enjoyed this project. It was challenging. I often found myself questioning whether or not I was giving the right advice. I had a difficult time selecting out comma errors- as I am one of those people- who put the comma in when it sounds good. I know, that is bad- yet, I can't seem to correct that problem. Hopefully, I will learn. Anyway, back to the essays- I really liked the essay topics. I thought that the prompts in general were interesting and fun. I know that as a high school student, I would have deeply enjoyed an assigment such as this. As far the as the student's writing- I think that as high school students we all had similar problems. Even as a college student, I sometimes make the same errors. When reading there essays, I tired my best to focus on the prompt, how well it was related in the thesis, and if they gave adequate support for their ideas. I am still very nervous when grading for grammar mistakes, because I do not want to give them the wrong information. It took me at least 3 hours if not more to completely respond and post their essays. I really did enjoy this excercise and believe that is was very helpful to both the students and I. :)

Robinson High School Essays

After reading all of my assigned essays, I sat back and thought. This sounds cliche, but it is nevertheless very true. I understand that these were drafts and the students were rushed, but the essays had major problems that high school essays should not have. I was taken aback by the lack of paragraphs and run-on sentences. Moreover, the thesises were unclear and not supported by the details. I honestly did not know where to start at the beginning.

The more I thought about it, the more I gained a little understanding. I knew that I could not be "mean" to the students (obviously), but I wanted to provide valid constructive criticism to help them on their next draft. I started correcting mechanical errors, and then I told each of them to look at some of the errors I fixed (and that I didn't fix everything) and look for similar mistakes in their essays. I also told them if their topic worked and to make sure their details fixed. Obviously all of the essays were different, but I definitely saw common errors in all of the essays.

Most importantly, at first, I was nervous about providing feedback to the students. I wanted to make sure I made sense and that all of my advice would be approved by a current teacher. However, the more I started to correct the essays, the more I felt confident in what I was saying. One thing I have learned throughout my own education is that all feedback is helpful. Whether or not I take it is my own decision, but multiple viewpoints will only help me as a writer. I thought of the students thinking the same about my feedback. I am not their teacher, but if they want to take my advice, I was there to offer it.

Overall, I thought the experience was very humbling. Not only did I see what real high school writing may look like in my future, I also learned how to provide constructive criticism while being honest at the same time (and somewhat nice!). I look forward to future exercises like this one with Robinson High School.

~*~Tara~*~

Mini Lessons

Yesterday we began our first set of mini lessons. One lesson, taught by Jenny, was on italicizing and underlining. At the end of her lesson the class played a game called it and un, where she presented an incorrect sentence that either needed italics or to be underlined, and then the students would shout the answer. The same sort of presentation was given on dashes and commas by Michelle. It was fantastic. No, no. Brilliant. Some other lessons had the students go up to the white board and work with some sentences, like changing active sentences to passive ones or to just fix a subordinate clause because of comma splice. Those were just some of the lessons, but all were done so well that Phelgey realized that we doesn’t know grammar good and decided to give us a quiz. This quiz really made us reflect on how we write and speak, which is important to understand because these are the same kind of confusion students will have. Finally, the class ended with Tara winning the Teacher Idol competition and we left.

Response to Robinson HS Essays

I was going to ask you to write about this in an in-class journal, but many of you have not yet looked at the essays by class time. Please respond to this post after you have completed the RHS essays.

Discuss your experience responding to the RHS students' essays. What did you find challenging? Annoying? Easy? Fun? Describe your confidence level in responding to students' writing. How effective do you think your comments were? Describe your experience with the discussion board. How much time do you think you spent commenting on the essays and then posting them to the dicussion board?

Mini-Lessons

My thoughts this morning are dealing with the mini-lesson I am presenting tomorrow during class. My mini-lesson is on Active/Passive Voice, and I am taking a "Pop Culture" approach. I do not want to completely ruin my wonderful lesson (if anyone reads this before 5 tomorrow :) ), but a little summary is necessary for my thoughts to make sense.

My lesson starts with an explanation of the two voices and a couple of examples of each. As a class, we will do the examples together before moving onto the two activities. One of the activities involves group work, and the second is individual. "The students" will scan popular culture magazines for examples of active/passive voice as a group, and then they will apply the examples found to a paragraph on their own. The students will be able to write sentences in these two voices and indentify them in their own writing.

My main thought is the idea of instructional variety. Not only does my lesson involve topics that the students will be interested in (pop culture), they will also work as a team and on their own all in one lesson. I feel as though the students should never get bored with a lesson, and the instruction should vary frequently in order to keep them intrigued. My mini-lesson switches approaches four times, keeping the students constantly on their toes. Also, as I have stated before in other discussions, applying pop culture to basic examples seems very beneficial to me. If the students are learning without necessarily realizing they are being instructed, the chances of continual comprehension are more likely. Although we cannot always cater to the students' needs each time we teach, I truly feel that if we consider the students' interests often enough, they will appreciate their education more. There are times for structured lessons, and there are times for relaxed sessions; however, my mini-lesson incorporates all the elements, so the structure and relaxation blend together smoothly.

I have presented a similar lesson in an education class, but I had only five other classmates, so I did not get to feel the effectiveness of the lesson very well. Hopefully, after tomorrow night, I will know if my approach works they way I feel it does; don't be afraid to give me input!!!

Thoughts about the reading from last week...

As I was reading Mountains into Moleholes, I found the idea of small assignments very interesting. I think it is a very good idea to break essays down into smaller assignments. By doing this, the students can focus on areas of weakness. Their weaknesses would also be easier to identify because each assignment would focus on a different area, as opposed to an essay in which all areas are incorporated. I think smaller writing assignments can be very beneficial to the students; however, I do think it is still important to write large amounts of essays. While it is a burden for teachers, I think it is very important for students to practice in areas like flow and making everything relate to the thesis. Areas like that cannot necessarily be practiced in smaller assignments.

What I have decided is that a combination of the two approaches would most likely achieve the right balance and be most effective in improving students writing. While the smaller assignments will help the students see their weak areas and improve in those areas, the essays will help students with the overall strength and flow of their writing. Both are obviously very important areas to master. I think all of us should keep this in mind as we begin our first years of teaching.

Peer Review

During peer review this week, I think I learned a lot about myself and my writing. I think that my personal problem with peer review stems from my lack of confidence in my writing. Our peer review leader hit the nail on the head when she said that people often shy away from commenting on other people's writing because they feel their writing is not of equal skills as the rest. I often feel that my righting is average and I fear the comments people will make towards the way I right. Along with that fear comes my excuse making. I always make a bunch of excuses before the peer review even begins in an attempt to make it appear that I didn't really try that hard in my writing. I need to work on my reception to constructive criticism.

I also realized that I need to keep this in mind as I become a teacher. There are going to be students that feel the same way as I do about peer review. It will be fairly easy to come up with ways to improve and proof read their papers because I have been in that situation myself. But I also need to make sure that I include peer reviews on some level because they do help many students. It's important that everyone has the same opportunities to learn. Some will develop their writing better through one on one reviews of their writing; others will benefit more from peer reviews.

So I guess I will continue to struggle with peer review until I am comfortable with it. Because let's face it, it is important to include peer review in teaching.

Class 2/27

Tonight in class we started off by doing peer review sessions with tutors from the writing center. We split into groups, working three people to a tutor. We went through each of our group members’ essays, talking about and commenting on each one. I thought that the session was very helpful. It was a good model of how a successful peer review session should go.
After about an hour, we reconvened with the rest of the class for a journal write about the peer review session. We wrote about our participation in the review and whether it was effective. Then we went over the new assignment, which is the peer review with the Robinson high school students. Each student in the class will comment on eight student papers through the medium of an online discussion board. The student essays will be posted Friday, and we will be expected to comment by the next Friday, before Spring break starts.
Then the class split into two groups to discuss the five student essays we were assigned to grade last week. The group was determined by which rubric you used to grade the essays. The two rubrics were different, one using a scale of four possible points in five categories, and one using guidelines to determine letter grades. The groups then compared the individual grades we had assigned to them. There was some disagreement in my group, with grades on one essay ranging from F to A. Group consensus mostly placed the grades in the B-C category. Oddly, both groups agreed on every grade except the parent essay, where the grades differed between C and D. We went through the essays one at a time and discussed them. All of them had some grammatical errors, but this is what we decided were the major issues with the essays.
1. The George W. Bush essay was generally considered the best of the six, although it did go off on a few tangents and gave vague supporting details; it ultimately had the best organization.
2. The parent essay was generally the worst, having very little organization or relevance to topic.
3. The Omar essay was somewhere in the middle. It had some good content in areas, but the middle read like a discography. It needed more focus on the topic of heroes, instead of just random information.
4. The Mr. Arnold essay, we decided, needed more support about why Mr. Arnold is a hero. It does not stay on topic.
5. The Lance Armstrong essay had a strong topic and stays with it, but it lacks details and organization.


--Katrina K.

Peer Review

Tonight we are going to experience the dreaded peer review process. Although the students in our class are all capable of intellectual insight, this is not always the case. I have never been an "anti-peer review" type, but I definitely have my issues.

As we have discussed before, there are problems with the peer review process. My biggest issue is the different levels of motivation in the students of a group. I, personally, have always been an overachiever (sometimes this is NOT a good thing though, lol). I have found that when an underachiever realized they were in my group, they were more than ecstatic. As frustrated I would get with the leeches, I still did all the work if I had to, because it HAD to get done. Moreover, I usually felt that I could do it better, so I did it myself. This may sound cocky, but I am sure almost all of you (if not all) can relate to what I am saying.

We have also previously discussed the idea of "hurting people's feelings" when commenting on a fellow student's paper. I never got offended, and if I did, I just dismissed the diss. :) However, I can see where students could take criticism to heart. HOWEVER, I feel like this is part of the writing process: having others read your work. Personal composition is usually the most entertaining or insightful, and having an audience should never be neglected. Writing for yourself is an amazing form of therapy, but I do not feel that we should be afraid to share our work. If the appropriate amount of time was put into a piece, it should be ready to be presented to others. We just have to remember to inform our students that if they create a composition that is extremely private, they will still have to share it. Therefore, if they are uncomfortable with this, tone it down.

Maybe my mindset seems a bit harsh, but one of my biggest pet peeves is people unwilling to speak in class. As a teacher, I want all of my students to feel comfortable enough to speak their voice, and peer review is a healthy process. Even if your peer cannot help you with the mechanics or focus, they still can read it for you and tell you what parts make sense and so on. Peer Review has its downfalls, but if manipulated correctly (i.e. the teacher making the groups), it can be very beneficial to the student writer.

~*~Tara Biggs~*~

Class 2/20

We began class by going over the assigned dates of our individual grammar lessons and group lessons. We were also reminded to be keeping up with our 10 neccessary blog posts. We decided that next week (2/27) would be the best class period to begin working together with our groups and designing our lessons. During our next meeting 30 minutes of class will be dedicated to working with our groups.
We then were divided into 3 groups. The assignment was for each group to look at all 7 student essays together and decide on 3 areas from each that needed to be addressed. Here is what we all came up with:

1. The Bill Clinton Essay:
*subject/verb agreement
*more examples/details
*redundant
*too conversational

2. The Football Essay:
*capitalization
*transitions
*vary sentence structure
*mechanical errors
*expand images/ideas

3. My Idea of a Hero:
*need specific examples
*don't generalize
*rework conclusion

4. My Hero (Baby Alex):
*more focus on hero
*connect back to intro
*paragraphing
*too informal (tone)
*transitions

5. A Hero of Mine:
* thesis? why?
*too much extra filler
*weak conclusion
*sentence structure
*stronger intro

6. My Hero (Dad):
*excess modifiers
*weak intro
*repitition
*connect to "heroic" more

7. My Hero (bad dad):
*connect examples to thesis
*paragraphs
*conclusion
*minor mechanics
*cliches

One essay in particular that sparked a great deal of discussion was the "Baby Alex" essay. This essay began a discussion on how to evaluate writing when it covers an emotional/sensitive subject. Some classmates asked questions and discussed the fear they have of upsetting a student by evaluating a paper that is quite personal. We desided that the best way to go about this would be to tell your students to use caution when deciding upon a topic and to make the students aware that they will be critiqued no matter which subject they choose to write about.

Once our discusion of the first seven essays was complete we were then directed to grade the next set of essays using a certain rubric. 2 handouts were given, each outlining a different type of rubric. We were allowed to choose which rubric we wanted to use and we are going to compare our grading and rubrics during our next class. We also received our first essay and in-class writing assignment with feedback.

Overcoming Personal Biases in Grading Student Essays

I do not know if anyone had this problem, but I will throw it out anyway to see what everyone thinks. I had a personal problem with the student essay in which the writer went on a short tirade about the "crimes" of the armed forces in Iraq. I really had to shut up and swallow my criticism of this essay because I wanted to be fair and respect the student's write of free speech. The paragraph just hit me the wrong way because I am a veteran myself. The paragraph reminded me of all the negative press that is being given to the few members of the military who are committing heinous crimes against civilians around the world. I am personally irritated by all of the negative press that it given to these disgraces in uniform. There should be more attention given to the many members of the armed forces who are just and decent people.

I am wondering if anyone in the class has ever had a similar experience where they had to really quell their personal feelings in order to remain objective in grading a student's essay.

Sincerely,

Joseph H. Ficor
USMC

Grading Essays

As I read the essays for class on Wednesday (although I was too sick to attend), the idea of fair grading kept creeping into my mind. This issue has me completely torn, and I will explain why.

As a student in high school, I always put 110% into everything I did. I was naturally a good student, but I always aspired to be great. I only got one B throughout high school, and that B was devestating! :) So, when I was a student, I felt like not everyone deserved an A, because not everyone worked as hard as I did. Now, getting deeper and deeper into my teacher's education program, I don't know how I feel anymore.

What if everyone in your class actually does deserve an A? I mean, I know the chances are slim, but the thought of not being able to give a grade to a deserving student makes me sick to my stomach. Aren't teachers supposed to give a certain number of A's, B's, C's, D's, and maybe even F's? That is exactly what my high school teachers used to tell me. If this is true, this is completely absurd. If you as a teacher work your "behind" off to get the students where they should be and they reciprocate by applying themselves, shouldn't they get an A or a B? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Unfortunately, as usual, I do not have an answer to my ramblings. I constantly think about subjects such as this, and maybe one of you guys has more insight than I do. I just get frustrated by almost every question concerning education being "unable to answer."

*~*Tara Biggs *~*

Random Ramblings by Kevin

Sup ya'll? Anyone cringing from my intro yet? Kevin here. It seems the ice is going to be a blessing for me. No school today, I'm off work, and Harrisburg High is closed as well, so I have the day to get caught up on some work. So far, I have completed essay two, and have gradedthe student essays. Did anyone find that this set was even harder to read than the last set? Not only was the student's handwriting worse, put the photocopies were more difficult to read as well. I particularly found it interesting that the last set had a paper with Clinton as a hero, and this set has Bush for a hero. Where did these kids come from? Even as a high school student, I had particular disdain for politicians, enough so that I surely would never choose a politician as a hero. But hey, to each his own, and like Dr. Phegley said, it is rather amazing that these students are even considering politics. Is anyone else grossly behind on the reading? I know I am. With the snow days, and being sick, and blah, blah, blah, I've gotten so behind. I really hate school in the winter. Actually, I really hate winter period. I can't ride my bike in the snow, and when I do I ride I freeze my ___ off. Did you know that in Alaska, riders add trike kits to their bikes with chains on the tires and keep riding even in the snow and ice? That's hard core. But, alas I digress. I found essay two a bit easier to get through than essay one. Its easier to talk about your philisophy about whatever, than to talk about the inherent process by which you achieve something. Talking about my writing process was kinda like trying to explain how you know something...generally speaking, you just know it. Anyway, in essay two, I spoke about the importance of writing in communication and self expression. Hope I'm on task, what do you think? That's it for now, I know this entry is somewhat flighty, and yes, I'm probably just trying to get something down, but I do hope to get caught up on reading and have something of substance to say. Be safe everyone, peace and grease, Kevin.

Class Events 2/20

* Went over who was supposed to present on each day for the upcoming grammar lesson and group-teach lesson. We are considering having a half-hour in class 2/27 to get into our group-teach groups and prepare. The rubric for the grammar lesson is coming by email.

* We devided into groups and went through each of the essays we responded to for class to pick 3 things we thought a teacher must respond to for each essay. Here is what we came up with:

Essay 1 - Bill Clinton - Subject/Verb agreement, refute opposition (stronger argument), more examples/details, it was too conversational, and more research to support claims (in a re-write).

Essay 2 - Football - capitalization (handwriting looked as if words were capitalized at random, decided problem might not occur if the student had been typing), transitions (needed sophistication), sentence structure, and mechanics.

Essay 3 - Idea of Hero - specifics (needs to emphasize that not everyone preforms atrociousities, also back-up his claims), his conclusion needed to conclude, opposition correctly, watch topic, define heroic qualities, and make last sentence his thesis statement for a new paper.

Essay 4 - Baby Alex - needs to narrow focus onto Amy, connect ideas back to thesis, organization, transitions, clean up informal tone, and paragraph structure.

Essay 5 - A Hero of Mine - Thesis (why is it Van Halen?), detail strays from focus, weak conclusion, needs to see messages through, provide more support, and organization.

Essay 6 - My Hero (2 job dad) - unecessary words (excess modifiers), no introduction, connect to heroic qualities, repetitious, and paragraph structure.

Essay 7 - My Hero (3rd wife dad) - connect examples back to thesis, paragraph structuring, finish, clean up cliches.

* We also discussed treating emotion and discussion of issues/opinions in student essays. We decided the best thing is to let students know what we could and could not deal with. For example, telling students not to write on a topic if they are too close to it to accept criticism on it, and letting them know not to write on abortion because you have a strong opinion on it and would not be able to give them a fair grade.

* We received 2 rubrics for the essays from set 2 which we must respond to for 2/27 (with summative comments explaining the grade we assign each paper). We decided to individually pick which rubric to use and we will see in class who gets the best results. If you pick the rubric with numbers in graph format, you need to find a way to assign points so that your students won't all fail the paper (if you do it by percentages, students who get 2s and 1s will fail by getting 50 and 25%).

* We were reminded to post on the blog - 10 posts, only 2 count a week.

* We were returned our first papers and the in-class writing we did.

* Our Essay 2 is due by email Monday, 2/25, by noon. We will be assigned peer review groups and the papers from our group members will be sent to us by email. We are to read these before we come to class 2/27 so that we are prepared.

* We are not to read the Evaluating Student Writing about History reading for 2/27, and we will not be responding to the real student papers.

Grading papers from kids we don't like

I was talking in our class last week about putting numbers on papers instead of names for peer grading so that the students have a chance to remain anonymous...I had a teacher in high school who was accused of giving a student a poor grade because he didn't particularly like that student (he also accused the student of plagiarizing because the student used words that the teacher thought he shouldn't know, but that's beside the point) so his solution to the problem was to have us turn in papers with numbers on them (he didn't know who was what number) so that his grading could be unbiased. By that time (spring semester our second year with him) I'm pretty sure he knew all of our writing voices pretty well, so I don't know how unbiased the grading actually was. My point with this is how do we avoid letting our opinions of a kid affect the grade we give him or her? It doesn't always have to negatively affect our grading, either - I know I got a lot of grades in high school/ jr. high that I definitely shouldn't have just because teachers liked me and I was a good student. The reason I'm asking is because I found myself already forming opinions of the kids in the papers we responded to for today that may have affected how I treated their papers. For instance, I think I really lowered my expectations for the football player because he had terrible handwriting and several spelling and grammar errors. So how do I keep myself from doing that short of trying to consciously keep myself from doing it? (which might not work out too well)

Just a thought...

This is sort of random, but it is definitely food for thought.

Do kids that perform 110% get the appropriate praise for their effort? As the weather got nasty over the past week, I made an observation. Although scraping ice off my car and chiseling my way out of my parking spot was not EASY, I had to get it done. If I didn't have a way to class, I would be stranded. However, despite how difficult the process was, I did it anyway because class was more important than a little hard work. As I went to class in the afternoon, I discovered that my class was missing about 15 people. Did my teacher notice how hard I worked to get here? And the people didn't show up aren't going to penalized? So what do I get from this whole situation?

I used to think I gained character and pride. Over the past couple years of college, I felt like I was unlucky. Many professors just want to give out grades, but I felt like I deserved some sort of bonus for all the effort I have put into my education.

Again, I used to think I was still gaining something for my unmentioned effort. Now, I disagree. I truly feel that our exceptional students are brushed off to the side in order to help the lower level individuals. (This is because of No Child Left Behind, but still, it is happening either way.) I believe this is completely opposite of how it should be. Although my story was a little silly about the weather and class, it was just another example of what I do to get a grade. There are students out there that practice discipline, so why is it ignored if other students are just immature?

Like I said, this a just a random thought, but I found it interesting enough to share.

~*~TARA BIGGS~*~

Teaching Scenario #1

You've just collected 60 2-3 page essays from two sections of your college prep juniors, and you now have the task of providing them with feedback so they can revise. You are also the junior class sponsor, Homecoming is in five days, and you are responsible for supervising the juniors for the next four evenings as they build their class float for the parade. To top it all off, your kids have been sick and they're wanting your attention when you get home from work. What do you do? How do you respond and then return these essays in a reasonable amount of time (what even is considered "reasonable"?).

Class Highlights for 2/13/08

Here are the class highlights from the 2/13 class. I am sorry that they are late.

The one day of our unit plans were turned in.

We then broke down into small groups to look critique each other's writing prompts. We were asked to identify any strengths and weaknesses in the prompts. We were also asked to discuss the usability of the grading criteria, and how will it inform teacher comments and the rubric.

After the small group discussion on the writing prompts, we were given a practice student essay for us to look over. A good question was brought up about how do we grade a horribly written essay on a very personal subject to the student. It was suggested that we refrain from focusing on the errors so much and take the time to counsel the student on how they can revise the paper.

Missy brought up the point that many us started making corrections and adding comments while we were reading through the essay. She recommended that we read through a student's essay first before we write any comments.

We were given the following definitions:

Formative Response: teacher comments made on the paper on how the students can revise their papers.

Summative Response: remarks by the teacher on why a certain grade was given.

Marginal Comments: remarks given within the text.

Terminal Comments: formative or summative responses given at the end of a paper.

A handout was given on higher order and lower order concerns.

We were given the assignment for 2/20. We are to go to LiveText and download some student essays and make comments on them. They are under "Student Essays." We are NOT to give them a grade. We will only give them formative and/or summative responses. The main purpose of the assignment is to give students feedback that we help them to revise their papers. (The original prompts are also available on LiveText.) We can make marginal and terminal comments on them. The essays were handwritten by students several years ago. This exercise is to give us practice on responding to student essays.

We discussed how we can respond to student responses. One option was to have a writing conference with the students. Some of the possible drawbacks to this are that writing conferences are very time-consuming, students who need to be there will not show up, and that students who are shy will forgot the comments that you make. One suggestion to help out the shy students would be to give the student a written list of the comments for future reference. The benefits of student conferences are that you can go more in depth about how the students can improve their writing, struggling students will have their confidence boosted by the comments, and you can get better connected with your students.

Another option is to have peer reviews. The drawbacks to this method are that some students may totally rely upon their peers to make all of the corrections for them and some students who write personal essays make take the comments too personally. Some methods that can be employed to counter these potential problems are to warn students who are intent on making cruel statements that there will be consequences for rude comments.

We need to make sure that students give us specific reasons why they do not like a particular essay.

Students need to be given a purpose, task, and credit for finishing their work during a peer review. We may have to form the groups ourselves and model how a peer review should operate for classes that have never done one before. We need to collect drafts with student comments to make sure that work was actually done. we also need to explain to students why peer reviews are done in the first place.

The readings were not discussed in class. Missy asked everyone to comment on them using the blog.

Future class cancellations will be posted on the blog.

Article "Responding to and Evaluating Student Essay"

I think that "Holistic Grading" would be productive and I agree with the author regarding the amount of time it takes for a teacher to grade all of those papers- but, I have to agree to disagree. I think that is some sense it is important as a teacher of composition to read your students essays and to directly comment on them. If a student were to have a particular issue - how is it going to be discovered or even addressed. I know that bias has the potential to come into play when we grade, yet I think that it is extremely important for the teacher to be familiar with the student's essay/writing and to know the strengths and weaknesses of their student's abilities.

Class tonight

Yes, we WILL have class tonight. If you can't make it, please send me an email.

Class Wed Feb 13

Hey everyone,
With the weather being so crazy, there is a possibility we won't have class tomorrow night. Even if SIU has classes, I may not be able to make it over to Carbondale. I have no power, water, or phone service at my house, and I can't get my car out due to SEVERAL large trees that have fallen across our lane. (I'm only able to post this because someone came and rescued us--we just had to walk about a 1/2 mile out to the county road :) If you read this, please look through your email and forward me a message I've sent to the whole class as I don't have your email addresses right now. I will try to be in touch via email tomorrow with more info. Hope you're all staying warm!

Class Notes 2/6/08

The activity we started off with class seemed to be frustrating to most of the students. Writing a 26-word story with a different letter from the the alphabet each word was harder than it sounded. However, most of the students noticed that Missy was participating too, and because of this, the activity gained a little more relevance.
This brings me to my first point from class. As we brought up certain points from the text that interested us individually, the idea of the teacher participating in journals came up. Everyone seemed to feel that this would be very effective in order to make the students feel less like they were part of a dictatorship. Making the students comfortable can be crucial to their success.
The next activity we did as a class involved group work. Missy handed out different packets of information to each group, each concerning the idea of a writing assignment. Heaven recorded the classes ideas on the board, allowing everyone to see the results as a whole. My particular group focused on the creation of the assignment. The specifics of a prompt, but not too confusing, the writer's role, the focus, the PURPOSE, and a clearly-stated deadline were a few key points pulled out from my group. Also, the importantness of a rubric being provided was emphasized for the teacher's security and the students' clear guidelines.
The other groups continued to add to the list with the idea of the teacher setting managable goals for him or herself, keeping the workload realistic for the students, the effectiveness of the "peer review," and other ideas that make sure the teacher stays connected to the students while keeping their own sanity in mind. This class period was particularly helpful because if its specifics when creating a writing assignment. I feel like that could be one of the biggest challenges, and if some guidelines are already in place, tackling the blank paper for a prompt is not quite as difficult.
I left at 6:45 for Ash Wednesday service, so I missed the last 45 minutes of class, but the hour and 45 minutes I was there was extremely significant to the teacher's base knowledge.

Class 2/6/2008

Class 2/6/2008 (I enjoy the festive font, so I hope no one is put off by it.) I really enjoyed our class discussion today, especially the "what is most important in a writing assignment" bit. I feel that our class is a good mix of opinions, and that everyone has the maturity to realize that there usually isn't a right answer in the classroom; what works for one person may not work for another. I just wanted to say that I appreciate all of our differences :)
Moving along, the reading that supplemented today's discussion was had about a 50/50 interesting/boring ratio. I really liked the article about journaling in the classroom, although we discussed in class about how the author did not tell future teachers what to do in case they received personal life-threatening information in a journal. I think that the best possible way to solve this issue, as someone so intelligently said in class, would be to check with the principal about policies on such things and follow them accordingly.
The most interesting thing that happened in class was the compiling of necessary details in a writing assignment. As I was at the board, loathing the chalk, I didn't really appreciate the list that I was given. There are a lot of crucial tidbits that every student writing assignment needs, and indeed there were lots given in class. However, we broke it into 5 categories, and I am putting them in the order that I would put them in (i.e. chronological importance)
1. Planning
2. Purpose/Objective
3. Be clear
4. Motivation
5. Evaluation
Note: These five all interweave in smaller details; thus, if you think a detail goes under another category, this is why!

1. Planning involves wrapping up every detail of the assignment before it is handed out: whether the students will work individually or in groups, how the assignment will tie-in with the unit, how much time the students will take on it, etc. This is all entirely on the teacher's part.
2. The purpose or objective of the assignment essentially is questioning why the teacher is assigning it: what will the students learn? How will they learn it? Is the outcome going to happen as you plan? It is imperative that the students be given assignments that actually make their brains work, and not just be "kept busy". This too is also all on the teacher's part.
3. Be clear in all things when explaining the assignment to the students: tell them exactly what you mean in the prompt, tell them what you expect them to learn, and tell them the logistics of the assignment. This includes all minute details, such as font, margins, and other miscellaneous information that you might not think to include.
4. The motivation also ties into "why are we doing this assignment" mentality. Students don't want to do assignments that generally aren't for a grade or just discarded; students abhor "busy work" because they are putting effort into something that isn't rewarded. A grade is generally motivator enough for students, but others may dig deeper, wanting to know how this will help them academically. As a teacher, you need to have prepared an assignment that will benefit students.
5. Evaluation. This includes a grading rubric, among other things. The rubric needs to be explained to the students before they turn in their assignments, as it will help them to know what you are looking for. Also, it helps to give students a model that they can look off of for examples of the finished product you had in mind. It's also good to keep in mind that as English majors, we tend to look for grammatical errors in everything we read. However, this is not a good method for grading students' papers. We as teachers should read for content, and then go and correct the grammar following our grading rubrics.This is crucial.

~~~~I am already confused about our planning assignment, so if anyone else is we should get together and work on them!

MJ's January 30 Class Recap

January 30, 2008

We first turned in essays and wrote quick responses to our essay processes.

Talked about the process and how the process felt to everyone.

Broke into groups to discuss the different essays

We next discussed the composing process as they related to the articles to be discussed for this class period:

TO COMPOSE

1) Under. Composing--Visions and Revisions—felt/sense

a. Liked it

b. Seems abstract—how do we explain it to students

c. Can use sports analogy—you know you made the basket as soon as you let it go, it felt right, or yoga pose—as soon as you do it right you know and then you have it

d. You know the word you but you can’t think of the right word but you can almost “feel” what the word is and you know when you have the exact right word.

e. How do you teach this and how do you evaluate it?

i. You will have to come up with your own standards

ii. Still have to be within the guidelines for your school

2) Language Across the Curriculum

a. Communication/Writing Across the Curriculum

b. Show them no matter where you are in life you must be able to write

i. Jobs

ii. Job application

c. But, how do you do this?

i. Show them how writing can help you learn

ii. How is what they are learning be utilized in real life right now

d. The English teacher will be considered the expert in initiating and coordinating WAC or WID

e. It helps the teacher see where the disconnects are

f. How can you make IDUs work with this concept?

g. SIU Website—writing across the curr. Site

h. You have to show ways that WAC can be easy/pain free

3) Implicit Rules

a. This is how you DON’T want to teach

b. This is what many of your students will have experienced

c. These kind of rules make classroom management skills seem good

d. But…do students learn?

e. Collaborative work can make it look like learning is not happening

f. Model the skills of dialogue and collaborative teaching practices

g. Things are so ingrained in us as students

h. We need to find a way to help them feel comfortable in interacting

When talking about this topic I had the idea that maybe I would have students write a letter to someone with whom they were mad. I would have them put the letters in sealed envelopes and read them again in a week and them have them write a short response to how they felt after viewing the letter a week later to demonstrate both the idea that writing helps us to better formulate our thoughts and that going back to read and revise later has immense benefits.

We next discussed the No Smoke, No Magic article. This article discussed the issues that implementing WAC engenders to teachers.

• Hard for teachers to admit that they do not always know the answer
• It is a matter of how you control the "learning" process
• look for answers as a whole class
• have part of the students look
• have students go home and look for extra credit

• Fossilization
• not black and white
• lots of interpretation
• learners come a things in different ways
• need to teach the lesson that recognizing what writing is necessary at which times is important
• we do not have to always hold students to formal standards
  
• But we need to know when we need to do it
• reader engagement can affect grading
• we need to provide rubrics when we want a specific product and so students can know our expectations

We next broke into groups to discuss the Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories article by Berlin.

Our group

• Post/Current Traditon
• writer and speaker are the same person
• reader and speaker experience the same reality
• world is rational but discovered through experimental methodology
  
• language and thought cannot be divided
• rhetoric becomes the study of all forms of communication
  
• ABOUT THE END PRODUCT AND NOT THE PROCESS

OTHER GROUPS

• Rhetoric
• communication driven
• we make the truth
• we have to have language to create truth
• Arist/Classicist
• language is truth
• interchangeable
• we create reality through language
• meaning over style
• determine where your audience is
• Neo-classicism
• Expressionists
• truth cannot be communicated
• everything is based on perspective
• audience is the writer themselves
• self-discovery is truth

I thought this was a very interesting class. The last article was weighty and I am glad that we worked on it in a collaborative learning environment.

WAC certainly seems like it would lend itself to IDUs.

An interesting problem...

When I was observing a high school class on Wednesday, one of my CT's students asked her a very interesting question. The CT had just gotten through informing the students that they would be doing some required reading outside of the classroom so that they could finish reading Hamlet by Shakespeare by a specific date. This would allow them, since this class was filled with junior students on the honor's track, to be able to discuss the play at length instead of reading a little in class talking about then reading a little more and stopping and talking about that. The class was set up almost like a lower level English college class on Shakespeare.

Now most of the students did not have a problem with this until one student realized what was happening this weekend. Up goes his hand to ask: "I don't want to sound like I am trying to be lazy or not do my work, but well...." A long pause then "are we going to have any major homework over the weekend? Because well there is the Super Bowl-" And this small question set off a series of discussions and more questions from the other students. Some of the students started to make an argument about why they should be allowed to have the weekend free.

My question then to someone else is this: When such a thing occurs in the classroom (students wanting to know if they will be able to watch or participate in a big event vs. having to do homework instead of doing the event) what is the best way to go about handling something like that? You must keep in mind that you still have to maintain the curriculum schedule that has been set up, but for the older students I think that it is also important to keep in mind that such events will not be avoided by your students just to get their homework done. What do you guys think? My CT's solution at least right at that moment was to say we will have to wait and see, and she was able to draw the class back to the play and its discussion.

Jennifer Gartman

Insights from my observations

Hi everyone, Kevin here. This is my first post, so if it...kinda sucks, please just bear with me. We have been discussing our writing and our future student's writing in class, and we have come to a few conclusions. Apparently, we have several different opinions about what are the best methods to write ans what are the best methods for our students to write. Additionally, we also have various opinions about what are the correct rules of grammar to require our students to follow when writing their papers. I have been observing the 11th grade English class at Harrisburg High for two weeks, and part of my duties have been to grade, you guessed it, five paragraph essays. First, if you have not had the experience of grading high school papers, it can be a challenge. There are times when the papers are barely coherent, so I have been exposed to plenty of errors. Additionally, my CT has given me a list of the errors she is most concerned with. This is what I would like to discuss. At first, I was a little apprehensive about only checking for certain errors, but after a discussion with my CT, it occured to me that we are working with high school students of various abilities, not college students in a composition class who might be trying to prepare for upper division English. Some of the students I am working with may start a sentences with "and," but they are not using the word and its placement as a dramatic device. They have simply confused the rules of grammar. Having learned this valuable lesson, it is my opinion that, whether or not our language and its grammar rules are constantly in flux, we as teachers must use a standard that is somewhat universal and basic. What do you think?

January 30th class

Hey everyone! I'm not going to make this very official...because most of my blogs aren't. But anyone, I'm just going to give everyone a quick summary of what was discussed and said during class yesterday.

We started off the class yesterday by reflecting on what we learned while writing our essays. There were some excellent points brought up during this discussion. Among them were the following: We should not expect our children to be able to sit and write a paper well in a twenty minutes period. One person had said that if they aren't able to write that way, how do they expect students to do it? Some of us expressed struggle in breaking down our thought processes and then putting them on paper. Others of us talked about how we need the pressures of procrastination to write acceptable papers. We were asked a very interesting question: did the fact that it was a draft take the pressure off of us as writers? Some of us said they still felt pressure to write well because they knew the teacher would be looking at it. Others thought it helped relieve pressure and made the writing experience enjoyable for several reasons. Some really enjoy hearing feed back from Missy and feel that it makes writing a paper more of a learning process. Another important topic that was discussed was the use of rough drafts, are they or aren't they a good idea? Some feel that using drafting is like punishment. They just want to be done with the paper when it has been written once. Others think it is a great idea because the children have a chance to learn about their mistakes without being punished for what they have done wrong.

We also discussed the readings of the week, the first being Language Across the Cirriculum. The question everyone wants to know, is language across the cirriculum an effective and important way of teaching? I think many of us agreed that it was a good idea, but were a little intimidated about approaching other teachers with the idea. A common misconception is that we are the experts of this concept and should, therefore, put all of our time into making it work. It was brought up that it is important t make parallels for the students in several classes, incorporating what is being learned in other classes into your class and visa versa. Doing this helps the students make important connections about real life situations. As for suggestions on how to promote language across the cirriculum, be expected to run into people who are resisting change. It is important to approach them in was that make them feel comfortable with the idea of change. We also talked about the implicit rules they had in the book and how many children really have that experience in school. The next reading, Understanding Composing: I know what it is, addressed this idea of being able to feel when something is right or wrong. How do we explain this feeling to children and help them understand this concept of feeling the difference? Does reading out loud help the student feel the difference? Another issue we will discuss later on in class is the idea of students greating on their personal improvement or on a set scale. The last reading, No Smoke, No Magic, we talked about the idea of control in the classroom. Is it better to have a well organized classroom but have the students dreading school or a classroom with complete chaos in which students interact and actively learn? There is also the idea that writing something wrong makes it permanent in the person's mind. Is that true? We also focused on how there is no black and white in Language Arts. It seems that there is only gray. Do we focus on the content of writing or grammar and mechanics?

I'll keep my opinions to myself for now. I really want to learn more before I decided what I think the answers to all these questions are. Have a great weekend everyone!