Stormageddon Dark Lord of All

I’m so happy to finally write about something happy and not something that stresses me out! Yay!

I got a chance in third block to interview the girl I will be doing my case study on. Yes, the student I am following around and prodding with personal questions is in fact a girl, despite the misleading pseudonym.  At the end of the interview, I asked her if there was any particular pseudonym she would like to go by and this was her reply.  Apparently, it is a Doctor Who reference and apparently, that baby really is Stormageddon.  The Doctor, who claims to speak baby, meets a baby named Alfie who, he says, likes to call himself Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All.  So there we are.

Already, I have learned something about my student.  Stormageddon Dark Lord of All (whom I will refer to as Storm for short) is a very active participant in class and an avid reader, so I was excited to interview her.  I knew from our previous interactions that she loves fashion.  She comes decked out to class every day and most of our conversations consist of us commenting on a piece of clothing the other is wearing.  When I asked her what she enjoys, though, fashion didn’t even make the list.  Storm loves photography, art, foreign languages, theatre, and singing, to name a few.  This surprised me because I knew Storm reads psychology books for fun, so I was expecting a more science, less art based person.  When I asked her what she wants to do in the future, though, it did not surprise me that she said she would like to be a fashion photographer or an interpreter; I already know that she speaks fluent Korean and is very passionate about fashion.

I also learned about Storm’s family.  I learned that her mom is from Trinidad and that her dad works in D.C. for the Navy.  She has a sister who’s a senior at Clarke Central and they kind of get along. 

Probably the most interesting thing to me, though, is the fact that her parents do not accept mid-level A work. A 95 is unacceptable.  We talked about whether or not grades are a motivation for her and she said not really.  She would be happy with a mid-level A, but her parents are focused more on her doing her absolute best and pushing to higher than what is expected of her. 

I see a lot of the characteristics of an independent reader in Storm.  She’s the kind of student who enjoys, I mean actually enjoys, the classics.  I’m not sure that any of the YA books on Melissa’s list would challenge her enough. She’s that kind of reader.  But she doesn’t write much (I’ve learned from previous conversations).  Storm doesn’t do any writing outside of school writing, but she also can’t complete writing at school.  Every time we give the students in class writing time she does other homework and says she’d rather finish it at home.  Therefore, I’m also not sure a writing workshop would benefit her.  Obviously I have a lot more to learn about her learning styles, but this is a good start I think.