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.