Reflection+9

=__Mighty Writers__=

Mighty Writers is an after school program for all ages, with a mission to help Philadelphia kids improve their writing. The program is very dependent on volunteers. Children and teens of different ages come to the room and seat themselves, and the tutors work with students who need their help. Around every two weeks the students according to their age group are given a prompt and/or topic to write about, sometimes it may be relevant to a holiday coming up, or sometimes relating to the world, or school and kids can be creative with what they write about based on the prompt.

The number of teachers and students seems to vary daily, there is not really a communal start to the program and every student may carry different attitudes or attention capabilities according to things that have happened at home or at school, or because they are hungry.

I didn't expect that a large portion of the time was spent helping students with homework, but it is great because with the help and resources of tutors available to help them with their work they are given the opportunity to work through anything they did not understand during class, and learn important critical thinking and problem solving skills.

With the prompt writing, the students focus on their grammar and spelling and whatever other skills that may need work. There are no main access skills such as commas, or spelling, that are taught at one time and then worked on; the skills are taught through practice and revision.

Chawnqua told me about how after homework or after working on their prompts, there are sometimes different fun activities that the kids can participate in. Whether it be playing in the park, or checking the garden, or participating in a game, or reading together. Fun incentives for younger kids in an after school program can serve as a motivating tool but can also be distracting, and take away from the content and creative potential of the work.

Afterschool programs seem to have a lot less structure to the class. They are more individually focused, but still provide important services for the learners. The personal structure is great for the variety of ages that are there to work on their homework, but it is proven that there is more motivation and energy from the younger students at least, when there is a fun or communal incentive involved.

To be completely honest, this program does not feel like so much of a media literacy course to me. The only aspect of media literacy education I feel that the program addresses is the Access skill of writing. I am by no means discrediting writing skills, they are extremely important in media and in all aspects of our society. However, there is no real interaction with any mass media so I feel as though it is hard to compare this to the other programs and courses I have observed.