Amanda's+Portfolio+Assessed

Dear Amanda: Your perspective as a dual English-History major opens wide possibilities of studying history, culture and literature in tandem, as you did with //Persepolis.// The unit is not only significant historically, but politically, since Iran has become an outspoken critic and opponent of the United States. If you get to teach this unit, you will need to address prejudices students bring to the reading. You articulate important principles of student-centered pedagogy, such as choice, relevance of topic, determining and scaffolding prior knowledge, and process-enriched reading and writing. I notice that you give students a choice of essay topics in your summative unit, but they are mostly academic arguments. Some students are better engaged by personal adaptations. For example: Compare your beliefs about women’s rights with pre and post revolution Iran or Explain the importance of religion in your life and how it compares with the establishment of religion in Iran after the revolution. Other variations might include an editorial written for an underground Iranian newspaper or a public service announcement about intellectual freedom, etc. I’m interested in your investigation of the reading quizzes, but I think the __nature__ of the quizzes might dictate the way students read. With multiple choice, students assume they can always guess answers and still pass. Most interesting is the __kind__ of information on quizzes, when there is little chance to guess: for example- recalling events, explaining character choices, cause and effect (why did character A break up with character B. ?), or thematic (how is prejudice portrayed?). Student success will vary on such tests and it would be interesting to know why and which kind of questions prepares students best for discussion. You could try the variations on the same class, so there would be no differences in students to reckon on when you had two different classes. I am impressed by how you have integrated learning from a series of classes, such as Social Foundations and Engl 408, not to mention history courses. This is an indication of an alert and independent mind. Impressive range of topics and genres. 70/70