Nicholas Schweers

Maj Hodde

4/29/18

Teaching Portfolio

 

Introduction to Service Teaching and Learning experience:

ERH-411 during the Spring 2018 semester has been an excellent experience. The course revolved around the development of student “teachers” who would then go to either Lilburn Downing Middle School (LDMS) or the Kendall (Kendall) retirement home, and teach the kids or adults the art of memoir writing. The class first consisted in an introduction to memoir writing for us students. Once we came to understand many of the issues, concepts, and strategies of memoir writing, we began to meet with Kendall and LDMS. At these meetings, two cadet facilitators would lead a discussion, bringing forth research and a guided lesson plan to introduce the subject matter to the residents or middle schoolers. The discussion would then teach, evaluate the needs of those being taught, and hopefully address those problems. The meetings that followed kept that general outline, but constantly developed both classes understandings of memoirs and how their writing processes can be improved.

Questions- One question that I have about this course is the necessity of teaching memoir writing to these two audiences. I say this because both LDMS and Kendall are seemingly full of very intelligent people. At LDMS, there were children who were writing way above the average ability for their age group. Most of the kids seemed to be of above average intelligence. With the Kendall Residents, many of them had already completed college or higher education, many had been published, and they all seemed more than capable of writing memoirs or at least doing the research they needed by themselves. I just wonder whether we could have been used as a more valuable resource to a group of people who were uneducated, or a school that struggles with academics in general. There are many schools in Appalachia, even around Rockbridge County that I’m sure could have used some help in developing their writing skills. My second question relates to the first. If the Kendall Residents are already so experienced, what really can they learn from us?

Goals: I have two goals for this course. First off, I want to have some form of positive impact on the groups that we are working with. If I could teach them one thing that will help them in their lives, I will be happy. Second, I want to improve my own creative writing. Creative writing is something that I have always enjoyed, and I look forward to learning more about how to improve myself.

 

Research an existing Community Writing Project:

Nicholls, Sophie. “Beyond Expressive Writing: Evolving Models of Developmental Creative Writing”.             Journal of Health and Psychology, VOL 14(2) 171-180. Sage Publications, York, UK 2009. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1359105308100201

I have chosen “The Appalachian Writing Project” (http://awp.uvawise.edu/OurResearch (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. ). They are an organization that pair universities with public schools to “…train teachers to become writing consultants and agents of change in their school systems, while recognizing themselves as writers.” They do so by giving the public school teachers access to research that will help them learn the linguistic issues or differences between their home areas and other places, allowing them to help their children learn how to use their language more effectively as a whole. This program relates to our fieldwork as a whole. It teaches adults, who should already be proficient at writing, how to improve themselves, and then to use that information to help improve those they teach. While it is less personally focused than our teaching, the main effort of the program is to teach others how to write well, and then for them to pass on and or use that information for the students and schools that need it the most. This kind of project is needed worldwide, anywhere where there is any sense of disparity or lack of resources for students of any age. The AWP focuses on an area of the United States that has a particularly high poverty rate, along with a typically not satisfactory education system. Programs like this are essential to developing students into writers, which will be required in high school, college, or almost anywhere that they are going to work in their futures. Without the ability to write and express their thoughts well, they are far less likely to succeed than their peers. But success is not the only reason that creative writing is important.

Another, less talked about impact of teaching creative writing is the positive effect if has on people of all ages. One particular way in which it could help out these rural Appalachian communities is by helping the students express themselves. This would allow for not only better writing, but it would also help students with their own mental health. Developing writing allows students to, “… more easily open themselves to the exciting but scary larger space, the less controllable realms of the unconsciousness” (Nichols 175). This allows for further self-development as well as a way to cope with the stresses and trauma that may enter into the students mind. Nichols further explains how, “…expressive writing might offer some initial relief from traumatic experience”. So this basic introduction may be therapeutic to students whose home lives may be traumatic or scary. If students are influenced to constantly develop their writing and reflection skills, over months or years of practice, they might, “… shift our (the students) relationship(s) to lived experience”.

Documented Community Participation:

1- Monday February 5, 2018. 1100-1230. McDonald and Foster. Scott Ship Hall Room 201. Kendall Residents. Introduction into memoir writing, invention, and memory.

2-Thursday, February 15, 2018. 0925-1030. Lee and Carlos. LDMS. Memoir writing through poetry, stressing expression of the senses and memory.

3-Thursday, February 22, 2018. 0925-1030. Sarah and Amber. LDMS. Writing about embarrassing or hard memories.

4-Thursday, March 20, 2018. 0925-1030. Nick and Yuri. Scott Ship Hall Room 239. Kendall Residents. Basic revision and getting a clue as to what other information the Kendall Residents felt would be best to know.

5- Tuesday, April 3, 2018. 0925-1030. Sarah and Amber. Kendall Residents. Continuing revision, writing about traumatic and hard memories, final preparations for the public reading.

Lesson Plan 1-

ERH 411 Fieldwork, Nicholas Schweers and Yuri Panchik

Teaching Portfolio

Memoir Lesson Plan Sketch

Lesson Title: Incorporating Fiction into Memoir Writing

Audience: Kendall Residents

Purpose: Ensure that Kendall Residents understand that there is no way to remember EXACTLY how something happened, and that in order to recreate a memory, they must incorporate fiction to fill in the gaps. This creates a fuller story and something that the audience would find more authentic and enjoy more. Reinforce that just because there is fiction in the memoir, it does not make the memoir fiction. If it goes along with their memories, it is still true to themselves.

Bigger Questions: What gaps need to be filled in a memoir? How can you best use fiction to fill those gaps?

 

Learning Objectives:

• Identify where fiction is needed to make a stronger memoir.
• How to incorporate the fiction itself.

Materials: Pencil’s, writing Paper, Excerpts from our (Yuri and Nick) own memoirs (one without the fiction, the other with).

Procedure:

1- Visualization exercise (15 min) – Think of a memory, how much do you remember? Do you remember what every person said, what they were wearing, the smells and sounds etc…? How much do you REALLY remember?—– Give the Kendall Residents the uncomplete memoir (without fiction) to read. Point out how empty it is. Give our filled out memoir, and talk about the major differences.

2- Writing activity (15 min) – Give them a new scene without any fiction. Ask them to implement their own made up/fictional details.

3- Sharing/Conclusions (15-20 min) – Partner up, have the residents and partners share what they added to the story, ask if anything stuck out and ask any questions.

Teacher Notes for Reflection, Action Steps:

The lesson went according to plan. Using Yuri’s and my creative writing pieces to show them how bland writing without some bluffing was seemed effective. It did not take long to go through, but instead of a writing practice, the groups went into a discussion, then split off into small groups. I partnered with one lady that was writing the story of her family for her children and grandchildren. She was a sweet lady that mainly seemed to struggle with making her writing interesting. That was a struggle due to the fact that she was simply writing about what she knows of her lineage. This fit perfectly into the topic, because this would give her ample opportunities to write about what her family members could have been thinking or feeling as they came to America, so on so forth. Group conversations went a little bit longer than expected, resulting in a quick recap of the meeting, and then the Residents left (May 1, 2018).

Lesson Plan 2-

ERH Fieldwork, Nicholas Schweers and Yuri Panchik

Teaching Portfolio

Memoir Lesson Plan

Lesson Title: Revison

Audience: Kendall Residents

Purpose: Identify areas in which Kendall residents are struggling. Ask questions and have an open discussion about these issues and possible solutions. Provide examples of revision of both Nick and Yuri’s memoir’s. Adequately prepare the residents for the public presentations of their memoirs in April.

Bigger questions: What specific challenges are common among the writers? How can these be addressed? Also, what is going well?

Learning Objectives:

• Identify areas of struggle for Kendall residents
• Identify solutions for these struggles
• Practice revision in their own works
• Prepare them for public presentations

Materials:  Pencil’s, writing paper, excerpts

Procedure:

• Introduction: Nick and Yuri’s example (10min)
• Group discussion: identify any problems the residents are having(10min)
• Look over/review memoirs in small groups with cadet leaders (15min)
• Group sharing—small or large— conclusions about revision. Any questions or issues they still have?
• (15min)

 

REFLECTION- NICHOLAS SCHWEERS

On March 21, Yuri and I performed this Lesson Plan with the Kendall Residents in our normal classroom. Up until this point, the class had largely focused on helping the Kendall Residents with memory and invention. We did not have much direction as to where we should take the Residents next, so we decided to begin working on revision and to get the Resident’s opinions on what they would like help with the most. After basic introductions to revision, Yuri read his work and showed how he had revised it, and the Residents seemed to love the memoir and commented on his revisions. I did not get a chance to read my memoir or revisions due to time constraints and the fact that it would be a little bit too repetitive. We then moved to small group discussions where we got to hear the Resident’s memoirs, and give them any advice on revision or anything else that was lacking in their stories. After a good while, we turned back to talking to the whole group, asking where they would like to go with the lessons after this.  A few Residents voiced their opinions which hopefully directed the next student group to be more effective.

Overall, the lesson went well. Residents got help with what they needed, a basic introduction into useful revision, and got to share their ideas and even some of their memoirs. While almost everything went well, a highlight was Yuri sharing his own revisions with the Residents, giving them a good example of what needs to be done, and making them feel more comfortable sharing their own memoirs to the whole group. The cohesiveness of the group really seemed to start coming together around this point, and I could tell the Residents were starting to feel more comfortable with each other and the environment as a whole. One thing that could be done more effectively is keeping with the schedule. In this lesson, along with many others, it seemed that the small group discussion went over the scheduled time limit, which is not bad, but it kept the group from having a longer class discussion and limited our time to see where the Residents saw they needed the most help.

3 additional dated reflections-

1- Monday February 5, 2018. 1100-1230. McDonald and Foster. Scott Ship Hall Room 201. Kendall Residents. Introduction into memoir writing, invention, and memory.

The lesson began with Foster and McDonald handing out a piece of a professional memoir and a piece of their own memoirs. McDonald started with his, and it seemed to focus on invention and memory, but mainly served to make the Kendall Residents more comfortable in this new environment. Obviously their writings were not professional, which in a way seemed to connect with the Residents, opening them up to share their own works and to get a dialogue going. They really got comfortable when Foster read his memoir piece. His piece had curse words and seemed very realistic, or down to earth. I believe that the vulgar nature of his piece brought enough humor into the room to finally get the Residents in a place that was comfortable enough to break into small groups. In these small groups, we found partners that we typically stayed with throughout the other lessons.

2-Thursday, February 15, 2018. 0925-1030. Lee and Carlos. LDMS. Memoir writing through poetry, stressing expression of the senses and memory.

Lee and Carlos taught the kids how to write memoirs through poetry. This gave them a particularly powerful tool to help the kids with memory and invention. They focused primarily on developing the kid’s ability to describe their senses. They handed out a packet that had examples of descriptive poetry, and spaces for them to write their own descriptive poems beneath. They also had a power point presentation with the same poems on the board. They would describe the sense, read the poem, and describe how the poem involved the sense that they were teaching, then would have the kids try their hand at writing a poem highlighting that sense. Then, after all of the examples, they had the kids try to write their own poem incorporating all of the senses, using what they had already written. This seemed particularly effective with such young children, because it forced them to focus on aspects of life that do not seem important to them. When put to the task, the kids performed excellently, writing beautifully descriptive poems.

One thing that I did notice is that all of the kids were not on the same level of writing ability. Largely, I believe that is due to the social ability of the kids. Many seemed to excel in their work, but one or two kids in my group seemed too scared to share their thoughts and feelings to be able to express themselves and then share it. That is definitely something to keep in mind when working with people in an environment as stress filled and judgmental as school.

3-Thursday, February 22, 2018. 0925-1030. Sarah and Amber. LDMS. Writing about embarrassing or hard memories.

Sarah and Amber brought up a fantastic topic to teach to young students. Middle school is a hard time in one’s life. It is filled with the stress of growing up, changing, and judgement for these changes. Some kids are far more mature than others, and not everyone is able to understand what the others are going through. So Amber and Sarah taught the kids how to write about those embarrassing and awful moments that everyone goes through. They gave their own examples of things in their own lives that they find hard to write about and embarrassing. They talked about how it could help them to understand the experience and even help them get over that trauma. They ended the session with asking the kids to write about their own embarrassing experience. When they asked that, all of the kids started snickering and calling out one boy who was in the group I was working with. He seemed very intelligent for his age, and was able to write better than most others from what I could see in the class. I instantly wondered what he could have done and if his embarrassing story was due to his maturity. But after writing, I asked everyone to share their experience if they were comfortable, and I was not ready for his story. He told me that during Valentine’s Day, he did not get any candy grams, even from the girl that he liked, who I assume he had “asked out” or voiced his interest in. On the final candy gram run, he heard his name was called. He was so excited as he went to get it. When he read it, he was crushed, and instantly laughed out of the classroom. It read something along the lines of, “You’re a nice guy”, which in reply to a confession of young love would have been crushing. This was the only moment that stuck out from this meeting, because as a 21 year old male, I have never been through such a horrifying experience as that. But through writing about the experience, he seemed to be able to cope with the embarrassment well, which was the purpose of the whole class.

 

 

Publishing and Community Impact

 

I was a bit under the weather and could not attend the publishing/public reading. I regret terribly the fact that I could not attend the pinnacle of the class. I would have loved to be there and see how far everyone and their memoirs had come since the beginning of the year. It has been great seeing the Kendal Residents and LDMS Students develop throughout the semester, and it has helped me develop as a writer myself. It has been a wonderful experience.

To LDMS:

Dear LDMS students,

Thank you for letting me and my fellow Cadet Leaders have the wonderful experience of working with young students as smart and talented as you. I hope that we have helped you all learn to enjoy writing, and that you are all more confident in your ability as writers and students as a whole. I am proud of all of you and excited to see where you all go in your lives. You are young and have a long way to go, but I have never seen such a smart group of middle schoolers in my life. I am confident that if you all keep working as hard as you work, you will go far and succeed in whatever path you chose in life. Thanks again for your time, and Rah Va Mil.

 

To the Kendall Residents:

Dear Kendall Residents,

Thank you all so much for participating in our journey to become better writers. Being a student is something that lasts your entire life, and I hope that we in some way or another have helped you develop your writing and have helped you along your path to reach your writing goals. It was hard to know what you all needed help with, because you all seemed like such advanced writers already. Again, thank you for your time, and for helping me realize many different ways that I could improve my own writing. I definitely learned as much, if not more, from you all as you learned from me. Your inspiring stories and writing skill have motivated me to work on my writing more than you know. Good luck with your works, God bless, and Rah Va Mil.