The past few weeks have been a blur. The students seem as exhausted as I am, if not more. Most of the assignments are now in and that means that I have a HUGE backlog. However, they (and myself) seem to be hanging on so I guess that is as much as can be expected.

Some of the classes have been good and some have been horrible, even with me thinking that I am letting them down. The portrait playlist presentations went well and the papers generated from those were way above anything else they had given to me, which I was, of course, delighted with. However, in class, some days they have been with me but others they have been elsewhere and I couldn't pull them out. I think it may be that other work from other classes have become more pressing.

The last few weeks have been hectic.

I finally put together the syllabus for the last couple of weeks. It is a bit cramped but it is there at last.

Classes have been a chore though. I thought that it was time to stop the hand-holding and I was wrong. First I collected their first big paper and the results were not what I had hoped. The ideas expoused were thoughtful and though, they had good sources, they were reluctant to use direct quotes or introduce or explain them when the direct quotes were used. Also, though the comparison aspect was alot better in most papers, it still needed work. Additionally, and this is what got me upset, the MLA format (the same one we went through in class and that I had everyone open a word document and complete, with my help) was not good and many lost marks because of that. I would not have minded if it were just a few but it was too many.

Wellllll . . . I haven't posted in about a week . . . does that mean that I have alot to say? Nope . . .

Last Monday I was observed by Samantha. For that class I looked at different types of arrangements as per CDA. For this class I used nursery rhymes as examples and I think that the students enjoyed that. The class went ok as they acted as if Samantha was not really there.

Wednesday, my lab day, I got just a tad bit upset as many students had not read the material for that day (from CDA no less). But after admonishing them, and requiring them to bring a response to each of the readings for each class from the following Monday, and letting them know that not being able to read the assigned reading in one go was no excuse for not preparing for class, we spoke about our identity. Suffice it to say, it did not go well.

Yes, yes . . . as I was just beginning to think that I understood my students . . .

Thursday's class was terrible. This was the best and most detailed lesson I had planned. I found an article in the Indianapolis Star which they were to read in class and give their gut responses to. We were then to discern the strategies the writer used to make his point and discuss whether it was effective or not. This discussion would then lead us into Ethos/ Pathos and Logos. I thought it was a brilliant idea. . . . Boy was I WRONG!!

I think I may have been speaking Greek (or maybe it was French Creole). They were more interested in paraphrasing the article than responding to it. When I clarified that, only a few gave their responses while the others reverted to the summarising idea. Then we turned to the devises he used to make his points. It would seem that only factual points qualify as devises, and word choice and organization are non-existant. The two last points had to be told to them. And this activity which was just supposed to take 10- 15 mins. took practically the whole class, after which time we finally came to ethos, pathos and logos. After all the teeth pulling, they were able to define and then identify examples of each in the reading and come up with the one which seemed more dominant. By that time, I was exhausted and throughly disappointed.

I finally had my students present their group advertising projects yesterday. And yeah, I was pleasantly surprised.

The students actually seemed to put much thought in their presentations and everyone seemed to participate. The groups' advertising strategies consisted of posters, tee- shirts and powerpoint prestations. In their presentations, they were able to apply the ideas of visual rhetoric in terms of word choice, type/ font and picture choice, in addition to audience awareness.

I hope that they use the experience of interracting with people who had different ideas with them without having a shouting match each other to understand how to better craft their argument in the upcoming paper.

Yesterday I had planned to discuss the group assignment. But when I presented it to the class there were many groans since we had been doing groupwork quite a bit. So I gave them a choice: do the assignment as a class or in groups. We did it as a whole class.

The premise was that the state senator had proposed that the draft be reinstituted and they were to say whether they agreed and use the steps in the CDA (pgs 33-43) to help direct their thoughts.

There seemed to be a general consensus that the class was against reinstituting the draft. We then went into what reasons they would use to convince people of their point of view. Many cited the need for "choice." At which point I reminded them that their advertisements would be seen by people who had family members who were in the military and were in service, wounded or had died. I asked the following questions: Would these people understand your point of view? Or would they say "We are fighting so you can have that choice"? What about those who want revenge? So are you saying that everyone else should go ... just not you?