Once we arrived, Ms. Johns informed us they veered from their normal curriculum to work on an essay that would be submitted to a competition. The students had to write about a time they witnessed or experienced bullying. It had to include their definition of bullying, the situation, and if an adult intervened. Some students did not know a real event to write about, so they had to write a short narrative of a bullying situation and how it was resolved. I worked with two students on their narratives: Nikki and Xavier. I had worked with Xavier the first visit. Each student barely had anything written, so it sounded like Ms. Johns's main concern was to have something written. However, I wish she had clarified what she wanted me to do. She never explicitly said, and I wasn't sure if should focus on teaching them to construct better sentences or just help them to come up with the story and type it out.
Since it was a draft, I focused on getting them to write out their ideas. Nikki was more talkative than Xavier, so I was able to connect with her more. She told me she was a bad writer and could not write fiction or poetry. I told her it was really hard for me too. Sometimes I felt like a bad writer, but writing is a process, and no one is good at writing at first. It's a skill. I think this made her feel better, because afterwards she wrote more. Sometimes I had to prompt her if I could tell she didn't know what to do.
Xavier would be on his phone, eating, or just laying his head down. I let him take small breaks, but I tried to keep him on track. Ms. Johns would occasionally help prompt him. Since she knew the assignment better than me, she would type out questions for him about his story.
In the class after this week's visit, one group's presentation focused on bullying. In high school, the main form was cyber bullying. I could see this being a problem at Classic City, because every student is on his or her phone most of the time. However, both students I worked with were writing fictional stories, so I do not know if this is a big problem at the school.
