Post Boys and Girls Club Thoughts

The Boys and Girls club was an interesting experience today. I had a student who wasn't very talkative or interested in much of what was going on. She had no clue who she was interviewing and had no idea what she was supposed to ask her. At one point, she goes, "Maybe I will ask her what she did for Halloween." I was a little disappointed with where the student was in the process. I guess I kind of expected to go in there and start the project right away rather than spending time blabbering to this girl about how to make a digital story. It was so hard to get her to open up let alone be excited about this project. They only thing she really had interest in talking to me about is what she would do with the $150 prize (A new outfit if you were wondering what she said....)

One of the things that I hope was impactive at least, was I explained to her that a digital story does not need to consist of photos only of the person she interviews. She can use different symbols and pictures of other people to represent what she is saying.

I also suggested that if....I mean when she actually interviews and starts to compile the relevant responses from her questions, that she circle or highlight one word in every sentence or key phrase that she thinks is important. And then, we can go through her list or words and find photos to help her convey her meanings.

Pre-Boys and Girls club thoughts

I am thinking about the boys and girls club tomorrow and I am starting to get really excited. I used to tutor at Overby-Sheppard Elementary School and it was always such a great experience. I mean yes, was it a little uncomfortable being in such a sketchy area, but once I was in there working with the children, it was fun. I expect to get sort of a similar experience tomorrow as I did at Overby-Sheppard. I am excited to work with children that are a little older than second grade too. It is easier to connect with older children I have noticed from my experience babysitting, for older children start to have and develop similar interests that you also have such as music and movies and computer/internet.
While I am no pro at these digital stories, I think that it will be fun helping someone else, now that I have experienced it myself. I am interested in seeing what type of materials the students have gathered that we can work with.
I will blog my thoughts after working with my student tomorrow.

Learning from the students we can't help..

When I began reading this article, it introduced this character, Byron, that I would never expect to encounter at a writing center. While I understand that people that come in to the center often need help, Byron, I feel, is an extreme case. I would not feel comfortable or qualified to work with a person like Byron. I do not feel like I would know how to effectively approach him and his intense need for improvement. What would I do if I had someone come in the Writing center with a serious learning disability, for I know nothing about approaches to help people overcome them. Would my current writing center strategies work for Byrons, too? These are all questions that came to mind when reading just the first bit of this article.

I continued reading and then came across this quote on failure...

"We fail because we have not and cannot achieve some ideal that we imagine. We fail because others will not agree with our terms for success. We fail because others, and the world, do not

conform to our ideas and ideals and thus disappoint us from the success .. . we seek"

It really made me think about this idea of failure. Is it really failure, or just failure to one person, or yourself. Is this idea of failure just made up in our heads and inconsistent with how the project REALLY is? Failure to one may mean sufficient for another.

I am thinking about this in relation to Byron. How would I be able to understand his idea of failure? Maybe my idea of failure is too overwhelming for him, and achieving one step at a time is success for him.

Digital Story

This past week, I really enjoyed watching these digital stories. It is pretty obvious that each of us put it a great amount of time and really took this assignment seriously. Each person got great information from professors that was useful to the assignment, yet each of the information and stories were unique and different.

I also really liked the use of different movie settings that people used with imovie. I kind of wish now that I had used that program so that I could have made my story as aesthetically pleasing as those.

I wanted to share some struggles that I had when creating this project in case others had the same issues as well. Hopefully we can all figure out why these "oops" happened in our projects so that we can best help those at the Boys and Girls club.

I had a difficult time recording mine, so that it was fluid. At the end of my story, there are two words that are extremely static-y. I cannot quite figure out why. I recorded the story on my laptop using the microphone that is on it, but the same thing continuously happened every time I tried to record this part of the story. I do not know if it has something to do with the pronunciation of my words and maybe that I happened to blow or spit into the microphone, but it was really frustrating. I spent hours re-recording to make my voice sound fluid, yet with personality, however, this "oops" made it even more difficult.

I also had trouble with effects. I am not very technological savvy, so it was different for me to present the pictures and information in different ways throughout. I wish my effects could have been stronger, for I feel that they can really impact a project.

Non Traditional Students

I began reading ahead for next week and started with the article on non-traditional students at the writing center. This article completely drew me in, for I never thought about this as an issue or problem that writing centers face. I would not even think that students who came to the writing center for aid would be students who were older and coming back to school after years in the workforce.

Also, I agree with the article that writing centers should have a diverse group of consultants who can help all types of people. But I never really thought about having a graduate student or student who is going back to school also be a writing consultant. I think that this is a great idea, for this student who is going back to school can relate so much better to others in their same age and situation. Personally, I feel like I would not do a very good job helping a middle aged woman who graduated high school years prior and who worked in a middle class job for the last 20 years. I feel like I would be so frustrated and confused on how exactly to help her, and more so where even to start.

This article overall gave me a completely new way of looking at writing consultants. While I used to just focus on topic and information that I know most about as a major factor when helping a client, the ability to relate in regards to situational factors are so important as well.

Class So Far...

As I am looking over my citizenship grade, I feel fairly confident. This will be my 10th blog post (I know, I love to blog). I think that blogging helps me to get my ideas out there. I am so busy and often forgetful, so I love to be able to get my thoughts down and available for the class immediately without needing to remember or have to write them down, in hopes that I will be able to bring them up in the following class. I am a pretty deep thinker, so sometimes talking in class doesn't always bring out my best ideas. I always hate sitting in class with people who talk purely to talk and get participation credit. While I don't say tons each class, I at least try to add a thing or two that I think is valuable. I want to be sure that my comments and ideas will actually mean something to the class. I also like commenting on classmate's blogs. Reading their ideas inspires me to think about something in a different light. When something strikes me as interesting or insightful, I love letting the person know that.

Digital Story part 2

I am excited to report that I had a great interview with my professor on his writing career. It was interesting, because as a published writer, I would have expected him to be into writing and creativity at a young age, but I was surprised to realize that that was not the case. Here is a hint- he writes history books on tutor history.. I do not want to reveal too much detail on what he told me, but I am excited to start working on the project. I am a little nervous with the technical details, but I hope it will be easier than I expect and overall turn out great.