Friday, December 13, 2002
Sitting in class again, last day of semester. 5 students here, one in the building but not here. The other 9 have more or less finished up their portfolios and these 5 are putting the finishing touches (or new foundations) on their materials.
Started working on a portfolio this am. Told myself, 1 hr / student tops, = 14 hrs this weekend. Also assumed that some could be handled in less than an hour. Took me about 2 hrs! Had a software crash that set me back, but found myself needing to read and write more closely than I thought I would. I need to learn to be a better portfolio reader.
I also need to be clearer about what students need to do in portfolios. For example, the student I spent so much time on had good drafts, and I told him that he mainly needed to focus on sentence level or local revisions. I started reading his stuff, paying more attention to local issues than I had on the earlier docs, and his writing is often a mess. So I started commenting extensively. I think I just should have noted a few problems and said, X, you haven't really made any significant revisions. Could have been done with him in an hour.
Part of me also felt like I let him down. He actually said in his memo that one of his strenghts is catching his grammar problems (which may be true), but he isn't a very careful editor. I really struggle to teach sentence-level writing because students have a hard time seeing the vagueries of their prose, and have a hard time caring enough about their writing to bother. This student frequently exhibited signs of boredom and write about it as well. Don't know if I could have reached him earlier or not.
I'll keep you posted on the portfolio process. The second one I took on is going more quickly--but still around an hour.
Started working on a portfolio this am. Told myself, 1 hr / student tops, = 14 hrs this weekend. Also assumed that some could be handled in less than an hour. Took me about 2 hrs! Had a software crash that set me back, but found myself needing to read and write more closely than I thought I would. I need to learn to be a better portfolio reader.
I also need to be clearer about what students need to do in portfolios. For example, the student I spent so much time on had good drafts, and I told him that he mainly needed to focus on sentence level or local revisions. I started reading his stuff, paying more attention to local issues than I had on the earlier docs, and his writing is often a mess. So I started commenting extensively. I think I just should have noted a few problems and said, X, you haven't really made any significant revisions. Could have been done with him in an hour.
Part of me also felt like I let him down. He actually said in his memo that one of his strenghts is catching his grammar problems (which may be true), but he isn't a very careful editor. I really struggle to teach sentence-level writing because students have a hard time seeing the vagueries of their prose, and have a hard time caring enough about their writing to bother. This student frequently exhibited signs of boredom and write about it as well. Don't know if I could have reached him earlier or not.
I'll keep you posted on the portfolio process. The second one I took on is going more quickly--but still around an hour.
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