Reflection on Boys and Girls Club Experience

I had a wonderful time at the Boys and Girls Club yesterday. Gyra and I worked with a fifteen year old girl who was pretty excited about creating a digital story. I think all of the students are probably pretty excited because it is something that they chose today. The student that Gyra and I worked with is looking forward to her interview with a female police officer. I imagine that she will have several "pearls of wisdom" to share. She didn't seem to nervous about the interview or actually preparing the digital story. Similarly to the way I felt before starting the digital story, I had anxiety about how to actually put the story together. I reassured her that while it seemed mysterious now it would all come together in the end. I also told her that if I could do it--she could do it! I am looking forward to going back to help her put her presentation together. I think it will be a lot of fun to work with her again!

Before the Boys and Girls Club...

I am looking forward to meeting the students at the Boys and Girls Club and helping them create their very own digital stories. As I reflect on my own experience creating a digital story I think that the only way I got through it was patience. I found myself frustrated and confused as I created my own digital story--I imagine that it may be difficult to keep the the students attentive and actually teach them rather than do it for them. If I had to guess I would say that some students will be really excited about this project. They will know how they want it to look turn out, but others will not be fully engaged in what they are doing. If the student isn't already really excited about making a digital story I will show him or her some examples of digital story that we made in class. I think that will get him or her excited to get creative and try something new.

I do have one fear. What if I am unable to help my student as much as they need me? I was able to make my digital story because Gyra was able to show me how to use iMovie. I can use iMovie now, but I don't thinhk that is the program we will be using with the students. I hope that it will be similar to iMovie. However, I do feel very comfortable using Audacity. It was a piece of cake!

In all honesty I am mostly excited about meeting someone new. I love to meet new people are hear about their lives--especially children. I volunteer at CHAT and my favorite part is hearing the childrens stories--some sad and some inspiring. I think it will be a great afternoon!

Digital Stories

I was really impressed with the outcome of all of the digital stories. They were all well thought out and eloquently put together. Personally, I was incredible stressed out about the digital story. I am not someone who is naturally inclined to challenge myself with a technological project so having to do this was stressful for me. Luckily, my dear best friend Gyra was able to calm be down and assure me that I was capable of making a good digital story. I think my stress came from really not having a guideline of what to do. My suggestion for next semesters class would be to make a to do list for the digital story. It would look something like:

1. Interview a professor
2. Write a script
3. Make appointment at the TLC to record your audio using the program Audacity. Click on the following link to make an appointment (I for some reason had a very difficult time finding this link)
4. Use one of the following programs to create your digital story (PROGRAMS).

Disclaimer: This project may seem daunting know, but that is just because you are unfamiliar with it. It really is not as difficult as it seems.

I think there was a lot of hype about the digital story and way too much unnecessary stress and worry over it.

After all of my stress and worry over the digital story I am thinking that a digital story might make a wonderful homemade Christmas gift!

A Real Consultation

So I went to my shadowing yesterday and the person who I shadow says to me, "Allie, I am really sick. Would you mind covering this for me?" WHOA! She was asking me to do the real consultation. I was really really excited! I anxiously awaited the arrival of the grade student coming in with a paper for her human resources class. I was really excited to meet her. When she finally arrived she apologized for being a little late--obviously not a problem. I asked her about her class and she told me about her four children. It was nice to spend 5 minutes getting to know each other before we got started right into the think of her paper. When we finally started I asked her what the assignment was. She filled me in on the background information and I asked her what she was hoping to get out of the consultation. Luckily for me she has a few things in mind. Her teacher told her that she needed to work on summarizing the quotes with her own words. She also wanted to work on the organization of her paper. She felt that the paragraphs were a little scattered.

I felt really good about helping this woman. I definitely feel as if she walked away with a better understanding of what to do with her paper. She even asked me for my  e-mail address. Through this experience I realize that I am going to learn a lot on the job. Even just helping this one students makes me feel comfortable about becoming a writing consultant. I have compelte faith in my self that I will be able to help students in the future.

Blog Reflection Papers

I'm not going to lie; I thought that my blog reflection papers were going to be the epitamy of academic bullshit. (Is this a correct use of the semi colon--I think this blog might be a good place to try it out?!) I was thinking to myself  "a reflection of a reflection?! How much reflection can be done??" I was wrong. You can do a lot of reflecting. Even from the reflections that I wrote I feel as if I could go on and develop my thoughts further. This is like writing drafts and drafts and drafts of a paper. You take what you have written and developed an idea further. It is interesting to see where your thought will go in you just start to think about it further. After my writing my essay about removing grades from the classroom I am feeling empowered to take my idea to the Trustees! Okay, maybe not that empowered. I do think that there is something very legimate to be said for schools not assigning grades.

Teacher Interview

I interviewed Gil Hickman, a leadership studies professor, for the Digital Story project. She invited the Jepson Editor, Tammy Tripp, to sit in on our conversation. It was a really great conversation and I have a lot of substance to write about in my script. I was really struck by our chat about students and their focus on getting a good grade and pleasing the professor rather than learning how to write. Both Dr. Hickman and Tammy agreed that what students don't realize is that it is far more important to know be a good writer than to have a high GPA when it comes to getting a job and moving up the ladder. Neither of them have ever been asked to supply a college transcript when they applied for a job. What got them their interviews and ultimately their jobs was their ability to write and good recommendations.

How can we get this message through to students? Maybe the Writing Center should come out with a publication that have professors quoted on the importance of being able to write well. I think this might be something that will entice students to not only come to the Writing Center, but to also really take interest in learning the skill of writing.

My First Consultation Observation

My second attempt at observing a consultation was a success! 

The student came in for a sociology paper. The assignment was never explained to me because the student the Writing Consultant previously met with had the same assignment. What I gathered from the meeting was that she has to write a 5 page paper for a sociology class. She watched a film and how had to describe how certain sociology terms related to the film.

The consultation began with the Writing Colleague asked the student what she was writing about. She used sociology terms that neither the Writing Colleague nor myself understood so the Writing Colleague asked her to explain these terms. Once we were clear on the terms the Writing Colleague asked the student what she wanted to accomplish in their session. The student wanted to make sure that she had a solid and comprehensive thesis statement and that she was headed in the right direction. To work on the paper the Writing Colleague read out loud and asked questions as they came. She helped her develop her ideas in the intro paragraph and ultimately crafted a thorough thesis.

The most interesting part of the session was that the student expressed her concern with her very opinionated professor. She did not think that he professor would agree with her thesis and asked us about our experience with professors. She was extremely concerned about pleasing her professor and earning a good grade.