December 6, 2016

I require the students to do presentations about their topics for the documented argument essay and they usually give me a lot of push back on them. This year I gave an end of year survey and I asked them a couple of questions about what they liked best/least and what grade they felt they should get for the class. One of the surprising answers I received was how much they enjoyed hearing the presentations-not giving them! I could tell by the questions the students asked of each other that they really did listen to them and cared about the topics. Of course, I did have one student who tried to antagonize others with his questions! I had thought about dropping the requirement next time, however, I do plan to keep it in the requirement.

The online graduate certificate that I received this semester has really provided me with some good information about how adults learn. The best things that I have done this semester were the mid-semester check up and the end of semester survey. I really received some good feedback about what they liked and didn't like about the class. I plan to continue to incorporate them in each class I teach.

The other thing I think I am going to add this semester is listing how much time I think the students should spend on assignments. I learned that from a video in the Magna Commons section. There are some great videos to help instructors teach classes better and more motivating for students.

November 29th

Tonight was the first night of presentations. I require everyone to present information they learned about their documented argument. I generally get a lot of push back on this, however, after it is done the students really enjoy listening to the presentations. They always state that they learned so much from them.

I have thought about discontinuing them, however, the feedback I get from the students is always so positive. It helps me to get a preliminary idea about the content of the essays and the amount of time and effort that was put into the essay. It also helps check any kind of plagiarism.

October 25, 2016

Tonight I had the librarian talk to the class about researching for their documented argument essay. She is always so good and involves the students in the discussion. This is a very helpful evening for the students and for me. I also went over the assignment and powerpoint explanation for them. They have to submit their topic next week. I hope that I get some good ones and not just the same old stuff. This is the last formal essay that they will be writing and it is weighted the heaviest in their final grade. Good overall participation tonight.

November 1, 2016

Tonight was not a good night at all. Had very poor attendance-lots of emails telling me they weren't going to make it to class. Then right before class, another instructor who didn't identify himself came into my office and asked if I could get some student ID numbers for him. I asked who he was and then asked if he had a roster or could I print one for him. He picked up his stuff and left. Didn't say a word-how rude. Really ruined my night. Then when I got to class the document reader went out on me when I was using it. I could tell some of the people who were in class didn't want to be here anyway. I guess everyone has a bad night once in awhile. Next time will be better. I hope!!!

October 18

Tonight is midterm exam night. I gave them 3 prompt choices and I am always very interested in seeing which ones they choose and not choose. I chose varying topics from education to mandatory draft to religious freedom.

October 11th

Tonight I reviewed the mid-semester check up quiz that I gave the class. I like to do this so I can get a feel for how everyone thinks they are doing in class. We then talk about what I can and can't change in the class. Obviously for a composition class, I can't modify the essay assignments! I also talk about how well they are doing so far and try to keep positive comments about their progress. I have actually seen good progress by most of the students. They are taking my comments to heart and demonstrating the changes.
I am looking forward to more challenging essays for them. We are starting the analyzing an argument essay and I think they will do well on this one.
I did have some computer issues tonight. I had a couple of YouTube videos that wouldn't display and thanks to suggestions from my computer people, I got them to play. I just used google chrome instead of firefox and they worked perfectly. I need to keep that in mind for future reference.

I liked the essay "Eulogy of the Dog"-there is a great YouTube video of someone reading the essay and that was great. I am going to try and find more of those. 

September 27th

Tonight I was a little light on content. I should have taken more time to provide examples of pathos, logos and ethos. I will see how they do with their writing tonight and then if I need to add more to it next week, I can. They are working on the literary analysis essay which is a little more challenging. Hopefully, I won't have too many stories to read! At least I have the notes from last year's text so that will help. Editorial cartoons were helpful and I could tell they got the points from them.

Next week I am going to use advertisements for pathos, logos and ethos, claim and evidence. Maybe online ads?

September 27th

Tonight I was a little light on content. I should have taken more time to provide examples of pathos, logos and ethos. I will see how they do with their writing tonight and then if I need to add more to it next week, I can. They are working on the literary analysis essay which is a little more challenging. Hopefully, I won't have too many stories to read! At least I have the notes from last year's text so that will help. Editorial cartoons were helpful and I could tell they got the points from them.

Next week I am going to use advertisements for pathos, logos and ethos, claim and evidence. Maybe online ads?

September 20, 2016

I have been working on using more critical thinking skills to teach my class. Tonight we used "hat full of quotes" taken from the book Teaching for critical thinking by Stephen Brookfield. I had my students read "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin and then selected 6 different quotes from the story and had students first write what they thought the quote symbolized or meant to them and then put them in groups based on their quotes. The quotes were random so the class was mixed up-they didn't get to sit with their friends or seat mate! It went well. I had them write one paper based on their discussion of the quote and its context with the story. It helped them gain more confidence in critical thinking and connecting literature. I will definitely do this activity again.

I have also been using more youtube videos. There are so many great videos to use with literature!

I am beginning a new semester of ENC 1102 for Fall of 2016 and I plan to blog about each night of class. The first class was on Tuesday night and I have a large class-25 students. even though it is a computer lab, the entire room is full! It will make it challenging to try group work, however, I plan to try more collaborative assignments instead of groups. I do have 7 students from previous classes so that makes it a little easier on me because they do influence the behavior of the other students! Of course, they were excellent students in my previous class!! I plan to do more critical thinking exercises and focus on mindset theory to see if it makes a difference in how the students learn in my class.