Recap of the Essay Writing Module

This week we are finishing up our multi-week Module. Let me quickly remind you of the lessons we covered in these last two busy weeks.

Overview of Module – "Community Building and Personal Reflections"

Module goal: Reduce online students' feeling of isolation

How? Facilitate students learning more about one another:

(1) through providing peer review of personal essays.

(2) through seeing / hearing / knowing one another through videos.

(3) through receiving help through peer review.

(4) through forming a gestalt by sharing personal stories.

(5) to improve student retention.

Module goal: Overcome "unreal" feeling of online classes to avert academic disaster

How? Facilitate students connecting and receiving support:

(1) through receiving peer review of personal essays.

(2) by seeing / hearing / knowing one another through videos.

(3) through responsibility to other students for timely peer reviews.

(4) to improve student retention.

Module goal: Community building

How? Build cooperative relationships among students:

(1) by helping one another revise and rewrite essays.

(2) by providing an audience for students' writing.

(3) by facilitating students forming a gestalt by sharing personal stories.

(4) to improve student retention.

(5) to improve student academic success.

Module goal: Improve writing skills

How? Writing personal reflection essays to:

(1) practice writing skills in a specific writing genre.

(2) practice proofreading skills to create polished drafts for peer audience.

(3) learn editing skills through performing peer review.

(4) revise draft into final version utilizing collaborative peer feedback.

Did you realize we had attempted to achieve so many goals these two weeks?