So after some disappointing attendance for the Archives Field Trip, I was hoping today would be good. However, I need to learn that one bad day can sometimes lead to another not-so-good day.
Yet, even in these mediocre and slightly disappointing days, it is important to focus on the good things. Even though several students didn't show up for the Archives Field Trip, many of them did get my email and listened to the reminder at the Archives about having their rough drafts done for today. While they weren't very exciting (they were short and shallow), at least they had gotten started. I collected the drafts for credit and skimmed them over while the students wrote the Viewpoint about their experience at the Archives. I asked them what their opinion of it was, if they found anything good, what they didn't like and if they would return. Although our post-Viewpoint discussion was pretty bland, I got a few good responses.
I passed back the rough drafts and we talked about how they felt about writing the rough drafts. Again, they were pretty quiet, but a few people shared their feelings. I then handed them an example of what I want their articles to look like from the Kalamazoo Valley Museum's Museography magazine.
I then tried to engage my students in a short discussion and analysis of transition words. I had handed out a little sheet with transition words on it and asked the students to use those in this article to help it flow. However, after doing this, I realized that many of them may not know how to use them. So I had them pull the sheet out and we talked about how to use them, what they mean (definitions), and then pulled an example from one of the students papers to try to help her fix the flow. The example was challenging. The students didn't want to participate at first, but after some nudging, really started thinking and decided they didn't think we could fix the problem with just the two sentences.
Because I was running our of time, we decided to end our discussion by saying that we really need to work with all of the text in order for the words to be useful. I quickly had them brainstorm some ideas about issues they have with Western. After they talked with each other for a few moments, we listed their ideas on the board and talked about which ones would work (change could actually happen) and which ones were unreasonable.
Their homework was to go home and come up with a ranked list of things they wanted to complain about. They also had to continue their research and write their second draft for Project 3.
The only thing I wished I had planned better for and been more alert during was the mini-lesson on transition words. I think that I should have picked another example or had one picked before class. I did apoligize to the students the following Monday for the flop of a mini-lesson that it turned out to be and yet stressed to them the importance of these words. To my amazement, I actually had one of my students use the word moreover in his third draft!
After class time, Kate and I had a combined writing studio. Since many of her students didn't have drafts done, we just split them into groups and talked with them about their feelings, organizing their papers, and different strategies they can use when working on articles like the ones they were required to write. Pretty short studio, but at least we talked over a few things.
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