Kinda Coming Together

Alrighty, here's the scoop:

Conferences: Went well. It was interesting to talk to students about their papers (which were the graded 1.2 papers) and find out many of the A- students were worried they were doing terribly. I think this is partially because they took risks in the papers and were unsure if it was really okay to do that.

Last week:
Tues. Our first day talking about Griffin's piece. The first thing we did was a qw about the 1.3 revision they turned in. Then I discussed titling your essay and quote sandwiches and asked them to make those changes in pen on their papers.

Next, we turned to Griffin and read aloud the first 5 pages looking for connections, transitions, etc. We used this to talk about how a writer helps readers see how elements (even in a collage essay) relate to each other. We then named moves a writer could make to do this.

Finally, I handed out 2.1, an assignment I wasn't too happy with. It seemed to overlap too much with project 1 -- I think I fixed this successfully with 2.2.

Thursday's class was cancelled (furlough plus conference).

Yesterday's (Tues 11/10 class): We spent the class talking about citation and working with "artifacts" (including quotes). We discussed why we cite and how to cite difficult artifacts (cd cover art, etc). Students put sample citations on the board for extra credit. Then, we discussed how to provide a reading of a quote or other artifact, and the students chose one of the artifacts they brought in that day and wrote an analysis of it which was meant to explain to a reader how it represented something about their community.