Focus Group Collages

Chelsea’s Collage

Student Input

“So in my math collage, I put a picture of me thinking because obviously you have to think to do stuff, and, well, math is pretty easy for me, but it’s not as fun as language arts because I really like to express myself, so writing is more fun for me, writing and reading.

Some of the words I have are “work,” “to accomplish.” And in math you have to work, I usually work pretty hard at getting the right answer. Sometimes you have to go back and check your work because before when I was younger, sometimes I wouldn’t read the instructions all the way through, or I wouldn’t like go back and recheck all my work. And that’s what made me get a lot of things wrong because I didn’t go back and check.

I put “it’s okay to ask for help” because sometimes you just need to ask for help – when I don’t understand something I get frustrated. But when I ask for help, when people help me, they just say, calm down, just like take a second and when you’re ready you can go back to it. And it’s okay to need help.

Well, language arts is pretty easy for me, it comes pretty easy. I have another picture of me thinking. And I have a bunch of words that I found that I thought showed what I think about language arts. I picked “create” because whenever I write an essay I think it’s always like I’m creating, like I’m sculpting something and starting with just a blank page and then I see all my writing on it, it’s kind of like making something. And I picked “fun,” because I can express myself and it comes easy, so when I put down all my words, it flows. And it’s fun because when I do creative writing, then I can just write about whatever I want, which I like. I put a light bulb because usually when I’m writing in English class, a light bulb is always on. Like I always have something in my head, as opposed to sometimes in math, I’d rather not be doing it and it’s just that sometimes the light bulb is just off.

Facilitator Analysis

Chelsea is like so many of the girls in our groups when she talks about math vs. language arts. Even though she says math is easy for her and that it makes her think, she would rather be doing language arts because it uses her self-expression and creativity. Math is about “success” and “accomplishment.” Language arts is about “the power of dreams,” “passion” and discovery. The fact that her English class gives her more freedom of thought makes it much more appealing and fun for her than math.