​Katherine Chandler Callicutt

            I feel like our presentation went well.  I appreciated having a partner who I could trust to do her portion of the project, and I ultimately feel like the work for the project was split up very fairly.  We did a lot of planning for the project, and it is always satisfying when that hard work pays off with a project that you feel good about. 

           

            There are a few key things that the peer feedback sheets brought to light.  Many of my peers brought up that the passage that we had them read should have been shorter.  I think this is a relevant point especially considering the time that we had to do the project.  Another point that was brought up was that the passage was poorly written.  Personally, I thought the passage was a good example.  However, I must make sure that whatever I am showing to my students is a proper and accurate example.  With that being said, I will be sure to make certain that whatever I present to my students is something that will help them excel in their writing.  Another concern mentioned by our peers was that a free write would have been beneficial to students.  We completely agree with this, and we had planned to have students free write at some point in the process.  We decided to have the free write follow the partner interview as we wanted students to start thinking about their topic in pairs and then move on to a more concentrated writing activity.  We did not have an opportunity to actually model the free write in class, though. Finally, one person mentioned that we should have been circulating throughout the room whenever students were doing an activity.  I definitely think this is a legitimate concern, and I definitely realize how important this is.

 

As always, there are some things that could have gone better.  I think that we could have made our “review” section a little bit easier to understand.  I feel as if we geared that part of the project toward a college reading level when in reality we would be teaching 7th graders.  I definitely think that is the hardest part of being a student while learning to be a teacher.  I constantly have to check myself to ensure that I am explaining things in a manner that my students could understand rather than just in a way that I could understand.  After reading the comments of my peers, I would probably find a different article if I were to teach this again.  This seemed to be a common concern.  I would find an article that was shorter.  Another aspect that I would change would be that I would circulate whenever students were doing the partner activity.  This helps make sure students are on task, and it helps ensure that we are not giving students an unrealistic amount of time for the activity.