Throughout the ’23-’24 school year, PreCalculus students Emma and Dia drew delightful doodles on their Math tests that helped open the door for me to know these wonderful kids quite well. At some point it occurred to me that I ought to collaborate with them on my next Math poem/animation. The only problem was that I was at an impasse for new poem ideas. Whereas the previous year’s poem, Perfection, quickly went from the idea phase to completed project within the span of the first week after school let out, this time the process took much longer. I envisioned this year’s poem as primarily a vehicle to work with Emma and Dia, showcasing their artwork and engaging in a project with them beyond the usual humdrum of PreCaclulus homework and tests.
In early January I finally started jotting down some ideas for a poem, but for several months they didn’t materialize into much. Remembering my student Tia from a decade ago turning in tests and exclaiming, “I’m not gonna cry!” led me to gravitate to themes of the emotional plight many students feel as a result of their Math education. Numerous times I brainstormed how such a poem might unfold, but I didn’t like that I kept seeming to veer towards a preachy teacher/adult point of view or an unattractive tone of mockery towards the student. I alternated between attempting to force creative output and pushing the project to the back of my mind, hoping inspiration would find room to arise naturally. Neither approach yielded much.
Finally in early April, the idea occurred to me to write it from the student perspective. I recalled some of the emotional turmoil I endured during certain stages of my formal education and how such experiences gave me empathy for what some struggling students have endured in my class (and/or endured in years prior to my class). Finally the ball started rolling, and within a week or so I had a serviceable poem. On some level, I knew this was not destined to be the most creative piece of writing I’ve ever produced. But it fulfilled the purpose of providing a foundation atop which Emma and Dia could exhibit their creativity. I provided them the script and some very loose guidelines, including:
- This is supposed to be fun! Don’t let it morph into something too serious or burdensome.
- Your casual doodles are what made me admire your talents in the first place, so trust that I’ll enjoy and be grateful for whatever you come up with. Keep it fun and frivolous
I was concerned about asking more of them while the demands of my class were already occupying a good deal of their time. Thankfully I got the sense that they truly saw this as a fun leisure activity rather than a chore. Interspersed among office hours when we addressed curricular Math objectives, we checked in time to time on how to make this a project we could all be proud of. At some point I realized that their friend (and my student) Hannah participated in musical theater. Hannah, along with Emma and Dia and their friends Elise and Gabby, was a member of the “Ride or p” posse. I had already taken note of Hannah’s vibrant personality. Considering that I had written the poem from a student perspective, Hannah instantly became my one and only obvious choice to voice for the recorded version of the poem. Thankfully, she enthusiastically agreed.
All three kids delivered splendidly on their tasks. Emma sketched with pencil and paper while Dia drew digitally on a tablet, yet their unique styles complemented each other well. While I wish I had better skills (or had recruited someone with better skills) for the technical chore of audio recording, Hannah did a great job reciting the words with emotion and theatricality.
I spent much of the first 1-2 weeks of summer break readying the drawings for animation in Adobe Photoshop (which I’m quite comfortable with) and then animating them in Adobe Animate (which always requires some time to refresh my skills). While Animate leaves me realizing how much of a novice animator I am, I was very proud of the final result. This was the first time I made extensive use of the “Camera” tool, placing instances of symbols on different layers and setting the layer depth to dictate how fast the instances traverse the screen as the virtual camera pans.
Emma, Dia, and Hannah were happy with the final animation, and we all very much enjoyed the process. Perhaps someday we’ll find ourselves working together on another project, but for now I’m just going to try to enjoy how much fun this one was. |
previous entry .......... next entry 
