The students were really chatty today at the beginning of class. I think they were a little worried about the water contamination from the water line break from the day before and a little confused on the regulations. We took a minute to talk about that.
I then had them pull out their revised letters and envelopes so I could glance through them and send them out. A lot of them had forgotten and I reminded them that they needed them for the next class. I'll send out a reminder, too, so they don't forget.
I then collected their second journal about the 3 pt. genre and their draft of their 1 pt. genre. It was good to glance through them and get an idea of where they were going with all of their work. While I was skimming through all of this stuff, I had them write their journal 3. They had to tell me the process they completed to make their one point genre. I asked them to start with the picking of the genre and to end with what they still needed to do before it would be ready for their final cohesive piece.
I then had them share, if they wanted, what they did for their 1 pt. genres. A few shared about the announcements they made or the thank-you letters they wrote. I was really glad they were proud of what they did. I also used this time to answer any questions or concerns they had so far with the project. I had a few students ask about how much revision would be required for certain artistic pieces. I reminded them that each genre needed to have enough length to truly tell their audience about a certain part of their life (past, present, future). This seemed to be a good reminder and challenge for some.
In order to transition into our grammar lesson for the day, I handed back Project 3 to the students who had it finished completely and gave the students who didn't, the materials they needed to finish (a lot of them didn't turn in a reflection because they were absent). I then talked with them about commas and semi-colons because they struggle with them. I handed out the comma explanation first and read through that with them quickly. I had a lot of people who weren't paying attention, and some falling asleep. It was hard to really gauge if they were learning anything at all. I then handed out the semi-colon sheet and explained to them briefly how the semi-colon is used. Again, it was a struggle to keep them focused, but I think most of them understood the gist. I did have one student who didn't get the difference between the use of the two and that gave me a good chance to reiterate for them the differences.
We finished class with a workshop on their 2 pt. genre. I explained to them what their homework would be and who needed to stay for consults. This gave the students who hadn't done their reflection for Project 3 a chance to get it done and hand it in, and also gave everyone else a few minutes to prepare for the work they needed to do over the weekend. I let everyone go a little early and got started with the indy consults.
Today I talked with the students who had consistent and troublesome grammar issues. I made sure that each one was aware of the problem and how to fix it. I tried to encourage them that they had done everything else right, but they just needed to work on their expression. I think most of them appreciated the help and saw the need for improvement. I was really pleased with their reactions and positive attitudes about using these pieces where they had the most struggles for their revision piece for Project 5.
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