Today we undertook a rather nontraditional exercise Our texting activity was designed to help you understand and develop a thesis statement. Tell me the results. Did the activity offer you any new insights? What kind of insights? Did you enjoy the activity? How do you think it can be improved? Please feel free to offer any additional observations or questions.
Once again I'd like you to respond twice minimum. That means two separate posts (as opposed to one big blob of an entry. Please answer the question in full, with reflection and authenticity.
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ReplyDeleteThe texting activity today was suprisingly helpful and I enjoyed it. Not only do I have more of an opinion about my thesis, but I also learned that just because something makes sense to me, it doesn't mean it makes sense to everyone else. Thankfully I have another night to fix my thesis... again. Speaking as a person who doesn't know very many people in this class, I enjoyed moving around and getting to talk with others because it creates a comfertable atmosphere for making mistakes. As far as improving the texting activity, it would have been nice to get more feedback.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the exercise of texting our thesis to another person, was a great way to understand that our thesis should be simple and clear enough to fit in one text, and it's fun to get someone else's opinion on it in a "different" way. As we wrote out the messages in our texts, it helped us to get our brains thinking, and overall resulted in better thesis's. I dont think this activity needs much improving, because its a simple but effective activity.
ReplyDeleteThe activity forced me to really think about what i was saying in my thesis because I didnt want a lot of critisiscm from my partner. It forced me to change a few things even before I sent it to him. And after I sent it to him I got good feedback to help me restructure my thesis even more. I liked this particular assignment, I think it worked well.
ReplyDeleteJessica, I agree completely with you that this activity helped to promote new social activity within our class and with our classmates. I also think that it depends on the person you "texted" to give you more feedback, not the actual activity itself, but maybe if we sent our texts to multiple people, that would solve the problem of "little" feedback.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jessica saying that you really have to think about your thesis before you share it with someone because it might be clear in your world, but they might not have any idea of what it means
ReplyDeleteThe texting activity offered more insight to other students'ideas which helped to me to form a better thesis. The feedback I recieved was also helpful so that I understood what to fix and what I could or should do to my thesis. Overall I enjoyed the activity and thought it was a great idea, but it could always be better with a little more texting.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jessica because without input from someone else, you can not really know for sure whether you are right or not.
ReplyDeleteI think that this activity did help in some way. It did provide me with another's opinion on how I could improve my thesis.
ReplyDeleteThe MAIN thing that helped me, however, was when you, Mrs. Gerber, pointed out that we could not include any specifics including name of the book, the character or anything else of that nature.
I do remember when only one person had raised their hand because they were going to redo it. After the speech about non- specific thesis', almost everybody raised their hand. That is what mostly helped, not the text.
Sarah, I agree that this activity made us think about shortening it to allow it to fit inside a text message. Very unique way to teach, also! I also agree that this was very simple and that we did receive feedback from others; a "different" way.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this activity, it was really nice to have a teacher think of new and different ways to do a normal assignment, I have some teachers who simply lecture the entire time, with no kind of creative ideas for lessons. It made me really consider what made up my thesis and made me kind of look at it in a different way. The only thing I have that could be improved was my cellphone reception in your classroom, you can be sure I will not be texting during your class! It helped me to read someone else's thesis during class too, and to have to write it from my phone onto my paper so I could once again see what made up their thesis. Excellent activity!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Cody, when listening to another students thesis, it assures you that your not crazy or off topic and your heading in the right direction. If you are doing something wrong, you have an example in the back of your mind to set you back on track. Listening to others can always help you too.
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ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the texting activity today in class. It helped by providing me with another person's ideas on my thesis. I liked doing it through text messages too because everyone was able to get some feed back, and it really helps when you have another persons thoughts about your work, especially when you are trying to revise it. I think we could improve it by sending our thesis to more than one person in class, so we can have more than one person's perspective.
ReplyDeleteSarah, I agree with you about the idea of sending it to multiple people in an effort to get some more feedback; I recieved only positive feedback, but as a bit of a perfectionist I want to keep revising mine until I think it is perfect. I want to know what maybe does not sound right to some people or what others do not understand, I think it would help to have multiple people since everyone brings their own perspectives and understands what you are trying to say differently.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jessica when she said that just because you think your thesis statement makes sense to you does not mean it makes sense to other people. This assignment helped me realize that and improve my thesis so it makes sense to everyone.
ReplyDeleteAlexander Hoover: I thought the texting activity was fun and enjoyable. It helped me revise my thesis and make better decisions on how to write my thesis. This activity can be improved by having more people texting each- other rather than a one- on- one group. Having more than one parter would make getting feedback easier, it would also give more opinions about the thesis. All in all this was a fun activity, we just need to have everyone text each other so we can get as much feedback as possible.
ReplyDeleteAlexander Hoover: I have to agree with Julien about the fact that you (Ms. Gerber) were the most helpful source. You told us how to make our thesis more unique to the person writing it, it also made me realize that finding a good thesis is HARD. I never thought it was too hard, but now I am still revising and editing my thesis!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the texting activity we did today in class. I think it helped because it was a new way to have another person help you with your thesis. It combined a activity teenagers love doing with a writing skill needed to succeed. The activity offered insight on other students ideas, which really helped me to improve my thesis statement. This activity could be improved because not everybody had service in the room so it made it hard to actually send the message.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Casey. This helped me get a different persons thoughts on my thesis. It would be a good idea to send it to more than one person to see what they think about your thesis statement too.
ReplyDeleteI think that the texting activity allowed us to be a bit more social than usual. I beleive it was a great idea for us to use our phones in class because in my opinion using the phones helped the students not only relxax and have fun it also allowed us to understand that a thesis does not need to be long, and that it should be able to fit it a text message.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Alex because during this activity we were able to get more feedback and that really helped us revise our thesis
ReplyDeleteI think that the activity was a great idea because it was different and more creative than the usual peer editing. Also, since we did the criticizing via text message, others felt more comfortable telling people to fix things than saying it verbally. Also, their advice was straight to the point because people normally write shorter in text messages. I think the activity could be improved if we got the opinions of more than one person, text message maybe two different people from the class.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Alexander in that we should be able to text more than one person because my partner gave me helpful feedback, but it would have been nice to have another opinion. =)
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ReplyDeleteI think the exercise was fun and helpful. I got an insite of what I needed to change. I learned from my peers in a friendly way. I don't think it needs changing at all.
ReplyDeleteI agree with grace. People felt more comfortable giving criticism over texts and it was a lot better than the normal peer editing.
ReplyDeleteI think that the activity did offer me insights. I think it gave me insights from other people on how they see my work. I did enjoy the activity. I think it can be improved by making it a more general statement instead of putting Liesel's name in it.
ReplyDeleteI personally enjoyed the activity because it helped us with our peer editing. We criticized each other's work in a more natural environment to us, which made it much easier. This method gave me new insight as to what other students thought of my work. Its perfect the way it is, so don't change it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Iliana. The exercise did give an insite on what people needed to change in their thesis. It improves the thesis statement even more if peers look at it. MS G ROCKS THE HOUSE THAT ROCKS THE PARTAY!!
ReplyDeleteI agree with andrew, this method did give hep give us studets insight from other people in our class, and that helped greatly.
ReplyDeleteAlso, grace is right, it is much easer to get crticism from our peers over te.xt
ReplyDeleteI, personally, loved how you taught the class today. However, if we had sent the thesis to various numbers of people in the class, instead of one, it might have helped a little more. The authors of each thesis would have get a broader view of how well or how much work should be given to their thesis. Also, the idea for texting the thesises was purely genius. It was way more fun than the traditional pen and paper and it, actually, made the students excited for writing.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sarah. This activity let us do the main thing (work on our thesises) but instead of it being boring, Ms.G added a fun twist to it. And while writing them out on our phones, it did get our minds turning and actually made us think. I also agree that we should have sent them to multiple people instead of one.
ReplyDeleteThis activity was insightful because we were given the chance to interact and learn from those who know us best, our friends. Also with the twist of texting, it got across the point that your thesis should be short and to the point.
ReplyDelete-sarah manning
I am inclined to agree with julien on this. The most helpful thing in your assignment was when you explained how the answer to a prompt should be broad but answer it completely.
ReplyDelete-sarah manning
I think that the texting activity was a productive way to edit our thesises. We had to make sure that the text (and thesis) was short and to the point because there were only so many characters available. I think it was also easier to edit the thesis through text messaging as opposed to listening to it and then trying to remember what was wrong with it. We could just look back and see what needed changes. However, I do think that this activity would have been better if we could have sent it to more then one person to obtain more feedback.
ReplyDeleteMadeline
I agree with Joseph. Most of us are so used to texting that it was a more familiar way to read and write things that need to be edited. I think that allowing us to revise the thesis in this way made it simpler to see the changes that needed to be made.
ReplyDeleteI liked this class today. It gave me a chance to see others thesis and see how ours compared to theres. This also gave us a chance to edit a thesis and see what our thesis's needed to be like.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Grace. When you are talking on a text you say stuff you might not say to the person. i aslo agree that we should get more than just one opinion on the essay.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the activity. The insights it provided were that I have issues with making my thesis to specific and I get a little wordy sometimes. I thought that an improvement would be getting feedback on the thesis from multiple people. I also learned that thesis statements do not need to be overly complex or layered.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Grace. The new way of doing peer editing does make us more comfortable of sharing opinions and thesis statements.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the texting activity was a new twist on thesis editing that was enjoyed by the whole class. There was a positive effect on my thesis after this activity because not only had I found mistakes, but i received a different perspective. Although there may have been some technical difficulties, i found this to be a positive experience. Not only had we improved in thesis writing but we had enjoyed the process.
ReplyDeleteI agree with tanzia that we should have recieved more opinions by sending out thesis to numerous numbers. This way we would know exactly what to change if more than one person found the same mistake.
ReplyDeleteThis activity offered me insight such as the fact that I make my thesis too specific and that I need to make it more general. I enjoyed the activity a lot it was a fun new way of peer editing. It could be improved by sending one's thesis to multiple people in the class so one can get more feedback from more people, but other than that it was good.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tanzia we should send our thesis to more people so we can get more feedback and we get more than one persons prespective. I also agree with Andrew, Ms. G does rock the house that rocks the partay!
ReplyDeletethis activity really helped me understand how other ppl would view my thesis. it also helps me change my thesis to make it less specific. i enjoyed the activity because it takes something we all can do and enjoy doing and puts it in ways where we can learn from it. i think there should be a minnimum on how many ppl we can text cuz i got too many to be able to read and review.
ReplyDeletei agree with joseph because it was simmilar to mine... we all feel comfortable texting and it reallly helps when editing
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the texting activity because it was a fun way to mask revising a thesis. My partner did not have any service so instead of sending the message we threw his phone back and forth. As in normal revision, we compared thesis structure with a rubric but this approach made it entertaining. I learned from it that theses should not include specific names, but widespread ideas.
ReplyDeletethe texting activity in class today was fun and eco friendly. it was a great help because we could recieve multiple peer reviews at once. although it was fun and easy to relate to as teens not all the class could participate in the activity. next timewe should do something that all students can participate in
ReplyDeleteI thought that the textng activity was very helpful. The activity definitely offered new insights. By reading a different person's thesis statement, it defintiely opene my eyes to a completely different perspective. This also made me want change my thesis statement. I also felt that the activity made it more fun to think about the prompt. This also made us feel much more comfortable and I feel like we actually paid much more attention to what we were doing. This also made the constructive criticsm much easier to understand. Overall, I had a great time from doing the texting activity and I also learned new things.
ReplyDeleteI support Kallyn's response because she touched the fact about perspectives and that by texting our theses to multiple people we got a taste of what other people look for in a thesis. She also mentioned that it was much more fun than traditional editing.
ReplyDeletei agree with benjy, the activity made peer revision fun and entertaining. it also taught us that theses should be a general truth
ReplyDeleteI definitely also agree with Jonathan. The texting activity did overall give us a great message. It let us know that our thesis statement should be able to fit in a text andit does not have to be long. It definitely made us relax a bit and take more understanding of the prompt.
ReplyDeleteThe texting activity was a great way to engage participants, but did not help me much on my thesis. I was not able to obtain much feedback from my partner, because I text slowly and have a phone with a malfunctioning "3" key. However, I did learn that it is important to center a thesis upon a universal truth. I included Leisel's name in my thesis, so it was not very effective as a point on which to argue.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Madeline, that having more feedback would help. However, rather than texting, it would be much more efficient to use a blog like this or an online thread/forum to post theses, and allow peers to respond to them.
ReplyDeleteToday's texting assignment was beneficial and fun at the same time. By choosing an activity that most students in our class do outside of the classroom and allowing it to be done in class, students were actually excited to do an assignment for once. This activity helped me remember that thesis statements are supposed to be a universal truth. I believe that many students had made the same mistake I had made and did not make their statement a universal truth. I definitely enjoyed this assignment. My partner and I not only shared with each other, we shared with the group behind us which was even better because that allowed me to get even more perspectives on my thesis. The only thing about this assignment that I believe should be changed is to have the groups be of 3 or 4 so that everyone in class can get more than one perspective on their thesis.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Kenneth said. I did not even realize that I had done this, but I wanted to completely change my thesis before I sent it to my home fry also. This activity used a fun method of forcing students to actually think about what they were writing on their paper. No one wants to look stupid in front of their peers, so we all made sure that our thesis statements were up to par before when sent them off to be criticized.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the texting activity was a great idea. Although I could not participate in the activity fully, it was unique and creative. I have never been in a class where my phone was part of the assignement. Most teenagers feel more comfortable texting than sharing their thesis statement outloud because they are afraid that it is not good enough. By the end of the class everyone realized that they have some work to do before their thesis statement is perfected, which was the point of the activity.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Hallie. Before I handed over my thesis statement, I wanted to go through it more thoroughly and see if i could see any mistakes with it. Right after i read it, i realized it was too wordy. Sarah had confirmed my realization, which gave me something to work on. Overall my feedback was great.
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