Teaching Journal #15

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.

 

I think this time next semester I might spend some more time throughout the semester doing brief workshops on grammar, style, and organization. I value these things in a student paper and it seems unfair for me to expect it in their final drafts when I have not emphasized it throughout the class. I at least need to create a series of handouts that makes clear for them my expectations in terms of grammar and style.