Becoming a Student, or--What Did I Teach Them to Do?

Last year, Hackney and I really thought we were on to something as we taught presentation skills: we watched Steve Jobs videos; we made the students practice with metaphors as visuals; we limited them to just a handful of words on a slide; we sent them up there without notes.

Cut to September 19th. Hackney and I were to present to our peers at Joliet Junior College's "Bridging the Gap" workshop, detailing what college professors needed to know about the Common Core State Standards, and explaining what high school teachers needed to know about college expectations. We decided to focus on writing. We also started to fall back on what was comfortable for a presenter: slides with text that would guide our presentation. Hadn't we warned our students about that?

Anabasis

This is a bit of an experiment. We had the idea last year to start a blog and it never materialized.

But, this school year, Newman and I had our rhetoric students start a blog. They are in the process of learning the genre and are growing as writers because of this assignment.  We are seeing some cool stuff. Students are making design decisions and beginning to see some of the complexities that go along with writing to an authentic audience.