This Wednesday (the 6th of Feb.), I finally met up with my mentor, Mike Cocchiola, a behavior Analysis and Education consultant for a school district here in Connecticut. We talked for an hour about my work so far, and the importance of breaking boundaries with the taboo topics I am addressing with Growing Together.
The first thing we talked about was Erikson's Stages of Human Development, and how that is a big influence in my writing. He gave me many references for more research purposes and directed me to many journals to help me learn the developmental learning curve, when it is influenced by hardships at such a young age.
We also looked through my final version of the draft, and he gave me very insightful feedback on character development, the common themes I was trying to address, as well as any changes I could make to enhance positive feedback. One thing we really focused on was displaying the arrange of emotions that the characters were evoking, as well as the emotions we wanted the readers to feel.
Already, Mr. Cocchiola has helped me plan my high school leveled book, helping me decide how to split chapters, how to organize the book and specific themes, aswell as how to overall write to this audience. He also made a good point on who to survey and make an outreach too. Mr. Cocchiola said to focus on Region15 students, as I would find people dealing with hardships, but are hidden within everyone else -- just like myself.
In the next two weeks I will be collecting survey data from Juniors and Seniors at Pomperaug High School about their "relationship" with hardships, if they have any at all.