It's So True!

The week before Thanksgiving (where has the time gone?) I subbed for the 8th grade English teacher for the entire week while he dealt with some personal things. I was really impressed with what he was doing with his students. He had set up a debate for the entire 8th grade and all the other 8th grade teachers were active in it as well. The debate issues consisted of really sophisticated and relevant issues such as stem-cell research, building the wall to keep immigrants out, video surveillance in schools, etc. On Monday, the students wrote their rough drafts. Being only 8th graders, they had some really great arguments for their sides of the issues. They had previously researched the information on the Internet the week before. Tuesday they did peer-editing with the speeches. It was the typical peer-editing task we all have been through and can consider a waste of time. I do think peer-editing can be helpful, but it needs lots of structure.

Wednesday we went to the computer lab to type the final drafts of the speeches. Here is how I am relating this to our class. Like Shade Gomez said when he came to our class earlier in the semester, students do not know how to do simple things like double space their paper within Word. Even though Shade had talked about this, I was still shocked that it was so true. In the beginning of each class as part of my instructions for the period, I had to walk the students through the steps to get them all set up to have a double-spaced essay. I would estimate that in the 5 sections I taught that day, only about 10 students actually knew how to do it. It was funny b/c these are the kids who were complaining that they couldn't play games or get onto MySpace or IM after they were done typing (although most sites are blocked anyway). It's just interesting I, a digital immigrant, could teach them something. I loved it. Of course, there is a whole lot more that I could learn from them!!