The student and the organization below are made up. The questions, the brief, and the reflection prompts are the ones I would use, and the status line under each move says which parts have been tried and which have not. Nothing on this page has yet been done with a real student from beginning to end. That is the study.
A conversation of about an hour, in person or on a call, working through what the student already cares about, what they can do, and where they want to grow. I take notes against the three strands and read them back to the student at the end so they can correct me. What comes out is a one-page profile the student owns.
Kids who are behind in reading. I was one of them until fourth grade.
Explain things patiently. I tutored at the library for two summers, mostly homework help. I write well when I care about the subject.
Planning something myself instead of showing up to someone else's plan. Speaking in front of adults.
Four to five hours a week through the spring semester.
Has tutored but never designed a session. Wants to know whether she is any good at teaching, not just whether she likes it.
Came in saying she needed something sustained for college applications, and said so plainly. By the end of the hour she was talking about one specific fourth grader at the library. Both are true at once.
Has never made anything for a learner, a lesson, a worksheet, a game. Wants to.
The profile format exists and has been used in interviews with students. It has not yet been the start of a placement.
I keep a list of organizations whose day-to-day work could overlap with a profile like this one, and I talk with two or three of them about the student before anything is proposed. The pairing is a judgment about fit on both sides, made in conversation, and either side can say no. For Jamie the overlap was with a literacy organization that already runs reading groups for fourth and fifth graders and needs more hands in the room, not with the organizations that would have given her the most hours or the most impressive name.
Reading groups for fourth and fifth graders two afternoons a week, run by two staff and whatever volunteers turn up.
Someone who comes every week, prepares, and can take a group of four so the staff can work with the children who are furthest behind.
Jamie's reason for caring is their work. Their constraint, continuity, is the thing she said she wanted to practice.
Mara, who runs the afternoon program and would be the one Jamie plans with.
The organizations I have spoken with described needs like this one. No pairing has yet been made.
Jamie, Mara, and I meet once for about an hour. I ask the questions, they answer them, and I write down what they agree to. The point of the questions is to make the tension visible between what Jamie wants to learn and what Bay Vista needs done, early, where it can be worked out, instead of three weeks in. What comes out is a brief both sides sign.
1. What does a good semester look like for each of you, separately?
I planned the sessions myself, and the kids in my group can read something in May they couldn't in January.
A volunteer who shows up every single week so I can stop re-teaching routines, and my two furthest-behind kids get real time with me.
2. Where do those two pictures pull against each other?
I want to design things. You need someone reliable who follows your routine.
Right. I don't have time to review new lesson plans every week.
Jamie follows the existing routine for the first four weeks, then designs the comprehension part of each session from week five, with Mara looking at the plan the Friday before.
3. What would make this not worth it for the organization?
Missed weeks. One missed week with these kids costs me two.
A fixed day and time. If Jamie has to miss, she tells Mara by Wednesday and the week is made up, not skipped.
4. What would make this not worth it for the student?
If I'm just handing out worksheets for four months.
The design role from week five is in the brief, not a maybe.
5. How will each of you know, at the end, whether it worked?
Bay Vista already tracks reading levels each term. If her group moves like the others or better, it worked. And whether I'd take her back.
If I can show the sessions I built and say what I'd change.
6. What does each of you need from the other to make that happen?
Fifteen minutes with Mara after each session.
A short written note each week on what happened in the group, so I'm not relying on memory when I write the end-of-term report.
Lead a reading group of four fourth graders at Bay Vista Literacy, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30 to 5:00, January through May.
Continuity for one group, and staff time freed for the children furthest behind.
Designing the comprehension segment from week five onward (mastery and creativity); running a group of her own and reporting on it to an adult who depends on the work (identity).
Every session, preparation on Mondays, and a short note each week.
Mara's fifteen minutes after each session, her read of the plan from week five, and the term's reading-level numbers for the group.
A check-in with Jamie every week for the first month and every two weeks after that, and the end-of-term write-up with both of them.
Bay Vista's own reading-level numbers for the group; Mara's answer to whether she would take Jamie back; Jamie's record of the sessions she designed and what she changed.
Jamie Lee; Mara, for Bay Vista Literacy; Long Trinh.
The questions and the brief exist and have been run on sample pairings only. This meeting has not yet happened with a real student and a real organization.
The record is kept while the work happens, not written afterward. Three things go into it: Jamie's short weekly notes, Mara's feedback at the midpoint and at the end, and a competency tracker I fill in with Jamie against the three strands every few weeks, which she can disagree with. At the end, Jamie writes a short narrative of the project with the whole record in front of her, and Mara's account sits next to it. A school counselor or an admissions reader who picked this up would see what was planned, what happened, what the organization got, and what Jamie thinks she learned, in that order.
First week running my own comprehension segment. I used a prediction game I made and it went badly with two of the kids because the passage was too long. Mara said the idea was right and the passage was wrong. Next week, half the length. One thing I noticed: I'm less nervous talking to Mara now than I was in January, and I didn't think that was something I'd learn here.
Has not missed a session. The group's routine is solid, which has given me the time with my two kids I asked for. The new comprehension segments need shorter passages, and she already knows that. Would I take her back: yes, and I'd give her a bigger group.
Can run a routine without prompting; has designed three segments; cannot yet judge passage difficulty for this age, and knows it.
Describes herself as "the person who runs the Tuesday group," which she did not in January. Still names college applications as a reason she is here, less often.
Three original segments, one of which Bay Vista kept for other volunteers.
The weekly note, the feedback form, and the tracker exist and were developed in coursework. They have never been used across a full placement. This is the part of the method I most want to test, and the part I trust least until it has been compared with how students write about the same work when nobody is keeping a record.
Whether any of it holds up. Whether a student who came for the application line ends up owning the work, whether a reader who does not know how the record was made finds it more credible than an essay, and whether Bay Vista would say, at the end, that it got real work rather than a well-documented visitor. Those are the questions on the home page, and they are the reason this needs a study rather than a nicer demo.