English 505

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.

We then worked on the picture analysis paper (affectionally known as CRAP) after bringing a picture of their choice and dicussing the elements of the picture in a small group, they turned in a short paper on it. Though I have yet to read them, from the perusal I did, they seem to be ok.

Their second "BIG" paper was collected yesterday and for the next few days we are going through presentations on the portrait playlist. They seemed to like this project as I heard many say that they had to cut down the number of pages that they wrote to fit the assignment word length (3-5pgs). I hope that they keep that spirit up.

Ekeama Goddard