Apache Chautaqua Coaching

Apache Chautaqua Coaching

As an ongoing project we met with students at Apache every week and worked with groups on creating and preforming a chautauqua preformance. We (the UNM students) had the opportunity to develop our own lesson plans and work on a continued unit with our Apache students for the entire semester. This was a great experience for me in which I learned a lot about teaching students to participate and work together to obtain a group goal.This was a great experience and I learned how to approach new problems and find solutions that will benefit my students. Below are some notes of my meetings with the students I worked with, struggles I encountered and other thoughts about our sessions together.

1-29 Sunny Dooley

Sunny Dooley is a Navajo Storyteller who honored us with her stories this morning at Apache elementary school. (1-29-09) Navajo is her first language which she uses in her stories to create a rich cultural and traditional experience. This was a great example of what we will be doing this semester. I was enthralled with her story and comfortable nature. I could sit and listen to her all day.

2-12 I was absent

2-19 performances

The performances took longer than we expected, but they were awesome. Everyone did a great job and the students really seemed to enjoy them. As the time ran out I was on. I had 5 minutes to do a ten minute performance. I felt really rushed and like I was talking way to fast. I also was forced to leave a lot out. The students were distracted too because people were walking in and out. The teachers expected us out so they were walking in as they pleased. I feel like this really took away from my performance, but because no one heard it before no one could tell. Some of my favorites were Shelly and Valerie. They really became their characters.

2-26 meeting 1

This went great. We got a good start on our stories and chose our characters. I will have to work with each student separately because I noticed that one was copying the other. Every time Janielle would say one thing about whom she was or what to write Brandin would write down almost the same thing. I know he has good ideas he just lacks confidence. As of now I have two cats both of which are ranting about what they love in very similar ways. Next week I will work with each separately to give Brandin a chance to find his own ideas.

3-5 meeting 2

Today went well. I alternated between the two to get individual ideas flowing. I had their stories typed up so they can fix any mistakes or add to. I would ask one if this or that sounded right and how would they fix it. While they were fixing it I would move to the other and ask similar questions. Janielle was led by questions easier than Brandin. She would answer my questions and in the process get an idea to write about. She worked well on her own and is creative, but distracted in her own thoughts easily. It was hard for me to make sense of her words because they jumped from idea to idea without connections. We will work on those connections next time. Brandin on the other hand didn’t take off so well. I really had to nudge him along to get him to thinking. I had to work with him more of the time. I would ask questions and he would answer yes right off the bat. I would ask are you sure and he would say maybe. He doesn’t mind writing, but thinking creatively just isn’t his thing. I am afraid that as I tried to nudge him along he just made my ideas his own and wrote about that. Next time I will have him elaborate more on his ideas instead of using guiding questions because it seems he is fishing out what I might want to hear and telling that to me.

3-12 I jumped back and forth between the two again today. I finally figured out how to get Brandon to memorize his. He needs to repeat it over and over again. I also used the 5 finger retell method to get a story line for them to follow. Today went really well and we will be ready very soon!

3-19 today Brandon was not here. This made me nervous because it is going to be so long until we meet again. I took this opportunity to work with janielle and it went great. She has it memorized so we focused on enunciating and listening as she talks. Her memorization is good, but she leaves words out. I think she does this because she is trying to rush it without getting into character. We will have to work on this.

4-23 some of the students filmed today, but I am worried we won’t have time to finish next week because only three finished. Meanwhile I worked with my students getting them ready to tape. I feel like I had to start over with memorization with Brandon, but I think janielle is ready. I tried a few more strategies with Brandon but he just isn’t where he needs to be.

4-30 Brandon is absent again, but janiell got taped and did really well. It was kind of a mess today trying to figure out what to do or how to do it, but we finally got it. It also helped that like half of our students were gone.