Ashley- 826 Chicago- Day Four

This day might have been my favorite. We got to 826 Chi that morning and were told we were going to another in school workshop. From my experience the day before I had a better feel of what to expect and was a bit more prepared for the work. This time we were to work with an 8th grade class that was working on a creative writing assignment 826 Chi had created for them. Unlike the 7th graders the day before they had already been given the assignment and had first drafts for us to go over with them. First Zach, one of the 826 staff, split the class into groups. Once they were divided each group took turns working with the volunteers that were stationed in another room. I was very interested as to what kind of things they would have come up with because we were told they were given free-range on what their subject could be. I sat in a desk that faced an empty seat that was to be filled with a student and their writing assignment. The first young girl I worked with was very uncomfortable with her abilities as a writer and was very hesitant to read me what she had written. I told her that reading her paper out loud would not only let me know what we were working with but also help her find mistakes in the grammar. She then shyly agreed to read it to me. As she hurriedly read the story from her spiral notebook to me as I tried to follow what she was trying to say. It was a bit of a jumble as far as the organization went and her subject matter was very dark. It touched on a little bit of everything including rape, murder and middle school melodrama. I tried to be encouraging and help her figure out what she was trying to say. I focused on helping her put the events in an order that would best work for her character development. I am not sure how much of a help I was but I hoped that it at least made her think a bit about her approach. My main focus with her was confidence. Then next girl blew me away. She sat down with a big grin bursting with pride for her 13 page typed paper. Her story was very easy to follow had well developed plot twist and again held some of the melodrama. She had written about a young girl who was supposed to get close to a high school boy to get information about his father’s company for her uncle. Every part flowed smoothly into the next. My only critic was that there was too much detail. Every element was described so much that it made it hard to get the big picture. Overall, I saw a real passion for writing in her so I wanted to be sure to let her know how well she had done. I gave her a bit of advice to be selective on the details but that she had a real talent. My focus with all of the kids was confidence building. I just saw that a few words of positivity went a long way with this age group which also made me wonder if they were getting many words of encouragement in their home lives. I just hope that someone showing support and interest would make their next writing assignment a little easier to take on.