The Last Stretch in ELD Club

The past two days, we have officially entered the last stretch of finishing our final product for this Friday's ELD finale open house. As a final product, each student will put together a book that will encompass all of the drawings, photos and writing they have created during the past eight weeks of the club. This book will then be showed off to the parents and teachers who come to celebrate our students' success during the open house.

As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that what I'm about to say next might be somewhat of a disappoinment when considering the goals and hopes I mentioned in a previous post, Process Vs. Product. During the process of the eight weeks, we have all been very busy birds, both the teachers and the students. In order to use photography as an inspiration vehicle to drive authentic writing and language production, we had to do a lot of setting up in terms of teaching students how to take photos with a digital camera and disposable camera, the concept that photographs and images tell stories, the targeted language forms and functions for describing, making a connection with and asking critical questions about a photograph, and also begin to develop a critical lens for the students when viewing an image.

Thinking back, this is really a lot of work that we had planned for our students. Although, at the end of the eight weeks now, I do think we have accomplished many of these goals through the process of learning, exploring, doing and re-doing, I cannot say that the process was always a smooth one. This may be why, we are feeling a bit scrambled and rushed during the current production process. In an ideal world, the process for learning and product creation should be one, yet I feel that the transition between the two is a bit forced for us. It almost feels as if we were just getting on the right track with a meaningful and productive process, and then it was time for us to have products to show for it.

Timing and finding balance, crucial ingrediences for productive teaching!