entry 6: midpoint progress
Dear Dr. Jones,
Overall, I feel like this class is going well. I feel that this class is a lot more interesting than I had originally anticipated! 😅 I was a bit confused when we first started discussing the Genre Pieces Project along with the Genre Expert Project, but the more we have discussed the two projects the better I have grasped the differences (and similarities). I think I have been more engaged with what we are learning than I had expected to be; because the title of this class includes the term writing, honestly... I assumed I'd be a bit bored. But I am finding what we are learning about the writing process as well as the multitude of instructional strategies there are to choose form to be very interesting!
I personally feel that Kucer and Rhodes' (1986) Card Strategy will benefit my work as a teacher of literacy. I didn't realize how much this strategy could really make someone think deeply about a topic until I was the one actually participating in it. I think this will be a great strategy to help my future students branch off of their original idea by identifying terms and phrases that are related topic. I think the step of this strategy where you rearrange the index cards in a way where terms build off of one another is extremely helpful. This step could become a potential outline for a writing piece, each card being a topic for a new paragraph.
A struggle I am having in this class is identifying my topic for the Genre Pieces Project. I was originally bouncing back and forth between service/therapy dogs and Teach the Truth. After partaking in the Card Strategy in class focusing on service/therapy dogs, I decided I did not want to use this topic. I figured I would stick with Teach the Truth, until talking with Taylor White. She helped me realize I have a deeply personal topic I could discuss (a draft relating to this topic is in my writing folder). I think I would be able to produce some powerful pieces of writing based around this topic, but I am trying to figure out if this is something I am comfortable sharing with my peers. I think it may be beneficial to discuss this with you as I know I should have my topic decided at this point.
Talk to you soon,
Sam Suveges
Sam, I have found your use of highlighting key nouns and verbs intriguing in this first collection. I always found myself re-reading your entries simply to focus on what you thought were the most important words that you had written. As you begin to write this next collection of entries, you may need to rethink how you emphasize key concepts that matter to you in the entry itself as you are now encouraged to include images and hyperlinks when appropriate.
ReplyDeleteAlso, regarding your Genre Pieces Project.... I did offer you some additional suggestions on how to narrow your focus now so that you can get into the intricacies of the general topic of dogs. I look forward to seeing what specific direction you take with the topic and then how you move to developing certain pieces.