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.