Monday I started out class by splitting them up into their
groups for project two. I had them exchange emails and phone numbers, and went
over some ways in which they could easily communicate with each other via the
internet (GoogleDocs, Blogger). I also made them groups on Blackboard, so they
can easily communicate via message thread or wiki.
I had them do the case study group activity Talitha had us
do in 5890. It worked out pretty well, but I found myself having to give a lot
of guidance to the group who did the Dwayne Lowery case study. When I asked
them basic questions about what happened to Dwayne throughout the course of his
life, they were unable to answer and spent much time riffling through the book.
This led me to believe they did not read the text all that closely.
While overall the conversation derived from this group
activity was beneficial, the struggles of the group covering Dwayne Lowery
makes me question how closely my students are reading their assigned texts.
Complicating matters is the fact that I had assigned a dialectical notebook on
the Brandt reading rather than the normal reading response. I had done this
once before, with the Dawkins and Bryson readings, and hadn’t noticed too much
of a difference in the conversation, though it was obvious that some were
putting much more effort into the dialectical notebooks than others. After this
class, however, I am finding myself questioning whether I will continue to use
the journals, especially on the more theory-heavy reading assignments. I think
they can still be useful for some of the narratives we’ve read (King, Lamott,
Diaz, X, Alexie, hooks). I could consider assigning a minimum number of quotes
each student must take from the text, but I don’t want to limit my students who
are really going above and beyond with this assignment. I know a lot of people
grumble about reading responses, but they really seem to be the great equalizer
with my students; everyone is forced to try to somewhat understand the text in
order to complete the assignment…even if some fall short of that understanding.
To end the class, I had them take 10 minutes and freewrite
about their own literacy sponsors as a bridge in to the next class as well as a
way to get them thinking about project two.
In an effort to begin class conversation on Wednesday, I had
my students take five minutes to do a freewrite in which they answered the
following questions: What did you learn about literacy from reading X, Alexie,
and hooks? Did you connect personally to any one of the narratives we read?
Which one? Why? They responded with interesting tidbits they remembered from
the readings for the first question, but responded not at all to the second
question. So I asked them how their literacy histories were different, and the
conversation took off from there. They were all fairly eager to talk about how
literacy sponsors have shaped them (either as avid readers and writers or as
uneager and apathetic readers and writers). I think some of them were rather
glad to talk about their aversion to reading and enjoyed tracing this dislike
back through their literacy histories.
After discussing as a class X, Alexie, and hooks, I split
them into their groups and had them do a round-robin reading of each other’s
literacy histories as yet another attempt to get them thinking about project
two. I also went over some of the questions they might ask each other on page
460 in WAW as a way to find a topic.
Friday we went over the Baron reading. The students were
very talkative—perhaps, due to the high number of absences, their inhibitions
were lowered. Whatever the case, discussion was lively throughout the entire
class, and the students especially responded to the Colbert- Alexie interview
as well as the texting discussion and activity.
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