Cheyenne



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Hi my name is Cheyenne, I'm in grade 11 and I peer tutor in Art 9!
I love doing art, whether it's photography, painting, drawing or sculpting; I love it all. In the future I'm planning on attending art school and I want to be a concept artist and illustrator. (For books, movies and video games.) I decided to take Peer Tutoring 12 because as an artist I think that to become better at what I do, teaching and helping others is important. Plus I love meeting new people and helping others, that's a bonus! Other things I'm interested in are: video games, action movies, reading, writing, listening to classic rock and jazz.

**Journal Entries:**
A little note o the first week, the first week I was totally nervous about coming into an art class. I'm pretty self conscious about my art and I've never taught any art up until now. But it went great, the students are super funny, polite, enthusiastic and a little on the loud side. (But we all were in grade 9) We did self portrait of ourselves before and then after learning proper proportions. I have to say that was really awesome, every single student improved greatly!

__Journal Entry Number 1, Week 2. (Feb.13-16)__

This week we began working on a new pencil drawing project called "Metamorphosis." In this project the grade 9's must draw a large side profile of a human face and transition the top of the head into something else. For example, the top of the head slowly turns into a toaster, hence Metamorphosis as the title. I personally thought this week was a great week! I know all the kids names now and I'm getting to know them a bit better. I feel more comfortable talking to them and I'm not as scared of giving constructive criticism anymore. Hopefully in the next week or two I won't be scared at all and I want to be able to talk to the class as a whole to give tips. Overall I had to help the students a bit with the drawing of the side profile. Because as a class we didn't go through it step by step so it was hard for them to keep up. But all of them finished on time and got started on their objects or things. I was not only really impressed by inspired by the grade 9's creativity! A lot of them had really creative idea's like for example, a garden sitting atop the head, a jar of Nutella (Yum!) and a giant candle melting. I'm excited to see how all of these projects turn out, so tune in next week to find out!

__Journal Entry Number 2, Week 3. (__//What can you do to become a better tutor/mentor in your classroom. Where can you improve?//__)__

The main thing I want to improve on so I can be a better mentor is being more confident. Being more confident leads to a lot of other things I want to improve on. Like for instance, giving critiques; when a student asks for constructive criticism on their work I want to be more confident. I don't want to be scared of giving critiques anymore because I know that the students will benefit from the advice. Another thing would be talking to the students in general, I want to look and feel more confident so the students will continue to listen to my advice. The last thing would be demonstrating and applying the skills they learn in class. I want to be able to demonstrate colouring techniques or shading skills for the kids who are visual learners and like to see the demo again. But in order to do that I need to be more confident in my own artistic skills! I hope to achieve this confidence booster by the end of the course and I'll work hard to motivate myself for the students!

__Journal Entry Number 3, Week 4.__ //(Describe connections you are making with students.)//

During work time while the students are working on their projects, I usually take a little stroll around the room and help the students who ask. I also like to talk to the students a little just to get to know them and I feel as if I'm making a lot of great positive connections with the students. I feel comfortable with almost all of the students, but there are a few who distance themselves from the class. I'm going to try to work harder to make these students feel comfortable in the class so they can ask for help more freely; lately I've been talking to them a bit more not just about work but just asking a couple of little things about them here and there. I'm seeing improvement from quite a few students in the class, the most memorable improvement would have to be one of the girl students, I'll give her a different name, how about Steph? When she first came into this class she seemed miserable, didn't smile, didn't laugh, didn't do her best on her work. But I remember one day she asked for help on colouring techniques and I gave her a few tips, told a joke and got a nice laugh out of her. And slowly but surely on from that day I took the time just to ask what's up and how's it going. She definitely is putting more effort into her work now and asks me questions a lot more often. Even if it's a little change I'm glad it's a good change!

__Journal Entry Number 4, Week 5.__ (What makes Peer Tutoring meaningful to you?)

I think Peer Tutoring is meaningful to me because I know that I'm making a difference for some students, whether it's big or small, a little bit here and there or a whole lot! It's great to know that your able to help people and make it fun for them at the same time. I think it's a lot easier only being a few years older than the students because we can still connect on some level, it's makes helping them a lot easier! The experience I get from this class is re-energizing and awesome! It's a lot different than my other classes, firstly, the atmosphere. The grade 9's are spunky and totally full of life, it's never a dull moment. And it's totally a refresher getting to help them and teach them. Secondly, the curriculum. Not only have I done this class before when I was in grade 9, (twice!) but I've got all academics this semester. It's nice to have a block where I can cool down a little. Plus art is something I enjoy, so it's a bit of a fun block for me! And lastly, the students. They're younger than me so the conversations going on are quite a bit different than say ones the grade 12's would be having but they've got their similarities. So it definitely feels different being surrounded by a different generation, I get to learn some awesome stuff.

__Journal Entry Number 5__ (Describe an experience in Peer Tutoring this week where you felt confident.)

An experience this week in Peer Tutoring, where I felt confident, was when the students were finishing their current pencil crayon project and one of the girls was struggling to finish the last section of her piece. Let's call her Alana, Alana was doing a section of her drawing which involved lots of skulls (it's not as creepy as it sounds!) all sitting atop each row by row. She asked me for help because she was having trouble getting the colours she chose to blend properly. Feeling my gut instinct kick in, I told her to try another layer, this time of white and see what happens. Next thing you know she ended up finishing her project! Alana was worried that she wasn't going to get it done since she had no idea what technique she could apply to fix it. So I was surely happy to help! I felt this way because I'd gone through similar situations before. The one's where you learn something but you're not really sure how to apply to larger scales or in real life. And I can take this experience and do the same! Now I feel a lot more reassured that my gut instinct is a good way to go when giving advice. I'd say one of my strengths I really like is my intuition, I hope it comes in handy in upcoming events in my life!

__Journal Entry Number 6__ (How is your peer tutoring placement going? Write a general summary of the last two weeks!)

My peer tutoring placement is going really well, I'm really happy with my Grade 9 Art class! Over the first of two weeks, the students were working on a colours and tone project. It involved taking a picture of an animal, turning it to black and white and picking out 5 different tones used throughout the image. After the students would make a template of the animal and plan a 5 tone colour scheme. They would cut out construction paper in the shapes of the tones and piece it together, recreating the animal they chose in a colourful abstract collage. I helped the students choose proper colours schemes, (warm, cool or mixed.) As well as the final compositions of their pieces. During the second week they began to learn to paint; we started with teaching them the Elements and Principles of Design. (Line, texture, colour, shape and so on...) Then we got them to start they're own colour wheel with: all the primary colours, secondary colours and tertiary colours, as well as the shades and tints of all those colours too.I helped the students maintain a good consistency with their paint and helped them with the ratios of mixing colours! At the end of the week they finished their colours wheels and are going to be starting their painting assignment on Monday.

__Journal Entry Number 7__(Did you have any particularly meaningful conversations in these last two weeks?)

Yes I did have a meaningful conversation over the past two weeks. During these past two weeks the students have worked on associating emotions with certain shapes, lines, colour, tones and moods. And after they get to choose one emotion and create an abstract composition of strictly colour and shapes to depict their chosen emotion. One of the students, who I'll name Carlos, admitted to me he wasn't a fan of abstract art and that he needed some help choosing what emotion and colour scheme to do. So I sat down with him and we slowly worked out what emotion and colour scheme to do. I started with a little exercise where he closed his eyes and as I described each emotion, he had to imagine what kind of colours and mood he envisioned. After I asked him to choose the emotion he saw most vividly and felt strongly about. I felt this conversation was reallly meaningful for the fact that he confided in me that he was struggling and trusted I could help him. When he was done choosing his emotion he turned to me and said, "You're a really wise and humble person, you're just bursting with knowledge and understanding. It's awesome." I felt awesome after that, it's good to know that the students like having me around!

__Journal Entry Number 8__ (How do you personal values, goals and ideals reflect in peer tutoring?)

In Peer Tutoring I don't try to exert my values, ideals and goals when trying to help the students, but I try to use them to help them understand or relate to different situations; like: work habits, confidence, prioritizing and so on. I find that when helping the students I do rely on my own personal experiences, beliefs and goals. I find it helps create an connection between you and the students. It's something they can relate to or maybe relate to in the near future. Like for example, recently one of my students admitted to me he wasn't doing so well in his classes at the moment, work habits wise. I was kind of surprised cause he's a smart kid, what could be going wrong? So I asked him and he told me he was spending too much time gaming (playing video games) instead of spending quality time with his projects. I explained to him I could totally relate, because I went through a big game phase in my first year of high school. It got to the point where my work was mediocre and didn't require much effort. But then I asked him if games inspired him and he said yes but he thought going cold turkey would be the easiest solution. Well I told him if he enjoys them, why not just do a little prioritizing like I did! During my first year I decided I would only play on Fridays and Saturdays, only if all my homework was done first though. The student thought this was an awesome idea and decided he would take up a similar routine.

I've used personal examples for other situation like: choosing a career (I didn't know until this year what I wanted to be,) importance of balancing workloads (I have 3/4 academics this semester and I've finally found a balance) and even things like keeping boredom away and fun classes they should take in the future.

Journal Entry Number 9 (Two "stars" and one "wish".)

This week the students have been working on a new sculpture project where they have to design a shoe that represents a famous character or person. They have to use found or bought materials. For example a shoe for: Marilyn Monroe, Christopher Columbus, Beethoven, Cinderella and so on. One star I think I did well on was during the planning portion of this project. A group of students were having trouble really making their shoe come alive. Since this is a hands on sculpture project finding objects that will really make the shoe pop but still represent the person is difficult. So I started to list off some examples of objects they could use (for characters no one was using). For example building a tower off of a high heel for Rapunzel; making the back of the shoe look like a honey pot and making the inside look like honey for Winnie the Pooh; and making a little line up of the evolution of man for Darwin. I felt that by giving them some vivid and bold examples it would push the kids to come up with something even better. The other star was during the previous project, where they had to do a pastel cubism poster of a crushed pop can. The background of the poster had to be monochromatic, which means it has to be all different shades of one colour. (Light blue, dark blue, purplish blue...) One student really wanted to use a purple that was really limited. There was only one pastel of that kind of purple and no other purples would go with it. She really wanted to use it but felt it would be a challenge; so she asked me what to do. I encouraged her to take on the challenge and do what she wanted to do. When she was finished her project she said the challenge was worth it because it came out awesome! Sometimes I think you need to encourage people to do what they want to instead of making the decision for them. One wish I want to make is that I'd encourage the kids to make their own decisions more often. I really liked what I did with the one student and her purple problem. I think what some students really need is to feel confident in making their own decisions. Not saying I don't want to be out of a job but I think it'd give the students a confidence booster in their art. Art's a tough class sometimes because sometimes even I feel as if my art has less of me in it and more of an outside presence. To sum it up I would say "Do what you want to do, if you really want to! And know that help will still be around even if it doesn't work out, Have fun with it!"

Journal Entry Number 10 (Summary of semester!)

During this semester Peer Tutoring my grade 9-art class was fantastic, there was never a dull moment! Peer tutoring slowly became my favorite block of the day because of the students I got to talk with and teach. One of my favorite moments was when I sat down with a group of kids who were done their projects and the group decided to come up with nicknames for each other. In the end we came up with Bullet, AngusBurger, Smellaphant(SmellyElephant), TexMex, Lorax and Babushka. The group ended up calling me Sha-nay-nay. Not the best nickname but I still love it! ;) I learnt that being a peer tutor isn’t just about helping others; it’s about helping yourself too. A teacher once told me students are more likely to remember things if they’ve taught it to someone else. It’s so true. I’ve always thought that when you’ve mastered something, you should be able to recite every ounce of detail you have in your brain. But now that I’ve done peer tutoring I’ve realized that’s not true. When you’re mastered something you should be able to put it into the simplest terms, so that even a child can understand what you’re saying. By teaching others in this class I feel that I’ve accomplished building better communications skills for myself, especially when answering difficult questions. I feel more confident using personal experiences to help figure things out. As well I feel more confident in my own ability to be there for the students. One of the most challenging things about the semester was working with students who really didn’t want to be there. Maybe they thought the class was going to be different or maybe they just didn’t sign up for the class at all. These students were lost, confused and a little frustrated. I would be to if I had no idea what was going on. But I found that by talking to them about not only art, but also others things in their lives too, really helped. Just a simple, “Hey. How was your math test today” or a “How was your weekend? Many of the students have warmed up since the beginning of the semester and I hope they grew to like art at the end! To sum it up, I've had a fantastic semester with this class. I'm super excited to see some of them in more art classes next year. The students this year are very promising and show so much potential I can't wait to see!