Of course I've had many aha moments, but I'm going to attribute this one to Alyssa. Hopefully she doesn't mind me talking about her. She was concerned that they way she wanted to organize her essay was different than I suggested...and you know what...this is completely okay. I encourage creativity..and remember, I'm just giving you mechanical formulas here. And we all know, mechanical is a word with negative connotations, right? Feel free to be creative, kudos to Josh and Taylor for already thinking outside the box in terms of essay organization and pre-writing! Thanks to Alyssa for making me realize that I need to frequently remind you that I'm just teaching you a basic formula...a place to start...now it's up to you to fill it all in...and how you do the filling in is completely up to you.
Just remember to:
- completely answer the what
- remember to name drop when you answer the how
- have a game plan to look back on as you're writing your essay
- write a solid thesis (that answers the what and how)
- use tons and tons and tons and tons of supporting details (exact quotes are great) to back up every assertion you are making
What am I stressed about...lingering thoughts and questions...
- Was it a good idea to teach those reading comprehension strategies? More importantly, will you actually use them when trying to "think" about a text?
- Do you have a sense of what a instant-replay moment is in a passage/poem?
- Are you now more or less confident about passing the test?
- What was I unclear about? Where was I confusing? What did I teach well?
2 comments:
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I have to say my "AHA" was when Mrs. Matysak broke down denotation and connotation with crayons and a child's book. This made understanding the words easier to relate to.
I am still concerned about finding the deeper meaning to a short story. I am always afraid I am missing the point or putting too much thought into it. When Mrs. Matysak breaks the story down together in class, her "mad lib" technique really helps and makes me feel like I understand it. But when I am doing it on my own, I don't have those empty spaces to fill with words, I simply don't have anything. So I have to be my own "Mad lib" and it's hard.
Janel
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