February 4th, 2010
Today's practicum involved observing Frances' Chataqua based off of Beatrice her male cat. The students of Mrs. Bradshaw's class were excited to see this performance as well as to see the pictures that accompanied it.
February 11th, 2010
Today Ms. Bradshaw split her students up into groups of two or three per UNM coach. I recieved three students: Adrianna, Joshua and Trujio. Each UNM coach was to bring pictures of themselves and their families; I brought the scrapbook my step-mother made me that includes pictures of me at various stages of my life, my siblings and a few of my animals. The kids were very excited to see my scrapbook, to ask questions about my family, animals and activities. It was very exciting meeting "my" students and I'm looking forward to the rest of the semester. Joshua is hesitant to do a Chataqua while Adrianna is talking about using her little brother.
February 18th, 2010
After presenting the different people/animals/things I am thinking of using for my chataqua Joshua and Adrianna were asked to draw pictures of four people/animals they might want to do. Joshua refused and ended up being privatly talked to by Frances. Adrianna was excited, telling me family stories as she drew pictures of her uncle, brother and little sister. I asked that she finish her drawings and bring mini descriptions of her four people. I am planning to offer Joshua the option of reading a story rather then acting since he has such an adversion to it.
February 25th, 2010
We began the day by reading stories that involved family characters. I chose the book "The Bully Blockers Club" by Teresa Bateman. I chose this story because it focussed on the people children turn to when having a rough time. Joshua asked if we could all take turns reading the book. This activity seemed to gain his interest, something that has not yet happened, so I decided to follow his suggestion. After the readign exercise, while the Adrianna and Joshua were still engaged, I asked Adrianna to narrow her list by half and demonstrated to her that I had done the same. To Joshua I presented the idea of a story, rather then a performance, which he seemed to take to more readily. We then, as a group, began to formulate more in depth webs for the characters we were looking at. When the webs were complete we had a few minutes left over I had my students begin to write a list of their characters daily schedule, to develop a feel for them.
March 4th, 2010
Today was started much the same as last weeks, by reading a book. Joshua asked to read one of Frances' books, My Navajo Sister. Today Adrianna and Josh had me read alone while they drew pictures. I, myself, am a doodler and asked them questions to make sure they were paying attention while drawing, which they were, but otherwise allowed them to doodle quietly while I read. After the story I had Adrianna and Josh pick their character and begin their rough drafts. Today it was Joshua that more readily participated while Adrianna appeared to be distracted. She was able to complete a paragraph, a good starting point, before asking if she could ask her grandmother questions about her grandfather. Joshua completed the first page of his rough draft, half of a page of good writing followed by an illistration. He is a very artistic individual.
March 11th, 2010
I brought my laptop, as suggested by Frances, to type up Adrianna's and Joshua's rough drafts. I first presented my rough draft, so that they could have and idea to work off of before having them read their drafts to me while I typed. Also per Frances' suggestion I asked Joshua to change his story to a first person perspective. He did change what he had already written the previous week, but he refused to write any further. Throughout our session he frequently complained of being hungry, that he had not eaten breakfast, and frequently demanded that I go get him food. I am hoping his inactivity was due to his hunger, since he had done such a fabulous job the week before. Adrianna came back with a much more clearer understanding of her grandfather, which I then discovered is her great grandfather! Instead of interviewing her grandmother she decided to interview the source himself. She was very dictated a great start to her Chautauqua.
Student rough drafts are as seen below:
Joshua:
My mom and Baby Brother
My baby brother always wakes my mother up and she grabs Davery and she picks his clothes out and gets him ready to go to his baby sitter
And then she cooks for us and she cooks eggs, bacon, sausage and finally cereal. And she gets in the car with Davery and goes to the sitter.
2nd: My mom always wakes me up to go to the sitter. First she picks out my clothes, and then she cooks for us. She cooks eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, cereal and bacon. After breakfast she takes me to the sitter.
Joshua was asked if he would like me to print his rough draft in any special color
Adrianna:
My Grandpa Daniel
Hello my name Grandpa Daniel. My granddaughter is Christina Oaxaca. Her mom is one of my eight children. She has a grand daughter her name is Adrianna. She is my great granddaughter. My oldest daughter’s name is Rita. She has three children. One of them is 33, his name is Anthony. Then here comes my granddaughter. She is 31 years old, her name is Christina. Then here comes the youngest, his name is Richard, he is 30 years old.
Then here comes the great grandchildren from least to greatest. Here is Felicity and Junior. Felicity is one year old, junior is three years old. Their birthday is November 20th. Here comes Serenity, she is four years old. Her birthday is June 13th. Then Catalina and Donovan, Catalina is 5 years old and her birthday is March 16th. Donovan is 6 years old, his birthday is April 12th. My second oldest great grandchild is Fabian, he is nine years old and his birthday is May 5th. Adrianna is the oldest; she is ten years old and her birthday December 14th. Junior, Catalina and Adrianna are all siblings.
My great grandchildren come see me every weekend. While they are here Adrianna helps me collect wood, Catalina helps me feed the cats frozen hotdogs and I play cars with Junior.
My next great grandchildren in Anthony’s family visit me on Saturdays. While they are here Felicity plays with baby toys and follows me around. Then Serenity plays babies with me. She makes me be a girl! I would rather play the boy Barbie. Donovan likes playing wrestling but I am too old to fight. Then the last one is Fabian, we talk a lot when he visits; sometimes about sports.