Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Re-visioning My Narrative

While I know that most did not like cutting into their drafts this morning, I loved it. I felt a sense of empowerment by doing so. Cutting through it let me know that this is not the final draft and that it has a long way to go before it will get to a copy that I will feel at least somewhat comfortable about. I also liked taking another person's draft and trying to arrange in an order that made sense to me. I know that it was not the order of the original, but it gave me a different perspective on how to possibly view my own draft in that not everything has a set place.

This activity is one that I plan to use with my AP students this fall. Within the first week of school, they will write their first literary analysis essay. I usually do a revision exercise using highlighters, but it always has mixed results. I think this will help them see how their ideas connect.

I agree, though, with what a lot of you were saying in that you wouldn't use it with an assignment like this, but I won't completely throw the idea out the window. I think it's the type of thing that has to be used with caution and I think it's the type of thing that might work better with juniors or seniors rather than freshman or sophomores because of the maturity and growth level.

I will have to see how it works with my AP students before I see how to use it with my Creative Writing or General English students.

3 comments:

  1. How do you think you might go about it? Will you pick partners, let the students pick, or randomly choosing kind of like we did this morning?

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  2. These are great points, Lena. I loved the activity so much that it did not occur to me until later that it would be very difficult for others. This bothered me about myself, because it made me wonder whether or not I think this issue through enough when assigning personal essays to my students.

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  3. I'm not sure how I will implement it yet. I will probably let them pick the first time around.

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