Journal 3-3

English 11
Schedule of events: two mini-lessons, group work. The mini-lessons were about the word quote vs. quotation and how to make a word-association web with the quotations. After those two lessons, students returned to their groups from yesterday and continued working on the SOAPSTONE activity.

Observations
Yesterday I noticed a large number of students sitting and staring at their blank pages. Based on this, I decided to substitute my planned mini-lesson for this word-association mini-lesson. Students were hesitant at first, but after we webbed the first of two quotations, students seemed to warm up. By the end of the second quotation, students were (for the most part) actively engaged with the activity. At the conclusion of the lesson, I asked students if they would be likely to revise or significantly rewrite their current paragraphs based on the lesson. Most students raised their hands. Afterwards, students returned to their groups from yesterday and continued analyzing their three pieces of literature. They seemed a lot more focused than yesterday, but I'm afraid they're not digging deeply enough. I have a number of students who, despite repeated reminders, did not want to read the information found at the beginning or the end of each piece.

reflections
Students seemed a lot more receptive today. I saw a lot of lightbulbs come on, and several students seemed relieved and ready to write. Only one student expressed displeasure ("this is absolutely useless and I'm never going to use it"), but that student complains about everything, so I take it with a grain of salt. As for the SOAPSTONE activity, I think students weren't going in depth for two reasons. #1, they're lazy - over and over again I directed individual students to the Background Information and Author Biography, but they really didn't want to read it...unfortunately, most of the info was found there. #2 - they thought they had enough, but they didn't. For these situations I find it best to model successful SOAPSTONES and watch them realize their mistake...and then correct it.