Developmental Writing Exercise - Pronouns

I don't think I would do this with my 200 classes, although many of them need this, but it does seem like this would be a waste for most of them.

Many students have a hard time with pronouns.  They use them, but there is no clear antecedent.  Or there is a clear antecedent, but the noun and the pronoun replacing it don't quite match.

The exercise would be:

Have students circle every pronoun and then mark the noun it goes with.  That noun should be almost immediately preceding it.  And it needs to agree.  When it doesn't, students would rewrite their sentences.

I could have students mark each others' papers, but that not be very encouraging.  I think I would want to ask someone else's thoughts on that.  

Paraphrase

One of the things I notice with students is that they struggle to state what a quote actually means.  A good exercise for in-class would be to ask them to paraphrase claims.

What do individual words mean?
What the most important part of a sentence?
What does it mean in context?

In classes with lots of board space, I could have students work in groups and write their paraphrases on the board, but I only have that in two of my four classes at SDSU.

I could have them do that as an in-class individual exercise, but then I would have to read what they wrote.  Aaargh.

Hmmm.  Another idea.  If I had these printed out, I could ask students to do this in the first five minutes of class, when students aren't showing up.  Worth 2 points.  One point for getting it right.  One point for being there to do it.

I like that one.

I wouldn't even need it to be printed out.  I just need to put it on power point and show the quote on the screen.  I like it!

As I think about this, I could teach the whole idea of a quotation sandwich and parenthetical with this exercise.

I can put the quote up on the screen with the author's name and the page number.  Students can introduce the quote, include the quote, add parenthetical citation, and then provide a paraphrase afterward.

This exercise would work well for RWS 100, 200, and developmental or basic writing classes.  

No Time

I'm teaching five classes and taking a class.  I've got a B+, and I don't even think the class is that hard.
I quite SDICCCA and my internship.  I just couldn't keep up.
I have had 24 hours without papers to grade.  Only 24 hours.

I've learned a bajillion things this semester, and I can't even keep track of them.

This is hard.