Project Update

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. It seems like I have spent every waking moment working on my project. I was finally able to teach my lesson to the kids of TRJE, and it went pretty well. They seemed to respond with interest, and their writing was the kind of response I was looking for. The website is also going reasonably well. I've been having some problems with text formating, but overall it isn't too bad, just really time consuming. I plan to have it done and to turn it over to TRJE a this Saturday's meeting. Wish me luck!

Project Update

OK, now that I'm no longer required to post 600 words per week and the actual project is the focus of my time and energy, updates will be tend to be shorter. Still, I will keep them coming until the project is 100% finished. This week has been a very productive one. I not only gave my first presentation on the project, but also got a good start on the website. The site is far from done, but the general form has been decided and pages begun to be put together. I am creating it through a free website creating service called Weebly which does for websites what blogger does for blogs. It has a large number of templates to choose from and a pretty good help page. It's been very easy to use. It also allows you to add a blog to your site like a page, a feature that I'm making use of to describe the project and my experiences with it. The site can be found at www.westafrikanoralliterature.weebly.com. I still haven't gotten a draft of the informational piece down on paper, but all of my information has been gathered. That will be my project for the beginning of next week. I also have all of my stories/poems gathered, and I teach my lesson with the kids of TRJE this Saturday (for real this time!). I think that's all for now. Wish me luck!

Video Links

Here are links to two good videos I found on YouTube. The first is of West African kora music. The kora is a stringed instrument often used by griots as accompaniment to their chanting/singing. The second is of a griot telling the story of Sundiata. This is a very well know story and has been published in multiple versions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNl8kIwj1_k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQP4gM5Na54

Project Update

This week has been a busy one for my project. It seems like I have done almost nothing else! But, I guess you’ll have that when the semester begins to draw to a close. Anyway, here’s what’s been happening. I never heard back from my librarian contact at the ACPL. I considered calling her again, but as time is running short I decided that a meeting at this point wasn’t really a viable option. I wish I could have gotten the details of my project nailed down sooner so that I would have had more time for that sort of thing. I also got no response from my contact at IPFW’s TV station, but fortunately Dr. Cain had better luck. My griot video should be on its way. I would, again, like to have gotten this sooner, but I have to work within the schedules of others too. It would have been nice to have been able to show some of the video to the kids of TRJE this Saturday when I teach the class, but I don’t know how practical that would have been anyway. I know some of them saw the actual performance, but not all. At least I will get to see the video to get a better understanding of what a griot performance looks like. This week I have been concentrating on my research into griots and storytelling, and it has been very interesting. I have found a lot. I fact, I have way more than I can fit into my planned 1,500 word essay/paper. It may end up being a little longer than that. Still, I don’t want to make it so long that it turns off the internet viewers that I am targeting. Also, as far as the internet thing is going, I think I would like to make more of an actual website than a blog. I think this would fit my format better. I’ll have to talk to Dr. Cain before making my decision as my proposal says “blog” specifically. Our stipulations in RM are much more loose so that shouldn’t be a problem. Now that the main research is done, I’m concentrating on finding good examples of stories and getting my lesson plan in place for Saturday. So far only one of my books of stories has come in at the library so I’m kind of waiting on that. I’m also looking on line and have found some. It’s hard to find ones that seem reliably authentic, come from West Africa specifically, and have themes that I think might be relevant to the kids of TRJE. Ketu wanted me to find stories about community, so I am trying to find at least one good one for my lesson with that theme. I am also a little worried about legal issues with putting a few stories on my site. I would like to place them there in full text, but if they come from a published book this may be a problem. The one book that I have in hand has a full copyright on the text, though I find this questionable since it is openly distilled from an oral tradition and taken from a longer published work. I won’t get into that right now. Maybe I will have to settle with links to online texts on my site. I’ll see what the profs think on that issue. I may be able to get away with putting the full text of stories on the site if they come from other websites that have them published in full in a not for profit setting. Again, I need a more expert opinion on the matter. Until then I will worry about getting my lesson for Saturday finished. That in itself is nerve wracking enough. I’ll lkeep you posted.

FYI

Just wanted to let you guys know that a Michael Schaefer from deepblog.com commented on my blog and was interested in our research methods class (I don't know if any of you in that class also got messages). I had linked deepblog to our research methods wiki, and I assume that's how he found me and our blogs. Anyway, he was interested in how we were using the blogs and asked to hear more about them. After checking it out a little to make sure he seemed to be who he said he was, I emailed him through deepblog and also told him about our C&C blogs. So, if any of you see him on your blog, that why. Just thought I'd let you know.

Final Contract

So, my contract for the project has been approved and signed and as promised here are the important parts.

The documents I plan to produce are 1) an informational document about West African storytelling that will be a minimum of 1500 words in length, 2) a collection of stories that will be comprised of at least 4 stories [I don’t know at this point what the typical length of a story is], 3) a lesson plan [1-2 pages in length] to share my findings with the kids of TRJE and lead them in their own writings, 4) the collected and typed writings that the kids of TRJE produce in response to the lesson. The form I plan for my project to take is that of a blog that can be linked to TRJE’s website. I will put the informational document, the collection of stories, and (if possible) the kids’ writings on the blog. The lesson plan will just be turned in as a paper document to show how we progressed from the research to the writings. If I cannot put the kids’ writings on the blog, I will just type them and bind them in a notebook or scrapbook to be given to TRJE. My project will be made public within the TRJE community, within the classroom when I share my project, and in the internet community in the form of the blog.

Dr. Cain has also asked that I put my own experiences into the blog, so that will be included as well. I plan for that to also be about 1,000 words (if approved at that).

I know it may seem like I've repeated myself somewhat in describing the project here on the blog, but laying it out really helps me to visualize and plan. After all, part of the purpose of the blog is to journal the progress of the project. Sorry if any of you are bored with me!

Project Update

OK, so here's what's happening with the project this week. To begin with, my teaching date with TRJE has been pushed back because it turns out that they are on spring break this week. I would have liked to get the lesson taught because it would have given me more time to have the kids revise their work to be included on my blog/site, but I guess I can't begrudge them a spring break. I had one. So I have one more week to research and prepare, and that's what I've been doing. In the past when I've done research for projects and papers I have relied exclusively on my own library research. This time I've been trying to use a few other people as resources, and I'm still unsure how that's going. As I said before, I asked Ketu of TRJE for advice and he referred me to a children's librarian at the ACPL. I think when I posted last I was still waiting for a response from her. She emailed me back the end of last week offering help and asking me to call her directly. I did that yesterday, but she wasn't at her phone. I left a message asking her to return my call or email me with a time she would be available. So far I haven't heard anything back. If I don't hear from her today, I may try again tomorrow. At the same time I am trying to get a hold of video from the IPFW tv station of a West African griot (storyteller) who was apparently at IPFW a couple of years ago for the visiting writers series (in conjunction with TRJE). Dr. Cain strongly recommended that I try to view this tape, so I have contacted someone at the station and am still waiting for a reply (it's only been a day so far). I have also been doing my own research and have found a couple of articles through EBSCOhost and hope to find more. What have I discovered? That "human resources" may be useful, but they can be a lot more time consuming than the paper or electronic kind. I'll keep you posted.