Journal 1 - January 26, 2007

This week made me feel so much more excited and confident about starting our residency at Jordan High School. Iliana and I visited Kori Hamilton's first period class on Tuesday and Thursday. We had observed the same class last quarter. Back in December, we just met the students and stood back while Kori taught. This week, we actually interacted directly with the students and helped them on the scenes they are working on for the theater class. The scenes are from a collection Kori had called, "Multicultural Scenes for Young People." The students had chosen the scenes from the book that they wanted to perform.It was really satisfying to engage in a conversation with them about their characters and the content of their scene. A few of them were eager to show me their scenes and asked for my input. It was actually very cute - I was talking to Kori in the back of the classroom and one of the students, Trey Shaun (I'm not sure how you spell it) turned around and said, "Ms. Hamilton, can SHE help me?" He wanted me to reiterate a suggestion I made about a very complex scene he is working on with another girl in the class. There are two girls who were ahead of everyone else in their memorizing, so I came over and directed their scene a bit since they were having a hard time figuring out how to block/stage the scene. We also had a few laughs over silly, cute moments in their script, since they are performing a somewhat sweet, romantic scene between a man and a woman.
We also had a chance to do some date planning with Kori. We decided on coming in Thursdays and working with her second and third period. When I talked to Kori today (Thursday) she said she was unsure if those classes would both be English or if one would be Theater. I told her we can work with either group. It would be a shame not to work with the Junior english class though, because they are reading a great book ("The Coldest Winter Ever"). It would be a great book to work with. I'm sure the students would love to create some of their own scenes using the characters, or transcribing and acting out scenes from the book. Kori also suggested that our first day in the class, February 8th, could be used not only for teaching, but helping the students with applications for the CSA Summer Program. I think this would be a great way to encourage the students to have confidence in their art form - whether it's acting or dance, etc. We'll also be teaching the following Tuesday since they're coming to UCLA on a field trip that Thursday. With every Thursday after that, continuing through finals week and Tuesday of Spring Break, we will surely fulfill our teaching-hours requirement as well as do some great work with Kori and her classes. YAY!