The next meeting with Dyami and Crechelle went a little smoother.  I laid the ground rules before we left the classroom and they seemed to be more involved with Chautauqua.  After reviewing the characters each of them chose, we decided to pick one for each of them.  Crechelle decided on her recent dog... Missy, and Dyami chose to be his 12 year old trickster cousin Ryan.  We spent some time brainstorming our characters and returned to the classroom.  They were given homework to create a skit of some sort to recite during our next meeting. 

 

The next time, Crechelle began to feel out her boundaries again, and soon learned that this was not acceptable.  We spent a little bit of time discussing our characters and Crechelle is a natural.  She is amazing.  She wanted her chautauqua to be completely her own, and she fought for it.  She had no trouble getting into Missy's character.

Dyami on the other hand was having a hard time getting into character.  He was much quieter and more shy than Crechelle and needed a little more help building his character.

 

While meeting with these two students, I felt Crechelle's character was exploding into so many ideas and she was constantly changing her final piece. 

 

Dyami needed to be nudged a little more, but it was nice have the two extremes.  Differetiating instruction became something that was definately needed.  Crechelle realized Dyami needed a little more assistance and she became quite accomodating.  She even helped give ideas to finish Dyami's chautauqua.  Dyami enjoyed Crechelle helping him.  Together these two students brought to the table at first a great challenge for me. 

 

This was indeed a wonderful challenge.  I learned so much just from working with these two very different very bright students.

 

Throughout our time together, Dyami began to come out of his shell and become "Ryan"  .  Crechelle continually changed and created "Missy's" fun and outgoing personality or should I say dogality.  Every week I was seeing progress in not only their characters, but also their wriing and their abilities to express their characters to the fullest. 

 

I did my best to adequately prepare Dyami and Crechelle for their performances.  Each time, they showed more and more progress and Crechelle was being much more respectful. 

 

The last meeing I had with the two of them, I was so excited to find out that Dyami had volunteered to perform first and Crechelle was not far behind.  I am so proud of both of them.  I asked them one last time to perform their characters for me and I was utterly shocked on how Dyami seemed to just shine in Ryan's character.  He came such a long way.  He seemed enthusiastic and excited to be in Ryan's character. 

 

Crechelle of course as usual did not let me down either.  She was great.  I am very proud of both of them. 

 

At the very end, we had a few extra minutes.  I chose to let them reflect,either through illustrations of their characters or journaling or whatever they chose.  I was very touched to find that both of them drew a picture of their characters and wrote " we will miss you" on them and signed them and gave them to me. 

 

To say the very least.  I enjoyed very much working with both of them.  This has definately been a very memorable experience.