First Session
The first session of governor’s school went really well. The group was rising 10th graders, and most of them are interested in the residential program for 11th and 12th grade. It’s a really unique opportunity, I think, and I was talking to my boss there about how I wish I had done something like that in high school. The students take all of their core academic classes, and then take classes in their particular art area. Although, in high school I would have probably had more of a leaning towards visual arts, as my interest in creative writing didn’t really peak until college.
As I said in an earlier post, I taught a prompt class in the mornings, and a reading discussion group in the afternoon, and was there in the evening to look over drafts and talk to students about their writing. I really enjoyed the one-on-one time during open classroom because I was able to talk to the student about their work in more detail. As I was preparing for the classes and while I was discussing poetry with my students, I found that I was looking at texts (that I’ve seen many times) in a new way. I know it’s pretty cliche to say that you learn something by teaching, but I really found that I was learning a lot from teaching the past two weeks.
This next group that’s coming in is made up of rising 9th graders, so it will be interesting to see how we adjust material for teaching. From what I’ve heard from teachers who’ve taught these sessions before, there is a real difference between the two, even though the students are only one year apart.
One interesting activity that I did with the students is that I made color copies of Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” and had them do prompts in response to the painting–they were free to focus on the painting as a whole, or certain aspects of it, such as color or texture. I started out by giving them the Sexton poem “The Starry Night,” which is in response to the painting as well. I think that it helped to give them an example to go on–they came up with some interesting poems from this exercise.
More to come!