Today was the first day that we started "coaching" our studetns at Apache Elementary.  I was paired with two students.  One of my students were gone almost the whole class period so I did not get to brainstorm as much as I liked.  On the other hand my attention was focused on helping my other student decide on what family member he wants to be.  After pulling information out of him he finally decided to be his cat Juno.  My other student wants to be her brother but still has not decided on a story to present.  I am excited to find out how the stories turn out and have enjoyed working with the students thus far.

 

 

 

 

 

 I expected to get deeper into the students' stories today.  Of course this did not happen.  My students are still shy and maybe that is my own fault.  One student finally decided who she was going to be for her story.  This made me happy because it was someone she finally felt a connection with.  She then started writing her story or what she could remember of the story.  I was impressed with her because she just took off writing on her own.  On the other hand I had my other student who will not talk and will not give me any information to work with.  This was very difficult because I felt like I was fishing but no one was biting.  Towards the end of the class time this student began giving me questions that he could ask about his character.  He did not have a story but he did have a list of questions I hope he can work off of to make a story.  Today did not go as well as I would have hoped.

March 5, 2009

Today was a sigh of relief.  We started the day with a warm up.  The warm up did not go as well as I would have hoped but for my group they were a little friendlier.  They saw me acting silly so I think that might have helped them see me as a person not only as a stranger.  My boy was very good today.  He started speaking up and coming up with his own ideas.  I was so tickled that we were getting parts of his story down on paper.  I still had to direct him in a direction with his thoughts but at least he had thoughts this time.  My girl is doing very well.  She does great writing her own ideas down.  All she needed from me was some advice and tips about what should be in her story.  She will need to reorganize her thoughts and put it in a better order but for the most part she needs some extra detail and she will be ready to practice her story.  Again I was very impressed with my students and how far they have come in just a few weeks.

 March 12, 2009

Today Mrs. Bradshaw asked who my students were and after I told her she asked if I was getting anything out of them.  When she said this it made me feel much better about the first few weeks of working with them.  Today we started with another warm up thanks to Ami.  Some of the kids enjoy doing this while others don't.  We had writing groups with another group.  I didn't think it was going to go as well as it did.  The kids listened to each other read and they presented their star and wish.  No one was mean and everyone appreciated their feedback.  I even thought it was fun.  I think doing the workshop made the stories seem more real to the students.  Next week we will talk about our revisions and decide if there is anything else they want to change.  There is not a lot of time left and the kids really need to start practicing telling their stories.

March 19, 2009

Today we finished revising the paper copies of our stories and they are as complete as the students will allow them to be.  There is not much time left and I think my students are going to struggle with verbally telling their stories, but maybe they will surprise me.  We got started on retelling their stories verbally.  I flipped their stories over and asked them to just tell me what they remember.  This worked for one student but not the other.  My one student really blew me away by what he remembered from his story and he was able to tell his story with very little missing.  He will need to work on his presentation skills like being louder and more emotional with his story.  My other student couldn't remember her story so we had to go line by line repeating each line until we had the first paragraph.  I hope all of this did not go to waste and that they remember something by the next time I see them.

March 23, 2009

I was very nervous as I walked into school today.  I crossed my fingers that my students would know their stories even though we had a month break.  One of my students was present and of course the other moved away.  Lucky for my one student he now gets my full attention.  He has made me nervous from day one.  I wasn't sure if he would pull it together and amazingly he has.  We practiced reading his story, performing alone, in a group, and even in front of his classmates.  He went first today when we were practicing in front of the class.  He made me so proud by volunteering.  He has really come out of his shell and he even spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.  *tear* I’m so proud of him.  I made him a set of cat ears and he was even willing to wear them.  With two weeks to go I think he is doing better than I ever could have imagined.

March 30, 2009

Today my student was not in class.  I was sad because this was the first day he was absent and I didn't hav any kids to work with.  We were setting up to have the kids recorded.  This day was kind of intense for me.  I could feel a lot of emotion in the air.  We eventually succeeded in our task for the day and the kids seemed to have enjoyed themselves.  While we were waiting I had a few random students perform their stories for me so that they could warm up.  I can't wait to see how all of the students do next week.