The Fifth Week

Monday 9/16
We've finished Unit 1! I brought them some gummy snacks to celebrate. They were a little stingy and not everyone took a package. I love snacks, and I thought these little raccoons would be delighted with free food, but, alas, they are still entertaining.
Along with our gummy-tastic celebration, we also took little Unit 1 Reflection quizzes/surveys. This was the prompt: Take at least three minutes to write out a short reflection on how you feel about Unit 1. I want to know about your struggles and your victories during this Unit.

Questions to consider: What did you enjoy? What did you learn? Is there something you’d like to learn more about or that you felt wasn’t covered enough during the unit? Do you have any suggestions on how I can improve as your instructor?

As a part of my teaching journal, I'm going to include some of the reflections/feedback I received that I think will help me on my own journey towards understanding and improving myself as a teacher. I'll mark them with the student's first name and last initial.

Ritchie M. said: One thing that I'll take away from this unit is that writing isn't something set. There isn't a specific way you have to write, none of that 5 paragraphs with 3 bodies, an intro, and a conclusion. I learned how a paper should actually be structed and I will carry this knowledge with me throughout college. One thing to improve on is making people read the articles you assign. I'll be honest, I didn't read the lobster one and I still got by it because of what we talked about in the previous class and the title of the article.

I've included Ritchie's reflection (Note from Future Self: despite the fact that he dropped later in the semester, shortly after Unit 2 was completed...) because it highlights one of the things I hoped they would learn and one of the things that I am insecure about, as an instructor. I was delighted to see that he had taken away from Unit 1 this idea of writing being a personal act and full of personal/unique decisions based upon the material, content, or the author themselves, as opposed to the inorganic structure assigned by a teacher/person-in-charge. Writing has always been extremely personal to me, and, although I deeply enjoyed and was very successful in AP history with our structured x+y ABC formulaic approach to writing, I believe that it does not need nor should have a rigid structure. Writing is an organic, natural thing; the structure should reflect that process.

I know that I struggle to be an authority figure. I've never struggled as much as I do in this classroom to not only have power, but to use it. I've been in charge of thirty young cub scouts in a field before; I know how to make people listen to me, and I know that I can do it because I had those energetic boys all lined up as we marched through the grass. It is so strange trying to transfer that attitude and that presence into the classroom, which is the one place I have never felt powerful or even well-endowed. I think, in order to improve my presence and authority in the classroom, I will have to take a more personal journey and work on my confidence in my abilities and my intelligence, as well as my worthiness to be there...

Katelynn W. said: I have learned a lot in your class already and I am eager to take that outside of the classroom. I really like the little exercises that you do in class and that help us get an idea of what to wrote about. It is a lot easier because if you assigned them outside of class, I do not think it would have the same impact as it would in the classroom.

Katelynn mentions that she enjoys the idea of being able to apply what she learns in our classroom to areas outside, which was really fantastic to hear! It was interesting to see her think about the impact of our activities, and how doing them inside or outside the classroom had different effects. It made me think about these impacts as well, and I plan to pay more attention to understanding how these impacts work for different assignments.

Imogen P. said: I enjoyed exploring my core values and believe this is such an important thing to do in this stage of life. We have just started a new season of our life in a new atmosphere away from home for the first time. I learnt that although I have many values, my core value is genuine relationships because I love building personal connections with people and sticking to the idea of "come as you are", which is the title of my Project 1. I really appreciate that you send out reminders on canvas and that all your in class presentations are organized and informative.  I also love that you keep the slander updated as well because it is easy to keep myself organized and on track. Thank you for always taking the time to comment on our work and help us improve on our writing.

I found Imogen's reflection really reassuring, especially as it helped me identify what I was doing correctly and what I should aim to do more. I think I will return to her comments as I plan for the next unit...

Wednesday 9/18

We introduced social/political issues and values today. It was a bit wacky, but I think they've got a good grasp on the Unit 2 Prompt. (Note from Future Self: You are wrong, sweet summer child, oh, naive little thing! lol, you're really wrong.)

Friday 9/20

Today was spent mainly on computers, as we navigated the OU Library website together. It was fun showing them how to look for sources, teaching them about different kinds of sources, although I am not so sure they understand what kind of source I am looking for them to write about. They seem to be very hung up on talking about their social/political issue as opposed to their author... I hope I can assuage this next week. I am going to work something out. After we do a textual analysis of memes on Monday.