I haven’t started reading the end of semester essay/literacy philopshy papers, but I have been rereading the comments people made on the blog as well as the “terms and people to know” comments.
I wish I had done a better job of responding to comments. There were a lot of really good ones made, and I did read them and think about them and use them to inform instruction. They are incredibly helpful to me. I know asking students to comment on the blog is “one more task,” but it has become an incredibly meaningful one for me.
I really appreciated Kayleigh’s comment about how much the annotations ended up helping her. That’s exactly what the intent of that assignment is. Thank you for sharing that. I know it can be an onerous assignment at times, and I am glad everyone hung in there.
Another comment I really appreciated was made a few weeks back by Michelle — about five minutes of phatic conversation at the beginning of class. She’s absolutely right, and honestly I intended to do that (I did it on the second night of class), but it got lost in the shuffle of everything else. So thank you for reminding me of that. I will make sure I do that in the diversity class next semester and when I teach 620 again.
There were so many other helpful comments as well in terms of order of events in class, pacing, etc. I may not have explicitly addressed each of those throughout the semester, but I did read and think about each one. My task in the future is to make my response to those comments more explicit in order to let my students know that yes, I am listening and responding.
I’m going to be making changes to the “terms and people to know” assignment. I’m not convinced of the utility of that assignment. The intent was to build a shared glossary for students to refer to when writing. I didn’t make that explicit enough. I’m also going to be making changes to the “wiki page” posting assignment. Once again it was intended to support the students as writers and to create a shared text. I don’t think we achieved that. Those are two things I have to think about more. Maybe some day I’ll get it right and teach the perfect class.
I am looking forward to the final essays and meeting with individuals. As people have commented, it was a tough, but rewarding semester.
December 10, 2008 at 7:00 pm
This definately was bumpy road through this semester. Although, I feel that I have learned a lot about literacy, myself as a teacher, and as a student. Getting back into the swing of being a college student again was something that definately took some getting used to again along with having a full time job. I have realized that I need to work on my time management a little bit better. Hopefully by the time next semester starts up, I will have some system set up.
The essays were a strain, but I feel that once I got down to it and put all the information together that I realized how much information I have picked up and understood. It was a good feeling after the two essays were done and finished.