I began Week 2's class with some kudos for my students. Jade M. and Vince G. had the best plot awards, while Mason got the award for best sandwich critique.
We moved onto the journaling of an NPR Storycore podcast about a couple who has been married for 60 years. I am using the journaling feature in Angel (which is really called the survey feature) to have students free write on weekly prompts. I chose this prompt to follow up on Margaret Atwood's Happy Endings. I gave them 5 minutes to write and spoke about exercising the writing muscle in order to become better writers. I enjoyed writing along with them. I offered to set up the journal so that others who wanted to share their entries could do so.
Next week I will have volunteers read their entries with me voluteering first to get the ball rolling. I wish I had thought to do that today. This was something we did in the National Writing Project (NWP) Summer Institute a couple of years ago. I was scared to share at first but then decided no one was judging my writing, so I got braver as the days passed during the institute.
The group project, I felt, was too rushed. I gave them 15 minutes to do their response according to whether they were an author expert, character expert, vocabulary expert, or plot expert. There were a few students who hadn't done the readings. However, when one student pointed out that in the Week 2 Overview of Assignments, I had written the Monday deadline as 11:55 p.m. rather than by class time, I had to let this slide . I hate it when I screw up the details and the students call me up on them. No penalties this week for not doing the reading.
The other exercise to write down on an index card two questions they didn't know the answers to was never done. I spent 20 minutes on the kudos, business matters (having them fill out an index card with some personal info, giving them this blog address, talking a little about why I was having them journal, etc.) I didn't get the chance to show them the National Gallery of Writing site and talk about Paper 1 (which I haven't posted yet in the Course Documents folder). I can't spend all this time on business matters, but until my students get in the groove of what is expected each week, I'm afraid I won't be able to economize.
I talked to the students about leaving the classroom with one gem....one thing that will stick with them about what they learned, or what they did, or how they felt about what they learned or did. Then, as I saw the clock tick down to 3:13 with people still submitting their group project in the drop box, I had a flash of brilliance (or a brain fart as my former colleague Vince used to say). I stood at the door and said that everyone had to say what gem they were walking out the door with. I got some good gems from them all, even Ian who was going to just repeat what someone before him said. I was cruel and let everyone go before he came up with a variation of what someone said about the importance of annotating.
So what was my gem as I walked out of the class at 3:20 p.m? I learned that just about everyone in the class knows what a wet willy is but me. My childhood was much too sheltered, I guess.
Things to refine for this lesson if I do it again:
1. Delete the assignment to read the Prologue of the Wife of Bath and just assign the Tale of the Wife of Bath instead. They didn't have to read that long prologue to understand the points on characterization and relate it to Tim Gautreaux's Died and Gone to Vegas.
2. Clarify during the group work feedback session that an individual group member could add to his or her answer during the discussion with the group members before emailing the answer to the writer to collect all responses and turn into the drop box.
3. Spend a few minutes having a whole class discussion having students summarize some of their answers
4. Choose one group to record the discussion rather than just flitting around catching bits and pieces of conversations
5. Incorporate a small assessment of the activity at the end of the activity before the group processing to make individuals accountable for their own learning of the material.
We are all Process Improvement Consultants (PICs) in this learning journey, right. Literary Laureates, I invite you to comment on these ramblings of my learning and teaching of Lit 2000. I have sooooo much to learn from you! Ciao for now.......
We moved onto the journaling of an NPR Storycore podcast about a couple who has been married for 60 years. I am using the journaling feature in Angel (which is really called the survey feature) to have students free write on weekly prompts. I chose this prompt to follow up on Margaret Atwood's Happy Endings. I gave them 5 minutes to write and spoke about exercising the writing muscle in order to become better writers. I enjoyed writing along with them. I offered to set up the journal so that others who wanted to share their entries could do so.
Next week I will have volunteers read their entries with me voluteering first to get the ball rolling. I wish I had thought to do that today. This was something we did in the National Writing Project (NWP) Summer Institute a couple of years ago. I was scared to share at first but then decided no one was judging my writing, so I got braver as the days passed during the institute.
The group project, I felt, was too rushed. I gave them 15 minutes to do their response according to whether they were an author expert, character expert, vocabulary expert, or plot expert. There were a few students who hadn't done the readings. However, when one student pointed out that in the Week 2 Overview of Assignments, I had written the Monday deadline as 11:55 p.m. rather than by class time, I had to let this slide . I hate it when I screw up the details and the students call me up on them. No penalties this week for not doing the reading.
The other exercise to write down on an index card two questions they didn't know the answers to was never done. I spent 20 minutes on the kudos, business matters (having them fill out an index card with some personal info, giving them this blog address, talking a little about why I was having them journal, etc.) I didn't get the chance to show them the National Gallery of Writing site and talk about Paper 1 (which I haven't posted yet in the Course Documents folder). I can't spend all this time on business matters, but until my students get in the groove of what is expected each week, I'm afraid I won't be able to economize.
I talked to the students about leaving the classroom with one gem....one thing that will stick with them about what they learned, or what they did, or how they felt about what they learned or did. Then, as I saw the clock tick down to 3:13 with people still submitting their group project in the drop box, I had a flash of brilliance (or a brain fart as my former colleague Vince used to say). I stood at the door and said that everyone had to say what gem they were walking out the door with. I got some good gems from them all, even Ian who was going to just repeat what someone before him said. I was cruel and let everyone go before he came up with a variation of what someone said about the importance of annotating.
So what was my gem as I walked out of the class at 3:20 p.m? I learned that just about everyone in the class knows what a wet willy is but me. My childhood was much too sheltered, I guess.
Things to refine for this lesson if I do it again:
1. Delete the assignment to read the Prologue of the Wife of Bath and just assign the Tale of the Wife of Bath instead. They didn't have to read that long prologue to understand the points on characterization and relate it to Tim Gautreaux's Died and Gone to Vegas.
2. Clarify during the group work feedback session that an individual group member could add to his or her answer during the discussion with the group members before emailing the answer to the writer to collect all responses and turn into the drop box.
3. Spend a few minutes having a whole class discussion having students summarize some of their answers
4. Choose one group to record the discussion rather than just flitting around catching bits and pieces of conversations
5. Incorporate a small assessment of the activity at the end of the activity before the group processing to make individuals accountable for their own learning of the material.
We are all Process Improvement Consultants (PICs) in this learning journey, right. Literary Laureates, I invite you to comment on these ramblings of my learning and teaching of Lit 2000. I have sooooo much to learn from you! Ciao for now.......
I liked the group assignment that you had given us but I felt like it was too rushed and we weren't able to give a good enough answer to meet your requirements. The questions were a little confusing as well. But I think time was the main factor. I know a coupld groups were still working on it until the very last minute befoe you let us go. So my only suggestion would be to start the assignment at the beginning of class that way we should have plenty of time to create educated answers.
ReplyDeleteThis was actually my first time at class because I signed up late but I did feel that the class was very fast pace for me. But I did however have a very helpful group and I did enjoy writing the journal entry of the older couple, it was very inspiring.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed being rushed in this project. Some of the students did not read, but it gave some of us a chance to be like the teachers. We got to explain to our peers what the story was about, and work together on trying to get everything done. At one point, it felt like a competition for me with another classmate, because her group was almost done:) I guess next time, more time would be nice. But for the most part, I loved this F2F class! Time limits, fun and learning...:)
ReplyDeleteWeek 2 was my first actual f2f class. I remember having to pick something weird about me to help everyone remember my name. I was the only one in my group who had actually read the stories that were required for class that day. I personally did not enjoy the two short stories we read though.
ReplyDelete