Final Essays Coming Together

I can hardly believe it.

Their final essays are coming together. My numbers have dwindled in class, but all the students who came yesterday (all but one who I sent to the lab) had solid second drafts with them.

Up until the first draft day last week, I wasn't sure how their essays would come into being. Even though we read sample student ethnographies, they did not seem super confident about their writing. I did three brainstorming days with them, where I gave them writing prompts about their topics. I think this is what helped them turn the corner (if I do say so myself).

I kept reminding them to go through their Cultural Autobiographies, Research Proposal, Field Notes, and class journal with a highlighter and mark all the passages that they thought would fit into their final essays. Anything they've written for this clcass can be used in the final essay; they do not have to rewrite everything and start from scratch.

One area of concern is the academic resources. We visited the library in Week 4 or 5, and I have reminded them repeatedly to work on finding sources. I had them do sample resource reviews for two of their sources in week 7 and 8. Yet, even yesterday while talking about second drafts, students were asking me about finding sources. I have a few students who concern me because they either did not do their Resource Review or the kind of BS'd their way through it and the sources they listed were not ones they would really use. I wonder how many students went back into the library and talked to the librarians about the difficulty with their sources. I do wish the library would spend less time in the "training" talking about types of sources and help students navigate the journal databases. I don't think most students go back to the journal databases after our library session.

I'm looking forward to seeing their final products and passing them on to Kate's class to review for symposium finalists. I'm also eager to read the essays from Kristen's class, since we taught the class so differently.

I'm getting quite excited about the symposium and hearing them read and talk about their final essays.

Maureen