* Discussed important quotes/ideas from William Zinsser's "On Writing Well."
* Reviewed key points concerning consumerism from Amitai Etzioni's "Working at McDonald's," which students read earlier in the semester.
* Read sections of Bill McKibben's "Pie in the Sky."
* Talked about minor writing assignments six ("A&P") and seven ("Pie in the Sky").
* Looked at and discussed online visuals related to Steeltown USA.
2. Class analysis:
Instructors with mediated classrooms for all class days DEFINITELY have an advantage. I'm a little bit jealous.
I like that Karen used PowerPoint to present the most pertinent quotes from "On Writing Well" to her students. I like also that she put the full text of "Pie in the Sky" on the screen and that she explained the related assignment in the same way. I especially like how she spent the last 20 minutes of class showing and talking about images from Youngstown's steel town past, which also appeared on the screen.
It's going to be a challenge to work with the limitations of a non-mediated classroom, especially when I've drawn a lot of inspiration from an instructor who uses media in almost every class meeting.
3. Class implementation:
Karen does a great job of planning each day of class. In today's class, Karen managed to fit a lot into just an hour and 15 minutes ... and she did it without making her students (at least from what I could gather) feel overwhelmed. The design of her overall course is great as well. As I've mentioned before, I'm also a fan of how Karen continuously makes sure her students know what is going on during each day of class (typically by writing the day's schedule on the board) and in future classes (usually by reminding students of upcoming deadlines). Her course is very organized--and I'd definitely like to emulate her course organization in my own classes.
One minor concern: The student I sat next to in today's class was on her laptop for the majority of class. Although she used it to take notes for a small portion of class, she also checked Facebook several times, responded to some emails, and rearranged photos on her desktop for the greater portion of class. I noticed that practically all of the students around her were distracted and kept looking at her screen. I even found it hard to pay attention since I had to look over her screen to see Karen. What is the best way to respond to this type of situation? Is there anything that an instructor can do (especially if the student is genuinely using the laptop to take notes)?
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