The banned book project was a sort of like a mini-project. It lasted about 2-3 weeks and it consisted of students reading a book that has been banned before and then doing a final, short video reflecting on the book. You can find more about this nation wide event on bannedbooksweek.org . The book that I decided to read was Black Boy by Richard Wright.
This project wasn't very challenging to me. I think that we had a good amount of time to read our books and it was a well timed out project, not too long or short. I never really felt rushed during this project so overall it wasn't a very hectic or challenging project.
The easiest part of this project for me was the journal entries. These were easy for me because we were just responding to what we had already read, so it was pretty straightforward. I think that different types of responses made the journal entries even easier because they never got boring, since we did something different every time. They also allowed us to learn about other people's stories so it's like we read in our book in depth then got a brief overview of multiple other books.
I felt pretty comfortable while making my final film. It wasn't a very complicated video and it was only about a minute so it wasn't very difficult. The first one or two times that I tried to film I would end up laughing when I messed up on a word, but after a couple of tries I got a good final video.
I did receive feedback on my journal entries. I got this feedback from some other students. This feedback was helpful because when they left questions or comments on my journals, I would take them into account for my next entry and it made my entries more detailed. For example, if a student asked about how I connected to my book on one journal entry, I would know to include that answer in my following journal entries.
I provided feedback to Jazmin and Gracie during the journal workshops. I think that it was helpful critique because I would ask questions that were open ended and not one word answer questions. I think that the questions and comments I left on their journal entries were thought provoking and challenged their point of view. The journal workshops were fun because you were able to read a little bit about other people's books and you able to get insight onto how that person thinks while they are reading new material, sometimes even controversial material.
I did actually read the book I chose, and I enjoyed it. This book was really educational and entertaining because not only do you learn about what it was like to live in the early 1900s as a black youth from a low income family, but you also saw some characters change from children to adults. I think that at certain parts of the book I really connected to Richard and I could put myself in his position and think about what I would have felt or done.
I think that I deserve an A for this project. This is because I was consistent and stayed on top of my work. I turned all of y journal entries in on time and they were all high quality. I participated in the activities that we did, such as the journal entry workshops. I also finished my banned book on time and stayed with the schedule that we were given which was reading 1/5 of our book every 3-4 days. My final video was done on time and I also participated in our final activity, the banned book potluck.
If I could change one thing about this project I would change the journal workshops. I think I would do something like what we did last year when we had reading logs. We would get randomly selected and whoever gets chosen gets to read their entry out loud in class and receives feedback on it. This would be beneficial because we could practice reading our own work out loud and we would get different types of critique on our work.
This project wasn't very challenging to me. I think that we had a good amount of time to read our books and it was a well timed out project, not too long or short. I never really felt rushed during this project so overall it wasn't a very hectic or challenging project.
The easiest part of this project for me was the journal entries. These were easy for me because we were just responding to what we had already read, so it was pretty straightforward. I think that different types of responses made the journal entries even easier because they never got boring, since we did something different every time. They also allowed us to learn about other people's stories so it's like we read in our book in depth then got a brief overview of multiple other books.
I felt pretty comfortable while making my final film. It wasn't a very complicated video and it was only about a minute so it wasn't very difficult. The first one or two times that I tried to film I would end up laughing when I messed up on a word, but after a couple of tries I got a good final video.
I did receive feedback on my journal entries. I got this feedback from some other students. This feedback was helpful because when they left questions or comments on my journals, I would take them into account for my next entry and it made my entries more detailed. For example, if a student asked about how I connected to my book on one journal entry, I would know to include that answer in my following journal entries.
I provided feedback to Jazmin and Gracie during the journal workshops. I think that it was helpful critique because I would ask questions that were open ended and not one word answer questions. I think that the questions and comments I left on their journal entries were thought provoking and challenged their point of view. The journal workshops were fun because you were able to read a little bit about other people's books and you able to get insight onto how that person thinks while they are reading new material, sometimes even controversial material.
I did actually read the book I chose, and I enjoyed it. This book was really educational and entertaining because not only do you learn about what it was like to live in the early 1900s as a black youth from a low income family, but you also saw some characters change from children to adults. I think that at certain parts of the book I really connected to Richard and I could put myself in his position and think about what I would have felt or done.
I think that I deserve an A for this project. This is because I was consistent and stayed on top of my work. I turned all of y journal entries in on time and they were all high quality. I participated in the activities that we did, such as the journal entry workshops. I also finished my banned book on time and stayed with the schedule that we were given which was reading 1/5 of our book every 3-4 days. My final video was done on time and I also participated in our final activity, the banned book potluck.
If I could change one thing about this project I would change the journal workshops. I think I would do something like what we did last year when we had reading logs. We would get randomly selected and whoever gets chosen gets to read their entry out loud in class and receives feedback on it. This would be beneficial because we could practice reading our own work out loud and we would get different types of critique on our work.