Digging For Buried Treasure: Day 2

source

My first day of this residency was rough.

ROUGH!

I went home and started considering all of the various things I was planning to do, all the things that I suspected wouldn't fly, and all of the things that might work.

Then, I stopped myself and did the thing I should have done on the first day. I guess if you go too long without doing a thing, you lose track of the plot.



I do have some skills. They are limited to a small scope of the world, but they have served me pretty darn well. The most useful skill is reading an audience. I needed to do better at reading these students.

It required some questions.

1. What do these kids actually already know how to do?

2. How do I get them to show me what they already know?

3. Is there something I can share with them that could move them a hair's breadth closer to where I hope they could be?

4. If so, what is that thing I could do?

5. What does success look like in a residency like this?

6. What challenges do I need to set this group so that they can fight their way beyond even what they think they can do so I can celebrate them loudly, proudly and obnoxiously in the library?

7. What really quick "traditions" can I establish that will make the kids vie for the behavior?

8. What performance enhancing, call and response, audience control, participatory strategies do I need to employ to find a place where I can meet these kids?


So, Day 2.

I banned all references to video games. The teachers cheered loudly. The kids groaned.

I did improvisational language association games and pulled as much out of them as I could.

source

I established a very loud, arms up, hand gesture for kids who used radically impressive language during one phase of the game, and the words that started pouring out of the second graders were fantastic.

I modeled coaxing and suggestive behaviors for teachers to get students to use the images that naturally occur when they hear words.

It was exhausting.

It worked. Most of the kids succeeded. The teachers were intrigued.

We still had some videogame references, but they decreased, and other kids called them on it.

Two classes clearly struggled with language more than the other two, and I chose to go slower with them. So, at the end of the day, I had four classes and they'd all done radically different things at different speeds.

Still, it was better than day 1.

As for the second graders, once their brains were turned away from video games their true nature emerged.

Poop humor and saying eww when a prince kisses a princess.

Okay. Back on familiar ground.

Video Game Head Kids - 2
Storyteller - 1

(Everybody won today. Tomorrow is another story. Let us hope it goes as well.)

Happy Teaching!

The Search For Imagination - Day 1
Digging For Buried Treasure: Day 2
A Mixed Bag of Failure, Confusion,Success  and storytelling: Day 3