Assignment 26 - Oliver Fister

I think that it's fair to say that about half (or even more) of this class has been preparing for the test. I'm not saying that's a bad thing; I have to say that I enjoy the writing (even though my career interests have shifted from English to evolutionary biology), the minimal homework, and the occasional project that allows me to talk about something I've picked and care about. All things considered, the reality that most of the class was spent preparing for the test does in no way beget a notion that it has been a waste of time. I was able to improve steadily in my writings, with 6's and the rare 7 being my average in the first semester, and being able to rock 8's and 9's near the end of the second one. All the writing, the synthesis, rhetorical analysis and then the vague prompts (I forget what those are called), all prepared me very well for the writing on the test itself. When I first opened the packet and saw the different statistics on windmills, I knew exactly what to do, and got right on it and wrote something I was proud of within the time limit. It was slightly more stressful than doing it in the classroom, but otherwise felt comfortable and routine.

While I hated taking the multiple choice part, I regrettably must say that I feel like I needed a bit more practice, maybe just one or two more in class. I didn't have too much trouble on the test, but it was definitely more nerve racking than the writing.

One thing about the Socratic seminar assignments - and this is very minor - is that I would have appreciated a slightly more clear idea that we got graded on our questions that we wrote. I got lazy and began to neglect writing them, and my grade paid the price. My bad, of course, but I would've appreciated a little better heads-up.

I enjoyed the amount and premise of the other projects - being the speech, commercial, and PSA - very much. These, I think, were the ones that best gave me an incentive to learn new skills in presentation, and most importantly for me, video editing. They were fun to make and I enjoyed showing them to the class, who seemed to like them.

All in all, I have little to complain about with your teaching patterns and activities. Maybe a little less here, a little more there, but you seem to have this stuff down pat.