Class Thirteen – Collaboration&Connections

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We’ve reached a point where I’m able to refer back to things we’ve talked about: imagery, exploding the moment, making connections, visualizing, the relationship between words and images, etc – in relation to the work we’re doing now. It is satisfying to watch Adam and Franklin discuss if a page needs text or stands on its own, or if text on one page can cover two images and hear them reasoning it out and justifying it. Today they went through, looked at the notes I made for each of them, and took turns writing down the text for every other page of A Circle of Friends. They started out not really talking about it but as it became clear that they had to know what the other wrote they discussed what they wrote and made small changes as they went along. Tomorrow we’ll lay the text out and see what needs to be changed. I pointed out that they started in 3rd person, but Franklin began writing in 1st person. So, it flipped back and forth between 1st and 3rd. Adam thinks it sounds better in 1st, they’ll make that decision together tomorrow.

We started the day talking about storyboarding. I showed my example (Exploding!!!) that I wrote for EDU 566 and talked about that I didn’t have to storyboard but that it helped me pick a topic and to slow down a moment like we had talked about yesterday (Class Twelve – Progress). Then they tried it. I suggested things they could try based on previous things they wrote or to look back at the map we drew as a prompt. It was a bit of a struggle to get started but Adam chose a story he’d told me this morning about teaching a friend to dive and their subsequent belly flop. Franklin decided to make up a story but it was not as inventive as his usual stories. To do it again I would give him the opportunity to orally rehearse his story before having him represent it graphically. Once we had some pictures drawn we shared them and then I asked them to write based on the pictures, to slow time down and engage the readers’ senses. Adam got stuck on how to describe how the diving board moved and we sketched it out to try to figure out the best way to describe it. Franklin didn’t enjoy this; I suggested picking one of the squares from his storyboard and focusing on that. He tried but this just didn’t work for him. I’m okay with that though, each strategy doesn’t have to be a gem for every student. I’m just giving them tools to put into their tool box, maybe storyboarding will hang out at the bottom of the box and get dusty, but maybe one day he’ll find a need for it. The strategy worked well for Adam, he even went back to it while writing to figure out some details.

There isn’t much time left in the program, four more coaching day, six more days for me. I wasn’t sure what kind of impact I was going to make in such a short time but I do see it, it isn’t ginormous but it is there and with the four days left I know that the mini-lessons we’ve done will find a place in the projects we’re doing and find a solid home in their tool box.

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