Journal+3+spor.

=Journal #3= Today students were presenting their biographies to the class. Students had to pick anyone they wanted to research, and then had to write a brief essay on their chosen person. Earlier this week students had handed in their final copy of their essay, and they were graded and returned. Today, students dressed up like their person that they researched (one student researched Mickey Mantle and came in dressed up as a baseball player). They were required to stand in front of the class and teach his or her fellow students about who they researched. Every student in the class had dressed up as their person (I later found out that they received extra credit by doing so… 5 points towards their final grade for the project). All students did an exceptional job. They all received 100’s on the presentation; the only thing to change their grade was their papers. Most of them did extremely well on these too. Because they had handed in multiple drafts, they could take the feedback from them and were given the chance to revise their paper for their final copy. Most of the grades were in the high 90’s and a few students received mid 80’s. After talking to my cooperating teacher, the majority of mistakes made were spelling errors and run on sentences. My teacher also said a few students got points off for not following the specific format that they were told to (should have an introduction, 3 body paragraphs and a conclusion). I think this is a great way for students to be assessed. Students could have just written an essay on a person, but by giving a presentation to the rest of the class, the rest of the students were able to learn more. Not only did students learn about 25 different people (there are 25 students) but they also were able to practice their public speaking skills when giving the presentation, which I think makes learning a little more exciting. I think they were graded fairly based on their presentations (and allowing for extra credit if they dressed up), as well as separately on their papers.