Connar Kelley

Dr. Leslie Cook

ENG 3580 Teaching Composition
11 October 2015
Reflection on Argument Mini-Lesson
Overall, I was very pleased with the way my mini-lesson turned out. I think that I
was taking on a lot in trying to accomplish a unique lesson plan for my argument-based
lesson. I knew that a lot of people would be teaching the concepts of claims. When
reading an article about the effectiveness of incorporating personal experiences on
research papers, I was drawn to the idea of using this concept in an argument paper. I then
wanted to have an end goal that was different as well: I wanted students to write a
proposal paper rather than just a general argument paper. By doing this, students would
take their ideas and write a set of actions that could really be put to use. One of my peers
even commented saying that she found a proposal paper very interesting and different.
I think that in the future my students will enjoy switching up assignments so that the
assignments dont become redundant and simply a task.
In the future, I would hope for some more time for this activity. I think that
students would get more out of it if they had more time to really dive in to the issue at
hand regarding their personal social identity. This was also something that several of my
peers noted regarding my mini-lesson. However, on a more positive note, several of my
peers mentioned the fact that they loved using their personal identity to my claims and
positions on topics within society. Although the social identities stimulated some good
potential issues, I know I will have to be careful on making sure students feel comfortable
opening up their personal opinions on their personal positions. In this mock-lesson, I did
not have a problem with this because most of my peers share a similar background. We
all are fortunate enough to be attending college. However, in a public school system, I
may have students from diverse backgrounds that may feel troubled when discussing
their social identity.
The use of the social identity chart proved to be successful as many of my peers
made comments about how the chart allowed them to stem some thoughts on identifying
themselves. Next time, I hope to have enough time to have them formulate their identities
for a few minutes without the use of the chart. By implementing the chart later, some of
their social identities could be more unique and less likely to be simply a product from
the chart. All of these tweaks could be possible through more time in the future.