Unfortunately, Isabella was not able to attend our most recent meeting. I was pretty bummed not to have her around because we were supposed to piece our story back together after the episode from last week. I tried to put the video and pictures back in order to the best of my abilities, but Isabella will have to confirm that I am staying true to her vision when we meet again. The time I spent working on the project alone really made me consider what Isabella and I are trying to accomplish together. I think that this project is about more than this final product (which we may or may not have at this rate).  In one of the Annenberg teacher resource videos, a speaker said that, as educators, we must remember, “writing is a process” and I think that is true for any literacy endeavor. I am looking forward to reflecting with Isabella about our time together and I hope that she will see the value in the process as well.

This week, Isabella and I experienced a minor setback on our project. While I made a concerted effort to save our iMovie project so that it could be accessed from multiple computers, some part of the files didn’t transfer properly and all was lost! I, as is my custom, went straight to panic mode, but Isabella seemed relatively unfazed by the whole situation. I envy her ability to remain calm and composed under such circumstances. For the rest of your meetings (there are only two! ahhh!) I will bring my laptop to class so that we can safeguard our progress.

Although we weren’t able to get any farther on the construction of the story, Isabella and I did have the opportunity to discuss how she wants to narrate the images and text. We talked a lot about poems, and decided that we are going to try to find some poems related to crew that we can record her reading. I am planning on bringing in some example poems to our next class as inspiration. I found some poems about rowing on here. I hope that in our next meeting, we will have a concrete idea of what needs to be done on our project so that it is ready to be shared with the class. I also hope that we will have no more computer problems!

It’s Isabella here and today Amanda and I have been trying to organize our project so that we know what our next step is. I have now decided that I would like my project to be a slideshow where we will be showing videos and pictures of rowing. Our main pictures and videos will be from the U.S Women’s Rowing Team, Poughkeepsie High School Rowing, and the Vassar College Regatta.  We also came up with interview questions that I will be asking my coaches and other rowers. We also found a hilarious video of a rowing boat flipping, which many rowers will say is their least favorite part of rowing because of the icy cold water.

I am looking forward to finishing my interviews with my coaches and teammates so their voices, in addition to my own, will be heard throughout this project. We will be back in two weeks, hopefully with some sample interviews.

Food for thought: “Not everybody wins, and certainly not everybody wins all the time. But once you get into your boat and push off, tie into your shoes and bootstretchers, then “lean on the oars,” you have indeed won far more than those who have never tried.” – Anonymous

Today, Isabella and I tried to finalize our ideas from our literacy project. Isabella wants to focus on the energy and time that she devotes to crew. We found some pictures online of the U.S. Women Rowing Team to serve as examples and inspiration for the project. Here is a photo of the 2008 Olympic gold metal-winning team:

These women worked incredibly hard to be the best!

In addition to searching for photographs, we also found videos of the national team on YouTube, which we may be able to incorporate into our final project. For our digital story, Isabella wants to combine examples of workout schedules, maps of the team’s daily running route, and her teammates perspectives to demonstrate the commitment of being on a high school crew team. Before our next meeting, Isabella plans on talking to her coaches about copies of practice write-ups and team photos that we may be able to include in our story. Next time, I hope that we can create a narrative arc for the digital story, so that we know exactly what media and information we need to collect. I am still pushing to see some of Isabella’s writing or poetry in the story. I hope that once we finalize our plan, she will identify gaps in the digital story that can be filled with her own voice.

Isabella and I were both surprised when we found out that we were paired together because we had met previously: I participated in the Vassar After School Tutoring (VAST) program during freshman and sophomore years and she was one of the students in my knitting clinic. It was exciting to have an established bond with the student that I am working with in this class and I look forward to learning even more about her.

Because Isabella and I already knew the basics about each other, we jumped right into project brainstorming. Isabella had some really creative ideas that involved her interests, such as making a presentation that combines her athletic pursuits, swimming, crew, and outdoor activities, with poetry. Isabella is also interested in American History, such as the Salem Witch Trials, and loves to babysit, so these are also potential project choices – maybe we will make a digital story that combines historical fiction with babysitting, which sounds like a stretch but could be challenging and really entertaining. Clearly, we need to narrow our focus and attempt to come up with some more concrete ideas.

I hope that in our next meeting, Isabella and I will work together to determine the nature of a project that will be engaging for the entire semester. I hope that, in our future meetings, I will get to see some of her writing because I think that her voice as a reader and writer will play a significant role in the trajectory of the our work together – maybe she can even create a little piece of writing to post on the blog!