Miriam: How do you think that the students felt about evaluating themselves? Evaluation is a big part of the scholastic experience, but it sounds like this was a much more engaging process. How did they respond to it?

Neil:

It was a varied response. Some kids took it a lot more seriously than others. Some kids were like all, ‘blah blah’. We encouraged them to write comments after – a lot of them did write, and a few, I’d say maybe 40% of the participants really responded well to it. They felt like it was a very respectful way to do it. They felt that the way we were in this small group made them feel safe and they could really say a lot of the things they wouldn’t have been able to say with a whole group of kids with them.

Miriam: And they didn’t feel like by making there be an evaluation component about reading and writing, that you had somehow taken away from their right to enjoy the class, but not necessarily have to show results?

Neil:

That’s interesting. I get what you mean. I think before we even gave them the evaluation, we made very clear what it was for. We were just like, “We did this program, and we want to get an idea of how well it worked. If you guys could give us an idea of how you performed, that gives us ideas how well our program worked.”I think we made the distinction simply being them evaluating themselves, but within the context of how well the program worked for them. Do you get what I mean by that?

I don’t think it was just them evaluating themselves, because every question we asked them tied back to the program, obviously, because that’s what we’re evaluating. When they were evaluating how well they would write rhymes, I think that they would consider how much time and how much effort was spent in the class teaching them how to write the rhymes. That’s what I hope they would get from it.

Miriam: Do you think that for a lot of the students, part of the pleasure of the work was about their experience of being in a group?

Neil:

I think so. I think a big part of the group was the volunteers. Everyone during the focus group was like, “We need more break time and more time to talk with the volunteers and talk with each other”. It’s fair to say that a good majority of the classroom really liked the group dynamic that we had. With the exception of one or two – Rachid was someone who was very intense; a man of few words – but for the most part, everyone benefited from the groups.