Day 112 - They need more practice.

Lots of opportunity for growth today, me and the students.  Lots of evidence of growth also.  In US we are getting prepared for our Great Depression unit essay and students collected evidence today about whether the New Deal was a success or a failure. Its actually a SHEG (Stanford History Education Group) structured academic conversation assignment but then our department extends it to an essay using the 7 documents from that and students knowledge from the unit etc. Sourcing and evidence analysis is where students need to grow.  They stop at the words of the evidence. We talk about motive of the speaker, credibility of the author, and contextualization over and over but they are not doing this on their own enough yet. They need more practice.  This assignment helps them practice that thinking and my hope is their writing will grow in the reasoning/analysis category.  Historically my students fall flat in reasoning and analysis of evidence, I have to try not create too much anxiety about the essays they haven't even written yet.  One day at a time- they still have to create thesis, outline and choose evidence.

On a growth note, a few of my more challenging students who missed class today came to my room at 5 pm to find out what they missed and excitedly talked about getting together Friday night to go over the documents and collect evidence.  Now that would be hilarious to be a fly on the wall for.....

A-ha:  The Dab is a new dance move. New to me. That is why in every photo kids throw their arms up to the side.

Reminder:  Teaching reading and writing takes time.