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.
_________________________________________________________________
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.

__________________________________________________________________
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 :)
________________________________________________________________
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!!