English 505

Last week we began our Portrait Playlist. As I mentioned before, we are using Andy's version. We spent the week talking about what constitutes identity, borrowing from our reading of both CDA and RUG. Samantha came to observe on Wednesday, and I was nervous about that, but once class started flowing my nervousness went away. The reading for that day was particularly excellent- RUG's explanation of given, readymade, and constructed identity. The students really got into it, and it was a great day of discussion. On Friday, I returned their Paper 1's, and as before I compiled a handout of their mistakes, and we went through them. This handout covered mixed metaphors/verb misuse, superlative/hyperbole, prepositional phrases, etc. I felt it was as sucessful as it was the first time. This week, we are talking more about the project. Yesterday, we talked at length about what makes a paper interesting, pretty much deciding that ACTION is what keeps those pages turning. They are writing about who they are and why they are (portrait playlist), and I wanted to make sure that they don't turn in a mere laundry list of memories. I think after yesterday's talk they will make sure and let me know WHY these memories are important, and what action they took or didn't take to integrate those experiences into their identities.