Teaching Creative Writing Reflection

 

Creating the Lesson

For this lesson, I chose to have students create a recipe for the most disgusting food using imagery and sensory details to appeal to their readers. When starting this assignment, I browsed the internet for possible inspiration looking for something I knew the students would enjoy. When I found an example of the world's most disgusting sandwich, I instantly had an idea! I wanted students to create their own recipe but how could I make this educational and adhere to the standards? Have students create their own recipe while incorporating imagery! I thought this would be an exciting activity that the students would enjoy. 

Teaching the Class

I have completed a number of teaching demonstrations during the past few years of my academic career. However, this was my first virtual classroom experience, and I was a bit nervous to be teaching a class through the computer. But there is a first time for everything! I believe I did well keeping a good pace and tone while teaching; however, I think I could have used a bit more enthusiasm to engage the class. In a previous teaching demonstration after saying to the students “Okay guys” “Guys let’s quiet down” I realized I could work on changing ‘guys’ to ‘students’ and ‘class’ and so that is what I did for this lesson. It felt great to take feedback from a previous lesson and be able to improve my teaching. I also tried to maintain eye contact and not directly read from my slides; I think I did well in that aspect but there is room for improvement! 

Mini Lesson and Feedback

Before I began teaching my lesson, I was excited to read the students' creative recipes! They were so creative, and I noticed that many students used pickles in their recipe. I would like to think the image I used in my slideshow inspired students to incorporate pickles into their assignments. For example, students created recipes such as Spicy Pickled Brownies and a Pickle Latte! Yum! I noticed as well that students used phrases to captivate their readers such as "Make ____ nightmare sandwich come true".

One use of imagery I enjoyed particularly was "Look for the seaweed that has already been washed ashore and melting in the sun for hours. If there is excess trash or fish bones in your bundle that's perfect (extra flavor)". I loved that the students were able to have fun with this assignment and put their brains to work!

    While reading student drafts I noticed that many students used a bulleted list instead of a paragraph when explaining how to prepare the meal. I assumed that with the assignment sheet students would write a paragraph however I understand that I should have included clearer instructions so that there was no confusion. That being said, many students did not use transitions, which again, I think it would have been helpful if I stated that I was looking for transitions. I decided to create my mini-lesson using transitions and explained how and why they are helpful when writing. 

    I enjoyed giving feedback to my focal student! It felt good to be able to leave my thoughts and comments while referring back to the rubric I created. Brookhart writes in How to Give Effective Feedback to your Students, “When you do give students information that they can use to improve, and they see and understand that they can do it, research suggests that many- in some classes, almost all-students will experience feelings of control over their learning that are so positive they'll prefer constructive criticism to head patting and comments like “Good job!’” (pg.5). When giving feedback I used this technique to allow my focal student room to improve as well as, they could refer back to comments to understand the grade they received. In addition, Sommers Explains in Responding to Student Writers “We need to be careful that our zeal- suggesting, commanding, or pleading how to do something differently doesn’t leave too heavy a footprint in the margins” (pg. 17). I tried to keep this in mind while giving feedback to my focal student as I focused on their strengths while leaving marginal comments. Across the class I noticed students were able to tap into their imagination and really be creative using sensory details. I believe that the class understands how to correctly use imagery.