December 13, 2006

Sorry I did not blog yesterday. I guess I forgot.

Homework: pages 76 and 77 in the vocab book
I assigned an outline for the essay in sections 3,6,7
They should be working on their debate presentations and essays

By tomorrow, all classes will be in full swing with the debates. They are fascinating to see, really. Some students are good at presenting their position. Others come up unprepared. Still others don't really turn it on until the rebuttals. But when the class gives me the results, we see who won.

The debates teach the students lessons for writing. I stress good introductions and conclusions. Debate after debate forces the students to observe good organization and bad. They also evaluate the effectiveness of the supports given. It is like every student gets to be the teacher; they give the scores for the debates. For all the time this takes, I think the lessons learned are great. Look for the winners and losers off of the ant debate page on MrBoZ.com.