Post date: Apr 24, 2016 12:03:59 AM
Blog post for April 23, 2016
Back to Work—the Writing Teacher Returns!
After being out of classes since my foot surgery Feb. 4, I was back in the classroom this past week and it felt pretty good. I went in for a few hours the previous Friday, to settle into my office and prepare for class. Since my foot is still swollen and I am wearing bigger shoes, I felt a little self-conscious but used my rolling walker to help me get my backpack and lunch from the car to the elevator to my office. Then, I took my cane along, to use to get to my classroom which is just across the hallway. Since I have only been driving for a couple of weeks, I felt like a teenager who has just been given permission to drive to the mall alone: after spending so many weeks at home, it is still fun to be able to go out to the garage and drive myself someplace. However, it was very surreal to drive onto campus the first day, and realize that there are only a few weeks left of the semester, and it really is my final semester before retirement.
My students were kind and concerned; I had posted the scary x-ray of my foot, showing all of the new hardware the doctor used to correct problems, in a video lesson, and several said that they were impressed. The first day back in class, Tuesday, we went over the guidelines for the final writing assignment, the movie review. How times have changed! I used to show a full length movie and that took up a week of class time. Now, my students pick from a few options, mostly on YouTube and a free documentary website. We looked at the many options and previewed the videos, having to do with texting and driving or social media. Here are two of my personal favorites, from the Social media side:
New Option 1 -- Fall 2015. Short video on the Internet and our brains
"What the Internet is doing to Our Brains." This is an interview with Nicholas Carr, author of the best seller The Shallows. (Since the video is under 4 minutes, students need to find another video on the same topic, for more information). http://www.digitalblackout.org/other-stuff-we-like/ “What the Internet is Doing to our Brains.”
Option 3 -- "Look up." (Is the web making us less social?) Gary Turk
A thought provoking video--that went viral and provoked a lot of responses! This video examines the relationship we have with our mobile devices, giving us access to social media 24/7, and how the technology is affecting our relationships with each other. Again, students need to find another video and I supplied them with two options. What I love about this video is the way he tells a story—of a young man asking a young woman for directions on the street, and their relationship developing from that accidental meeting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY “Look up.”
Then, for Thursday’s class, I did a read through of each student’s previous essay, due on April 15th—my first day back on the job. While my substitute teachers all did a great job, I have found the hardest part of teaching students how to write is how to revise. So I decided to use my own experience as an example: I opened up my Google Docs version of the second draft of my Suckow essay, telling them what I went through to revise a document of 11,000 words down to 6,000. I also showed them the Chicago style Endnotes (I think I have 68, at least) and several people’s eyes got BIG when I then scrolled through my 24 item Bibliography, and mentioned that after working on it for several hours, I found out that I only needed the Endnotes. I stressed that writing is hard work, and almost always requires multiple drafts: I got feedback from a friend that helped me make the changes to my essay.
The subs had already done a personal conference with each student, making recommendations for their revisions. However, I found that half a dozen people in the face to face class had not followed through: their papers were too short, didn’t cite sources, or didn’t cover all of the parts of the paper. So, I made comments on their drafts but did not fill out the grading slips or post points: I took 3 or 4 minutes to visit with each student. This is the most powerful thing I have learned about teaching writing: working one on one with students gives me the best opportunity to look at how well the essay fits the assignment overall, as well as word choices, punctuation, overall organization, use of sources, etc. I then gave them an opportunity to revise within 48 hours before I graded their final essays, which they would not be able to revise after being graded. I am hopeful that most of them will make the needed changes.
Working with the built-in tools in Canvas to grade written work has been time consuming, but the feedback from students has been positive. They like it because it very visual; their marked up essays have little red check marks in the text, with comments out to the side. So, it looks like track changes in word or the comment feature in Google Docs. It is a much more streamlined process than my old school approach of just a few semesters ago: I downloaded work from our previous CMS and then opened those essays in word, added comments and flagged problem, resaved and renamed and then uploaded back to the class website in Angel.
Technology has changed so dramatically since the first day I walked into the classroom at Iowa State University in the late 1980s: back then, I used to carry my own little metal chalk holder, index cards, a stapler, and folders to collect papers in, because we had a paper-based system. I bought red pens by the dozens and always had a little pot of correction fluid for my gradebook. I don’t miss those days. When I got my first computer and typed up my notes for class, and then learned how to make overhead transparency masters, I thought, “this is great! I don’t have to write the same stuff down for three classes on three different chalkboards!” Who could have predicted back then the digital tools we would have today? We have class websites, with all of our course materials, drop boxes, discussion boards, and grade books—and a hidden side for teachers and administrators with lots of statistics about the students’ participation (or lack of participation). Students can go to the campus library’s website to access databases, e-books, and other references; they can use a citation tool like Knight Cite to format their MLA Works Cited.
It’s been an amazing adventure to be a writing teacher for the past 25 years, but there is work to do in the last two weeks of my final semester. I need to grade four sets of problem solution essays, and about the time I finish those, it will be time to grade four sets of movie reviews….and finally, read through the reflective finals and do all of those last calculations. It’s good to be back!
Last updated April 23, 2016