My Critical Analysis

I showed my students the second draft of my critical analysis over Dave Barry's "Guys vs. Men." Before I gave them my paper we talked about the story and I got a basic sense of what they thought of it. I also asked them if they had any critiques over the piece, and most of them didn't. When I showed them my piece I told them it wasn't finished because I wanted to show them my writing and thought process. I encouraged them to make critiques as well as to share anything they thought was done well.
Most of the errors they caught were typos. However, my first class also caught onto a tangent that I had purposely left in. I introduced the error myself in the second class. In both classes we talked about how a paper needs focus and if I am going to introduce a completely new point I need to separate it into its own paragraph, exapand it, and include it in my thesis and conclusion.
All in all, the students were fairly leary to judge my paper. But, I think they were able to see to some degree that it wasn't perfect and that even teachers and "good writers" need to write multiple drafts in order to come up with the strongest final product.

Point of View

For the very first assignment this semester in 110 I assigned my students an activity similar to what Dr. Weaver had us do in 620. I asked my students to make a collague from magazine clippings and words/visuals/drawings from anywhere describing their view of writing. What does it mean to them? I told them the inferences could be positive or negative, depending on their expierences. I wanted their own point of view of how they see themselves as writers. Then I had the students get into small groups and explain their ideas to their peers. Then everyone put their collague on the floor in a big clump where everyone could walk around and view all of them. I wanted the students to see that we had many different experiences and places of expertise relating to writing that we were bringing together into one classroom.
I then asked students to enlarge their view of themselves as writers. I asked them to consider their experience with journalling, facebook, my-space,email, etc. At the end of the excercise my goal was to give them an enlarged point of view regarding writing and the ways in which people view it and partake in it.

Absent

Listening to the complaints of my fellow GAs in Monday morning class I am at least relieved to find that I am not alone in my frustrations of the absent students. Yet, I still am on my own as to how I choose to deal with my students. What I want to tell them is that my students last semester struggled most, according to what they wrote on their own evaluation, with the textual analysis. Thus, I am trying to do a better job this semester preparing my students by giving more thorough examples and going over texts in great detail in class. However, if many students are absent, then they do not gain from my well-planned lectures and explanations. Also, when the classroom is half empty the students who did come to class appear to feel that class in going to be boring or a waste of their time since so many of their peers decided to not bother showing up.
I had a student email me explaining that she was not in class because she had the flu, and she would not be at the next class for the same reason. She then went on to ask me if we could meet and if I could catch her up on what she missed. I am glad that she is concerned about what she missed, however this student has missed class before without any explanation. Also, I do not have the time nor feel it is my responsibility to recreate two fifty minute lectures to one of my students during my office hours!
Lastly, I want to make it clear to my students that when they are in class and I can see they are working hard and trying I am more likely to reward their hard work through their paper grade. However, if they are frequently absent and do not seem to be exerting much effort, there will be no way for me to be able to reward hard work.
However, all of my ramblings are things I want to say to a full classroom of students. It will do no good to preach to the choir: the faithful bunch I know will be in class today. I can only hope the ones who need to hear the message will be present to hear it.