December Review Reflection...

The December Review was definitely a valuable experience. For me, I believe that actually creating the presentation was almost as important as the review itself. It just helped me so much to stop and put together a 20 minute presentation of where my project is now, as well as what has led up to it. It really forced me to have a definitive plan and allowed me to think about what my exact intentions are for this project.

I felt confident in the presentation that I gave, and was really happy that the panel was able to understand my project after listening to what I was saying. The feedback that I was getting was very interesting...questions were being asked that I have never been asked before. The only thing was that I walked away a bit disappointed that I did not get any positive comments.

I think the best question that I got, which really got at all of the comments that the panel was saying was, "what would you title your project?" This is definitely something for me to think about, and something that is very important. Additionally, one professor asked what makes this project a project that should be in the school of A + D and not in the school of social work- this worried me a bit. I definitely am glad I have this break now so that I can sit back and reflect on the various comments that I received from my review.

As far as next steps go, this break I am going to work on my book. I am going to try different designs and explore how I could tell my story. I am also going to take photographs of how I felt during this time. I am excited to start laying out and designing, and will definitely have something to share after vacation. Additionally, the 5th grade girls at King Elementary are taking photographs over their winter break, and I will be meeting with them sometime in January. I am really excited about this!

That's all for now...have a great vacation!

Week 14

What I did:

I feel like I have really been devoting much of my time to IP, which is good!

-spent about 8 hours or more working on my presentation

-reached out to Courtney's mom Sandra Michalik and have been connecting back and forth with her (30 minutes)

-created outline for Sandra to show to principal (1 hour)

-worked on website a bit (2 hours)

-Came up with a new idea for my book (1 hour)

-Met with Stephanie about reaching out to women my age (45 mins)

-Reached out to all IP students to reflect back and reached out to friends to attend a workshop where we will be reflecting together (1 hour)

-Met with Hodan Saed of Girl Scouts Ann Arbor (1 hour)

-Created abstract (3 hours)

What I accomplished/discovered/encountered:

-It has been SO helpful to put together this December Review Presentation. It has really been making me stop and think about everything that has happened so far this semester. It is really helpful to see my process and how one thing relates to another (a lot of time when I am so caught up with everything, this becomes difficult). I really needed this experience of putting together this presentation to allow me to make clear for myself exactly what I am doing for IP. Also, it was extremely helpful to receive feedback from my peers and from Hannah on my presentation.

-I'm also really thankful for Courtney getting me in touch with her mom! Sandra Michalik is a 5th grade teacher at King Elementary school. We have been emailing about my project, and she knows for sure that the 5th grade girls will want to do it. I also created an outline to send to her, which was in effect helpful for me to get out (Hannah-I followed the layout you usually use for your handouts, since I wanted it to be very clear- hope that's ok!) (see above)

This was the latest email from Sandra (we are meeting on Monday to discuss the permission slip to give to the parents, etc...)

*She would like me to put the A+D logo on it, and I emailed Kate West, who said she needs to hear from either Hannah or Stephanie a little more about my project.

I told my class just a bit about your project and ALL of the girls were interested. We'll have to figure out how to accommodate allllll the girls if they want to participate:)

A good problem to have. We could end up with as many as 7 or 8 groups of 5? They were already brainstorming images to create.

Also, Sandra is really into the website/blog and thinks this will be a great tool for the girls.

-I worked on my website a bit more to make it solely a tool for the girls

web.mac.com/carly9188

-Additionally, I met with Stephanie on Tuesday which was very helpful. We talked about ways I can go about reaching out to women my age to have them reflect back on this time for them and how they overcame it. I ended up putting together an email. I am excited to see what I receive. I also reached out to a group of 5-6 of my friends and I am going to have them come to my house for us to reflect back together. Stephanie and I talked about the differences between private and group reflection, and I am trying both.

-Hannah and I talked today about the content of my book (not being only what I receive from women my age) and telling more of my story. I think this is a good idea and am definitely going to work on that.

-Today I met with Hodan Saed of the Girl Scouts of Ann Arbor and her intern Maureen who is a grad student in the School of Social Work at Michigan. I presented my project to them and they were really excited about it. I feel really good because I felt extremely confident in my presentation to them since I had an outline, etc... They are even so excited about my workshop that they might be able to help fund me a bit! Hodan gave me the list of all the troop leaders working with the age group I am targeting, and I am looking forward to hearing back from them.

-Sometimes I have these moments when I look back at this semester and freak out about not having many tangible products that I have produced. I think working on this book with its content being about my story might make me feel better. I also keep telling myself that it has taken me so long to reach out to all the people that I reached out to, and make the connections that I did. I think once I really start working with the girls I will be really excited as well. Once again, it is so helpful to see my process throughout this semester and I feel I am really learning a lot about myself.

What's next:

-Using Hannah's Daughters and Friends as a focus group on Sunday- this should be very helpful

-keep working on presentation and practicing it!- i also need to come up with questions for the panel

-Meeting with Sandra Michalik

-Start working on book with my story

-thesis!

new idea for book

Since the beginning and especially recently, I have been struggling with figuring out the intention and purpose of making a book. I initially really wanted to make one since I would like to go into the book publishing industry after graduation. Also, I like the idea of having a tangible product that can go out into the world that would show people what I was doing with my project and what I collected. But as Hannah once said, "you shouldn't make a book just to have it sit on your bookshelf and to make your mom proud." (Which I think is very true!) Last night at Frank Warren's lecture, he was discussing how he sees his book as something that is very different than a website in that it is not live and fleeting. It is a way to project something into the future more.

I also have been struggling with whether or not this book would be a documentation of my project, a tool to show the prevalence of this problem in America, or a tool for the girls to see that they are not alone through presenting the works of all the girls that I have worked with. (This is the intention of my website, however).

So, I have a new idea for a book that I am very excited about. This idea incorporates my past idea of gathering works and stories from girls my age. However, I want to connect it more to the activity that I will be doing in the workshops with the girls (photographing various adjectives to evoke feelings). I am going to send out an email to all of the women in IP, as well as my sorority and friends, asking them to take a picture of a photo that describes an adjective of a feeling that they felt from 5th-7th grade. I will give them examples (alone, excluded, scared...etc...) I will then ask them to write a very short description of when they felt this way and what the situation was. I will also ask them to write how they overcame this feeling and to take a picture of how they felt once they overcame it (confident, calm, happy, etc...) I will provide an example and let them know what the intention is.

THIS is the content that I believe would be very powerful for my book. I think it would have an affect on the girls, and perhaps they would be able to see that older girls experienced similar situations, but were able to overcome these feelings. It could just take one woman's refection to resonate with a girl for it to have the affect that I want it to. Also, getting the permission to use these stories and photographs from girls my age will not be as much as a problem as getting the permission for younger girls and their parents. I will give these women the option to either send me their work/stories or to drop it off in a box in my studio (for the IPers) or in a box in my sorority.

I would give each group teacher/group a copy of the book so that the girls that I worked with can see it, in addition to girls in the future.

This will also be something that I can work on alongside the workshops that I plan to do, which I think is important.

Thoughts??

Week 13

What I did:

Re-drafted an assignment for Hannah to send out to add to my focus group (1 hour)

Taught myself iweb and creating a mock website: (7 hours)

Met with Deb Mae Gordon Gurfinkel (30 minutes)

What I accomplished/discovered/encountered:

This was an interesting week...

Received my first photographs for the pilot activity from Hannah's Daughters. I am really happy with the results, but also have to remember that these are coming from creative girls. I chose one from each adjective to upload here:

scared

satisfied



nervous


lonely


happy


calm


From here, I am going to hopefully gather more photographs from girls as a focus group, and then meet with the girls. I want the girls to discuss what they were thinking when they took some of the photographs and have them try to guess which adjectives go with other girls photographs. I believe this will really get the girls to start thinking about how these words feel. After this, I am going to ask them if they can illustrate in some way a situation in which they felt one of these adjectives, or when they tend to feel like one of these adjectives (drawing, writing, or poetry). This goes more along with my initial goal of allowing these girls to express themselves in a nonverbal way. This will only be for the girls to take home, as I have come to the realization that it is not right for me to take these personal explorations from them, unless they would like to share them (which I will give them the opportunity to do so).

I re-drafted the assignment page that I gave to Hannah to email out to find participants for the focus group. It is more personal and explanatory. Also I give them an image to start thinking about how photographs can really depict different emotions, etc... I am going to create a new assignment sheet for working with the different classes/groups.

I have also drafted up a website with iweb, which I think would be a really cool tool for the girls in the different groups I am working in to see their photographs, as well as other girl's photographs. This website also has a blogging feature to it where the girls would be able to post anonymous comments. I think this would add to the therapeutic process of releasing these feelings that the girls have inside them. For example under the lonely category I would say: "Would you like to share a situation that made you feel lonely." I feel this tool would help the girls see that they are not alone in their feelings. Also, I am including positive adjectives so that this is not an entirely negative experience for these girls. I am also going to have a section where the girls can guess other girl's photographs and why they feel this way.

Check out the website here: web.mac.com/carly9188
*Again: Nothing is at all resolved (wording, layout, etc...- especially the homepage)
I am going to completey change the homepage and make the website only a tool for the girls!

This week I also met with Deb Mae Gordon Gurfinkel who was a great resource (thanks Erica!)
She is extremely creative and great to run my activites by. She really thought the activities would work well but let me know a few different things that I should be aware of. She really stressed the fact that I need to make my agenda clear...which is so true. She also made me aware that when I unleash feelings and emotions such as the ones that I may be unleashing, I need to take responsibility. I talked about this with Erica today and she discussed coming into the group sessions with a list of hotlines, etc... prepared. I think this is a good idea just in case. Also, Deb thinks it would be great if I shared my story with the girls, but she also made it clear that I need to try to gage how these girls are reacting to this and determine whether or not it would be apropriate. Lastly, she stressed the importance of the girls having the opportunity to share what it is they are working on (drawing, writing) as they might find that helpful.
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A few interesting things I found this week/ others showed me:

http://projects.nytimes.com/living-with-less
This project is so cool! There is a section with a bunch of different words and people have to choose which word describes their current mood on the recession. The words that are larger are the words that the most amount of people chose. There is also a section where people can post photos picturing their views and experiences of the recession. This project seems similar to my goal in that it is a way for these people to see that they are not alone in their thoughts and to create a therapeutic process, etc...

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/12/02/nyregion/1247465948230/neediest-coloring-their-days.html?scp=1&sq=art%20therapist&st=cse
This is a really cool video about an art therapist, Jessica Sebastian who does art to bring out the best in her clients. She works with a project called: Project Moving On. She also did a project with her group that had to do with photography and had each participant photograph themselves in a park with whichever part of the park was special to them, and then they created art work from that about what they enjoyed about nature. She said "they were all glowing in the photos and they were the most beautiful photos she had ever seen." She said she "saw a light glowing inside of them and if they could show this light to others it could inspire others as well." This seems similar to my project in that it was a two-fold activity that really enabled the participants to be creative and allowed for an outlet for each of them to partake in.

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I felt my small group critique this morning went terribly as I had a really off day and was having trouble articulating my project to the group. I think the problem was that I was excited to share the development of the new tool that I created (my website) and failed to discuss its implications to the larger part of my project. I came across as very passive and was not backing up my ideas and my plans. This also definitely helped me, and led me to really gather my thoughts this afternoon (I sat down with Erica for about 45 minutes). All of this will be helpful for my review.

I was feeling really down after this critique about my project but now I feel much better :)
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Last but not least, I contacted Courtney's mom today who is a 5th grade teacher at King Elementary School here in Ann Arbor about my project and working with girls in her class. This is what she wrote back (!):

Carly... This is a VERY cool idea and REALLY needed. I would love to explore this idea with you. I think the other 5th grade teachers would be too.
What is your timeline? You would need a very detailed plan that we could review... what blocks of time you think you'd need, how many blocks of time, etc.
How many girls total?
I'm thinking that you'd have good access during the lunch period... 12:15- 1:00, and they'd have to eat during this time block. We could give a bit of other time
if necessary, but we have little open times as the curriculum is so jam packed:)
Look forward to hearing back from you.

Sandra


-I have been emailing with her and I am going to meet with her and 2 other 5th grade teachers and give them an outline of my plan and a general letter to the parents. They would then like to
help me fine tune things, brainstorm potential problems.... and think about parental permission slips.

If I could work with these girls as well as the class in Ypsilanti, that would be great! Hopefully the girl scouts will get back to me as well. When I work with these classes I will have to use disposable cameras and break the girls into groups since I will definitely not be able to spend the money on all of those cameras/development costs. I think that in each group, each girl will take 2 photographs and then give it to the next person in their group (this will be during lunch, so while the girls in each group are not taking the photos they can be eating lunch). I will also give the girls around a 10 minute time limit.

What I think I should do next:

December Review Presentation!
Work on the wording of the homepage of the website
Outline Lesson Plan and Letter to parents to prepare for meeting with Sandra Michalik
Create a permission form to the girls for them to give me permission to use the photos

I'm seeing Frank Warren from PostSecret speak tomorrow night at the Michigan Theater!!