Week 14: Portrait of Possibility Revisited

In Week 5 I identified "Ashley" as my portrait of possibility. Unfortunately, I have not happened to be in the classroom recently with Ashley's class so I don't have a lot of recent information to compare with my initial analysis.  Her pre- and post-assessments do not show any improvement.  She went from a word count of 19 on her pre-assessment to 13 on her post-assessment.  She seems to have some trouble writing, so I wonder if her briefness has more to do with that than a lack of interest in the artwork.  I have, however, also noticed that among some students there is an almost frantic need to be done, or done first that seems to cause a serious lack of concern for care about the quality of the end product, and I suspect that might also be at play here.

I did get to observe Mary conduct VTS one week with her class and I wrote some observations down that week.  "Ashley" had her hand up for the ENTIRE length of the discussion.  She had her hand up before Mary even answered the first question, and when Mary called on her her comment was, "There's a guy."  Mary said, "What do you see that makes you say that this is a male?"
"Because he has a beard."

It was hard for me not to think, "Really?  That's what you were so desperate to contribute?!"
The students had quite a bit of discussion about whether the photograph in the background was of the same person that is painting the picture.  "Ashley" added, "I see his glasses in the portrait."
Mary called on her several times because as I said, her hand was up the whole time as if she had this burning idea, but her later contributions were only to state that she agreed or disagreed with so-and-so.  I found this frustrating and somewhat confusing and I wished I could spend more time talking with her.  She is clearly thinking about the art and is eager to participate in the conversation. I wonder if she is just so desperate for the attention that she can't pause to think about what she is going to say. Her responses I discussed in Week 5 show she's capable of deeper looking.  I think she needs more time to react to the VTS "treatment" to show development and growth and I am curious to see how that plays out.