Sometimes there are days when I am just blown away by the students here and Wednesday was one of those days.
We started with a qw since they were turning in project I.3 which was a revision of I.2. I asked them to write about the experience of writing the essay, the challenges and successes. I also asked them to describe what, if anything, they learned from doing a multi-draft process. (Students ended up writing about this in interesting ways: all found it helpful, most had never done this before.)
Next, I talked about how Freire is an example of a highly abstract or theoretical essay. I talked about using keywords as a strategy for reading theory. I also talked about how we might note that keywords are a major writerly move in theoretical writing.
I put the following keywords on the board and told them I took them from their qws on Monday:
banking concept, problem-posing education, human, consciousness, oppression/freedom, teacher-student relationship.
I then had the students get into pairs or groups of 3 and pick one of these keywords. Their group had to define the concept, have places to take us to in the text related to it, analyze these textual examples, and connect the concept to their experiences or the other readings we have done. All the keywords had at least 1 group working on them; some had several separate groups. After 20 minutes, we reformed as a big circle and they talked about what they did. It was amazing.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Monday, the 8th
First Freire day. Practiced simplicity.
QW (15 m): What is F's project? What is at stake? Have you had experiences that relate to this essay?
We got in a circle and discussed what they wrote about for the whole class.
QW (15 m): What is F's project? What is at stake? Have you had experiences that relate to this essay?
We got in a circle and discussed what they wrote about for the whole class.
Week 6 Round Up
I decided to act on things I learned from the students from the conferences and slow us down quite a bit. I cleared the entire week to focus on writing workshops and adjusted due dates to give the students more time to work on each paper.
Monday:
Several students talked about wanting to write better intros and conclusions in their conferences. So, today was intro and conclusion day.
QW (15 m): What do you know about introductions and conclusions? What questions do you have about them?
We discussed what they wrote and I asked them to brainstorm the uses for and kinds of intros and conclusions. We generated quite a list that I put on the board. Next, we looked at a bunch of intro paragraphs from Ways of Reading (I had us look at some of the more traditional academic essays in it which we haven't read). We then discussed what each intro was doing. We noticed most of them either told a story or set up a context/background and that most did not have a thesis.
Next, we looked at Anzaldua's conclusion and talked about how it functioned.
I gave the students the following worksheet and assigned them to read 3 essays by their classmates that I had posted on BB and to do the worksheet. Finally, my intern did a lesson on plagiarism.
Worksheet:
Please print off and carefully read the three essays by your colleagues in response to Project I.2 (these are on BB under Course Materials). Please answer the following questions about each essay.
1. What is the project? What is at stake?
2. How would you characterize the introduction? What work is it doing? Would you make any recommendations for revising it?
3. How would you characterize the conclusion? What work is it doing? Would you make any recommendations for revising it?
4. Look at the use of quotations. Do they seem well-integrated into the essay? What recommendations would you make regarding the use of quotations in revision?
WEDNESDAY
I taught students how to do a reverse outline out of a complete draft. As a class we did this together on one of the student essays we had read for hw. I put our outline on the board and we talked about revision possibilities. Next, students got in groups of 2-3 and worked with one of the 2 remaining essays to create and outline. The groups reported and I put what they said on the board. This became a great conversation about the strengths of the writers' projects, etc. Ended by talking about using the things we practiced this week in the revisions they have due on the 10th.
Monday:
Several students talked about wanting to write better intros and conclusions in their conferences. So, today was intro and conclusion day.
QW (15 m): What do you know about introductions and conclusions? What questions do you have about them?
We discussed what they wrote and I asked them to brainstorm the uses for and kinds of intros and conclusions. We generated quite a list that I put on the board. Next, we looked at a bunch of intro paragraphs from Ways of Reading (I had us look at some of the more traditional academic essays in it which we haven't read). We then discussed what each intro was doing. We noticed most of them either told a story or set up a context/background and that most did not have a thesis.
Next, we looked at Anzaldua's conclusion and talked about how it functioned.
I gave the students the following worksheet and assigned them to read 3 essays by their classmates that I had posted on BB and to do the worksheet. Finally, my intern did a lesson on plagiarism.
Worksheet:
Please print off and carefully read the three essays by your colleagues in response to Project I.2 (these are on BB under Course Materials). Please answer the following questions about each essay.
1. What is the project? What is at stake?
2. How would you characterize the introduction? What work is it doing? Would you make any recommendations for revising it?
3. How would you characterize the conclusion? What work is it doing? Would you make any recommendations for revising it?
4. Look at the use of quotations. Do they seem well-integrated into the essay? What recommendations would you make regarding the use of quotations in revision?
WEDNESDAY
I taught students how to do a reverse outline out of a complete draft. As a class we did this together on one of the student essays we had read for hw. I put our outline on the board and we talked about revision possibilities. Next, students got in groups of 2-3 and worked with one of the 2 remaining essays to create and outline. The groups reported and I put what they said on the board. This became a great conversation about the strengths of the writers' projects, etc. Ended by talking about using the things we practiced this week in the revisions they have due on the 10th.
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