Email Exchange and Due dates for the week of March 21st!

Replies to China - TODAY!
Wednesday - In class discussion of TV episodes What Would You Do? and new email reply.
Friday - 5 pages writer's notebook due (front and back)

We will start this week by responding to the letters and writing our Chinese friends.  You should have received letters back from 2 of Kevin's students and also an object-inspired piece (or some other writing?) from them.  Please do the following today:

1:  Reply to the letters the way you would any other email or correspondence.  Answer the questions you were asked, ask questions of your own (about something the student has said or mentioned or maybe something else you're wondering about in terms of school, culture, family, interests, China, etc.), update them on what you've been up to since last writing.  You want to keep the conversation going so give the students something to respond to and maybe even ask that they write back when they can.

2:  Respond to the writing piece the students sent you in a positive, helpful way.  See Kevin's thoughts below on the kind of feedback that might help.  You don't need to "FIX" the paper, even if the student asked you to. What I would suggest is this:

• a greeting thanking the person for sharing and naming something you enjoyed about the piece
• 3-5 questions that could aid in revision/expansion of the piece
• close by naming something else you thought really worked and a statement of encouragement

If you're comfortable with it, I'd love for you to copy/paste the letters with your replies on a New Post on your own blog and copy/paste the students' writing pieces with your feedback to separate New Post on your blog.  

Please reply to both letters and both pieces today, so if you didn't finish in class, you'll need to work on your own time, maybe after school or if you can't access the internet, then during Endeavor.   Either post your work on your own blog or show me what you have done.  If you can't finish in class, please do so on your own. Your correspondents are awaiting your reply.  If you have time, check in on your classmates' blogs and see what their Chinese students sent them.  Thanks so much!

A message I got from Kevin today :

Hello PHS Creative Writing class:

My students are loving this project and working hard--hope their writing shows it at least a little! I believe the last round of emails ought to come in the next day or two. It'd be awesome if your students could ask my students questions that might indicate areas of confusion, vague, or incorrect language in their writing. Also my students would be thrilled to field any questions your students might have about China, college life, etc.

I know at least a few of my students directly asked yours to "correct" and "fix" their English, and I know that probably puts your students in a really awkward spot. So if my students are using gibberish maybe asking questions is a less direct approach. I talked to my students about error correction and tried to convey the idea that correction isn't the nature of the exchange. 

I was also thinking it might be really fun for all parties if students exchanged ideas about TV shows. This week we're going to watch three segments from What Would You Do? and my students will be fascinated but also flummoxed. They aren't aware about common American attitudes towards gay adoption, racism, etc., and the shows do a great job bringing those attitudes to light. Anyway, is it possible to exchange ideas if both our classes watch the same episodes? I found them on YouTube when I was home and included the titles in the attached document. Are you allowed to access that site while at school?

Please let me know what you think, and honestly, if your students respond to my students by asking questions or sharing thoughts about my students' ideas, that'd be great. Thanks!