After 2 months of eager anticipation, students at SMK Raden Umar Said finally met ETA Evan Harris, who began teaching in the classroom on Monday, October 19. Complications due to natural disaster had required Evan to engage with his students online for the first weeks of his grant. Evan opened his first in-person classes with a simple drawing activity centered on student creativity and artistic skill, prompting students to sketch their own fictional character based on provided prompts. Two were given, while the rest were made up at random by the students themselves. Reptilian legs, animal ears, and horns were among some of the imagined parameters that students challenged their fellow classmates to include.

As SMK Raden Umar Said specializes in animation and graphic design, the students’ results spoke for themselves. Every student embraced the unique challenge of combining unexpected elements into a final product, picking up new English vocabulary along the way—solidifying it through pen and paper. Each returned home with their very own new character, all with the same features, though unique from one another in a variety of ways.

Evan Harris is currently teaching at SMK Raden Umar Said Kudus, Jawa Tengah.