Reflection 17

On Monday we had another discussion about what we have been reading because there was no homework assigned over that weekend. Then, on Tuesday we were told about an assignment. The assignment was to, as a group, find 10 quotes from the first part of our reading, pages 1-40. The group had to discuss the quotes and why they were relevant and then summarize everything in a few sentences as well as right down the citation on a piece of paper, for 10 quotes. On block day we continued the assignment, however it was for the second and third part of our reading. And for the third part of the reading, we had to write down 12 quotes because it was more reading than the other sections. I think this was a good assignment for everyone to find quotes and be able to discuss them with the group and then the class as a whole. The only critique I have is that the we should have done this assignment earlier, maybe right after the first one or two discussions. By this point we have discussed many of the important quotes, so many of the students take what have already been discussed in class and used them for the assignment. I heard multiple groups say a quote and then another member of the group would ask why the quote was relevant and they would reply with, "Mrs. Cawlfield told us to underline it," which shows that they don't know why the quote is relevant, they simply underline it and then wrote it down to get the assignment done. If we had done this assignment after one discussion then we would know how to choose a quote and how to explain it, but only a few quotes would have been discussed, leaving the next few discussions open to new quotes that may be important.

The assignment was also due in a very short amount of time. We had one day, as a group, to discuss, write down, and explain 10 quotes. Then we had a block period to discuss, write down, and explain 22 quotes. My group completed it in the last few seconds of class. The assignment wouldn't have been difficult, however we had to discuss the quotes as a group. I understand why we had to do that, however that took up most of the time and there was barely enough time to write down the quote and explanation. Overall, the assignment helped me, however I think a few things could be improves. Finally, on Friday three groups discussed the quotes and their explanations from the first part of the reading. Again, I liked discussing it as a class, however it seems repetitive and many of the students didn't know why a quote was important, they just said a few sentences and then had the teacher discuss it more in depth.