Today Kailin and I finished up Essay 1. While Kailin had addressed all of the specific edits and revisions I’d pointed out, I wanted her to look at the essay with a critical eye. Kailin told me that she struggles to improve her writing on her own because when she reads through her essays she doesn’t see her grammatical mistakes or see places where her argument could be improved. Instead of reading through the essay in her head, I recommended she read it out loud. Kailin told me she’d never done this before and was hesitant at first. But doing so proved fruitful, for as she read through it she found the places (without me saying anything) where the phrases were redundant or the wording could be improved.
Then, I had Kailin look over the very first draft of the essay with a critical eye. I had her mark it up as if she were to give herself feedback. This gave me a good sense of what she had learned and retained in completing the first essay. Based on the exercise, Kailin appears to be catching on quickly on how she can improve her writing.
Next we began our second unit, which is focusing on how Asian-American stereotypes are reinforced or broken by The Joy Luck Club in the book by Amy Tan and film by Wayne Wang. We reviewed over the readings and discussed the assignment (Thought Letter 2). Both Kailin and I are looking forward to launching into new material!