Cuéntame....

This afternoon I had my Cuéntame... class at Centro Arte para la Paz. I have five 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. We are choosing an important event that has been life changing, writing about it, illustrating it, and then binding it into a book! I've had four classes so far, but this feels like the second "real" one -- partly because the first two happened before I hurt my toe and so we had a week without classes -- but mostly because I just figured out this morning the step we needed to actually write our stories. We'd be sitting in class, in a circle the kids would share their ideas with me : going to school for the first time, graduating kindergarten, meeting their best friends, meeting their dad, becoming a magician ... each of them with a strong idea they were excited to write about. Yet, when we went to put them on paper it was near impossible to tell what they were about.

I think a lot here about scaffolding -- a concept from both my childhood development psych class and my TESL certificate class: how could I provide the structure (the scaffold) to allow these stories to really be given voice and bloom without feeding them words?

So this morning I had a brainstorm, and here is the result:

Hola. Me llamo _________________________________. Voy a contarles una historia bien importante en mi vida. Tenía ________años cuando_________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________.


______________ comienzó cuando__________________________________________
__________________________ y yo sentí _______________________________por que _____________________________________________________________Mi familia sentío _______________________________ por que ___________________
__________________________________________________________________


Mi vida ha cambiado desde ese momento por que ________________________________
___________________________________________________________________

Last class we worked for an hour and a half trying to get a beginning middle and end and the kids were dying to draw, to start illustrating. So today we are started illustrating and "revised" our stories by putting them in this form. It was amazing. I had little "reuniones" with each student as they worked and explained the beginning of and they were off, occasionally asking questions or just wanting to show me their progress part by part. As I met with each of them the rest were working on their illustrations. Today's project was to get out construction paper first to back the background (and show the setting) and then in front to cut out and color a person: themselves, the main character! And they were getting a kick out of drawing cutting and sticking!







I walked around the class, read over their stories, and watched as the first page grew and my heart, cliche as it may sound, just swelled with emotion for these kids --love and pride. Our stories have ended up to be: the first day of school, graduating from kindergarten, meeting dad and little sister for the first time, meeting best friends, and becoming a magician. Such a variety. And every class at some point they ask: and today we'll be in class until 5 right? ...for a class scheduled to go from 2 - 3 pm.









What a joy, a privilege ... an es muss sein to be here, to be with these kids, giving this class and getting to hear and figure out how to help them express their story.

Wow.