I’m responding here to the last essay in the emotions grouping from Student C.

This essay is a great example of written work that is well done. I see excellent connections to multiple secondary sources, self-reflection on the process of writing, and then bringing it together with a personal connection that unites the piece together. I really appreciated your inclusion of the Spanish word ganas, to create an emotional word that carried a personal connection for you. I’m interested how you will expand on this for your partner project. What images or invocations will you want to keep for the project, and what are you willing to let fall to the wayside? Well done.

I chose this essay because oftentimes I gravitate more toward working with work that I don’t like as much since that gives me plenty to say. In this, I actually went back to the prompt where it specifies that they response must be written in English. I feel like in choosing a word, ganasble, that utilized a Spanish root, the student is breaking the rules in a creative way that should be commended, and it made me think that maybe the prompt could be reconsidered if they student can explain the work that is not in English. I did notice a few places where the explanations could be clearer, but I didn’t feel like those took away from the reader’s ability to understand the text. One such sentence is “They didn’t walk through a dessert [sic], risk their lives or literally start over for at least one of their children to not take up the opportunity of going to college,” which misses the Oxford comma, causing some confusion about whether or not the parents did walk through a desert to start a new life or not. I would make this sentence as one the student could work on, but not mark them down for the errors.

When Rose points out how much of the self-doubt students face comes from the fear of not meeting the rules, it frustrates me to know that multiple teachers have let these students down. I’m glad that we’re running a class that honors work while still allowing room for improvement through feedback, but I want a more tangible way for students to map their progress.