Journal VI

This week marked the start of a new chapter as well as a new class project. I think my students were happy to be done with Project 1 (though I think many of them will choose to revise). Throughout the week, I encouraged them to set up a conference with me if they had concerns about Project 1 before it was due to me. Only two took me up on the offer. Unfortunatley, after grading some of their papers, they really should have. Sometimes I am astounded by the laziness of students (one student didn't revise his paper at all since the intro and synthesis-didn't use any of my suggestions and added even more irrelevant information). I tabled that essay, because I'm not quite sure how to deal with it (do I REQUIRE him to revise or else give him a major violation? I hate to give him a major violation right out because I think he will just shut down). But they have not all been bad, and many vastly improved since the first version I saw of them.

Monday: I introduced Project 2. I didn't do so on Friday because I figured they would forget over the weekend anyway and I also wanted as little overlap with Project 1 as possible. I'm not sure how well I explained what Project 2 would entail because many seemed confused. They seemed to understand it a bit better on Wednesday after we did some work with literacy histories/narratives. We began class by discussing various literacies that they had. I tried to get them to talk about sports, musicality, or hobbies, but there were few takers (and they were the usual students who always participate). My goal for week 7 is to get the quiet students to talk more. I'm a shy person myself, so I hate calling on people; I recently started having them do free-writes at the beginning of the class; that way, if I call on someone who is quiet, he/she at least has an answer prepared. We then talked about sponsors, which they seemed to understand very well. We did the group activity that Talitha suggested and it worked out okay. The Dwayne Lowery group definitely struggled, and Carol White's group I don't think even read the article at all. I also assigned them their groups for Project 2 at the end of class and told them to converse about literacies for the last 5 minutes. Overall, class went well (I think all of my classes went well this week).

Wednesday: I was observed by Christina (although I observed Heather. We did a three-way; hope this doesn't screw things up!). I was nervous at first and honestly have to admit that I prepared a bit more than I would normally. But I almost immediately forgot I was being observed. I was so excited to teach both the hooks and Malcolm X pieces (hooks was a huge influence on my undergrad women's studies...studies). Unfortunately, I made a mistake by forgetting to assign them the Alexie piece as well, which I deeply regretted because, unlike the hooks piece, it was a literacy history and fit perfectly with X. I remedied this later, though, as you will see for Friday's class. I prepared a PowerPoint Presentation for these readings and I thought I made some good connections and generated some good class discussion. I was happy with this class.

Friday: Friday was unique because I had a hitherto unheard of number of absences! Attendance for my class has been excellent because of the grade contract, and many of my hard working, talkative students were absent today. I did the best I could with the Baron piece. I assigned them a dialectical notebook for Baron and I also had them just read the Alexie piece. I didn't discuss the piece, because really it is for their own benefit to see an example of a literacy history, but I did show the Colbert clip that Heather brought up. They didn't find it as funny nor did they really want to discuss what he was saying about e-readers and the digitization of books.
   Before I did this, I spent some time re-explaining project 2 because a student had emailed me saying her group went through the WAW assignment 2 questions and didn't know what do to next. I showed the example that John gave us, which I initially hesitated showing because I didn't want them to copy the subject or design. I feel like sometimes my students are lazy and have no idea how to be creative or come up with their own ideas- they want me to hold their hand through it all. This is why I had so many papers on plagiarism and procrastination. So many!
We then discussed Baron. We did the same activity Heather had us do in our 5890 class; it, of course, did not go as well- I was mostly telling them how each technology changed the way we write/communicate. Sometimes I don't know when I should just explain stuff to them ( because they either don't remember or don't know) or when I should be patient and let them try to figure it out (and read the text!) I tend to explain things because I think it's better they understand the concepts from me rather than being unsure themselves...I don't know. We also talked about the stages, which mimicked the way the first activity went, and then we talked about The Golden Age, which generated the most discussion. Overall, given how many were absent, I was okay with how class went on Friday. I did warn them about the Wysocki reading and told them to power through and to come with questions. I'm really worried about teaching it, frankly.