Jessie's Log
At the beginning of class, the students were instructed to list potential topics for project 1 and 2, and any questions or concerns regarding the projects on the daily index card. Mat then proceeded to read aloud the nostalgic poem “Making a Fist” by Nia Shihab Nye. We did not follow the poem with a student-led class discussion about the blog from the previous night, or a mini-presentation on a non-traditional text as usual. Instead, classmates exchanged topic ideas with one another to prepare for sharing with the class. As we traded advice and remarks, Mat reminded us that the next blog assignment is to summarize any chapter in The Bedford Book of Genres (except for chapter 1 and 7 because we will read those later).
Mat introduced a new method to help dissect each other’s topic ideas called “Peeling the Onion.” In this activity, the first participant would announce their ideas, the second person would paraphrase their understanding of the previous idea, and then other students were encouraged to ask thought provoking questions. This process was to ensure that each student had a particular community/experience to talk about in their research paper. The first person to go was Kristen, who had multiple ideas for her paper, but had no idea what to use as her text piece. With help from the class, Kristen was able to narrow her topic down, and consider an Instagram post as a possible text for her paper. Unfortunately, not every student had the opportunity to receive feedback from their peers, so we will be continuing this activity next Monday.
Just as a reminder, there is no class on July 5th and 6th, because there will be individual conferences with Mat at the Sweet Shop to discuss the 1000 word draft for project one. Students can sign up for a conference time by using this link: https://doodle.com/poll/49uxa6f59iwhwek6
Comments