Chautauqua has its roots in Chautauqua, NY, dedicated to the arts and continuing education.
Our Chautauqua family practicum was introduced last Thursday, Feb. 4, with a performance by Beatrice. Frances role-layed the character of her domestic short hair black cat, Beatrice through story and song. UNM students in Educating Diverse Students course will serve as Story Coaches for fourth graders in Mrs. Bradshaw's classroom at Apache Elementary in guiding them through the stages of choosing a family member and performing that character for an audience of families and friends on May 13. Both UNM coaches and 4th graders will perform their Chautauqua characters together on May 13.
Today, Feb. 11, UNM coaches shared pictures of their families with 4th graders and to begin building a working relationship. Fourth graders seemed excited and truly engaged
in listening to their UNM Chautauqua Coaches share pictures and stories about their own families.
On Feb. 18 UNM coaches will share with 4th graders sketches of their brainstorming ideas about their own possible family members to choose from for their eventual Chautuaqua character. Fourth graders will brainstorm their own family character options before choosing the one character to refine, adapt and stage for their Chautauqua role playing performance. Our Chautauqua character will be evaluated using the rubric as our assessment tool. We will meet weekly from now until May 6, our dress rehearsal date, in preparation for the final May 13 perofrmance date. Development of our stories will follow the writing workshop process of editing drafts, peer conferening, and coach conferencing.
Since we are Chautauqua coaches, one of our goals is to share stories about different characters in different ways. Hearing stories from different perspectives will provide a reference for 4th graders when considering how to deliver their own character stories. Today we read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett in showing how a grandfather shares bedtime stories with his grandchildren. Perhaps a child will relate a favorite story or stories shared with their grandparents, mother or father.
On Feb. 25, UNM Chautauqua Coaches will read a story about a family member to their mentees before each continues to add words, descriptions in fleshing out their characters, eventually choosing to focus on one Chautauqua family character. Students will follow-up their brainstorming with mapping or webbing their ideas for each character.
Students will be encouraged to ask questions, interview this character to learn more about them as they craft their story over time. Several students have voiced resistance in performing a character. We will respect their perspective and will continue to encourage them to write a story as a family character. In time they may change their mind and if they do not, they will relate their story in a technological format.
Feb. 25 coaching: Using student brainstormed illustrations, 4th graders are adding web/mapping story ideas for each character. Click here to see pictures.
UNM Coaches read books during their session to help students build on their understanding of different waysto deliver or tell a story. Click here to see pictures of books read this week.
Some students are better at telling their stories than writing. This is an example of students whose strength
s are grounded in a more oral tradition. Relying on their storytelling strengths, we as UNM coaches, may offer to write or scribe their words for them. Then they can read their own words, reinforcing their written literacy skills.
Thank you coaches for your conscientiousness with working with your 4th grade mentees. They are blossoming under your watchful guidance.
March 4 Coaching: It is interesting how students are making the transition from thinking and writing
about their characters to becoming their charcaters and seeing the worl through their eyes. When they write, they are reminded to say I, instead fo he or she. This is an important switch in telling their character's story. We brought four throw away cameras for students to take turns taking home and taking three pictures each of their characters. This way when they share their Chautauaqua character story on May 13, we can flash pictures of the real character on a screen behind them. I found this to be effective when I shared the character of Beatrice for students. Having pictures available for them to see brought the story to life because they could connect the songs and stories about Beatrice to a real face. This was an AHA moment of making connections between their Chautauqua characters and really seeing what their characters really look like.
March 11: (no pictures today) I will be working with Tyson and Melissa and Reshauna now. Each are at different stages of their storytelling character but all are at the beginning stages. Tyson is better at telling his story and I scribe for him and then type his words for him to read and edit. Melissa is a writer so I type her words and she edits and grows her story from there. Reshauna is new so she is mapping out several character ideas. Next week she will choose one and begin drafting her story.
The art of working with them is crafting their stories so they can share with us what they see in their minds through descriptions, metaphor, voice and style. Honing in on one particular event may also become a particular way of their storytelling. Our role as coaches is to ask the questions a curious listener would ask: What did it look like; what did that sound like; what did that feel like; what did you say; what was his expression; what does that remind you of; tell me more about this. We are helping them become better storytellers through observation, detail, feelings so listeners can connect to their stories on some level. Storytelling coaches are bringing in laptops to write their mentees' stories and be able to print them off more easily for next week's editing.
March 18: Patricia and I conducted peer conferences today with Cody, Shandale, Tyson and Melanie in the school library. It is interesting to observe how they are more relaxed sharing stars and wishes about their story characters. This also gives them an opportunity to talk about their character with others who do not know their story. We will not see students for three weeks during the testing window so it we will continue where we left off on April 22!
