Dear Malcolm,
I enjoyed your class and at the end I am both happy that it is over but depressed that I will no longer have you as a professor. Your schedule for the E-portfolio was well planned and showed my class that if followed can get all the requirements done well ahead of time, which allows time to make the essays even better. The inquiry process to figure out what we wanted to focus the rest of the semester on was needed because some people were not sure and others either had an idea that was too broad or not broad enough. I believe that more in class time should be placed into this to allow students to make the right choice. A brainstorming session might help where you give general questions to lead people since you did not know us that well at that moment. You gave us some time out of class but most people, like myself, need direction when making big decisions like that. The fact that it was so early in the semester just proves that there was not much you could have helped us with which is why we did our narrative.
The narrative allowed a closer sense of friendship and allowed you to get to know us, based on how we see ourselves. We view ourselves differently than others view us, however, a way to make the narrative funnier and more interactive would be for the students to get a friend or a family member to describe them, then the student include moments in their life that show why their friends see them that way. The student could also voice their agreement or disagreement in the paper which would allow you, Mr. Malcolm, to see both sides of the students. This is just my opinion but I believe it would allow some interesting stories to be shared form student to teacher and therefore allow you to know more about the student, allowing them to trust you or even make it easier to approach you with questions about the E-portfolio since it is a rather extensive project.
Even though it is extensive it is well-planned and separated into pieces that allow the completion of it to be very do able by the time the semester ends. The beginning of the project may be the hardest since you are just staring at a blank paper but with the topic proposal it is the first time that you were really able to give feedback to us. The layout of the topic proposal was really helpful because it also allowed me to see if there would be enough to talk about. This assignment was the one to be able to get everything in perspective, where the more effort you put into it the easier the rest of the project would become, as a result in hindsight I can say it was the most helpful, as well as most important, to complete the research paper. The research paper was tedious with how many copies we had to turn in, but it was only that way that we were able to make it the best we could.
All of the requirements needed for the E-portfolio in the end were worked on in class so as a whole the project was not hard and more time was available to be put into the aesthetics of the website. An advice I would give to students would be to do the freewrites in your laptop or type all of them up as soon as possible so you have them arrange so when picking them out they are already typed out and takes off another task on the “to-do” list. The E-portfolio was not enjoyable as a whole but some of the parts it was composed of were. A specific part was the blog since I have never had done something like that before and it was a good experience while it lasted. I don’t think I will keep up with up once the class is over because it isn’t really my thing. One of my least favorite things was the research presentation because it did not contribute to the project as a whole. The research presentation has potential to be its own activity but as it stands now, with only two of the sources used need to complete it, it does seem more as a time waster to me personally because it seems so incomplete. I understand that it was needed to find a way to connect the sources but I feel that the paper was able to do that itself. The rest of the activities were pretty expected of an English class for me but I never expected to have to learn how to do/ check MLA citations, seeing as how that was a part of the final research paper.
The final research paper was a challenge to me personally because it required more research than I had previously done for any other paper done in high school. This was expected out of college, however, choosing a topic that I knew nothing about made me have to look for more resources to back up my information. There was constant work being done and therefore I believe it has helped me to evolve as a questioner, for asking the right questions allowed me to come up with the answers that I have filled my portfolio with, even if it may not flow as well as I had desired it would.
The flow of my paper and clearly identifying the topic of my paper has always been one of my weaknesses and this has class has just reinforced it. I may not be the best at making a clear main topic; however, I was able to do that task in high school. It may be time or experience but I feel that this class has helped me obtain practice so one day my papers will be more organized.
I have enjoyed your class and your corny jokes, even if I did sense some of them were not meant as jokes. The class was just work for me since group activities were not really given and the final was an individual project, but there isn’t many group activities that can be done when we are writing but that is just a suggestion. I did enjoy your class and your evaluation was the only one I did because I believe you deserve recognition for the effort you put into each student.
Sincerely,
Pedro Cruz-Santos
Your very introverted student that sat in the corner by the window.
I enjoyed your class and at the end I am both happy that it is over but depressed that I will no longer have you as a professor. Your schedule for the E-portfolio was well planned and showed my class that if followed can get all the requirements done well ahead of time, which allows time to make the essays even better. The inquiry process to figure out what we wanted to focus the rest of the semester on was needed because some people were not sure and others either had an idea that was too broad or not broad enough. I believe that more in class time should be placed into this to allow students to make the right choice. A brainstorming session might help where you give general questions to lead people since you did not know us that well at that moment. You gave us some time out of class but most people, like myself, need direction when making big decisions like that. The fact that it was so early in the semester just proves that there was not much you could have helped us with which is why we did our narrative.
The narrative allowed a closer sense of friendship and allowed you to get to know us, based on how we see ourselves. We view ourselves differently than others view us, however, a way to make the narrative funnier and more interactive would be for the students to get a friend or a family member to describe them, then the student include moments in their life that show why their friends see them that way. The student could also voice their agreement or disagreement in the paper which would allow you, Mr. Malcolm, to see both sides of the students. This is just my opinion but I believe it would allow some interesting stories to be shared form student to teacher and therefore allow you to know more about the student, allowing them to trust you or even make it easier to approach you with questions about the E-portfolio since it is a rather extensive project.
Even though it is extensive it is well-planned and separated into pieces that allow the completion of it to be very do able by the time the semester ends. The beginning of the project may be the hardest since you are just staring at a blank paper but with the topic proposal it is the first time that you were really able to give feedback to us. The layout of the topic proposal was really helpful because it also allowed me to see if there would be enough to talk about. This assignment was the one to be able to get everything in perspective, where the more effort you put into it the easier the rest of the project would become, as a result in hindsight I can say it was the most helpful, as well as most important, to complete the research paper. The research paper was tedious with how many copies we had to turn in, but it was only that way that we were able to make it the best we could.
All of the requirements needed for the E-portfolio in the end were worked on in class so as a whole the project was not hard and more time was available to be put into the aesthetics of the website. An advice I would give to students would be to do the freewrites in your laptop or type all of them up as soon as possible so you have them arrange so when picking them out they are already typed out and takes off another task on the “to-do” list. The E-portfolio was not enjoyable as a whole but some of the parts it was composed of were. A specific part was the blog since I have never had done something like that before and it was a good experience while it lasted. I don’t think I will keep up with up once the class is over because it isn’t really my thing. One of my least favorite things was the research presentation because it did not contribute to the project as a whole. The research presentation has potential to be its own activity but as it stands now, with only two of the sources used need to complete it, it does seem more as a time waster to me personally because it seems so incomplete. I understand that it was needed to find a way to connect the sources but I feel that the paper was able to do that itself. The rest of the activities were pretty expected of an English class for me but I never expected to have to learn how to do/ check MLA citations, seeing as how that was a part of the final research paper.
The final research paper was a challenge to me personally because it required more research than I had previously done for any other paper done in high school. This was expected out of college, however, choosing a topic that I knew nothing about made me have to look for more resources to back up my information. There was constant work being done and therefore I believe it has helped me to evolve as a questioner, for asking the right questions allowed me to come up with the answers that I have filled my portfolio with, even if it may not flow as well as I had desired it would.
The flow of my paper and clearly identifying the topic of my paper has always been one of my weaknesses and this has class has just reinforced it. I may not be the best at making a clear main topic; however, I was able to do that task in high school. It may be time or experience but I feel that this class has helped me obtain practice so one day my papers will be more organized.
I have enjoyed your class and your corny jokes, even if I did sense some of them were not meant as jokes. The class was just work for me since group activities were not really given and the final was an individual project, but there isn’t many group activities that can be done when we are writing but that is just a suggestion. I did enjoy your class and your evaluation was the only one I did because I believe you deserve recognition for the effort you put into each student.
Sincerely,
Pedro Cruz-Santos
Your very introverted student that sat in the corner by the window.