Week Three is in the Books

Well, we are a third way through the first quarter now.

Here's what we are doing in my classes

Lit & Lang 9R - working on the basic elements of plot through the stories "The Most Dangerous Game," "The Monkey's Paw," and "Lamb to the Slaughter."  On top of that we've been working on basic reading skills exercises in the areas of main idea and facts.  We just wrapped up watching an episode of Ancient Aliens and analyzing it for main ideas and facts.

There still is so much work to do here.

College Comp 2 - We read most of Mark Bauerlein's The Dumbest Generation.  We have had several discussions on this, which culminated in their Dumbest Generation presentations, which covered Wednesday and Friday.  The final groups will go on Monday.  Next we'll begin reading Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You and write a telescoping/probing essay as well as begin the 48 hour cell phone hiatus.  In addition to our readings, we also have done two research papers.

College Comp - We read our first short stories of the year, "The Lottery" and "The Storm."  We have also focused a lot on the writing process and began with two descriptive drafts, which they developed into one final draft.  Then we moved on to narrative, writing a rite of passage, an expertise, and a pet peeve, again before developing one into a final draft.  Next up, we'll move on to a How-To essay where we will write three drafts (how to improve LHS, how to survive college, and a how to of their choice).

Teaching and Learning 250 - This will be our fifth week of class.  We have discussed what makes an excellent teacher (they decided on two dominate traits, passion and patience).  Then we analyzed what our noble teaching purpose is.  After that we began reading Educating Esme and discussed it over two weeks. In the third week, we looked at the importance of classroom atmosphere.  I had them watch several videos before assigning them a teaching purpose paper.   Last week we discussed the most important dimension of teaching (planning, management, delivery, evaluation, and professional development).  Then we began a look at various technologies that can be used in the classroom.  Next week, we'll finish up the importance of technology, with an eye toward crafting a lesson plan.  Then we'll begin watching Waiting for Superman and having a discussion via Twitter.