How will my learning partner benefit from partner journaling?
My learning partner benefited from having one-on-one attention, facilitated art experiences, and critical thinking comprehensive task-oriented experiences. This was made clear through his enthusiasm, parents' feedback, and continual personal journaling endeavors.
His mother bought him two sketch
books recently. He said he would use one for our sessions and one for his
personal use. He took one of his sketch books to Detroit when he was
there for a week-long mission.
What will be the challenges associated with reading a story and then expressively journaling/verbally communicating?
Each session was low-stress, calming, and engaging. As a ten-year-old boy with a special needs brother he appreciated the attention and as a future NASA graphic design employee he enjoyed learning and practicing new art techniques. Therefore the setting was comfortable and even relaxing, so possibly difficult to 'dig deep' into turmoil/stressed/anxious feelings at this time since such calm emotions were achieved. Another challenge was potentially an intimidation factor for a ten-year-old male to talk about his feelings/emotions with a 20 something year-old female. I presume that in a greater span of time and continual established trust and structure of sharing, he would have easily submitted to a depth of emotional sharing.
The reactive art expressions had greater depth than only post-dialogue. As well as post-dialogue had greater depth with an accompanied art expression.
Will he relate to the literature enough so that there will be an emotional impact, and if so how will this be observed or communicated?
Age/gender/developmentally appropriate literature was not easily accessible to attain for sessions nor was time organized in a constructive enough manner on my part in order to fully develop a bibliotherapy study. He would have benefited from emotionally appropriate chapter books but this was found late in the study and would have required more time to read chapter books together.
An unanticipated finding was that at his age and with the type of relevant children's books that are published, he might have been better off creating his own children's book, and this would have served him and others' in a bibliotheraputic manner.
He did display an emotional effect to the literature we used. This literature was all digital versions, because of the lack of accessibility of hard copies of such literature, which was unanticipated. Regardless, he completed journal pages and communicated comprehensive and emotional reasoning during and after the literature was read.
I was able to observe and assess this through his created art pieces and our discussions afterwards.
As a young boy, what will the sessions be like, how long will he be able to spend time journaling each sitting?
He was able to sit for over an hour when we worked outside but he was only able to sit for less than an hour when we worked inside.
However, each time his brother was near by watching Curious George episodes, which created for my learning partner to become distracted because he was interested in the show as well.
Conclusions
More literature needed for ten-year-old males that deal with PTSD or anger management strategies.
More gender-neutral literature needed about PTSD or anger management strategies.
More bibliotherapy/psychology-related/self-help books for younger people needed that can be easily accessed by the public. (Ex: public library, free ecopy, materials at community center)
*One book that was recommended by various sources was not available for check-out at a local public library, it was for 'professional' use only. It is a children's book! Another library had the copy but it was already checked out.
Young boys (10-yr.-olds) might work better in a calm, shaded, quiet outside setting that is immersed in nature away from television distractions.
Young boys (10-yr.-olds) might relate better by creating a bibliotheraputic children's book instead of only reading them.
Art with dialogue & literature with art are compatible and facilitate more depth in understandings.
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