Help! - Elle Ogden

I've never been a strong writer so I was kinda dreading this class in the beginning, however, after the first month or two, I realized it wasn't all that bad.

I really liked the anonymous essay grading and I think it was probably the most effective thing we did all year. One thing I absolutely hate is when teachers force you to read your writing outloud, mainly because I know mine isn't very good. And, in the past, I've had teachers that make you read straight from your paper, but by doing it anonymously, I wasn't embarrassed to have people hear my writing. I also could focus on their comments and suggestions rather than just blocking out everything because I was uncomfortable.

We touched on this last week in class a little, but for the speech, my suggestion would be to give the rubric to them earlier in the semester, like right after Thanksgiving Break or something. I was really overwhelmed with the speech and having to talk in front of everyone wasn't my favorite. This year, the speech was just stressful because we got the rubric with only a few days to write the speech and we hadn't really done anything with speeches in class. The video kinda feels the same way. I've never learned how to make or edit videos and we didn't really do much all year with film. My suggestion would be to do some work with speeches and film throughout the year so they have can be comfortable with it before it's 20% of their grade. Maybe even make a short 30 second commercial or something.

But overall, this year has been wonderful and the relaxed feel of the class is very much appreciated, especially with some of my other classes this year.