Carnegie Notes from Sept. 26^th through Sept. 30^rd

This week in class we finished up work on finding subjects, verbs, and prepositional phrases and then we began work on fragments. I used the “Missing Subject Fragment,” “Dependent Word Fragments,” and “Hidden Dependent Word Fragments” slides (though I only got started on the last one).

Overall, things went well, though the book use/lecture slide balance remains a struggle. Students had some difficulty with the book work since the lecture slides and many of the quizzes are a bit easier than the paragraph-editing exercises in the book. For instance, in the book, there are paragraphs (roughly 300 words, about the size of their writing assignments) that require them to correct the fragments (and there may be two or three sentences in a row that aren’t fragments and then three or four sentences, all of which can be combined). While I believe the quizzes we wrote this summer are immensely beneficial in bridging the leaps between difficulty levels and creating a seamless flow from the easiest fragment exercises to the more challenging fragments to find, I think that the students need to spend MORE time on the longer editing assignments since these are the ones most representative of the papers they have to proofread. So the question in my mind for my students, since while they ARE managing to complete most of the quizzes, I hesitate to give them even more, how do I make room for more book work (or for more quizzes, yet to be written, that are long paragraphs)?

I’ve considered the possibility of reducing the number of grammar issues covered in English 189 (though as an individual, I don’t have the right to alter the course requirements). Perhaps the entire semester should be spent on finding subjects and verbs and correcting fragments, run-ons, comma splices, and spelling—nothing more. However, I do see many verb errors (especially past participle verb errors), and I hate to eliminate that; neither do I want to eliminate commas from the curriculum. At the same time, I’ve considered leaving things just as they are. Despite their having some difficulty with long paragraphs in the book, generally speaking, in all my classes (189 and 191 levels), the run-ons and comma splices are outweighing the fragment errors by two to one (I’m ballparking it). So perhaps I should figure out how to redistribute their time on fragments rather than extend their time on that topic.

They wrote their second papers Friday (their third will be next week, October 14^th). They get separate grades for organization, support, and grammar: on grammar, nine earned the equivalent of an A or B, four had C’s, and seven failed that portion of the paper (three didn’t show up). Five still have serious problems with organization and support. I can’t really tell how that compares with second papers I’ve received in classes in which I didn’t use PowerPoint slides and required fewer WebCT exercises. I plan to go through old grade books and compare the upcoming midterms, once they’ve done them, with midterms from a class in which I used less technology.

Another technology-related issue for me remains time management. I’m still spending a lot of time tweaking or creating lecture slides and fixing minor WebCT problems, but I suspect I won’t have to spend as much time on this down the line in future semesters. However, I wouldn’t continue to spend time on it if I weren’t seeing such positive student attitudes toward the learning. The students continue to be fully engaged by the slides and at least 70% of them are managing to keep up with the online quizzes. (I do believe the power of “video” is quite compelling—I had one student tell me that she is highly visual, and despite studying subjects, verbs, and fragments in numerous ESL classes, she never understood ANY of it. Now, she says, she’s just starting to get it. Unfortunately, her writing is quite weak, and I’m not sure she’ll be able to improve enough, even by the end of the semester, but her feedback on the difference that it’s made to see the rules large and in color on the screen assures me that the technology is making it easier for the students to learn.

I did move the weekly online vocabulary quiz to the final 10 minutes of class, and it feels as if less time is wasted. Those who want to take a long time can stay (the next class starts 15 minutes after my class ends, so we have that luxury), and those who studied (or didn’t study and don’t want to guess) can fly through it and be out by the time class ends.