So Long and Farewell

What an adventure. I am sad that it is coming to an end. As I reflect upon the course, and all the great strategies for writing which we were exposed to, I think about what I got out of this course. I appreciate looking at things like slam poetry and the 6+1 traits of writing, which will help me through my career, but there is one thing which I believe I gained from this course which stands out from the rest. It's the confidence, which came with working with a student, which I developed most in the short time we had at Hawthorne. I truly feel like I am capable of providing students with the instruction necessary to improve their writing abilities. What a truly special talent to have going into my career as a teacher.

I want to thank you for all the help you have given me to develop these skills which will translate into a successful career in the future. Best of luck, and hopefully our paths will cross again soon.

Final Day at Hawthorne

I have to admit, that I was a little sad to leave Hawthorne this Monday. It felt like I hadn't accomplished as much as I would have wanted to in the time being given. But I suppose that is to be expected considering how much time we really had.
I opened the stage for my student to choose what she wanted to work on this week. Since it was the last day, I wanted her to address any issues which she thought needed to be covered for her writing assignments. So I emailed her over the weekend and asked her to think of something she wanted some help with. To my surprise, she didn't want to talk about the writings for Mr. Harder's class, but something completely different instead (don't tell John). She was stuck in a writers rut, and had no idea what she wanted to write about for an upcoming history assignment on the Klondike gold rush. All she knew was that she wanted to write a letter from someone who went looking for riches. So we did what any 21st century learner would do. We googled it! I figured if she couldn't find any inspiration within herself, maybe looking at some online resources might spark some inspiration. I taught her a couple of tricks for googling things, and I showed her a couple of resources which she could look at for future projects.
We finished our session by just shooting the breeze. I knew she was feeling overwhelmed by the pressure of school, so I thought maybe the best way to end would be to leave writing behind, and give her someone to talk to, even if it was only for a short period of time. I'm hoping that our conversation will remind her that she needs to find time away from her school work to talk with people and resolve her problems. I really believe that if she can put the pressures of school on the back burner that her schoolwork might actually improve. I wish I could be around to find out.

Editing: The Achilles Heel

Today I got the chance to continue the mentor process with my original student from Hawthorne. I decided we would be best served working on editing procedures. This student doesn't really have someone who can work on editing with her. Both her parents are first generation Chinese immigrants, and can not help her writing. Out of the three writing assignments she shared with me, the one which needed the most work was a summary of Zeno's paradox about Achilles and the tortoise. The formatting and spelling were decent, and easily fixed, but the organization  and the flow of the piece were choppy. She was explaining the paradox in a way which someone who didn't already know the paradox wouldn't understand. She, however, did not see the reason why the paradox hadn't been properly explained. So I gave her a few examples of why her sentences weren't fully clear, and we spoke about editing every sentence separately from each other, then working on sentence to sentence. Then, when we had cleaned up most of the short text, we tackled the couple of sentences which made her writing confusing. I asked her to explain what she wanted to say in those two sentences aloud. As she spoke, I acted as her scribe, writing out what she said near verbatim. The sentences we had come to together cleared up any confusion and made the piece fluent.  So I talked about voice recordings, or speech to text, thinking maybe if she vocalized, scribed, then edited, her writing might improve. Perhaps if she can improve her sentence fluency by speaking instead of writing her ideas, the editing portion will be easier to handle.

Maybe she might even be able to turn that Achilles heel into a strength!

“Sing, O muse, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.” 
― Homer, The Iliad