11.12 Calendar, commenting, and getting ready for next week

We started class by revising the calendar so that it was essentially a list of workshops for the pieces you will include in the portfolio.  The dates and topics are listed at the previous post.

The middle of the class was devoted to a discussion of Nancy Sommer's excellent booklet on Responding to Student Writers, followed by some talk about how to respond to the writers whose work we brought to class.

After talking through three papers, you observed that:

• One effective form of commenting was to challenge writers with questions.
• Appropriate feedback needs to include adequate information so that the student can understand and apply the suggestion.
• It is important to distinguish between the kinds of comments made in marginal and end comments.
• Comments should focus on high order concerns first (if necessary).
• It is important to find positive, successful features in student writing.
• Effective comments should connect to the issues and language you are emphasizing (teaching) in class.
• Comments that reference books/readings from class (or handbooks) can increase students' agency.
• Comments to drafts focus on how to work on issues for the revision; comments to final essays emphasize how to apply what the student learned from this writing experience to the next essay. 

We also observed that because commenting was essentially a conversation - there aren't really going to be "generic" comments. At the same time, for any given assignment, certain writing issues will probably come up repeatedly - and may be the basis of a "lesson" presented in the class where the papers will be returned.


For next class:
1. Finish commenting on the "set" of papers that you want to include in your portfolio.  There should be more than one, less than 5 papers to illustrate how you respond to a variety of writing issues.  Send your sample papers via email so I can look them over.

2. During the first part of class you will workshop your classroom observations.  To prepare for this workshop, you should read through the criteria for student-teacher classroom observations (listed on Lewis' blog) and then choose one or a combination of several of your blog entries to use as data for your observation.  This draft is a start - and may send you back to the classroom for further observation.  In the workshop we will identify the focus of your observation (the point you are making), work on the effectiveness of the description, and think about whether and where there should be connections to theory.  \

3. During the second part of class you will revisit your teaching philosophy.  I am hoping each of you will give an informal presentation -and we can have some open discussion about how you want to develop your piece, followed by supportive discussion.

See you next week