I never particularly had a trouble time reading but for me writing could be challenging. It’s always amazing to come up with an idea and an outline but I always seemed to have issues completing and executing my creation. Writing takes a lot of thought and is a long process. My problem is that I hate to change my words, sentences, and structure. I’m good at taking feedback and criticism, that’s no problem! But I can have a hard time applying the suggestions to make my writing and story stronger. I’ve always seemed to think that it’s harder to revise my writing than it is to make the draft. This is something I have been working on during college, that is, to actually try and work on revising my work, so it turns out even stronger!
Right now, I work as a tutor for the SPARK Literacy Program here in Milwaukee through the Boys and Girls Club. The program works with kindergarten through second grade to get their reading, writing, and literacy levels higher. This job involves me taking a student from their class to the SPARK room to do a one-on-one lesson for 30 minutes about a topic they are still learning about and need more practice with. Here is a link to the SPARK page that shares a bit more information about the awesome work that's done: https://bgcmilwaukee.org/programs/academic-success/spark/
Working with young students at the start of learning letters and sounds, and introducing reading and writing, is very different from helping writers on their stories and work. I’ve only given very basic feedback to my peers in class about their work. I find myself having trouble to give feedback to others about their work because it can be hard for me to find imperfections about a story unless it is a grammatical correction. Mainly because I always think something is beautiful with how the individual created their piece in their own unique way. So, I’m going to take this opportunity as a writing coach to find ways to work with and help elevate these writers in their creations.
This is the literacy collage I made that portrays me as a reader and writer:
I enjoy reading many different genres of books but of course my favorite is fantasy and sci-fi. I really love Harry Potter! I started the trend late and first read this series my senior year of high school and ever since then I have found my passion for reading again! Some other books that I have resonated with and have impacted my way of life are Jane Eyre, The Giver, and The Little Book of Joy. Last year in my classes I have started reading stories by the author, Octavia Butler and found her stories and storytelling to be extremely powerful and moving. I also enjoy many different artists that have unique ways of using their words in their songs to tell a story. Some of my favorite artists are PinkPantheress, Mk.gee, Kendrick, Mac DeMarco, The Sundays, Blood Orange, and many more.
First of all, I just want to say that you have an amazing taste in music! "Two Star & the Dream Police" is my favorite album from Mk.gee, and I also love his overall vibe! Along with that, I loved how you blended everything together in your collage!! I thought it was cool to see that you also had Harry Potter and Twilight on there.
ReplyDeleteBesides the cool interests and pictures you added, I agree with your statement about having trouble giving feedback to others about their work because honestly I feel bad for saying they should change something, since the story is their own unique work. I also mostly just look for grammatical errors to correct them on because I find it to be the nicest way to give feedback. But with that being said, I definitely hope that we learn more ways to give productive feedback in this class.
Olivia, it is great to hear about your experiences as a Spark tutor and how your work with young readers and writers as they learn their letters and sounds is helping to see your own literacy identity in new ways and how that connects to art as well.
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