Yesterday (Monday, March 28) and today will be used to allow students the time to create Large Project 1 drafts and upload them to the Workshop area for feedback from classmates and teacher. This Workshop area is in the Large Project 1 tab of Blackboard. On Wednesday, I'll introduce the next Large Project and Group. We will not do journal entries Monday or Tuesday of this week. Group 1 and Large Project 1 are due Thursday night. We do not have class Thursday.

Today, March 28, saw work time for the Groups and Large Project 2. An introduction of Group 4 will occur Wednesday. A draft of LP2 is due Monday (April 4) along with Group 3. That Monday will be used for online Peer Workshop (LP2); next Wednesday (April 6), classes are canceled for Advising.  We did not conduct journal entries this week (March 28/30). 

A draft of this week... Monday, March 21: Journal prompt (below), recap of Large Project 1, and then work time for Group Zero/LP1. What are the rules to writing that you’ve been taught? Take time to think about why those rules exist. Are they legit rules? Are they myths? Are they just ways to get people to write “one correct way” that doesn’t really exist? Tuesday, March 22: Journal prompt(?) and then more work time for Group Zero and Large Project 1. Wednesday, March 23: Introduce Group 1. The journal prompt is listed below: When you read that “problems are normal” when it comes to writing, what is your response? What problems do you see with Large Project 1? Thursday, March 24: Optional in-class work day. We won't have a journal prompt. *I mentioned the TV series, Yellowstone, in class today, so that's why I've posted a Bison. I think this same photo is framed in my house.

Over Spring Break, I decided to add an alternative project for Large Project 2; there are details on this alternative project (called The Fake Company Project) in Blackboard/NDSCS Online. I covered that alternative project today, as well as Group 3 (using Category C in Chapter 3.3), and we started class with the following journal prompt questions: Do you learn more when you have intrinsic reasons versus extrinsic ones? Give an example… What does it mean to you to know you may assess yourself and your learning in this course? When have you written effectively for a situation, and not a teacher? Based on the schedule, we'll be using Wednesday as a work day for all sorts of things: Group 2 (due tonight), Group 3, and Large Project 2 (in case students decide to complete the alternative project because it does allow groups of 3 classmates or less)... due to Wednesday being a work day, we won't have a journal prompt; however, I will be bringing visual resume examples to class for stu...

The tweet below says:  “There is no such thing as a ‘good student.’ There is also no such thing as a bad student. There are students who have more or fewer barriers to their learning; and there are students whose contributions and assets have been valued more or less” — @hollyjhassel #4C22  

On Tuesday (March 8), we had the following prompts: Is spelling “everything correctly” a sign of intelligence? How do you know? What do students mean when they say: “I can’t write well”? What do you think you should learn in a first year (of college) writing course? We discussed the prompts from Monday and Tuesday before moving onto using the rest of class time to work on Group Zero exercises. Today, Thursday (March 10), we have this list to work with: Journal Entry - When have you failed at something? Did you learn from it? How do you feel about failing at writing in order to improve? Do you think it takes 10,000 hours to master something Introduce Large Project 1: The Project Playlist. Watch Sir Ken Robinson’s Video (19min). Work Time for Group Zero? Talk about the feedback exercise?

Today, a new class starts for me at 1pm - it's an accelerated second 8-weeks English 110. It was originally set aside for Caterpillar/Komatsu students, yet I see that other majors have popped into it. Variety is the spice of life?! This week's layout for this particular class is as follows: Monday, March 7: Introduce the course, introduce Group 0's activities, fill out first day survey & consent form in class. I'll hand out paper copies of the Beginning of the Semester reflection as well as paper copies of Group 0 Exercises. We'll end with our first writing prompt. Tuesday, March 8: Second journal prompt, review first day survey & consent form data, work on Group 0 Exercises in class,  and end by watching a Sir Ken Robinson video. Wednesday: No class - instructor is attending an online conference. Thursday, March 10: Third journal prompt and more Group 0 Exercises?

It's been a weird week and a half of weather, illness, and online conferencing, but here we are... back together face-to-face for at least one day before Spring Break. Today's (Monday, March 7) class will consist of a check-in to see where everyone is at and to see how I can help with the activities, projects, and the rest of the semester. From there, we'll move into working on Large Project 2 by searching the web in various ways, as well as talk about how we can conduct our own primary research (lots of tips in our Research chapter of the textbook, by the way, and we'll be using those nuggets in class!). In the Super Brief Overview schedule, it states that we'll use this week to wrap up Group 2 and introduce Group 3; I'll postpone the introduction until after Spring Break since most students are slightly behind in completing Group 2. {We do not have class Wednesday, as I have another online conference*. Please reach out via email or text with any questions or c...

Classes were canceled yesterday (February 28): If you were in class last Wednesday (the 3pm wasn't canceled due to weather), you heard my voice, and how it sounded like I had swallowed a frog. Well, I felt okay the rest of the week, but then I coughed most of the weekend and was advised to take a PCR test to check - again - for covid. So, I'm waiting on those results. Classes tomorrow (Wednesday, March 2) were originally canceled so I could attend an online conference anyhow, so please reach out via email or text with questions or concerns.