Assive and Pactive Voice

I have to confess that I, too, had an R-rated slip today (although technically, I think it's just PG-13, or maybe even PG the way movies are going these days. Those young hoodlums!) I was answering questions about the differences between active and passive voice and said, "When you use ass....pactive...passive voice..." Nice. I seem to trip over my tongue quite a bit at eight o'clock in the morning. Slip your disk in, everyone!

So, regarding victories, I have to say, like Cheyney, mine have been somewhat small (other than not turning bright red and crying when I tripped over the desk the other day--my glasses rather limit my peripheral vision, and my classroom is pretty cramped). I read the first seven or eight reading responses this weekend, and I was almost in tears, I was so delighted with what I was reading. They were citing correctly, backing up their claims with examples and quotations from the text, and even breaking their assignments into three discrete sections! Well, it was all downhill from there. I found myself sticking the worst ones in the bottom of the pile, trying to put off the pain. And painful they were. More vague generalizations, trite opinions, and more really random incomprehensible stuff from my concurrent enrollment kid. The silver lining is that I actually felt better equipped to comment on some of these issues, thanks to the discussion in our class last Wednesday. I spent a good chunk of time on each one, writing really helpful stuff that they probably won't read (look who's turning cynical now!), but at least feeling that I was doing something constructive. And I *do* think they're getting better at supporting their claims, or at least understanding that they need to support them.

I also sense that everyone's getting more comfortable speaking up in class--today, swapping stories about digging out of the snow, getting car doors unstuck, and doing 360s on the freeway really broke the ice (so to speak) and the discussion throughout class was more interactive than any we've had. We broke into groups of three, read each others' introductions, and evaluated thesis statements. I had only asked them to write comments on the papers, but they ended up discussing their comments as a group. It seemed to be pretty productive.

Okay, so, on this same topic, what workshopping techniques are working for everyone else? Has anyone put papers on the overhead yet? How are your students responding to that? I haven't tried it yet and am guessing that my students will be completely freaked out by it, but I also sense that they would really benefit from it. Soooo....maybe I'll work up the courage by Wednesday.