On April 9, as a “comment,” post your collaboration cover letter. Make your response a thoughtful two, to four, paragraphs. Make in-depth comments (of at least three sentences) on at least three other entries from this class before April 11.
In the cover note section, in your “collaboration” page, note whose responses you replied to for Cover Letters blogging. If you have not done so, also note whose responses you replied to for your film replies.
anne f walker 
Collaboration
The section “collaboration” of my word press contains the presentation slides that I have done for the book chapters. Also the section contains the reflections and summarizes of short film that I have seen in media day during this semester. In my opinion the media day assignments were the most interesting task to accomplish.
The presentation that our group has done to this class went very well. My group members were Arthuro, Kendra and myself. In order to do well on our presentation we met several times outside of class and agreed on how we were going to present. In this class my group had to do the presentation on book named “The Wicked” by Gregory Maguire. So we tried to do our best and no to repeat the steps and activities that any other groups have done. While I was giving a presentation I tried to keep the introduction short and strong. Also our group kept the text to a minimum; because if we didn’t, students would tend to read it than to listen us. Finally I think we have succeeded on giving presentations because for the first meeting everyone came with their own ideas and we shared our individual thoughts on certain chapters of the book. Finally, we wrapped everything up, and our group came up with one jeopardy presentation and one power point presentation.
For media day the class was required to watch “In Cold Blood” short film by Truman Capote, “The Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Truman Capote.. This semester in Writing 010 class, I felt really comfortable and confident and I did enjoy doing all those assignments that we were assigned to do so.
In addition students in our class prepare for learning in many ways. Especially important is goal setting, a critical process that helps guide many other before-, during-, and after-learning activities. Although instructor still set goals for us, she often provided choices. When class collaborates, we talk about our goals. I found out that is so helpful when class divides by small group and discuss our goals and share ideas how to make our assignments easy.
I agree the media assignments were the easiest to accomplish, watching the films after reading the books was interesting, and it allowed us to analyize the changes made in the translations. I noticed that as you said, your introductions in the presntations were “short and strong.” This was good because it introduced the topic in a concise manner that engaged the audience, it made the presentation even more enjoyable. I too think collaberation when the class divides into groups is great, we share our ideas and are introduced to the ideas of our peers which we otherwise might have overlooked.
I think is great that you tried to do something than from others groups because this made it more original in a sense. There is more interaction happening in the class the way you structured your presentationa and it is great because that is the whole point. And I do agree with you that it is more helpful when we divide into small groups because this way we do not have so many different opinions or repetitive ones.
To have done something different than other presenters of the work is something to be proud of. I agree as well that doing the assignments given that I grew to be confident and comfortable as well. I concur with the fact that the professor did provide us with a variety of choices.
Your first paragraph is good because you introduced what is included in your collaboration section. In addition something I noticed is that books could be italicized not in quotation marks. In addition I agree I enjoyed the media days as well because I was able to gain a different perspective of the text through the film.
I liked that the fact that our presentations were straight to the point. They kept the rest of the students awake because it wasn’t wordy at all. All the presentations were strong and they provided much needed information.
The group editing with the essays helped too. They caught grammar mistakes that I wasn’t able to find, and the way we shared our ideas was very helpful.
April 9, 2012
Dear Professor Anne Walker,
As this semester is coming to end this course has been a great help to be when it comes to grammatical and the participating in the class has given me a better understanding on the reading material that has been given to us. Being a big participator in the discussions in the class I have come to get the questions that I have had on the material that some of the things are pretty simple it is just that I seem to try to get more in depth understanding of the symbols. I have seen that the rubric has been of help for me and the paramedic method has made my essays and certain sentences clear and complete without the need of more explanations.
It has also helped me knowing that I have the ability to get the feedback of my fellow peers that can help me on the essays that I have written. It has also helped me with the ability to find different mistakes that are hard to notice and to make the paper more precise for the reader to understand. I get the ability to support my peers by participating in their Group Led Discussions this allows to show that I am involved in the class and that helps them to get the class more involved in the discussion. I have learned that with the fact that there are certain individuals becoming over involved many of the groups have decided to use games that help them to get the whole class more involve that has helped to a big extent.
The differences in the class and have shown me that there is more to the material than I thought. As we read the different novels that have been assigned to us I have noticed that different individuals have found them more close to heart. As we went through the Group Lead Discussions that were about the Chicano Revolution I could see that many could compare the events in the book talking about who their families have gone through similar events. It also made me realize how my family can compare to them ad in conclusion I was able to learn more about my peers. This class has given me the ability to be open to changes and to be willing to learn about those who are around me.
Sincerely,
Lyubov Loza
Class discussions and participation have given me a better understanding of the reading material as well, especially when people such as yourself would point something out, allowing me to see it from a whole different perspective. As you said group led discussions allow us as individuals to become more involved and get the class invloved, I thought thay were really helpful, and I always wanted to participate because if I were giving the GLD I’d want peopel to participate. I think one of the most significant things that the class did was what you said in your last sentence, the class taught us to have open minds and be respectful of the opinions of others.
I concur with the fact about how I am able to get feedback from my peers that can help me on my essay as well. Also, of how that my mistakes were a chance to better guide and critique my writing abilities. Yes, there were far more materials than given that we would have to do. Not just reading, but explicating the reading and to have a better concept of the materials given to us.
I agree that I learn from those around me as well. In addition I agree that some persons relate to some novels more than others. Also the rubric helps my essay as well.
I definitely do think your participation has helped many students. Due to the lack of various participation, I do like the new activities groups have done to encourage others as well. I do agree about the discussion of the Chicano Revolution. I felt like that was one of the best discussion and interaction the class had. Many of us were able to relate to the book.
All the collaboration we have done in this class has helped me immensely. We have had several collaboration things in class that have been fun and helpful. I usually prefer working with others to hear their perspectives and input what I have to say and see where we go. Working with others is always better because we get a clearer view and it helps us understand things that otherwise we would have been lost in. I have participated in class discussions but not as much as I would have like to. The times that I did, I found that I enjoyed helping others with finding answers and giving them my point of view. This is just one of the many ways we have worked together. Another we have worked together is through peer review. This allows us to receive feedback from our peers and hear what they had to say about our writing. It is a different perspective than from the usual that we get which is from the professor. The professor feedback is much more helpful but our peer’s response gives me more insight. Despite our cultural and linguistic differences, peer editing went great.
In this section I will include various works, one of them being the group led discussion PowerPoint. I may include both but if otherwise I will include the one we did on Revolt of the Cockroach People because this was more interactive. The other one we did was as well but that way we formatted this one into a jeopardy game seem to get more response. Another piece that I will include in this section is the blogging on all of the films that we have watched this semester. I think that these helped us by developing our ideas even further and allowed us to incorporate it into out essays. Overall, collaborations in this class has helped tremendously.
The collaberation we did was really helpful to me too, people would point things out in class like peer editing, and I wouldn’t have thought of it otherwise. Also you were really good with finding answers to jeopardy questions and a lot of the time you would know the answer but someone else would say it first, so I understand exactly what you mean. Your feedback on my essays was really good, it helped me improve them a lot. The films did help us develop our ideas further and we might have noticed something in the film that went unnoticed in the book since books don’t have the visual aspect films do.
The collaboration was fun and helpful. I agree working with others allows us to see others perspective on our work. Peer feedback is never the same as the professor, they have the correct way to revise our work, where our peer are making it sound better so it makes sense to them.
I agree, that the collaboration done in class have helped greatly. I also concur about the part that having collaboration gives us a way to hear our peers advice, critiques, and help with our essays. To give us man different perspectives in order for our products of our essays to turn out clear, and satisfying.
I agree that several collaboration things in class that have been fun and helpful for example I really enjoyed the jeopardy and charades. In addition I prefer Professors feedback as well but peers feedback is also very helpful. I also like working with others to hear their perspectives because it helps me expand my thinking.
I definitely agree in that the collaborative work done in the class gives us a clearer understanding of assigned texts. I personally would have been unable to effectively understand some of the assigned texts without the help of my peers. Listening and understanding another’s point of view really assists in the development of your own ideas.
Collaboration:
Being a student in college we have to be able to be social towards others because what you might not know someone else might. Collaboration is being able to work together and come up with something as one that is great. Feedback, opinions, concerns all go hand in hand with collaboration. The whole semester was based on collaborating with others and sharing what was created. Working in groups is always hard to do because you never know if everyone is going to do their part or if your part is even correct. My group was effective we met and worked together as a team, I enjoyed working in groups minus the talking in front of the class. I tried to avoid talking as much as I could.
Most work done during class was group led discussions; students would create jeopardy, make a PowerPoint, or charades. Every class was something different, but made the class work together to answer questions; it made us have to read to understand what was going on. When it came to answering question and participating I did and did not participate. I did the charades because you really could not get out of it, for the jeopardy and questions I would just help my peers answer so I would not have to talk out loud. For all the assignments I did everything that was assigned.
In our groups everyone became friends, I could see throughout the classroom the people who were in groups always sat together. My group definitely became friends, we worked well as a group we always had different ideas but knew how to compromise. I would make the PowerPoint and the others would come up with their own questions. The proof will be in a link under this Cover letter. Along with the PowerPoint you will see my comments on my fellow peer’s blogs about The Wizard of Oz movie, Capote the movie, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Collaboration letters. Blogging was different from anything we had done in class before after awhile it became easy. What we had to was watch a movie and write what happened in it and how did it relate to a book we read. I will include my responses. Peer responses on essays were fun to because it allowed other people to give me feedback that would help my essay. I was able to read essays and get ideas of what I could add to mine without coping. I enjoyed all the types of collaborating my favorite was the group led discussions on The Wizard of Oz and Wicked. Not knowing what kind of presentation we were going to get or what was going to relate or not relate to the book and how everyone is going to respond in their own blog and others.
Working together is difficult but if you get over this it is beneficial to us because we get to hear other opinions and give out our own. Speaking in front of the class may be a little nerve wrecking or just not what you want to do but if we find fun ways to interact with the class, in the end you will forget you are even presenting. And it is great that you help your peers with the answers if you do not want to talk.
Collaboration is an essentially important when you are a college student and no longer a child under your parent because we are all now adults. Yes definitely, being in a group is scary because there is always that uncertainty that not everyone in the group will contributed fully, but the best thing to do is to motivate them and encourage them and even become friends with them to enjoy each others company like what you had mentioned about you and your group. It is also good to know that your group were such a good collaboration with each other because i think that is one of the most important part of being in a collaboration, which is to find a common goal.
I understand that participating isn’t always fun. However, collaborating with one another is important. Peer editing is similar to presenting and being the audience. In order to get a great peer review, the other must do their part. I am glad you found the benefits of working with others and hope you will always be willing to.
My experience with collaborative work in this class was a positive one. In the collaboration section, I included slides from my Group led discussion presentations, and peer editing I provided. My group which included Olga, Melinda, and I worked very well together so it was quite easy to agree on what we would discuss. I found peer editing to be very helpful, sometimes other people would think of improvements I could make on my essays that I had previously overlooked. Collaboration of the audience members during GLDs was very helpful and it made the whole process more interesting, such as when we would discuss the questions together. I think I participated in class discussions very well; I provided valuable analysis and answered questions while I respected the opinions of my peers. I found it interesting to hear the analysis which other students provided, and it also allowed me to view things from a different perspective.
When we had hybrid days in which we would blog about a film and comment on responses of our peers, I thought it was really helpful to be able to know what other people noticed about the way the films were translated from the novels, and why they thought certain differences occurred. If it had not been for the blogging, some things would never have been discussed pertaining to the works we’ve studied.
I also provided peer support to others in the form of editing, which I thought was beneficiary. Melinda, Olga and I would exchange papers, and whichever I edited I would read carefully, and suggest what could be improved. I found the peer editing I received very helpful. While editing someone’s essay, I would employ the use of the grading rubric. It provided clarity on what components make an assignment “good,” and served as a guide to editing. I would do things it said such as ask myself “does the paper address the prompt concisely?” This rubric allowed us to provide each other with valuable feedback.
As a whole I think the class collaborated very effectively regardless or linguistic and cultural differences. When there was a GLD, we would all participate, and were respectful of each others opinions, these differentiating opinions would bring about more question and further analysis of the readings. Sometimes I would say something, and someone else would have a different opinion, and I could always see from a whole different perspective after thinking about what they said.
It was different to hear how others view some of the stories and realize that some people have different interpretations of ideas. For me Hybrid days were helpful, I was able to get feedback and explanations for things that went on during the movies. The rubric did gave us an outline to how to respond to others essays.
I agree in that the blogging portion of the class really provided a medium to discuss questions that would otherwise never been discussed. I also agree that the learning enviornment in class was one of respect and immense understanding of each other’s opinions. Listening to everyone’s opinion helps in understanding an assigned text from a different perspective, helping you gain an overall improved understanding of the text as a whole.
I agree with the GLD and hybrid responses being interesting. I came into this class with a fear of being bored out of my mind with all of these books, but the GLD’s often made learning more fun. I do like the respect we all give each other to voice our opinions.
I agree that peer responses were helpful because they help you with things that you might have overlooked or they give you new ideas to work with. It is great that you participated actively in class because your analysis may have given others a clearer idea. Overall I agree with you, collaboration in this class was very essential to our learning.
Dear Professor Anne F Walker,
Collaborating with peers in this academic course has widened my knowledge. The collaboration helped me understand the importance of working with others and its benefits. During the group led discussions, I participated as much as I could whether I finished reading the book or not. By participating, I had the opportunity to understand plots that I did not understand and help others understand as well. During class, I found it very helpful to get in circles to discuss ideas of our thesis. This helped me and many come up with their ideas after receiving help and hearing others’ ideas. The class circle also helped especially with the help of the paramedic method. I believe I have made progress in my ability to provide peers feedback by incorporating a grading rubric. By understanding the grading rubric and the essay prompts, often stating for concise statements, style, and requirements to achieve an A, that has helped me provide peers better feedback. After receiving my first essay that allowed me to understand what is needed for an essay, which helped me give peers feedback. Knowing that we all procrastinate, I try my best to help my fellow peers by reminding them that brainstorming is helpful. I find brainstorming my ideas and thoughts as a helpful technique to begin writing or doing tasks. Considering the cultural and linguistic differences among my peers, I believe we were able to collaborate effectively because we had the opportunity to share our ideas. Moreover, we were all open-minded and interested in hearing what we all had to say which made collaborating comfortable.
At first, I did not think I would enjoy the class because of its structure, which focused on working with groups. However, I found that working with groups could be enjoyable and have its challenges. Many group led discussions had fun activities like jeopardy and some not so enjoyable where they only talked. Therefore, when my group, Andrea, Peter and I did our group led discussion, we wanted to make it entertaining so that everyone will participate. We had a questionnaire game, similar to jeopardy and a charades game that we took from other groups. We took the ideas from the groups, but had some tweaks to make it our own. I have the PowerPoint and sentences from our presentation attached. I was glad the presentation went well and that everyone had fun. If I had to decide what was best about collaborating, it would be that not only did it allow us to socialize with one another unlike many classes, but also collaborating helped each other learn their strong and weak qualities. Collaborating gave everyone the chance to improve socially and academically.
Sincerely, Kue Thao
http://kuethao.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/gld-wri-10-11.pptx
http://kuethao.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/charades1.docx
Collaboration
Throughout my experiences and the work I have done in Writing 10, I have realized how much of an impact and help collaboration work really guided, and aided me throughout the process of working on group led discussions. I was one of the ones who would participate immensely and as often I can, and doing so I have become well aware of how the work we would discuss would be portrayed, and have a better understanding on the books we would all come to a consensus on.
In every group led discussion I would answer, or participate with my group in order to get into a consensus and participate all together to state our answers. Also, I would give examples if needed for sentence structures that the professor would need in order to show the class how sentences can be easily, and clearly structured with critiques that she would give. I would also ask a lot of various of questions on assignments, and would ask generally, since I know that the more a person would ask, the more of the benefits everyone would get.
The ability to provide effective peer feedback grew to be a lot easier, and I have required a better knowledge of what to edit on some papers that I get. I tend to comment on what I thought I liked, and found interesting, and at the same time I would edit out the unnecessary and some errors that I would come across. In which ties in to how I would support and provide for my fellow peers. To not only notice and mark the mistakes, but to also recognize the well written areas of the essay. Also, I would also give them feedbacks on if certain areas in the essay should be removed entirely, or put in more depth. I would actually give them a few ideas in order to make the essay sound more sophisticated and on topic. The cultural and linguistic differences among my peers was not of a problem in any time for this class. It was just interesting to see what different ideas, opinions, and perspectives that my peers had. One would agree that a certain part of my work on an essay is well stated and structured, and yet while another peer would differ and would say that it had a few errors. I would put both into consideration and try to satisfy both views by critiquing it a bit, then I would let them re look at my essay and then they would agree that it was satisfying and well written. In this section I would include, the group led discussion Power Point on “Wicked” by Gregory Maguire for the sections of “Boq I” through to the end of “The Charmed Circle 8” along with the charade questions that our group had come up with.
Some of the questions you asked were helpful because I probably would have not asked. Our class is culturally diverse but linguistic never get in the way. I agree it was interesting to see and hear different ideas and opinions others had to give.
http://andreawoorecho.wordpress.com/collaboration/gld-wri-10/
http://andreawoorecho.wordpress.com/collaboration/sharades-for-gld/
I agree how students like yourself should participate to class activities in order to understand the parts we consensus on. Also I am agree how peer editing and giving feedback on students essay was helpful and it gives us ideas to improve out papers as well.
From what you’ve said, you have contributed well to the class and the professor and it also seems as if you are on the way to becoming a great leader. It is also good that your skills has been increasing and once they increase they will only get stronger. Plus the care for your peer is important because you should always treat other the ways you want to be treated which is mutual respect and friendship.
Collaboration:
In collaboration I included my groups “group led discussion documents” and whom I blogged on for the films Capote, Breakfast at Tiffanies, The Wizard of Oz, and Blogging about introduction and cover letters. The “group led discussion documents” are based on the Group Led Discussions (GLD) we needed to complete for the Course Writing 10. Though out the semester each group needed to present on two assigned readings and both of my groups GLD were on The Wizard of Oz.
For my groups first GLD on The Wizard of Oz my group and I created Jeopardy based on the text. My group and I decided to do Jeopardy to have peer engagement. In addition to the text driven game we included questions and several points in which we went in depth. For instance my group and I went in depth in the part of The Wizard of Oz being “The earliest truly feminist American Children’s book because of spunky and tenacious Dorothy” (Baum 13). Also my group and I did outside research and asked the class what they though certain parts in the text symbolized. Then we told them what we found based on the research what certain thing in the book represented for instance what Dorothy and the Yellow Brick Road represented. For my groups second GLD on The Wizard of Oz my group and I gave a summary of the text, discussed in depth points of the text, and created charades for peer engagement. Our discussion that went in depth was incorporated with the summary. In addition we also did more research on the symbolism in The Wizard of Oz and incorporated it in the discussion. For instance the in the text The Wizard of Oz the great Oz is discovered to be merely a humbug. We correlated this scene with the political interpretation of The Wizard of Oz which alleged this scene was possibly relating to politicians being preserved as great but are merely humbugs as well.
Furthermore what I learned was that my GLD group and I were able to work efficiently and effectively given the cultural and linguistic differences among us. We learned from each other and bounced idea from one another to create in depth question and text driven games for our GLD. In addition the peer support in my GLD group was remarkable because we all contributed to create great GLD’s. Also what I learned in my Writing 10 course I was able to apply to in peer editing. For instance suggest sentences that would benefit from the paramedic method. In addition the GLD’s helped me synthesized the readings and expand by thinking through the different points of views my peers provided. Also by blogging on Capote, Breakfast at Tiffanies, The Wizard of Oz I was able to learn different perspective from my peers. In addition I valued blogging because I was able to challenge my perspectives and gain a deeper understanding of the text. Also in class I always participate in the discussions and enjoy hearing others discussions as well. Lastly I expanded my skills of team work though the GLD presentations.
I like your introduction of this collaboration cover letter because it tells everything that is included in the sections. This way readers would know what they are going to see in your blog. Like any other students in this class, I lead the presentation on “The Wicked” and I am totally agree how GLD was efficient and helped us to get to know our fellow classmates outside of class.
I think that collaboration, in and of itself, is a good thing, yet it may vary experience wise from one person to another. I led a GLD with classmates Andrea, and Kue; both were enjoyable, charismatic, and insightful individuals. That definitely affected my GLD experience as a positive one; as well as, peer editing and participation with such individuals. I had fun but could not help but notice some trends when it came to the GLDs and peer reviews. Over all the collaborative processes seemed beneficial, but with flaws.
Personally I found most of our collaboration methods interesting and concrete to a certain extent, but at the same time unstable, and time consuming. The GLD was a great way to meet people and practice presentation and organization skills, yet at times the presentations fell into a state of doldrums. When it came around time for feedback, most people had forgotten the subject matter. I am with no intention trying to slander the idea of GLDs, but I merely think it could use some refinement. In which direction it should go, I have no idea, but some change may be necessary in order to make the over all process more effective.
Although not sure how it falls into place in collaboration, the blogging was quite enjoyable. It was a small yet legitimate window of opportunity to create a personal narrative, and share one’s own thoughts as they naturally were. Enjoyable as it were, it also came across as merely busy work, seemingly unnecessary at times. I believe time being creative is never wasted, yet there are limits. I suppose it is the ideas being shared to others that utilize blogging as collaboration, but I think it turned into a menial task in some eyes.
As for in class, I feel I participated fairly often, during the lecturing periods at least; my comments have effectively benefitted other’s work, as well as my own at times. This idea overlaps with that of peer editing. Peer editing in class is extremely efficient, but not always an accurate means of correcting drafts. Since the class members are on different writing levels and have different exposure to certain proofreading aspects, the results became slightly unstable. Nonetheless is this method useful, since any correction or modification can make an essay much better, and with so many different points of views involved, it potentially can be quite insightful. After my peer editing, the author usually seems pleased, so I believe that I have perhaps helped them better or at least expand upon the different aspects of their essays.
This is how i saw collaboration through my eyes.
I believe just what you believe about collaboration and more, because i do also think that it differs in each person depending on what type of person they are, whether they want to be in a group or not, or if they have the attitude for it. Some people work perfectly fine in a collaboration, and others not as much. Its a good thing that being in a group had benefited you well, as that is what a collaboration is suppose do, teach the importance of being a part of something more than one-self.
I could not agree more how the blogging was enjoyable because it was pretty interesting to create out own blog for the class and commenting on others opinions. Also I really liked the class when we had peer editing and dividing into small groups to share our thoughts and ideas.
I agree with the notion that ideas contributed during collaborative work benefit the class as a whole, because the additional insight of our peers contributes our individual ideas. I also agree that when you participate in class it helps you develop your own ideas because your able to communicate and refine your ideas in a vocal way. I also think it’s an excellent you point you make about the blogging; it truly does promote a learning enviornment that is without the limitations that one might face when collaborating in person. Good point!
The group led discussion was a great way to meet new people especially how we were required to choose groups on the first or second day of class. I agree with your view on the group essay edit. Sometimes when I read someone’s essay, occasionally, I will forget to concentrate on the product and focus on the grammar. Those corrections are still helpful for the writer because we all have grammar mistakes even though we have been writing all of our lives.
In my experience with the collaborated work in this class was often helpful towards me personally because it was great getting feedback from other students and the professor as well. Although I did not fully engage in the class discussion, I participated when needed and it helped me a lot by listening to other students and their ideas/opinions. The progress that I had made by using a grading rubric to provide effective peer feedback was essential in this class to give feedback. It was essential because it was the rubric that each student was to be graded by and if not fulfilled the student would not achieve the highest amount of points possible. As the class from the beginning of the semester, the grading rubric was often difficult to analyze effectively of what is required, but now during the near end of the semester I am surer of what the professor wants from each student in their work.
I have attempted to assist my peers in learning and scholarly habits to create a more productive environment as much as possible. This was done by assist my peers when they needed help, respected every student as they should be, and gave attention to each student and participated in their activity as much as possible. I believe that my support towards me peers was effective because it did not downgrade themselves as a person nor student. Even though me and my peers had different race and belief, that did not stop me from engaging with them nor them with me, because it does not matter what the other person is culturally nor linguistically that prevents me from interacting with them, it’s about who the person is on the inside.
In my Group Led Discussion, it was on the Wizard of Oz part one and part two. My group we had done made a jeopardy game discussing the story line of what has happened in the first couple of chapter until the middle of the story. In the jeopardy game, we had all came together as a group and worked on it as a group. The work was divided fairly among each member, the way we done this was by giving ideas of what questions we should use and we had all worked together effectively in that we did were able to settle agreements and disagreements easily and kept the work productively. We also all chipped in money to buy prizes for the class if they won the jeopardy game. In our second Group Led Discussion it was on the second part of the Wizard of Oz, in this presentation we decided to have a discussion and then sum up of what we’ve learned through the game of charades. We as a group decided on what we would be discussing about, and together made different charades scene that the class would have to act out for points and at the end a prize again.
I like your comment about feeling as if the group work has helped you understand the material better. It is true, hearing how others view a story or just talking through the less clear portions of a reading can really help broaden your understanding. This will also help you analyze the reading better, giving you a stronger argument or thesis to write about.
I like how you demonstrate that collaboration has helped you learned. We were able to collaborate and add different perceptive in each other’s papers. There was disagreements during our GLD meetings, but everything did work out at the end because we come to an understanding to each other.
Within class discussion, I believe I participated effectively. Most of the class discussions were extremely interactive, so I found it to be quite pleasurable to discuss texts amongst my peers. It was also refreshing to discuss texts in a way that promoted a fun and comfortable learning environment. I believe that I have made considerable progress in my ability to provide effective peer feedback because I now understand how to develop a clear and concise essay with strong academic language. The work completed using the “Paramedic Method” in class was particularly helpful not only with my writing, but with my ability to provide quality feedback to my peers and their writing. I believe that I assisted fellow peers in learning through my work with the Group Led Discussions, simply because the discussions challenged me to thoroughly understand texts assigned for the class. Meaning, the GLDs challenged me to make sure I understood the book myself, in order to be able to share my ideas with the class and ask questions that promote learning. Included in this section will be various PowerPoint slides from my work with the Group Led Discussions.
One method of support I provided to my fellow peers was through peer revision of essays. Included in this section will be examples of this, as I believe it was relatively effective. I believe that it was effective simply because additional support to any paper assists in the writer’s overall clarity and structure of their writing. The writer themselves may not be able to catch minor errors such as punctuation or grammar; however, having a peer edit your paper can help identify and ultimately fix these minor errors. I didn’t particularly find any cultural or linguistic differences that made collaboration difficult amongst my peers; I actually found the environment created for class discussion to be conducive to effective collaboration. As mentioned previously, the learning environment created in class was a comfortable and fun one. Everyone respected each other’s opinions and everyone got a chance to share their ideas, allowing effective collaboration to take place.
The paramedic method is useful because it clears up wordiness and awkwardness in a sentence. The opinion from the groups helped out with the our understanding of the book in my opinion. These group led discussions were as helpful just as much if the teacher were teaching the section. If any other teacher were to have taught this, they would have taught it the same way or they would have done a lecture on it. These have been extremely helpful.
I really like what you said here: “Meaning, the GLDs challenged me to make sure I understood the book myself, in order to be able to share my ideas with the class and ask questions that promote learning.” This is the point of GLD work. You are supposed to think outside of your comfort zone and push yourself to analyze and view things through a different perspective. It is good you are utilizing the opportunity to do so.
Group Led Discussion were entertaining and creative. I like how the facilitators plays games to get the people interact and talk among each other. I am glad that the Paramedic method was helpful to you and allows you to practice it on other people’s essay.
I agree having group led discussion with our peer makes the class room fun and relaxing to go to. We are free to speak our mind with out fear of judgement on our feelings about the novels. having a fun environment helps the information stick more and easier to relay back to for an essay.
I have always preferred group work over individual work because I feel that getting ideas with other people can for an even better idea. During our group led discussions, I was fortunate enough for all my group members to contribute in what we did; so I had no problem with my group led discussion. It’s interesting how every single person has their own ideas and their own input. Their input is mostly different which helps out a lot because more ideas are put into the pool and there are more ideas to choose from.
This semester, we had a chance to do more collaboration work with all the hybrid days that we had. Those were new to me, but it was fun to watch a movie with a couple of friends and then respond to them. For my group led discussions, the first one, I worked with Oyuna, and Jennifer. We did Jeopardy. I felt we did a pretty good job with it. We all worked on it together without any issues. The three of us created 15 questions each so we had enough in case we didn’t like some of the questions. We were able to explain our own questions. My second presentation was with Arturo, Kendra and Jennifer. This presentation was harder because the book we did was much more difficult to understand. We were able to strike up a conversation with the whole class about our own family traditions and how other families all had different traditions. For example, my family did different things during Easter than Jennifer’s parents would because of the different location that they were both raised in. I learned a lot from what my peers said because since our school is so diverse, there is many different races throughout the class; therefore, I was able to hear and visualize the different cultures of the students.
Reading what people wrote from their point of view really helped for example, I read someone talking about the group editing we do in class, and with all the work we do in groups, I forgot that we do that in class. Some students have better grammar and better vocabulary than others so with the help of our peers, it prevents us from making grammar mistakes. I really like learning with groups because it really does help me see from a different point of view. I get ideas that would have never come into my mind, and I could use those ideas for future use.
You made a good point about having group partners that actually put in effort. It is very difficult to get good ideas from people who are not interested in helping. This also makes for a more unpleasant group meeting which is not how they should be.
Group work is always fun. There are always new techniques and ideas to learn from others. Since everyone came from a different background, there is always a different perceptive that each people see things and ideas.
I agree, that group works helped an idea grow and become more direct. having all the ideas put together give a well-round thesis and helps my academic writing immensely. I also agree the peer editing has helped make my essay more direct with less fluff inside in which doesnt make my essay seem to drag either.
Over the years, I have learned that there is always room for improvement and that there is no better way to improve your work than to get new perspectives on it. This class has emphasized the benefits of team work and has taught me new ways to embrace it. When writing or even just in discussion, hearing what others have to say is useful because they can offer new ideas or information that can help you better develop your own argument.
This class has used Group Led Discussions as well as peer editing, and other group work to give students the most collaboration opportunities as possible. To get the most out of working with my peers I have fully participated in discussions and peer edited papers as much as possible. When peer editing other’s work, I check that they are meeting all requirements listed in the rubric first. If they are not, I comment and suggest ways they can change their work to meet those standards. My feedback is always constructive and useful. This type of feedback helps me write my work so I give others the best advice I can to help them as well.
While in discussion, I always try to contribute a new perspective or interpretation to talk about. In the Group Led Discussion we were required to give presentations and facilitate a discussion based on a section of required reading. My group and I agreed that the best thing to do would be to deeply analyze the texts and try to develop new ideas. Our hope with this was to open people’s minds and help them use our ideas to strengthen arguments they used in their work. Group work is key to success and I have been successful due to group work.
I agree, hearing multiple perspective about your essay just helps give a well-round thesis in the end. Having your peers doing the editing, they understand our difficulties and help us go about things, making it better for the final draft. having so many revisions helps me cut down the unnecessary sentences and help work through it.
I think it’s great that you give constructive and useful feedback to your peers. It’s really helpful to see what mistakes you’ve made or where you can improve on in you writing. More often than not, we don’t catch our mistakes even after the third draft so peer feedback is very important.
Collaboration has allowed me to see many perceptive to one story. Each person coming from their own unique background has pitched in their view into discussion and blogs. I am able to see and understand where each person is coming from with their responses to novels and movies. Things that I would never think about would be another person’s idea or thoughts. For example, many people were saying that Capote was a homosexual and how he demonstrates it through his novel In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but I was not able to see such things. However, by reading and listening to others talk about it, I began to realize there were hints throughout his stories. In movie, Capote, really reveal his homosexuality. Still, through collaboration, I was open to others’ opinions and ideas. I personally thought that it was great that Professor Walker allows students to pick whichever topic they are interest in. This allows the students to pick something that they are interest in and enjoy writing the essay. Through this, students are able to incorporate new ideas into their essays and allow others to read and understand. I participated in class discussion with others and collaborate with other students to see what their opinions are on certain questions.
Through collaboration, I was able to assist my peers in essay reviewing and discussion for essay topics. I read and gave response to my peers whether their essay flow along nicely and whether their ideas are coming straight forward. I can able to give my peer my perceptive of their essays and what message I am receiving from the essays. Given the cultural and linguistic differences among my peers and me, there were not any difficulties of collaborating. Each person knows what they want. We came together and compromise our ideas. My Group Led Discussion did Wizard of Oz part one and two. Our first discussion was a jeopardy game. To make the class participate more, we gave candies away to the winner as an incentive. Our second discussion was a quick summary and discussion about part two and charade. Through charade, we wanted our classmate to get up and be active among each other. Through these two discussions, it demonstrates my teammate and my ability to meet up and work together to make a discussion happen. There were a few issues on the discussion that we did disagree on, but still, we are able to overlook it and compromise.
Working with others is definitely helpful in many ways. Like you mentioned, hearing our classmates ideas can often be very informative and eye-opening. In a challenging academic course it is always beneficial to have support and advice from peers that are in the same situation you are in.
Collaboration with my classmates had helped my writing in many ways. It has shown me to look at a novel or film in a different light or perspective, hearing the opinions of others and how they felt about the book has helped me give a well-round topic for my essays. Looking at both sides of a story such as film and novel has allowed to see how the director and the author saw the story, which showed some changes because they thought the story went better a certain way. Group led discussions had put many messages from the novel into the light, messages that I never thought of made complete sense when talked amongst the class. The answers to simple questions had helped put a simple action into a complicated theory. The discussions have helped break down the novels into simple parts in which we can evaluate and examine to our own way. It has allowed me to see the simplicity and complexity of how writing styles can be. They have helped me think in a more informative way, which has helped my writing style for my essays immensely. Having collaboration with many and different classmates has helped me uses the knowledge of my colleagues to give a well written academic essay.
I agree, working with peers is always helpful. It is interesting to hear different perspectives from culturally diverse people because it opens your mind to new ideas. Class discussions are also very informative and useful for writing essays.
Collaborating with my peers has been very beneficial for me as a writer. Along with gaining insight and knowledge, I was given academic support which really helped me to improve. This section contains all of my responses to the blogs we participated in this semester to demonstrate my ability to collaborate.
I found class discussions to be very useful for comprehending the material and formulating my own ideas. I always tried to participate actively in class whether it was a group led discussion or working in small groups. The classroom environment made it very easy for me to speak my mind because the whole class was always engaged and respectful to other’s opinions. Group led discussions were intriguing and fun because of this and the activities we engaged in made it hard not to participate.
I think that I was able to provide useful feedback to my peers in this class. Using the rubric helped because it gave me a guideline of what I should be looking for in their essays. The paramedic method was probably one of the best tools to use when editing a peer’s paper. Often times they had long run-on sentences with a lot of redundancies that could easily have been shortened to add clarity.
Overall, I feel that I was effective in assisting my fellow peers in their learning and success. I always try and encourage others by intently listening to their ideas as well as offer advice or suggestions to help them improve. The class as a whole was very supportive and despite the cultural and linguistic differences was able to get along really well. I think that the fact that the class was so diverse with people from different countries who spoke different languages made the class very rich and interesting. Everyone’s perspective was unique and opened my mind to different ideas that I probably never would have been exposed to otherwise.