This was our last and final meeting which was very bittersweet. Before our meeting on Thursday our group got together during our normal class time on Wednesday to go over and record the script. We all experimented with different voices to showcase different characters and were in hysterics over some of them (all I have to say is be on the lookout for Jack’s Jon impression in Act 2 it is truly something else). I think that our group got along really well and had strong communication skills each week that allowed us to succeed in completing the project.

Just before our meeting on Thursday Aaron finally sent the pictures but we were missing a few so Kat got creative with some stick figures and cropping but she ended up completing it and we are all really proud of it. We had the students say their names and do an introduction in the beginning so that they could have credit for their hard work and also had them do a bit of narration for those who were eager to read or “rap” the script. We are super excited for the students and everyone else to see the final project!

This was definitely my favorite week by far. The kids completed all of the pictures and we had the majority of the script done so we thought that it would be a good idea to have some of the kids read the script and give us any feedback. One of the kids was SO excited to read the script and actually read the entire thing as a sort of rap. He had a smile on his face the whole time and kept saying how much he wanted to do it again which made us really happy and for the first time I actually felt like the kids wanted to be involved with it. I was also really impressed at his ability to read so quickly and coherently. I have volunteered at Youth Life in the past with similar age kids and many of them had trouble with their reading skills and don’t enjoy it so it was really inspiring to see this student share such a joy and passion for it.

I also really like the dynamic of my group as a whole. I believe that we make a really good team and have done a good job at managing the craziness of meeting virtually. I am excited but a bit sad for our last meeting with the students as I have enjoyed working with everyone. We are hoping to get them to record a bit more so that their voices can be included too.

This weeks meeting was definitely one of our most productive meetings. We were very excited because we had the teacher who is better at getting the kids to participate and able to maintain better control of them. We emailed Aaron a list of pictures that we needed them to take and the teacher was able to work with the students to get most of them done which was super helpful. It definitely was tricky though because we felt kind of useless on the meeting as we couldn’t really help virtually and were just kind of watching the kids do their thing. However, there wasn’t really much else we could do in a virtual setting and are hoping to get more of their feedback for the script next class so that we can finalize and record it. Overall, our group is feeling really good about the timeline and our progress so far.

This week definitely was not the most productive in the beginning as we are finding it quite difficult to be able to direct the kids through the screen. The kids are definitely really hard to manage and I respect the teachers in the room a lot, however, the one teacher that we have is not very effective in getting the kids to listen which makes it really difficult to tell them what to do. We had a different teacher a couple of weeks ago and she was really helpful so it is difficult because we know that when they are attentive they are able to get stuff done. At the end of the class we were able to start to take some pictures of the action figures in front of the backgrounds that they drew, so we are hoping that we will be able to continue to do this next class. We are also hoping to have them record “and then he said” and little things like that, but we are going to need the help of the teacher so we are thinking that we are going to need to email her a very detailed agenda each session in order to be productive.

This week was definitely a week of technical difficulties as we met during the remnants of tropical storm Zeta, and connectivity at the school was not ideal. The kids didn’t end up logging on until 3, which is 15 minutes past our usual start time, however, when we got to meet with them they were really excited about using their action figures and deciding which character would be each action figure. They had a different aid in the classroom who was definitely a bit more helpful than the other aid that we normally have, and was able to control the kids a bit better so that they could start the drawings for our backgrounds. From what it looked like, they were able to start drawing the first scene, but we lost contact with them about 15 minutes into the google meet and were unable to reconnect. It was definitely disappointing to only be able to see them for such a short amount of time, but our group is still confident in the progress that we have made so far and think that we will be on track to have it completed in time. The next step is to have the kids complete the background drawings and take photos of the action figures in various positions so that we can include them in our iMovie, which we decided will probably be the best tool to make the final product.

This week was a lot better in terms of chaos and we were successful in creating a plan and getting the kids engaged. They were absolutely hilarious, maybe in some ways a little bit inappropriate for 5th graders, but we could not contain our laughter and smiles as they quoted tik toks and sang some pretty funny songs. We decided that we were going to have the kids draw the backgrounds for each scene and then use action figures to show the characters. The kids definitely had a lot of fun and were really excited about the possibilities of everything that they could draw; including a disco dance floor and beer pong which was quickly shut down. We met as a group without the kids on Wednesday to go over our game plan for the next class and decided that it would be best if we got the kids to draw while we were on google meets with them because it would be hard to get them to do so outside of class. We also decided that we might record their voices saying “and then he said” and small phrases like that so we can incorporate their voices without worrying about having to have them record the entire script.

Meeting our group of kids was really exciting, yet very chaotic. Our group is composed of five fifth graders, ranging from very outgoing to very quiet, which I think is going to be a struggle that we make sure that we include everyone’s voices. I was really excited to meet the kids because I normally volunteer at Youth Life after school and the kids are the same age, however, due to Covid, I have been unable to do so this semester. The format of zoom was definitely super chaotic because it was hard to 1. hear them, and 2. get them to not talk over one another, however, I think that it is good that we have smaller group so that we can hopefully get them to all be able to participate. The teacher in the classroom was not super helpful in controlling them and I felt as though she maybe could’ve done a bit more, but I also could not imagine being in her shoes. Hearing the kids reactions to what happens in Much Ado was really funny because they thought that it was so outrageous that everyone is trying to fool eachother and Hero fakes her own death. A lot of their comments highlighted the importance of an adaptation that they will be able to relate to and understand because the concept of wanting to marry someone at first sight, is a little as they called it “stupid”. Overall, I am looking forward to coming into the next meeting with a better outline and idea of what we want to do now that we know how it is going to work.