Class 8- Back to the Grind (Hawthorne Day 3)

           Today marked our third visit to Hawthorne Public School for our mentoring sessions. I was pleased to see that Edward was back and we got right into working on writing. I brought the same resources with me as I did last week since I made them with Edward in mind. He thoroughly enjoyed the English Pronunciation Poem! He read through it and I corrected him when he made a mistake the odd time. I prefaced this reading by saying it is purposely trying to trick the reader by showing the plethora of inconsistencies in the English language. If you want to check out this poem, read my previous blog post here. In the interest of saving time, I only chose one more activity of the five I had prepared, and that was the list of English Homophones. I figured they would be the most useful to review in an age where spell-check does most of the work for you. To my surprise, Edward knew them all! 

Is it bad to say I felt proud?

           Anyway, after we whizzed through these activities, we got straight into Midsummer Night's Dream. The main assignments that Edward predicted he would have difficulty with were: Product Commercials, Scene Summaries, and Social Web. We made an initial plan of him emailing me with his progress, then we decided on which activities to focus on first. Since he was struggling with a commercial idea, I probed his knowledge of the play by asking what goods or services he could remember. When we brainstormed a few ideas, he felt less worried about the assignment. Then we moved on to thinking of ideas for the Social Web. I suggested making a list of characters, then writing one linking character to each of them as a start. If he remembered more, great! if he needed some assistance, then I suggested re-reading the play and the dramatis personae. 

           By the end of the session, I felt like we had made some great progress even though we didn't do any actual writing! It feels so motivating and reassuring that I am actually capable of helping students... see below:

           Something that John Harder explained to us at the start of this session was that our influence during these sessions was important to student's development, regardless of what we actually accomplish. I was feeling worried that I wasn't helping these students enough in our short time together, and I wouldn't have a positive effect on their learning, writing, and knowledge if I wasn't editing their work. His sentiments made me feel extremely relieved that I was there for a reason and I was having a positive influence. Can't wait for next week!