Student Work & Reflection

The past week at DCHS felt, in a word, real. The pressure of getting good tape, teaching the students to edit, and bringing it all together in time for the deadline has made the last two work days feel like a blur. Luckily, I work well under pressure and so did Deshaun and Brianna. We started the session with a team huddle and discussed how they wanted to reshape their works-in-progress. For both, this meant re-recording their stories. I encouraged each student get more specific with their big topics. Deshaun's piece on life originally sounded generic, but Wednesday's recording (which you can hear above) sounded much more real. You can hear him thinking when he speaks, and I find myself continually impressed by the thoughts that come out. Breanna talked about her service trip to Mali, another story that had the potential to last well over 2 minutes. I had her hone in on the most powerful memory of Mali: the music and dancing that connected her with the native people. She brought in audio from the experience, which was great! I placed it at the end of the story for now, since I want her to make the executive decision as to where it's placed. The hardest part for me has been letting go of the reins and allowing them to edit their own pieces. Even putting the above ones together felt like I was making their stories my own. On Monday, I'm considering not playing these "Take 2" pieces for them, since I really want the resulting audio to be their work with my help, not my work with theirs.