Blog #29: Today's experience

We have finally made it to the end of the semester. I'll take just 1 point instead of 8 as I'm tired and willing to accept whatever I earn at this point. WOO HOO! We have made it!

Blog #28: Reflecting on WC experience

Today we went to the Writing Center to work on the Annotated Bibliography. Some people left early, or tried to. Some people didn’t work on their assignment at all. I found it rather frustrating, but I decided not to stress out over it. Instead, I made them email me the work they completed during class. Obviously students should have been able to produce more than 1 sentence during a 50 minute class. They know that, and I know that. We will not argue over it. We are intelligent beings and we don’t have to argue over these silly things. I’m going to cut this blog short. In essence, this would mean that I would not earn a full 8 points; instead I would earn 1 point for effort.

Blog #27: Reflect on today’s experience

Today we began discussing our new Annotated Bibliography essay assignment. We read an article about cyberbullying in class today. Everyone read a paragraph. Some people had trouble reading some of the words because there were some hard words in the article. Mostly the author was saying that writers should be careful because some people might use their words against them. The author had lots of examples including using cell phone texting, blogging, emailing, etc to hurt someone by a variety of ways including copying a private message and making it public, or pretending to be someone else.
This article was a response to the Megan Meir story where the kid’s mom pretended to be a 13 year old boy and pretended to be interested in going to the prom with Megan. This whole pretend issue came up because Megan had made some other 13 year old girl upset somehow and her mommy decided to get back at Megan for her little girl. Turns out, Megan had some depression issues and when Mommie’s pretend person dumped Megan, Megan committed suicide.
The most interesting issue here is that the state that Megan and Mommie were living in didn’t have any cyberbullying laws so California had to take the case and charge Mommie with 3 charges of fraud. Apparently Mommie built a MySpace page pretending to be someone (the boyfriend) who didn’t exist. As a result, Mommie was found guilty of fraud but not cyberbullying – only because there is no such crime as of yet.
This article was in response to the no cyberbullying law and the attempt of Democrats to create such a law. The author didn’t believe that cyberbullying should be an issue for the government. He believes it should be an issue of morality.
The author argued that there are only 2 ways to control people – either through morality or physical strength. It was his opinion that laws are just efforts of physical strength taking over and controlling people’s behavior.

Blog #26: What does Thanksgiving mean to me?

Thanksgiving is a strange holiday really. Mostly it just symbolizes lots of food and drink with good friends and family. But I guess it really does have other meanings as well. Sometimes when I’m not feeling frustrated with my family (that I’m spending the holiday with), I also think about another meaning of Thanksgiving – the part of giving thanks. I am really thankful for a lot of things.
I’m very thankful for my family. My husband and I have been married for 10 years, and I’ve never been happier. I’m especially thankful for the Internet; I would have never met him if we didn’t have Internet dating. LOL I’m also very thankful for my children. Brittany came with my husband. She is very special, very loving, and very huggable. I love her dearly. Kristen has been mine from the beginning. I am very proud of her. She is incredibly smart, but she is also suffering this Thanksgiving (from a dreadful breakup with her boyfriend of 4 years). Scott is my only boy, and I love him dearly. It is a simple miracle that he is alive, and I am thankful for that gift each day – even the days when he drives me crazy. ;)
Mostly, I think that Thanksgiving should be about giving, not just thanks. I don’t know why it is so hard to give in this day and age. Most of us are barely making it ourselves and we don’t have anything left to give. Some of us are accepting assistance and don’t have anything to offer. Most of us are simply borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and don’t believe that we could continue juggling everything if we were to stop and give to a charity, homeless shelter, or food pantry. I think it’s difficult to get everything into perspective.
I’m not really beating anybody up for not giving. I can’t say that I physically give of myself to charity very often. I do give clothes and other items that we don’t use very often. However, I simply have no time to give. I say that and then I wonder how many other people say that. I bet a lot of people do.

Blog #25: Reflecting on today’s experience

Very few students had a rough draft today. That’s okay because my grade isn’t affected by not coming prepared. However, I am always worried about my students who have not started their assignments. I haven’t figured out if this is an anomaly here in San Antonio related to the student population, or if this is an anomaly related to simply being in a community college. I’ve taught at an open door university and at a community college but have never had this large of a group (on a regular occasion) that simply has not begun his or her paper (in any way). This semester, I have spent more time toward the end of the semester focusing on making sure that students have more time in class to get started on their papers. We are literally spending class time writing papers so that we have something. Even though I’m doing this, I still have at least half of the class that has no rough draft. Go figure.

Students who come with their draft get credit and get feedback. Those who don’t have a draft simply keep working on their draft. They don’t get credit for workshopping, but at least they are getting their work done (sort of).

Blog #24: Wriitng Center Visit

This has been a crazy week for the Writing Center. We’ve been s busy that all appointments were being set for a week in advance. Most of my students got their appointments early so they were ready to visit their tutor before their time ran out. Students are working on their comparison or contrast essays. I’ve been able to determine through reading blogs, grading essays, and looking at tutor notes, that some students were not honest with their tutors. Several students did not come prepared, but just pretended like they were already working on their essays. Some students acted like they had never sat in our class discussions where we talked about the assignment and how it had to be either comparison or contrast. I don’t know why students do that. It seems kind of silly to me since students can only get as much help from their tutors as they want. If you don’t tell your tutor the whole story, you won’t get the best help you might get. If you don’t tell the tutor the assignment, or give the tutor the full details, the tutor can only help you a little bit. It gets frustrating, at first for me (during the grading period) but ultimately for students (as they learn about their grades).
I just wish I could get students to remember that tutors only know what the student tells them. If the student says oh this is a comparison/contrast essay. The tutor believes that and helps the student write a comparison AND contrast essay. The bad part about that is that this assignment was comparison OR contrast, not both. This has to be very frustrating for students who don’t realize they are heading down the wrong avenue as they attempt to complete their assignment.
Another problem at the center is that I accidently deleted a week’s worth of appointments. Our appointment program was going crazy and only saving appointments for about an hour. We knew we were booked, but we couldn’t tell who took the appointment, what that person’s phone number was/is, or if we had too many people set for that appointment period. Part of it was my fault because in my attempt to fix it, I totally MESSED IT UP! YUCK! We had to revert to no appointments and only accepting walk-ins for a week. ARGH!

Blog #23: Reflecting on Today's Experience

Today, we were originally assigned to work on creating a thesis and draft plan of our essays. However, we did a different assignment instead. I found out that today was the last day that students could participate in the Student Government Association’s essay contest with an IPod Shuffle as the prize for the winner. So, I figured the classes would prefer to write on this topic instead.

The topic that the students wrote on was (summarized) “Why did you come to SAC to study?” The results were very interesting. Many students talked about gaining valuable skills on a small campus before they moved to a larger university. Some students talked about how their parents went to SAC and that they were expected to go too. Lots of students referred to their status as first generation students and how they were attending SAC because it was affordable. Most students described SAC as a first choice, not an only choice, and most students referred to SAC as a place they wanted to attend over some of the other community college options that were available.

The reason I came to SAC is because of the opportunities the college offers. I have an opportunity to work with students who are very much like me. I was a first generation student who affected all of my family. After I went to college, my mom went back. Then my husband went to college and got his degree. While I was in school getting my master’s degree, both my daughters and my husband were attending classes at the university too. It is my goal as a teacher to help my students not only make it through my class but to successfully make it to earn their college degree(s).