In your last blog post, you reflected on your experience working with your co-author, with specific attention to the experiences of inhabiting their perspective and receiving and responding to their feedback. In this post, write a paragraph in which you reflect on the experience of making/working with your partner. What were the different skills you needed in order for the designing and illustrating to go smoothly and productively? What challenges did you face? How did you respond to those challenges?
As always, be sure to point to specific examples in support of your observations. And continue working to incorporate sentence variety into your paragraphs.
While working with my partner, Brooklyn, to illustrate my fairy tale, I didn’t encounter as many problems as I thought I would. She stayed very focused and seemed to be very interested in the story, or at least in finishing the illustrations. Brooklyn didn’t need very much encouraging to stay on task or focused, which was a relief. One challenge was that sometimes she would get a little distracted, but it was easy to bring her attention back to the task at hand. Today, she really wanted to share the story she wrote with me, so I would occasionally use that as an incentive for her to continue drawing because “as soon as we finish, I'll get to read your story.” The only other challenge was that she would interpret what was happening very differently, so I had to simplify what was happening even more. However, after I explained a little more, she understood and was able to illustrate the scene more accurately. I think to work with the kindergarteners, you need a certain amount of patience, and need to remember that they are really young and occasionally stubborn, so no “threats” would get them back on task. I focused on letting Brooklyn lead the illustrating and discussion, which I think helped her feel more like she was deciding to illustrate it rather than being forced to.
ReplyDeleteThis week while working with my partner Charlotte, I had very mixed experiences depending on the day. The first day, Charlotte was very excited and ready to participate. Although it got a bit slow at the end, she remained enthusiastic throughout the whole hour and was very fun to work with. She had some troubles throughout the whole week with varying her color scheme. At first, she only wanted to use pink, but when I suggested that she change up her color scheme, she took my advice well and used all of the colors. Charlotte was much more attentive than I thought she was going to be, which made it much easier to work with her. I didn't have to keep reminding her what the story was about, and she seemed to understand most things if not everything. More of the troubles came towards the end. She seemed to want to be done with the project more than she wanted to invest her brain power into it. The last day, common words and phrases were 'no' and 'I don't want to'. Although this was a challenge, with a bit more nudging and persuasion it wasn't particularly difficult to get her to participate- especially if I led her through the activity. Overall, it was a really fun and refreshing week, and Charlotte was a great partner!
ReplyDeleteWhile illustrating my original story with my partner, Bella, the challenges I faced were not suprising. She lost focus quicker than I had anticipated, but I was able to regain her attention through encouragements and incentives. For example, she repeatedly mentioned how badly she wanted to go home and watch TV, so I tried to use that as an incentive to finish the task at hand. While I was reading my story, I would notice her eyes start to drift to other groups working around the room. I would laugh and ask her if she's listening, then tell her that the sooner we finish illustrating the sooner we would be able to go home and watch TV! She would perk up and start coloring. During this process, I confirmed that the most necessary skill to have when working with young children is PATIENCE. Growing up being the youngest, I definitely am not used to being around significantly younger children. Despite the little frustrations with Bella's attention span, I loved having to problem solve and finish my story with her.
ReplyDeleteWorking with the kinders was actually one of the highlights of my semester! Although there were some bumps in the road, I absolutely loved this experience! I first got paired with Asher, who exceeded my expectations from the beginning. The next time we met, my partner was home, sick, so I got to work with another kinder, Mateo! He might not have understood the story as well as my other partner, but we just had fun reading, drawing, and talking about Moana! The third meeting, all three of us got to work with each other, and did the illustrations for the fairytale! It was a bit difficult when the boys both wanted to color the same page, but overall we all got along great! This collaboration was not only just a fun experience, but I learned how my writing style and level should be changed for the appropriate audience!
ReplyDeleteWhile working with my partner, I definitely struggled to keep the illustrating going smoothly. He would just get bored with the coloring and want to be done. He especially did not enjoy having to go back a second time and add more details to the drawings. I also really struggled between being too strict and being too passive. I didn't want to be mean, but I also didn't want to let him do whatever he wanted and mess around instead of finishing the drawings. Working with my partner definitely required patience. I had to be patient with him when he stopped paying attention and dazed off. When it came to asking him questions about the story or other stories, I could tell he was not paying attention and had to help him to the answer. The most challenging things to pull his attention away from were his friends who were sitting near by. I struggled to keep his attention on our own story and away from the other's stories.
ReplyDeleteWhen collaborating with my partner this week I noticed that she had seemed to grown lots of confidence. This week she was hiding markers from me and stealing items straight off the table. Her attention span also wandered a lot, which is understandable because of her age. On multiple accounts of me reading the fairytale to her, she attempted to put the markers in her mouth. This was hard because it is dangerous to her health as well to the story. By shoving makers in her mouth to get my I attention she didn't hear anything in the story. This meant she was unable to contribute to the twitter part of the assignment. Whenever I suggested reading the fairytale to her again she quicky said no. Because of her inability to pay attention I was forced to heavily help her with the tweets. One trait I really need to have his composure. I want her to have fun for each project. I can't rush it to get it done. This whole project is for the kindergarteners to have fun with older kids. All in all, I wouldn't trade anyone in that class for Finley. Even though she has a very short attention span that's normal.
ReplyDeleteThe illustrating and deigning went relatively smoothly for my partner and me. Lina is very good at illustrating, but she did not always understand what she was supposed to draw. There were a few added characters, such as unicorns, but overall it was a smooth process. We developed a system where she would draw the pictures and I would color in the previous pages. This was a good strategy except for that we had different ideas of what to draw or how to color a page. When we faced these challenges, Lina and I talked through both of our opinions and came to a consensus. For instance, if she wanted to draw a field full of unicorns and I thought we should draw a kingdom, we would draw a castle with a few unicorns frolicking about. Throughout the process, Lina warmed up to me and gradually began to enjoy the project more. The final step was to put her name on it, and afterwards she looked very happy. I think that she was proud of what she created and how well we collaborated.
ReplyDeleteMy collaboration was pretty easy. My kindergarten buddy was a little quiet, and usually did not talk unless I asked her to. But, she was also very cooperative and we worked well together. There were no aspects I remember being especially difficult. Earl in the illustration process, I suggested to her what to draw, and she would go along with it. But, after I became aware I was not letting her decide, I asked her what she wanted to draw. That helped her open up to me a little bit. Also, since she was so focused an time efficient, we ended up finishing really early, and had extra time to just color for fun. I also had time to talk to her, but again, she was pretty quiet and didn’t have a lot to say. Over all, it was pretty easy for us to get the work done, and still have a little times to get to know each other!
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning of the illustrating part of the collaboration with the kindergarteners, I decided to let Hannah do whatever she thought was right, me guiding her slightly. As the hour continued we moved slowly through the pages, me asking which parts she wanted me to do or telling her how we should split the work. As I said before, things were moving slowly. Hannah was pretty specific to detail and always wanted the picture to be absolutely perfect before we moved on to the next page. At first, I tried to rush her along, which was not very effective. At the end, I decided to let it go and let her take a while longer. Today, however, we had a time limit. I decided to let her do one page while I moved on to the next and told her directly that we had to hurry up. This time, she managed to work a little faster. Overall, I do believe we ran into little conflicts, as Hannah was often focused and had a good idea of how things should look like (i.e. used the “magical” white out, used different colors, added details, etc.), and I tried my best to be patient with her.
ReplyDeleteWorking with my kindergarten partner was both difficult and a lot of fun. He had a tendency to lose focus if anything more interesting was happening near us. It was very hard for me to not take over the illustrating because he would take a long time to decide what colors he wanted to use. I overcame this challenge by suggesting colors to him which sped up the drawing process a lot. Working with the kindergartners required a lot of patience as well as always having a good attitude. This was difficult for me but I managed to stay patient throughout the experience. An example of this is during the coloring of the last 2 pages my kindergartner decided to color in all the people red.
ReplyDeleteWhile working with my partner I discovered many challenges that I did not expect. I knew going in that there would be a focus issue but I didn't know to what extent. At times I noticed that my partner wasn't listening at all and would be looking somewhere opposite to me. Even though it was difficult at times, I think this was a great learning experience. I believe that I have learned how to work with different types of people in the future better.
ReplyDeleteI think working with my partner, Anusha, was incredibly helpful to my academic experience. I was able to help her understand the story, while she helped with the drawing and the development of the image construction. Also, as I helped with her comprehension, she helped me understand how I could appeal to a different audience. The most important skill I attained or improved on during this project was my ability to work in partners or with peers, as well as my patience while working with others in general. The most glaring challenge I faced throughout the project was the gap in comprehension and focus. While I feel Anusha truly wanted to work hard and do well on the project, she often drifted off or stopped working on the drawings. I had to work on my patience and communication skills as I encouraged her to continue working.
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