Balancing Instruction and Activity, Teaching Day 2

Much better. I can still see a lot of places where we can improve, but I feel a lot better. First, I think the students feel more comfortable with us, and I think we’re more comfortable with them. I also think now that we’re on the second day, there was a little bit more “meat”.
As far as balancing instruction and activity though, in short, I don’t think we’ve found that balance. At least for me, I don’t feel entirely secure about the amount I designate to each. First, I actually don’t feel like I’m teaching enough. We give “instructions” and then we have them do. But I don’t know how much of this is actually sinking in and being of benefit to the students. In addition to that, the actual activities we do I think are a little lopsided. Thus far, we have implemented a significant amount of “acting” activities. I don’t think this is “bad” as much as it is unbalanced. I’d like to try and explore other activities that can be just as effective (if not more).
Brittany gave us a few ideas/suggestions which I appreciated. 1) We need to make sure we have activities to do for the groups/students that finish early and 2) She suggested that we consider designing the unit so that they write individual plays. I really liked the first suggestion – I think that’s something really important to remember – but I’m not sure how we’re going to implement her second suggestion. She brought up the fact that there are playwriting competitions that the students often enter, using the plays they write in class; but since we didn’t know that, I think we’re just going to stick with what we got.