Essay Workshop
In their initial interviews (occurring before this essay workshop) Candice, Harriet, and Jessica all indicated that they would benefit from increased teacher guidance, particularly on larger assignments. For instance, on the second quarter essay assignment the students had a week-long writing workshop at the end of which their papers were due. Students were allowed to work at their own pace so long as they got their essays turned in on time. With this schedule, there were eight students (including Candice, Derek, and Harriet) out of sixty-five that failed to turn an essay in, and there were many more students who turned essays in excessively late. Taking the focus students’ feedback to heart, I designed the third quarter essay assignment to have daily progress goals that affected the final grade. Note that there are official due dates for the introduction, the body, and the rough draft in addition to the final draft due date. Also explicitly stated in the prompt is the penalty for late papers and the absolute cut-off date after which papers would no longer be accepted.
Every day of the workshop I checked in with each student in the class to see whether they had made progress since the previous day and whether they were on pace with the goals I had set. These progress checks accounted for one fifth of the total essay grade. This too is written out explicitly in the original assignment rubric for students' reference under the "Revision" category. With this adjustment in place, there was a slight decrease in failure; six of the sixty-five students did not turn an essay in. Candice, Derek, and Harriet all did turn essays in. The more significant change, however, concerned the timeliness of student submissions. Of the fifty-nine submissions, fifty-five of them were either on time or one day late. This is a dramatic improvement, as last time students were attempting to submit essays one week, two weeks, even a month late. It would seem the adjustment that benefited my focus students also benefited the ability of the rest of the class to manage their time.
A little later, we will take a look at the essays written by the students of focus.
Every day of the workshop I checked in with each student in the class to see whether they had made progress since the previous day and whether they were on pace with the goals I had set. These progress checks accounted for one fifth of the total essay grade. This too is written out explicitly in the original assignment rubric for students' reference under the "Revision" category. With this adjustment in place, there was a slight decrease in failure; six of the sixty-five students did not turn an essay in. Candice, Derek, and Harriet all did turn essays in. The more significant change, however, concerned the timeliness of student submissions. Of the fifty-nine submissions, fifty-five of them were either on time or one day late. This is a dramatic improvement, as last time students were attempting to submit essays one week, two weeks, even a month late. It would seem the adjustment that benefited my focus students also benefited the ability of the rest of the class to manage their time.
A little later, we will take a look at the essays written by the students of focus.