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January 28, 2005
tj 205: week 2
so far, so good.
monday, we played around with handbooks, doing a little scavenger-hunt activity to get them acclimated to whichever text they'd chosen, & then did really useful* mock-ups of an annotated bibliography for them to emulate for wednesday.
wednesday, they turned in bibs, we worked together to get a list of paper 1 criteria on the board as a collective rubric, and then they looked over & made suggestions on each others' initial (2pg-ish) drafts.
today, we met in the cluster, they turned in papers, i introduced the kennedy text (there was much silence. we'll work on that. they don't (get to?) talk enough yet) & an idea of what paper 2's assignment is going to look like, then we walked through blackboard's features together, then they uploaded to the dropbox word files w/their preferences for project-types, & lastly & most importantly, we got into the discussion forum as a class to have a chat about saying/using nigger in class.
*monday, i felt like a supergenius. this mock-bib activity? 3 goals, 1 game. it was terrific. what i asked them to do: 1) think up a few good questions about research & writing work habits to ask their classmates. 2) interview 3 classmates about their work habits & preferences. 3) look up proper citation format for personal interviews. 4) imitating the example i handed out & using that citation information, summarize what they learned from each interview into an annotated entry in a short (3-4 item) bibliography. end result? they got to know each other better, they had to be reflective/reflexive about their own research/writing skills/habits, & they got some practice using the form before having to duplicate it based on their outside research for wednesday.
wednesday 3 new students joined the class. on the last working-day of the unit. i'm not supposed to complain about registration policies & the like at this point, because it's like this everywhere, and there's nothing to be done about it, and if i were smart i'd just plan to waste the first week of class so that all the late-adds didn't start out behind & thereby tangled in my hair, but i refuse. i only have 15 weeks; i'm using them. even if i always have to double-back.
today only one of those new students showed. i haven't re-checked the roster. maybe i scared the others off. maybe they couldn't find the cluster. maybe they just didn't feel like coming in, and will show up monday all blinky-eyed and further behind than ever. can't cross the bridge until i arrive at the river.
the forum is... i don't know yet. people put some good stuff out there. they got right to the crux of several issues we're going to have to take up, and they didn't all agree--right off the bat, there's some difference of opinion concerning the gravity of the word, the propriety of its use, the designations of people who are and aren't (or should and shouldn't be) "allowed" to use it, the way we should handle it in class, the difference, if there is one, between hearing it and only seeing it written. i'm not sure whether i should take all of that input in and do something to summarize or respond to it, or if i should turn that task over to them. my inclination is towards the latter--but am i going to stir up trouble by doing so? and, more importantly, will it be productive trouble, or the kind that creates mistrust and division & will screw up our subsequent collective work?
Posted by ttobryan at January 28, 2005 03:22 PM