Sunday, November 1, 2009

I hope I did this right...

So I missed the whole "brushstrokes" lesson on Monday because I wasn't feeling too well, but based on my observations of other students' blogs, and Barbara's demonstration, I think I somewhat get an idea of what is supposed to be happening, so here it goes...
This is taken from a journal I had to write about my experience in a classroom for a teaching class.

Today was the first day of my three week observation. As I walked into class, I noticed that there were only 15 students in first period. Mrs. Smith, was the woman I was observing for, and she told the class that they needed to sit down if they wanted to be marked present. The freshmen who are enrolled in regular English, are more of a challenge, than the last three classes, who are juniors. The two freshmen classes are reading Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare. The first six minutes of the class was spent doing an ‘entry task’ in which the students spend six minutes writing down questions they have on Romeo and Juliet, grades or what happened during their weekend. All was going well with the entry task, until Mrs. Smith asked me to lead a lesson. I stepped up to the board and discussed Romeo and Juliet; luckily, it was a success, and the students seemed as anxious as me, but in that moment, I felt incredibly nervous. Unlike the first group of freshmen, the second class was a little bigger, so they had to do more mundane things, such as working in groups to look at the text. The last three classes are juniors, and they are working on a paper about religion in schools. I get to help with that, so I am excited! Midterms are due in two days, so the mood is a mix of angst and chaos. I don’t know if the students are usually this rowdy, but maybe because I’m new they think they have a right to goof off in front of the teacher.


With corrections:
Today was the first day of my three week observation. As I walked into class, with a natural high of anxiety and excitement [Participle], I noticed that there were only 15 students in first period. Mrs. Smith, a lovable, yet strict teacher [Appositive], was the woman I was observing for, and she told the class that they needed to sit down if they wanted to be marked present. The freshmen, wild and anxious [adjectives out of order], who are enrolled in regular English, are more of a challenge, than the last three classes, who are juniors. The two freshmen classes are reading Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, the noble and classic [adjectives out of order] literary being. The first six minutes of the class was spent doing an ‘entry task’ in which the students spend six minutes writing down questions they have on Romeo and Juliet, grades or what happened during their weekend. All was going well with the entry task, until Mrs. Smith asked me to lead a lesson. With my hands shaking, and nerves racing, [Absolute] I stepped up to the board and discussed Romeo and Juliet; luckily, it was a success, and the students seemed as anxious as me, but in that moment, I felt incredibly nervous. Unlike the first group of freshmen, the second class was a little bigger, so they had to do more mundane things, such as working in groups to look at the text. The last three classes are juniors, and they are working on a paper about religion in schools. I get to help with that, so I am excited! Midterms are due in two days, so the mood is a mix of angst and chaos. I don’t know if the students are usually this rowdy, but maybe because I’m new they think they have a right to goof off in front of the teacher.

6 comments:

  1. P.S. Sorry that the brushstrokes are not in bold..I tried three times and must not be doing something right!

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  2. Hey Kristi!

    Everything looks really good in here. It is kind of hard to tell what's what, but you have really clear signs of adjectives out of order and absolutes - so that's awesome! I didn't see anything wrong at all in this. As for having trouble with putting the brush strokes in old - I had the same issue. You have to look REALLY hard in order to tell the difference.

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  3. Kristi-
    All of these look wonderful. This paragraph has become so much more interesting to read with these changes. Good job using a variety of the different brush strokes, especially since you weren't in class when we went over this :)

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  4. Kristi, I really loved the appositive, "with a natural high of anxiety and excitement." It made your experience more real to the reader, and put us in your shoes. Freshman are "wild and anxious," and using adjectives out of order makes it more of a visual scene in my mind of them being wild and anxious than if you made them "Wild freshman." Good job!

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  5. amazing job, especially considering you were absent the day we really dug into these. Even more amazingly, you got the absolute right--and actually did TWO absolutes in one. Only one incorrectly identified: the second adjective out-of-order. That one is actually an appositive.

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  6. oops... the first one--the participle--is misidentified.

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