Jeff Dinert CO1

My first class observation was with Jerry on 7/6/11 and it was a composition class group 3B. And i found it very instructive. He began class with a discussion that had carried over from the class before, which he introduced the lesson with, and then reexplained with handouts and exercises they had answered yesterday on transitional clauses. He showed them paragraphs which used transitions, and then a paragraph that did not, but was just as correct. He encouraged everyone to use transitions, but also encouraged experimentation without using them, and especially pointed out a couple of students whom he either knew could use them or could probably figure out how to. He asked a lot of questions individually calling on his students to keep them involved, repeated the questions, then answers and re referred to the text in their handouts for clarification.
He then gave them an assignment for an illustration essay on a custom from their own country that may be different from one in our country, asked them to have about a paragraph done by the end of the hour, and to use transitional phrases, or to experiment without them although he kept telling them it might be difficult and to remain correct. He also gave them examples of how to brainstorm with a diagram on the board. Each student was expected to finish the paragraph for evaluation and send it to Jerry via email by 7pm that evening. Mostly everyone participated, and Jerry walked around and spoke with everyone individually to check comprehension. There were lots of information either in handout, the board or an overhead of an example paragraph. The class was primarily spent on their own pre-writing and practice with Transitional phrases, but then again it is a composition class and they were writing. I have no critical things to note about the class, it seemed Jerry taught in a pragmatic and efficient way, and had the students practicing what they learned over two classes fairly quickly, and I saw things Snow spoke of in terms of evaluation and deductive teaching and also observed things I wouldn't have thought of myself. It is all new to me and interesting