Week 36: More RI

Tuesday: We handed in our first draft of our RI's on Monday, but on Tuesday we went over some tips and tricks to touch up our RI's. I was kind of confident in mine when I turned it in, and I was a little disappointed that we got a lecture on it right after finishing the first good draft. I did notice some simple things that I needed to fix like a table of contents and organizing sources, as well as more important points such as having an equal amount of words on practice, piece, and aspect. I was still kind of annoyed that Mr. Fearnehough gave us this lesson before he even looked at our papers, I felt that he was automactically assuming that we had failed, but the advice he gave us was useful and did address things that I had done wrong.
Thursday: Today we worked on grading RI's and knowing how to use the markscheme. This was useful because I saw what I though was an almost perfect paper get a 5, when I thought it deserved a 7. This shows me how hard I will have to work to get a good grade on this paper.

Friday: Today we actually did some practical work, although we have yet to work with actual puppets, we have been investigating what it will take to work as a team to control and manipulate a Bunraku puppet correctly. We did a few exercises, which gladly did not involve balancing the sticks. One was "Cars". One person was the car and was blindfolded, and the other person tapped them on the head, shoulders, or back to move them around the room. This was an exercise in trust, some members in the ensemble found it difficult to trust their driver as they moved around the room, but I actually found it more difficult to correctly follow the directions. I trusted the person leading me because I didn't have reason to doubt them  and I didn't see the risk as being that high if they did try to run me into things. I found it much more stressful to be the driver, because here I had to avoid obstacles (furniture, walls, other students...) and keep Lydia, my "car", away from Mr. Fearnehough, who kept hijacking her and pointing her toward a wall or somewhere dangerous. I found it more stressful to have the responsibility and the implicit trust of someone else, to trust another person. This may have been because I found it difficult to "be creative" and navigate Lydia as I worried I would mess up the exercise, whereas when Lydia directed me, I did not have any responsibility except to follow her directions. The other exercise we dd was one that looked how we "sense" each other. We walked around the room with our eyes closed and tried to coordinate our stopping's and starting's without talking or signalling. We also sat in an outward and counted up to twenty, with out interrupting or talking at the same time. We had a hard time sensing one another, with a lack of time and focus, but I did get some of it. We didn't need language to communicate.