Journal #11

March 27, 2007

There is something truly special about this 10^th grade class. The Advanced Acting is a great class as well; however, the dynamics of the honors English class are so warm and fun and open to new experiences. I’m already so excited to go back. There was the perfect amount of emotional closure today. We finished up the culminating presentations of those who could not present yesterday, and we watched Floyd’s Carrot Cake rap on the video. It was a huge hit with the class. Additionally, everyone brought in homemade food to celebrate the end of our residency, because they are reading Like Water for Chocolate and we did the recipe monologues and scenes. There were tamales, chiles rellenos, lumpia, papusas, lemon spongecake, chilaquiles, and lots more. The students were really proud of what they brought in and we had a feast. It was nice to have a celebration to recognize their hard work. They had made us a card and signed it, and we made posterboards with their pictures on it and had them sign those as well. A few of the students danced and we played some more improv games. At the beginning of the class, we had a reflective writing time, and I asked them to answer questions to help us guide our teaching. What was their favorite activity? Their least favorite? Why? What did they want to do more of? Less of? They wrote for about 20 minutes, giving solid and interesting responses. As the students were leaving, several of them gave us hugs and thanked us for coming in to teach. It was a heartwarming day. I cannot wait to think of my next residency plan and to start going back again. I need to figure out when and in what capacity I can help in the media center and if I can find a way to introduce media into the 10^th grade class.

Journal #10

March 26, 2007

Today was our culminating presentation day. We had the students work on finishing their set design drawings and rehearsing their scenes for about 20 minutes. When we came back together as a group, I asked the students to take out a sheet of paper and write one comment and one suggestion about each presentation, keeping in mind the criteria for each activity. The students presented in the order that I had assigned, so I could mix up the set designs with the scenes. All of the set designs turned out to be fabulous. Jesus and Antonio, who drew a scene from the carnival, had made their set design to look like a real theater, from the perspective of the audience. Anahi presented her drawing of the downtown scene and blew everyone away with her artistic ability. Valerie and Kathy, two of the very quiet students, had drawn the library scene. They didn’t finish on time because of the great detail they were going into on the bookshelves, coloring each book individually. Chane and Yessica drew the boys’ houses and made it very vibrant and colorful. Floyd recorded his rap on the camera so we can watch it tomorrow. Then three groups presented skits. Two of them were well thought out and put together, but the other was not really rehearsed well. It might have been because we had a more relaxed atmosphere in the last class and the activity kind of changed from what we had originally planned. This group had a great idea, they just hadn’t scripted it enough and thus their skit dragged on for too long without focus. I asked them to go outside and work on it more so they could present again tomorrow. Since we finished all of these presentations early, we played some improv games. We played a new one called “what are you doing?” that emphasizes body language and actions, then we played Freeze, which we had played on the first day. It was amazing to see how the students had improved. They were now calling out freeze on their own, without us forcing them to. And they were being more creative with their scene choices. I’m not sure if it was because they are more comfortable with us now, or because they have improved on their own acting skills. Hopefully both are true. As a culminating activity day, I think today was successful. The comment pages of the students show that they were engaged in the works of their classmates and they were attempting to think critically about each others’ presentations.

Journal #9

Journal #8

March 22, 2007

Today had an air of mayhem that was very different from past weeks. Normally the 10^th graders are fairly calm and quiet, and fairly compliant with every activity we do. Today, however, they were restless and slightly uncooperative at first. I think this is because they have had standardized testing all week and thus they saw today as a free day. I explained to them that our last two days teaching in this residency would be Monday and Tuesday, and that on Monday would be the culminating task. I assigned six students to work on their set design projects and the rest were supposed to develop their recipe monologues. They really did not take to this well and reluctantly started to work on them. Brandon suggested that they turn the monologues into dialogues and involve more students in the scenes. I agreed that they could do this if they wanted to, because it was actually combining all of the things we had been working on up to this point. I regret not making more clear standards at the beginning of the activity then, because it became quite informal. I should have reviewed the scriptwriting lesson and some other terms before letting them create their scenes. The groups were already formulated and it was easy for the students to decide whose recipes to adapt. It was difficult to be facilitating both the students who were acting and the students who were drawing at the same time, but I am really impressed with the way the day finished off. Students got organized and put together interesting scenes, and those who created set designs did a fantastic job and were on task the entire time. Even Reyna, who usually does not want to participate in anything, drew a beautiful church for her set design that she was working on with Anahi. Floyd, who was working on his rap of how to make Carrot Cake, started to say that he didn’t want to perform. It took all three teachers there to convince him to keep working on it, and we made a deal that he could do it on video instead of live in front of everyone. His writing is so creative that I didn’t want to waste it by him not feeling comfortable performing. I am really looking forward to the culminating task day on Monday when we can watch both periods perform their scenes and describe their set designs. I’m sad that our residency is ending but I’ve already started to think about what I want to do next quarter and I am going to be discussing this with Kori soon.

Journal #8

March 15, 2007

I was nervous for today—more nervous than I have been in previous lessons. This was probably partially because I wasn’t really sure how students would take to the idea I was proposing and partially just my own stress manifesting itself in the form of this task. In the English class today, we did recipe monologues. Because the students are reading Like Water for Chocolate now, I had them bring in recipes from home. I suggested that they bring in a favorite family recipe or something they eat at special occasions or during cultural celebrations—or just their favorite thing to make. My first anxiety was that they would forget to bring in recipes, an anxiety that was heightened when Ms. Hamilton informed me first period that only one student had brought in a recipe thus far. But sure enough, all but a few brought them in this morning, scribbled on scratch paper as good recipes should be. My request for them to bring in recipes clicked for them as they started to read the book. One student exclaimed, “Oh! Noowww I get it!” as I had them journal about why they chose to bring in this recipe and how it reflected their own cultural identity. Then came the real test: would they be willing to take some risks and act out the monologues with creativity? We got into three groups—one led by me, one by Ms. McRae, and one by Ms. Hamilton—and had discussions about characterization for each person’s monologue.

Immediately my group took to it. Shaqueal led the way with her hilarious monologue acting as her father cooking his homemade French fries. She used dynamics, as we had discussed earlier in the class, to convey emotions and attitude. She used body language and her presence is undying. She was a great example for the others to follow. Juan, who had brought in a torta recipe, decided he wanted to pretend that he works at “Taco King” so he did his monologue like he was taking someone’s order then telling the chef what to make. Nashale had some trouble deciding on a character. She wanted to play herself, but I asked her to be more specific. Was she trying to remember a recipe her mother had taught her? Was she teaching someone else the recipe? Was this the first time making the recipe or was she an expert? She finally decided to be making her homemade macaroni and cheese for the first time, and throughout her monologue she would call out to her mother for help. Reyna, who has an intense shyness in front of others, did not really know how or where to start her character. Her recipe was Chile Rellenos, and she said her grandma makes great ones, so she should act as her grandma. “But my grandma doesn’t speak English,” she said. So I told her she could translate it and do it in Spanish. She worked really hard on translating it, and though she still had trouble performing it, I was really proud of the effort she put in today because she generally does not want to participate. Nubia borrowed a recipe for spaghetti from a bunch that Ms. Hamilton had printed out. She decided that she was going to do the monologue as herself, as someone who pays very close attention to every detail and doesn’t want to miss a thing. She needs to refine and work on her projection and dynamics, but I think it is going to turn out very well next week. Floyd brought in a recipe for his mom’s carrot cake. He was also unsure about how to use a character in this monologue and he didn’t really want to play his mom. One of the other students suggested that he make it a rap, and he got to work right away, rearranging the ingredients to form rhymes and figuring out how he can rap about carrot cake.

Once we had gone through everyone in our group we got back together with the larger group so people could perform their monologues. Arnaldo went first and had very good stage direction. He was playing himself, teaching his little sister how to cook. Yuri came up with one of the most powerful monologues of the day: it was a recipe for Mexican flan, and the character she played was Nashale. Everyone knew exactly who she was playing by the third sentence she said, and her sense of humor and timing were impeccable. Ms. McRae suggested that she be more conscious of her movements across the stage and to make more deliberate decisions about her stage directions. I am really thankful that I am teaching alongside Ms. McRae because she reminds me that making suggestions and constructive criticism is why we are there. I am still so impressed by the students that I sometimes forget to be critical. But I’m working on it, and making a clear-cut criteria for the past few lessons has really helped with that. I’m extremely excited to keep working on these monologues for the culminating presentations!

Journal #7

March 8, 2007

Today’s activity gave the visual artists a time to shine. We did a lesson on set design in which we discussed the different settings in Something Wicked This Way Comes, then students were asked to draw a set design sketch for one of the settings. They had to support their drawing with a quote from the book and/or their own description of the setting. We evaluated the work by asking: 1) How well does the student’s drawing convey the setting described in the book. 2) How could characters move through the set? 3) How feasible is this set design to create for a stage performance? We evaluated work as a group discussion. I think the evaluation in both classes today was much more structured and thus more productive than in our previous sessions. There were several students whose work really stood out to me—students who generally dislike getting up in front of people and acting. Lourdes, Jershel, Antonio, and Anahi all had great concepts of what their stages would look like, and through standing up to present their work they gained confidence sharing something that they and others knew they were good at. I see a lot of creative potential in so many of the students and I wish there was a way for all of them to shadow here and already after such a short time working with them, I feel really invested in their success. I want them to graduate and pursue higher goals in the arts and education, but I can’t help but feel like after this year I will lose track of their progress and will not be able to be a resource for them if I pursue my own goals outside of Los Angeles.

I was reading through the journal entries that the students had written from previous classes and the most interesting responses came to the question about age. I asked students to describe what they think they will be like when they are 20, 50, and 80 years old and also to choose an age to go back to or jump ahead to. So many of the students said they would go back to being 8 or 10 or 13 because that was before they knew all the problems in this world. One student wished he could go back to a time when he could stop a particular event from happening—and event that clearly changed his life. The realities of the students that we work with become clearer and clearer everyday, and I find myself thinking about the students throughout the week. My teaching days are the highlight of my week as each time I teach I am reminded that there is no other profession I could see myself doing, and each day the work that the students produce amazes and inspires me. I know this is where I belong, and at a time when I am not certain about much else in my life, that is a comforting thought.

Journal #6

March 1, 2007

As our relationship with the students gets better, the lessons seem to run smoother as well. Today we did a scriptwriting workshop with the 10^th grade students that went extremely well. First, we brainstormed about the components of a script—what would be included in a script. The students seemed to know all of the parts that made up a script, so I passed out worksheets for a partner activity. The worksheets had dialogues from the book Something Wicked This Way Comes, which the students are reading in class. On the worksheets, the students were asked to identify the objectives of each of the characters and of the whole dialogue, add a setting and stage direction, and finish the dialogue. At first I was unsure if all of the students understood the task, but once they got to working they started to understand it better. They are finally feeling comfortable raising their hands and asking for me and Ms. McRae by our names, which is an exciting landmark. After all of the students finished their dialogues, we went over the worksheets as a whole class. There were some students, like Nubia and Zindy, who really understood the concept of objectives and helped other students to understand it.

After we discussed the handouts, the students acted out their scenes. In both classes, the characterization was much better today than it had been in the past. In the 10^th grade class, they did a really good job focusing on stage directions and doing specific movements that they had planned out in advance. My favorite part about being able to walk around and help out groups while they work is talking to students about other things too…although we kind of get off topic, it is important to me to get to know each of the students and answer questions that they have about other things as well. Ofelia was very interested in talking about college. She said that she wants to be a theater major, but what she really wants to do is architecture. I told her that at UCLA you can do your undergraduate in design or theater and get a master’s in Architecture, so it is something to think about for the future. Jesus was listening in on the conversation and asked me about community college. I am really glad that this topic has come up several times and that students understand the value of taking the community college to university route. I want these amazingly bright and talented students to understand that there is a place for them in higher education if they wish to pursue it and that there are different options of ways to get there. I hope that in addition to teaching them the basic skills of theater and arts that we work on through ArtsBridge, we are also acting as liaisons to a world that society has told these students is out of reach.