English 505

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.

Thursday the first draft of their papers were due and were peer edited. (I will attach a copy of my rubric under the 106 materials.) We discussed what kinds of comments were expected and they then went to work on each other's papers. I collected the papers and comments and reviewed them that night just to see where everyone was in their writing and did not add any comments of my own. I identified the major problems (clear thesis statements and using counterpoints effectively) and made the papers available to them on that Friday.

On this Monday I had a much better class. Most had their responses written for one thing. We started off looking at a thesis statement that I created and went into the points and counterpoints for said thesis statement. After emphasing the fact that the points the writer gives must match those of the counterarguement and that the thesis can be changed after reviewing the points and evidence given, we had the rest of the class on the reading from RUG outside as it was a warm day. They seemed to understand the 3 identities that Ramage spoke about and we related that to how we change our identities (appearances) based on the situation we are in. We finished class early and I think it was a good day.