Class Notes/ English 189

Angela Morales

Friday

March 4, 2004

Class Overview:

Today students composed their first paragraphs in the writing lab. Students brought their completed outlines to class and then Chris used PowerPoint to lead them step by step through the process. He began by showing a slide containing the “main idea” (music is important in my life) and demonstrated how students can be more creative with their topic sentences. After that, he continued writing the paragraph via Powerpoint as the students followed along. Through the slides, he was able to highlight necessary transitions as well. By the end of the hour, most students had nearly a full page of writing.

Commendations:

The slides really helped to emphasize that writing is a process. It is especially useful to use the animated feature of the slides which allows a new piece of text to slide onto the screen. Students had a clear and well-organized model that they could follow. The students that I observed appeared interested and eager for more.

Recommendations:

The student sitting next to me asked whether paragraphs always had to have three reasons to support their topic sentences. I’m wondering how much flexibility students have in working with this model. For the quicker students, would it be helpful (or confusing) to show varied models of paragraphs or to explain that this formula is good for learning for beginning writers, and that later, the length and the structure may vary a bit. Of course, in doing so, one risks undermining the simplicity and clarity that the struggling students require.

Now going into the fourth week, I have nothing but praise for the way Chris uses the slides and for the usefulness of WebCT. In my own teaching, I would try use the book more frequently in class, however. Of course, the issue, as always, is time. It might be useful to have students read a paragraph model together or aloud, using their books either before or after the PowerPoint lessons. This might continue to reinforce the idea that textbook should be as accessible as the computerized material.