Instructor's Comments on Sonya's Case Draft

Overall Comments: Sonya, you have really developed this case a great deal since I last read it. Great work. As you yourself noted, the case trails off, and still needs a discussion of new interactions and analysis (which I'd like to see in the penultimate draft), but I appreciate your deep attention to getting the "story" down. You've really accomplished a great deal in this draft. I'd be happy to meet with you sometime this week to talk more about it, but in the meantime, here are some comments that may help focus and develop the case even more.

 Context: You've done a great job adding in information about the context of your class; the school, the community, your students. Great work here. You also include helpful information about what the class was working on last year. In addition, you provide nice particulars about what the students were doing in your class before Cyrano.  

Content: It is really helpful to see how you've expanded this section on why you selected Cyrano (requirements) and what you wanted students to learn from it. I'd suggest saying just a bit more about what interested you so much about the character development—what got you so intrigued by that? And, what do YOU think is valuable about learning about character development for your students? I.e. why is it important for them to explore and understand that concept? To understand characters' motivations?

Intended Scenario: You have included some helpful details about how you felt about what would happen and what might occur in your lessons. It might be helpful to add in just a bit of information about how you thought they might react to the focus on character development and the characters in Cyrano. Did you think they'd enjoy the novel? Identify with any of the characters? A bit more elaboration here would nicely expand this aspect of your case.  

Interactions: You've really expanded this section well and added lots of detail and specific interactions. I still think it might help to add in headings such as, "Day 1, Day 3, Day 5" and so forth. I've noted just one place where I think would benefit from a few more quotes and descriptions, but overall you seem to have really concentrated your efforts on richly expanding this section. Great!

The one thing that at the moment seems to be missing from this part of the case is a sense of climax or surprise…what part do you imagine will provide the grist for your  hard thinking about this case? I get the sense that you are working on this, but if you want an ear to listen to some ideas about that, just let me know.  

Teacher Interpretation and Reaction: I think you've done a good job with this element of your case as well. You have referred to key moments when you wondered about things, felt confident, prepared for certain outcomes.  

New Interactions: Here is an area where you will need to focus your attention on as well, but you may wish to hold off on this section till the last draft? You might want to focus upon the interactions and the reflection for next iteration (penultimate draft) and add in new interactions at the end…

Reflection, analysis and Connection to Theory: Here is an area where I'd like to see you focus your attention now, for the next draft. Think about how this case connects to theories and concepts we've started to discuss in class. As I said in my previous response, I can see some connections to the notion of "understanding" and to your own view of your role as a teacher, constructing understanding performances such as the students' interpretations of Cyrano's speech. I can also see some possible connections to the notion of intellectual honesty and readiness, as well as structure. What were the "big ideas" this work helps them understand? What is it about paraphrasing the speech by Cyrano that might allow students to get at some deeper understanding of the novel? In what ways was this an "intellectually honest" activity for them?

I'd be happy to talk with you about what you see as the "crux" of this case and then to begin to brainstorm together about some possible connections to readings and concepts from class. I'll email you to set up a time!