ENGL 3400 Mar 17

This is my response email to Dr. Insenga about teaching class on Wednesday:
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Hi Dr. Insenga,
Class Wednesday went well. At the beginning we took a few minutes to reflect on Charles Shields's talk. They were really full of responses. Some people didn't like him. I asked what they though about his take on using biography with texts. We all agreed that his type of reading literary characters as people in the author's life--that sort of laying biography over literature--wasn't the most useful way to use biography with students, but they came up with strategies that would work better in the classroom and reflected on methods that did and didn't work in their past classes. That was a great discussion, I thought.

Oh my, I think that I forgot to email you the worksheet. I'll send you a copy. Before they got in pairs I reminded them about the combination of textual analysis and pedagogical methods. The workshop itself went well. They were great, engaged and asking questions.

The only complication was Jacquelyne. Your response does help so much. I agree that it seems really unreasonable to discuss teaching the model to students, but she was under the impression that she could have none of that emphasis on students seeing themselves. I think she misunderstood your advice, and she thought my advice contradicted yours. Right when they broke up into pairs she came to ask me questions and we talked for a couple of minutes about it. Then she had no partner. I asked her to get a three-way thing going, but people were already into the reading process and so she was stuck waiting. Of course, then time became an issue, so I told her that I'd talk with her about her paper. One of the things I would've changed would be just telling her to get a partner and ask me questions later.

I'm meeting with her in a few hours. So, I think she should be right on track.

Have a great break!
Jessica

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This is my worksheet for peer review:
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ENGL 3400
March 17
Peer Review: Paper 2

1.Read your partner’s introduction. Read the assignment sheet. Write down which assignment option your partner chose.


2.Are there any opportunities to be more specific in the introduction?


3.Don’t read the rest right now. Using what you know from your partner’s introduction, predict how the rest of the paper will flow. Do this verbally with each other.


4.Read through the rest of the paper. Circle any concepts or terms that one of our secondary sources might support. Mark opportune place to include secondary support. Name which text or chapter if possible.


5.Throughout the paper, underline all sentences that discuss pedagogy. Estimate a ratio between pedagogy discussion and textual analysis.


6.What is your partner’s pedagogical reasoning for using the specific section(s) of To Kill a Mockingbird?


7.Look at your partner’s thesis statement and topic sentences. Circle textual language and pedagogical language.