My LESSON PLANs
Narrowing your topic
While I lead other smaller discussions and participated in other activities throughout the semester, this is one of the two lessons that I developed on my own from the ground up. I taught this lesson in the class period with my lesson on developing style through writing tips and tricks (detailed below). I had noticed that a lot of students had broad topics, didn’t know where to go with their topics, or how to narrow them. It was getting late in the semester and I wanted to be able to talk to everyone about this issue, not just individuals. I did this by creating a PowerPoint to share my experiences and advice, as well as useful tips I found on the internet. Since I only had ten minutes for this lesson, in the future it would be better to have more time to go through the PowerPoint, have a discussion, and do an activity. Still, I believe that this PowerPoint helped students, especially since I was able to send the presentation out as an announcement so students could refer to it in the future. The activity I recommend using is filling in a sentence: I am researching [topic] because I want to find out [issue/question] in order to [application-so what?/project/audience/purpose].
Overall, I received positive feedback from the professor and some of the students. This lesson was also useful because I could refer students to it later when they were still struggling with these issues–such as the specific activity I described above. I found it useful to ground it in my own experiences as a writer and show them how my research topics have developed over time. Additionally, in the future I would recommend doing this lesson earlier in the semester. This would give students the opportunity to think critically about their topic, and would help them approach writing as a process. While there are tips in this presentation that specifically relate to argumentative papers (which is not until the end of the semester in ENGL101), students will be able to think critically about if their topic is strong and narrow enough to pursue.
Overall, I received positive feedback from the professor and some of the students. This lesson was also useful because I could refer students to it later when they were still struggling with these issues–such as the specific activity I described above. I found it useful to ground it in my own experiences as a writer and show them how my research topics have developed over time. Additionally, in the future I would recommend doing this lesson earlier in the semester. This would give students the opportunity to think critically about their topic, and would help them approach writing as a process. While there are tips in this presentation that specifically relate to argumentative papers (which is not until the end of the semester in ENGL101), students will be able to think critically about if their topic is strong and narrow enough to pursue.
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Learning artifact: writing skills workshop
My learning artifact this semester was an adaption of the lesson plan, Writing Skills Workshop, that I developed last semester. This semester, I was able to work out some of the kinks to make it run more smoothly. Because I had to finish in 40 minutes, it was still a little rushed, but it went much better overall. There were still some groups that sped through the activities and did not do the “if you finished early” section of the activity, so I still have not found a way around that. However, just as with last semester, the instructor gave me good feedback on this lesson and I was glad that I could do it again this spring. I was also able to see clearly the differences between this semester and last semester. I was more confident in the material and delivered the PowerPoint presentation more clearly, succinctly, and effectively. While I did have to clarify certain points and concepts (such as passive voice) during the activity, I felt that I was able to go over the concepts with enough detail to make sense, but without wasting too much time on depth they did not need.
While walking around the room and talking with students, it seemed that many of my goals were met. One of my main missions was to get students to start thinking about developing their style and the deliberate choices they make when writing. Some disagreed with each other, and some claimed that some of my sample sentences did not need to be changed. I was glad that this happened, because it was exactly my point in the lesson. Additionally, I had a few minutes at the end where I wrapped up the activity and told them that this was my goal: the point was to have a discussion and to justify your choices. To adapt this to a different classroom, I think it is extremely important to maintain this goal and the lesson’s value. I am a firm believer that good academic writing has an individual voice, and while this may be confusing (it was for me as a college freshman), it is important to help students develop their own voice.
While walking around the room and talking with students, it seemed that many of my goals were met. One of my main missions was to get students to start thinking about developing their style and the deliberate choices they make when writing. Some disagreed with each other, and some claimed that some of my sample sentences did not need to be changed. I was glad that this happened, because it was exactly my point in the lesson. Additionally, I had a few minutes at the end where I wrapped up the activity and told them that this was my goal: the point was to have a discussion and to justify your choices. To adapt this to a different classroom, I think it is extremely important to maintain this goal and the lesson’s value. I am a firm believer that good academic writing has an individual voice, and while this may be confusing (it was for me as a college freshman), it is important to help students develop their own voice.
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Responding to lesson plans
As a returning UTA, one of my assignments this semester was participating in a peer review of the first semester UTA lesson plans. In general, I felt much more comfortable with both creating and reviewing lesson plans this semester. Still, being able to look at a lesson plan with some sort of distance made it easier to review. Additionally, it also was easier because I have experience writing lesson plans and actually carrying them out. Both of the lesson plans that I reviewed lacked enough detail for the assignment. At the same time, however, it might have been enough for their own personal preferences. But, if someone else were looking at the plan and trying to figure out how to do the same lesson, they would have a hard time doing so. This is why peer review is important–just from the standpoint that other people’s eyes on writing helps.
Specifically related to being a UTA, I found that I was much more confident in my reviews of the lesson plans. When I was reviewing the lesson plans, I realized that I had offered similar advice to what I had gotten last semester. For me, just the experience of having seen, written, and executed more lesson plans really impacted how I was able to give feedback on first semester UTA lesson plans. For me last semester, what helped me the most with feedback from experienced TA's was thinking about the lesson plan components (such as the assessment) in different ways than I had initially considered them. One of my goals as a reviewer was to give this same type of constructive feedback that I had gotten last semester. I did this with the first lesson I reviewed: the person had focused their assessment in immediate results, but results can also be seen over a longer period of time. Overall, doing peer review as an experienced TA was a lot more comfortable and easier than last semester, and helped me think critically about my own experiences last semester and how I have developed as a TA and reviewer.
Specifically related to being a UTA, I found that I was much more confident in my reviews of the lesson plans. When I was reviewing the lesson plans, I realized that I had offered similar advice to what I had gotten last semester. For me, just the experience of having seen, written, and executed more lesson plans really impacted how I was able to give feedback on first semester UTA lesson plans. For me last semester, what helped me the most with feedback from experienced TA's was thinking about the lesson plan components (such as the assessment) in different ways than I had initially considered them. One of my goals as a reviewer was to give this same type of constructive feedback that I had gotten last semester. I did this with the first lesson I reviewed: the person had focused their assessment in immediate results, but results can also be seen over a longer period of time. Overall, doing peer review as an experienced TA was a lot more comfortable and easier than last semester, and helped me think critically about my own experiences last semester and how I have developed as a TA and reviewer.