10/1/08

*Class today did not go as expected, but I keep reminding myself that good "stuff" still happened.

I began class as usual: taking attendance, collecting homework and putting up the viewpoint for the day. This week I focused their viewpoints on describing things. The viewpoint today: "You find an ancient, abandoned temple and inside there is a jewel encrusted box. Describe the temple, the box and its contents." After the students spent some time writing, I shared with them a few of the exceptional viewpoints from the last class that had exemplary (in the context of this class) descriptions. I then had them share the viewpoint for the day.

After this, we revisited our list of titles for the magazine we are currently working on. The previous list was long and we had voted on the titles we had come up with so far and decided to eliminate a few. I had asked them to come up with new ideas as homework and they didn't have any. No one wanted to talk, but after a little prodding, I finally had a few of them help eliminate further the ones we didn't want to use (least popular) and then decide what we would actually call our magazine. They decided that the magazine would be called the "Buckin' Bronco" and the tag line for the magazine would be "Saddle up and Survive" with the title of the issue being "Ways of Western." I was really proud of this...I hadn't anticipated all of the detail of the title, but I think they learned a lot about it and streched their idea of a title's importance.

To finish the class, I wanted them to look at different examples of National Geographic style articles and also survival guide articles. I had made copies of several examples and passed them out so the students would have them to use when they began their rough draft over the weekend. This is the part of class that didn't go very well. They pretty much refused to talk. I was able to get them to come up with the criteria for each style, but they wouldn't talk much after that.

One problem I need to address is tardiness. I've had one student come in over 10 minutes late the last two classes and several come in similarly late other classes. I asked this particular student to come talk to me and thought that she had forgotten when we finished with writing studio, but she ended up finding me. I asked her why she was late and she gave me lame excuses about problems with the buses. Kate said they were lame, too and that she was just playing me. Either way, Kate gave me some good ideas about how to deal with that. She said she always closes her door so that late comers are noticed because they cause a ruckus with the noise the door makes. I decided I would try that the next class.

One thing that was really cool today was that Kate and I combined our classes for writing studio. Kate and I participated as consultants and made sure that the students were in groups with other students who were writing about similar cultures. This seemed to go really well. The students had the chance to get ideas from one another and talk about any concerns they had. Plus it gave them a chance to get up and move around and get to know other students.