First Day of Class - Thinking About the Process

In my developmental English classes (focused on academic reading and writing) the last few semesters, I've done the following activity on the first day and each semester it guides more and more of what I do the rest of the semester.

I give my students a handout with three questions:

• What is something you’ve learned how to do well? (For example, a sport, a hobby, any sort of skill, etc.) 
• What do you remember about your first attempts to do this activity? How did you feel as a beginner? 
• If I wanted to get good at doing this activity, what advice would you give me? 

I give them about 10 minutes to write and then ask every single person in the class to share one response they put down to each of the last two questions--how they felt as a beginner and what advice do they have now for a someone who wants to "master" what they're good at.

Here's what my morning class came up with:

I think it can be helpful for students to connect the learning they're going to do in my class (and how sometimes they are going to be frustrated and overwhelmed as well as excited and interested) with learning they've already done. Not only does it start them off thinking about a prior success but It also reminds them of how it felt to be a "novice" at something*. 

After class the first day, I typed up the list of suggestions my students came up with, their advice, and it's a list we're going to come back to at various points in the semester, hopefully to add to.



*On a related note, one of the best things I've ever done for myself as a teacher was take guitar lessons. As a total beginner, I found myself experiencing the highs and lows of attempting to master a new skill and many of the things that popped into my head and came out of my mouth as I practiced (or didn't practice) sounded an awful lot like what I heard my students say.