September 13 and 15, 2006 Observation

September 13, 2006

Today’s class started off with interactive quizzes online dealing with there/their/they’re and its/it’s. The students used the wrong form in their proposals and my mentor wanted to solve the issue. The students were not thrilled with the quizzes but I think it made the students aware of mistakes that they were making. The students were doing peer review on their outlines and I think the directions confused the students. The students were supposed to circle the topic and underline the support. Students were just circling and underline for each sentence but did not seem to find the value in what they were doing. I liked how for the peer review draft on Friday the students were suppose to write 6 of their own questions for their peer to answer.

September 15, 2006

Today was peer review day for draft 1. Most of the students had written six of their own questions but for the few that did not, questions were provided. In the first class I helped a student do a peer review with a weak paper. I am also doing a peer review for a student over the weekend. In the second class I helped a student without a draft. He had no clue where to begin. We worked together to develop an outline and than I helped him start his paper.  I noticed the students are starting to ask me more questions when my mentor is talking to other students and some of the ESL students ask me questions while she is lecturing so they can keep up with the native speakers.