Monday, March 28, 2011
Mar. 28th, 2011 11:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bearshortyMy office hours this morning were actual office hours. In between finishing the grading of In-Class Exercise 3 and writing the next one, I had four students show up to talk about their paper that is due on Wednesday. Office hours is such a resource and I remember just how much my TA in American History of 1960s helped me with my research paper. I wish more students realized that office hours are here to help.
During my lunch break I started reading Ibn Battuta’s “Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354” which I will assign my student for Paper 2 along with Marco Polo. This text is actually found on Medieval Internet Sourcebook and it is very easy to read and fun too. He left home in Morocco at 21 and I keep wondering how did he pay for his travels as his pilgrimage to Mecca ended up just one leg of a journey of almost thirty years through North Afrika, Mali, Middle East, India and China. The printed in the adjunct office was out of cartridge so I still need to print 25 out of 52 pages but it is a good reading so far. Now I need to come up with the assignment question for it and Marco Polo – both medieval travel accounts.
In class, we just had the discussion on El Cid. The students needed to come prepared with two quotes from the book and then explain what the quotes mean – in preparation for their paper. I kept trying to get through to them about analyzing instead of summarizing. I did have to spell things out for them, because sometimes you have to repeat things five times, like showing them on the projector screen the buttons to push to insert footnotes. Or repeating about the need for topic sentences and thesis. Even thought just a month ago we had a class on writing that talked about citations and how to write a paper and they have notes and handouts. At least some of them ask. Most students came prepared, at least having read “El Cid” although I’m not sure about the Fletcher excerpts. But one guy didn’t even have the book yet even as I pointed out to him that he had the syllabus with the book list from the beginning of the semester and the paper assignment since almost two weeks ago. I suggested that when he went to the bookstore he also buy Marco Polo book too.
During my lunch break I started reading Ibn Battuta’s “Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354” which I will assign my student for Paper 2 along with Marco Polo. This text is actually found on Medieval Internet Sourcebook and it is very easy to read and fun too. He left home in Morocco at 21 and I keep wondering how did he pay for his travels as his pilgrimage to Mecca ended up just one leg of a journey of almost thirty years through North Afrika, Mali, Middle East, India and China. The printed in the adjunct office was out of cartridge so I still need to print 25 out of 52 pages but it is a good reading so far. Now I need to come up with the assignment question for it and Marco Polo – both medieval travel accounts.
In class, we just had the discussion on El Cid. The students needed to come prepared with two quotes from the book and then explain what the quotes mean – in preparation for their paper. I kept trying to get through to them about analyzing instead of summarizing. I did have to spell things out for them, because sometimes you have to repeat things five times, like showing them on the projector screen the buttons to push to insert footnotes. Or repeating about the need for topic sentences and thesis. Even thought just a month ago we had a class on writing that talked about citations and how to write a paper and they have notes and handouts. At least some of them ask. Most students came prepared, at least having read “El Cid” although I’m not sure about the Fletcher excerpts. But one guy didn’t even have the book yet even as I pointed out to him that he had the syllabus with the book list from the beginning of the semester and the paper assignment since almost two weeks ago. I suggested that when he went to the bookstore he also buy Marco Polo book too.