Journal 7-Wrapping Up Loose Ends

After the miscommunication that hit our group last week, we were clear to double check scheduling with Mr. Gonzales before our final visit. Upon dividing up the final group project work amongst ourselves, I drew the lucky card and was in charge of the landscape component of the group project. This area serves me quite well actually because I am using the same archival resources for my final individual project. I chose to primarily focus on some of the famous buildings that once stood as landmarks in Milwaukee's South Side. Through driving around, usage of U.W.M.'s archives, speaking with locals / my students, and researching the web, I was able to discover a number of prolific buildings within the South Side area. Some of these buildings have been destroyed, others have been completely gutted and remodeled. Others yet, namely the churches, have been well-maintained. In addition, my work with the students aided me in tying this topic into my work at Loyola. Through a few hours of research, I was able to learn what started the drastic rise in immigrating Hispanic Americans into the Milwaukee area.

Journal 6-Assisting Gabbi With Photos

One of my group members decided to purchase a number of disposable cameras to give to our students. She asked the students to take pictures of objects, places, or people that played a significant role in their lives. Her component of the group project entailed creating mini self-portraits for each student. Not everything goes as planned when working with high school students at such different levels of concern for education, and to no surprise we did not see some cameras return. On the other hand, we were lucky enough to have students that had their own digital cameras, which delivered us higher quality images and spared us the tedious task of scanning. Regardless, we got a lot of great images that helped us get a better understanding of who these young adults are outside of the classroom. I was impressed to see such a high percentage of the students participate in the activity we asked them to. I definitely feel that if this had been a task we placed on the students during the first day, we would've gotten much less participation due to the lack of trust building that occurred this semester.