Day 2

Sorry the titles are so lacking in creativity: even untitled 1 would be better :)

Here's what I did today:

First, the students did this quickwrite:

QW (20 m): What surprised, interested, or puzzled you in the Introduction? How do Bartholomae and Petrosky characterize reading and writing? Find a place in the text you would take us to start a discussion.

Then we had a discussion about what they wrote. It was the best discussion I've had happen at this point in the term ever. Good group, for sure. They were really engaged, had read ((!)) and were really interested in discussing how B and P thought about reading and writing. They especially wanted to discuss how reading and writing were related and what it would mean to read against the grain or to encounter difficulty.

This discussion segued into discussing strategies for dealing with challenging readings. I stood at the board for the entire class and wrote what they had to say about everything. We also created a list of things to annote for when you read and marks to use when annotating. I mentioned the $ sign and they laughed.

In the final part of class the students did their "diagnostic" essay. I don't grade these but I do give them back to the students at the end of the quarter for a reflective essay they then do:

· In-class essay (try to write for 30 min – practice)

o Reflect on and describe your history with reading and writing. What experiences, good or bad, stand out for you? Why? What have you recognized about yourself as a writer? What would you like to work on in your writing?

Day 1

Fall 2011. To boldly go ...

I feel like I might have gotten really lucky and gotten a good group. I tried tweaking how I do the first day because of our conversation at TA Camp. Usually I do the syllabus and then the icebreaker, but I switched it and there was a noticeable difference in how talkative the students were. Live and learn! The first 50 minutes was the icebreaker. The students interview a partner and then introduce that person to us. At the end the entire class is invited to interview me.

Then we went over the syllabus and broke for the day.

Here's the icebreaker:

· Icebreaker: What Name, year, major, place you were born, place you would most like to live, where do you want to be in 5 years? What was your favorite subject, why? Least why? Best writing experience? Worst? Best thing you’ve ever read. What do you know about writing? How do you know this? What don’t you know but would like to?