Wednesday, 29 September 2010

.feeling a little hypocritical.

Ok, so I'm having a little bit of a hard time writing my papers and teaching at the same time.  I feel like I'm having to shift gears really quickly - like I'm using two different parts of my brain.  When I'm replying to my students' "Mrs. M." letters that they have to write to me each week asking me questions and such, the words flow and I enjoy reflecting on their questions.  However, when I sit down to write my academic papers, I feel like I have nothing at all to say.  I never had to deal with this during my student teaching because I was only taking one class during that time and I only had a couple small papers to write.  And the reason I'm feeling hypocritical is because I've been advising my students to "just start writing" when they get writer's block.  I've been telling them to "free write" about anything.  So in order to free myself from this feeling, I'm taking my own advice and "just writing!"

All the TAs had one-on-one conferences this week and I thought mine went really well.  It was wonderful sitting down with each student and talking to them about their papers.  Since I have been evaluating them on all their writing assignments, I could talk to them about their individual strengths and weaknesses, rather than making it a generalized lesson in class.  I suggest conferences to any teacher who requires students to write papers.  I'm trying to decide how this would work in the high school environment since you can't obviously talk to one person at a time - what would the other students be doing?  (Any suggestions?)

During one of my conferences I found out that one of my students (who wants to be an editor at a publishing company) is a fan of Audrey Niffenegger.  I've talked about Niffenegger's books here before, but today I'm suggesting her new graphic book: The Night Bookmobile. I haven't actually read it all the way through yet, but I did get to skim through the lovely, high gloss pages at a local bookstore in Yellow Springs. If you are a book-lover, you will definitely appreciate the nostalgia of reading in this book. You can visit her website here to view more of her works and art. 

 


Posted by at
Labels: ,

2 comments:

  1. Juliana5 October 2010 at 19:13

    Jade,

    I teach second grade, so that will be a very different environment than high school. However, I still conference with my students individually on the stories that they write. We're actually required to do this with the Writer's Workshop model that we use.If you're having them write in class, I would have students read and revise their papers with a partner while you conference with individual students. I don't get to all my students in one day, but if I plan out which students I will meet with that week, I can usually get them all in.

    Glad you're doing well!
    Juliana

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jade10 October 2010 at 06:19

    We worked with the Writer's Workshop model in my undergrad ed classes, but yes, it is a bit different when talking about high schoolers. My concern would be that I would want to discuss students' errors without other students hearing. I think that's what made our conferences so great because they were very engaged and they knew no one else was listening. That's so great that you do conferencing with them at that age level!! How exciting!

    Thanks! and I hope you're doing well : )
    jade

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)