During the final week of class, I held half hour meetings
with each of my students in order to discuss their drafts of their
Reflective/Analytical essays and their Major Revisions for their Final Selected
Portfolios. I also reminded them of what grade they were guaranteed to get
according to the grading contract, so there would be no surprises when final
grades are posted.
The meetings were really helpful for my students, I think. I
spent ample time explaining the Reflective/Analytical essay in class to them,
but for some reason it seemed to not really sink in for some of them until we
talked one-on-one about their preliminary drafts of their essays. I had
conferenced with some of my students about their project ones, but I think the
immediacy of the looming revisions for Project 4 has given them a bit more of
an impetus to pay attention during the conference and start working immediately
after. Since these meetings I have received a subsequent revision a student
requested I look over, and it was leaps and bounds ahead of where he was.
Because he is one of the weaker writers in the class, this makes me think that
conferences are worth the time and effort. I plan to incorporate more of them
into my classes next semester.
Because of the required meetings, I cancelled class on
Monday and Wednesday of week 15.
However, on Friday we did meet to recap some Project 4
necessities, as well as reflect on the class as a whole. I made them a Final
Selected Portfolio Checklist, as well as a document that addressed general
concerns about the portfolio that I saw come up during conferences. We went
over both of those documents, both of which I posted on Blackboard. We then
discussed general questions and concerns about project 4. I also made them an
MLA cheat sheet that showed the formulas and examples of essentially all the
types of sources they would need to include in their Works Cited Pages. We
reviewed the Purdue OWL and how to navigate it. I asked them an MLA formatting
question and we worked our way together through the Purdue OWL to find the
answer. Finally, I showed them one of my term papers as an example of correct
MLA formatting. I think showing them how to find answers to questions
themselves is one of the most valuable skills I can teach them, so I hope they
took something away from our activity with the Purdue OWL.
We then discussed the class as a whole, what they thought
they learned, which activities worked well, which didn’t, which readings they
thought they learned the most from, and which just confused them. This activity
gave me some things to think about as I prepare to teach this course next
semester. For example, some of the students said they were unwilling to talk
because others were unwilling to talk, and that on the day when I warned them
ahead of time they would be called on at random in class, they were more
inclined to better prepare themselves for discussion and participate when the
time came. I think I will start to call on people a little more next semester.
Sometimes being put on the spot is the push students need to start engaging in
the conversation.