7-11, 7-18
We kicked off our summer meetings with a focus on story writing! On 7-11 we went to Oz Park on Armitage and Halsted, set up blankets, and did some “imagination exercises.” Some of the exercises asked students to write about their lives; for example, “name 15 things you see outside of your house.” Or: “think of a song that brings back strong memories. What song is it? What kinds of feelings do you associate with the song?” Then, some of the exercises asked students to make up stories, or little scenarios. One example is: “Through the laundromat window, I see….” The point of doing the exercises was to get students’ creative muscles working and give them inspiration for writing their own stories (real or imagined).
On 7-18 we continued with the exercises and talked about possible stories. Marcus will be writing about his “block.” Eboni will write about a song that triggers a memory of a past boyfriend. Victoria is also writing about a song. LaFaye is writing a fiction story from a young girl’s perspective that describes the girl searching for her mother, who is never around. TT is writing about a song that brings back strong memories of her uncle who passed away. We talked about different elements of story writing such as what draws the reader in and how to be descriptive. I tried to help the students narrow down their story ideas—to write about a moment, or an event, rather than trying to capture too much in one story. They got some words on paper, which was great! They will be working on their stories on their own time and next week, we’ll look at first drafts and work on revising!
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Year end dinner story: it's all about family!
Before we move on to our summer meetings, I wanted to post a re-cap of the year-end dinner...
With the theme of “This Is Just the Beginning,” the Cabrini Connections family gathered for the year-end dinner on June 8th—celebrating students’ accomplishments and looking toward the future.
With his words and his spirit, Jabar taught us about destiny. A graduate of CC and college sophomore inspired younger students to stay focused. Then Eboni, Tajeria, LeFaye, and Victoria from the writing group performed an improv and poetry skit about seeing “The Color Purple.” They head-bobbed, showed us attitude, and reminisced as the audience laughed and went along for the ride.
Courtland and Ana kept things running smoothly as students, volunteers, and special guests met each other and chatted over dinner. We listened to India Arie, and a slide show of student memories played in the background (thanks Roman!). Over dinner, we introduced ourselves and shared our diverse experiences working with the kids at CC.
After dinner, proud parents took the mic to share their kids’ experiences with the organization. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one crying as one father told us that “it’s not always easy raising kids and keepin’ them smellin’ nice.” But with the help of CC, he’s given them a future. He thanked the CC “family,” extended special thanks to Dan, and inspired us with his heartfelt words.
Dan built on the theme of family in his seven minute speech (Ana had given him five :)). The reason Dan could talk all day is because he’s committed to CC—in both his words and his actions. He talked about the beauty of so many diverse types of people coming together to make CC a success and reminded us that we’re not just an organization, we’re a family. He encouraged us to keep looking to the future and staying connected to CC.
Rebecca talked about the future ambitions of the IYP Video Club and showed us a preview of the full-length documentary that members had produced. Courtland and Ana announced student awards and passed out prizes to the deserving winners!! We clapped for graduating seniors Jabar Norman, Kevin Stanfield, and Terika White.
With the spirit of CC, these students would be moving on. But as we had learned throughout the evening, you never lose touch with family; their accomplishments would live on through the younger students who’d be a part of the family for years to come. So when we left for the evening, we knew we’d be in contact soon—to continue doing the homework, making memories, and together learning what it means to succeed.
With the theme of “This Is Just the Beginning,” the Cabrini Connections family gathered for the year-end dinner on June 8th—celebrating students’ accomplishments and looking toward the future.
With his words and his spirit, Jabar taught us about destiny. A graduate of CC and college sophomore inspired younger students to stay focused. Then Eboni, Tajeria, LeFaye, and Victoria from the writing group performed an improv and poetry skit about seeing “The Color Purple.” They head-bobbed, showed us attitude, and reminisced as the audience laughed and went along for the ride.
Courtland and Ana kept things running smoothly as students, volunteers, and special guests met each other and chatted over dinner. We listened to India Arie, and a slide show of student memories played in the background (thanks Roman!). Over dinner, we introduced ourselves and shared our diverse experiences working with the kids at CC.
After dinner, proud parents took the mic to share their kids’ experiences with the organization. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one crying as one father told us that “it’s not always easy raising kids and keepin’ them smellin’ nice.” But with the help of CC, he’s given them a future. He thanked the CC “family,” extended special thanks to Dan, and inspired us with his heartfelt words.
Dan built on the theme of family in his seven minute speech (Ana had given him five :)). The reason Dan could talk all day is because he’s committed to CC—in both his words and his actions. He talked about the beauty of so many diverse types of people coming together to make CC a success and reminded us that we’re not just an organization, we’re a family. He encouraged us to keep looking to the future and staying connected to CC.
Rebecca talked about the future ambitions of the IYP Video Club and showed us a preview of the full-length documentary that members had produced. Courtland and Ana announced student awards and passed out prizes to the deserving winners!! We clapped for graduating seniors Jabar Norman, Kevin Stanfield, and Terika White.
With the spirit of CC, these students would be moving on. But as we had learned throughout the evening, you never lose touch with family; their accomplishments would live on through the younger students who’d be a part of the family for years to come. So when we left for the evening, we knew we’d be in contact soon—to continue doing the homework, making memories, and together learning what it means to succeed.
Friday, June 1, 2007
The "Color Purple"
Our big event of the year was seeing the "Color Purple" at the Cadillac/Palace theatre! Thanks to McHugh Construction and a private donor, we were able to eat at the Italian Village and attend the show.
At dinner we ate shrimp cocktail, calmari (not a big hit), salad, bread, pasta, more pasta, cheesecake, tiramisu, and brownie sundaes. Some of the girls were brave enough to try espresso, but I don't think they'll ever try it again! Our waiter Mario gave us incredible service, and the highlight of the dinner was simply getting to know each other better. The girls told stories and more stories, and there was no shortage of laughter!
We cabbed it to the theatre and watched a powerful performance of love lost and found, strength, and courage. What was really neat about the show for Jen and I was to watch the girls being inspired. The female characters were strong and powerful in spirit; in a group full of girls, we thought this was the perfect message!
At dinner we ate shrimp cocktail, calmari (not a big hit), salad, bread, pasta, more pasta, cheesecake, tiramisu, and brownie sundaes. Some of the girls were brave enough to try espresso, but I don't think they'll ever try it again! Our waiter Mario gave us incredible service, and the highlight of the dinner was simply getting to know each other better. The girls told stories and more stories, and there was no shortage of laughter!
We cabbed it to the theatre and watched a powerful performance of love lost and found, strength, and courage. What was really neat about the show for Jen and I was to watch the girls being inspired. The female characters were strong and powerful in spirit; in a group full of girls, we thought this was the perfect message!
5-23, 5-30: Scripts for Year-End Dinner!
We've been working through ideas and coming up with some entertainment for the year-end dinner! We encouraged the girls to present something that would represent their unique voices and experiences...after drafting different ways to express ourselves, we've decided to combine improv and poetry. The girls wanted their performance to be somewhat scripted but "live" enough to entertain the audience. Next week we're going to a coffee shop to practice performing our words!
See everyone at the year-end dinner!
See everyone at the year-end dinner!
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
5-16, Writing for year-end dinner!
This week, we started brainstorming about what we want to say at the year-end dinner! Jen led the meeting and had the girls come up with memories we've created in the group and talk about what the group means to them. She started with a one-line description of the group and passed the paper around. Each member wrote a tidbit describing the group in their own words. We'll be using this as a springboard to work on poems that members will perform!!
5-9, Letters of Change
Last week we had one of our most inspirational meetings. We had never seen members so focused and passionate about an activity! The focus of the day was how we could write to make change in the world. We talked about the power of the written word and how our own words could get things done, help us achieve things, help us help others, and get "things" (like the donations we've been getting....anything we've gotten donated to us was the result of using words and letters to put our message out there!). We wanted the kids to find issues that they wanted to fight for and use their own words to make change.
To figure out what everyone was passionate about, we started out with the question: "What bothers you in your life?" The girls had a LOT to say, and they all listened with respect to everyone's ideas. Some of the issues girls brought up were things at home (miscommunication, wanting closer relationships with family members) and things at school (the way teachers talked "down" to them, the lack of care they've seen in some of their authorites, etc..). We talked about how to approach these issues productively and talked about possible avenues of change.
Tonight we picked up from last week's conversations and figured out a place to start. Several members suggested writing letters to teachers that have inspired them. We figured starting with the positive things in life was a good route, and so we wrote....Members wrote letters to past or present teachers, which we mailed as an end of the year gift! The more we talk about issues affecting the girls, we hope to find a collective cause that we can address....with our words, and down the road, our actions.
To figure out what everyone was passionate about, we started out with the question: "What bothers you in your life?" The girls had a LOT to say, and they all listened with respect to everyone's ideas. Some of the issues girls brought up were things at home (miscommunication, wanting closer relationships with family members) and things at school (the way teachers talked "down" to them, the lack of care they've seen in some of their authorites, etc..). We talked about how to approach these issues productively and talked about possible avenues of change.
Tonight we picked up from last week's conversations and figured out a place to start. Several members suggested writing letters to teachers that have inspired them. We figured starting with the positive things in life was a good route, and so we wrote....Members wrote letters to past or present teachers, which we mailed as an end of the year gift! The more we talk about issues affecting the girls, we hope to find a collective cause that we can address....with our words, and down the road, our actions.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
5-2, Blog Exchange
5-2, Blog Exchange
Dan recently pointed out a Vermont mentoring program that cited our blog (and the Cabrini Connections main blog) as an example of what blogs can accomplish! The Three River Valley Regional Business Education Partnership mentoring programs creates diverse mentoring opportunities such as facilitating weekly lunches/meeting with mentors and youth, giving youth the chance to spend time with senior citizens, and matching mentors with juveniles who’ve committed crimes, to ensure that they get on the right path. Marie Gelineau, Executive Director, and her staff are publicizing their efforts to reach out on their new blog @ http://vtmentoring.blogspot.com/. We are thrilled to have a blog connection, and we’d like to share some of the great things that our blog has helped us to accomplish.
(1) Showcasing student work! Our group is of course 100% voluntary, and we’ve been amazed at the kids’ high level of enthusiasm! As we build a community, we’ve tried to create fun and meaningful activities for the kids….as we help them focus on different writing tasks, they’ve produced some amazing work. We’ve posted their work on the blog and talked to them about what it means when their work goes “public” (you can search their names on google and the blog shows up). This gives the kids a sense of accomplishment and encourages them to be more focused.
(2) Showing potential donators what we’re about! As we’ve reached out to the community and asked for donations, we always cite our blog! It helps give a “face” the kids’ efforts, as well as gives a sense of professionalism to our group. The more people that visit our blog, the more resources we can garner. We’ve written letters to newspapers and local restaurants and talked to anyone and everyone about our group! The blog is a tangible means of showing what we do.
(3) Creating connections with other mentors. The blog helps us create relationships and opens up communication lines with other mentors and volunteers (in Cabrini Connections and other mentoring programs). When face-to-face meetings and interactions aren’t possible, the blog indirectly opens up communication lines :).
Dan recently pointed out a Vermont mentoring program that cited our blog (and the Cabrini Connections main blog) as an example of what blogs can accomplish! The Three River Valley Regional Business Education Partnership mentoring programs creates diverse mentoring opportunities such as facilitating weekly lunches/meeting with mentors and youth, giving youth the chance to spend time with senior citizens, and matching mentors with juveniles who’ve committed crimes, to ensure that they get on the right path. Marie Gelineau, Executive Director, and her staff are publicizing their efforts to reach out on their new blog @ http://vtmentoring.blogspot.com/. We are thrilled to have a blog connection, and we’d like to share some of the great things that our blog has helped us to accomplish.
(1) Showcasing student work! Our group is of course 100% voluntary, and we’ve been amazed at the kids’ high level of enthusiasm! As we build a community, we’ve tried to create fun and meaningful activities for the kids….as we help them focus on different writing tasks, they’ve produced some amazing work. We’ve posted their work on the blog and talked to them about what it means when their work goes “public” (you can search their names on google and the blog shows up). This gives the kids a sense of accomplishment and encourages them to be more focused.
(2) Showing potential donators what we’re about! As we’ve reached out to the community and asked for donations, we always cite our blog! It helps give a “face” the kids’ efforts, as well as gives a sense of professionalism to our group. The more people that visit our blog, the more resources we can garner. We’ve written letters to newspapers and local restaurants and talked to anyone and everyone about our group! The blog is a tangible means of showing what we do.
(3) Creating connections with other mentors. The blog helps us create relationships and opens up communication lines with other mentors and volunteers (in Cabrini Connections and other mentoring programs). When face-to-face meetings and interactions aren’t possible, the blog indirectly opens up communication lines :).
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