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.