[PAL SESSION 3]

Today I arrived 5 minutes late, but it was great to see the session in full flow already. The group had been split into three smaller groups, allowing more people to speak. Our original plan was to go through the theory unit with them in some detail, but between the PAL leaders we felt it was a bit too early to go into too much detail.

Instead we organised a writing activity. We gave each of our group a small piece of paper and got them to write on it, what they struggled mostly with when it came to writing activities. After collecting in the pieces of paper we were able to categorise them into 3 main issues -

• Planning (how to prepare and begin)
  
• Repetition (repeating the same word over and over, and describing the same thing differently when there is no need to)
  
• Structure (how would you go about writing what you need to say and in what order)
  
• We then got them to stay in the same small groups and got them to solve these issues using a mind map. I found this to be successful as it got good interaction within the whole group, and got them to realise that they know the answers deep down. 

Next week we are covering time management, whether in the form of a diary or a timetable, as a lot of the first years feel they will benefit from this as their first unit deadline comes closer.