Community Education: Student Empowerment

Assignment 6:  UCLA Students Share Their Stories with Wilton Place Kids

 According to Wilton Place teacher Tony Osumi:  "If UCLA students can create opportunities for the booklet to express the kids' voices and interests, it will be no problem getting them to write for it.  Motivation comes from the meaningfulness of the work.  My guess is that most of the kids have not read or seen stories or heard people talk about their lives in real ways.  They may need models and examples from us.  UCLA students should be writing stories now and sharing them with students.  Students may also not really understand the concept of publishing and sharing their stories with a wide audience.  Most teachers don't do anything like this — not even within their own classroom.  If kids grasp the importance of wanting to share their own stories and receive support for doing it, motivation goes way up.  UCLA students should think of ways to bring this understanding to a kid’s level quickly."

Taking Tony’s comments into account, write two short stories of about one-half page each about yourself based upon the following list or any other topic you think may be relevant to the type of work we are doing in Wilton Place classrooms.  Remember, we are writing this for elementary students.

1.  How you got your name and what it means.
2.  How and why your family came to America or Los Angeles.
3.  Your most memorable day — good, bad, exciting, scary, etc.
4.  Your favorite family food.
5.  A story that connects somehow to the Open Court theme, but takes it a step further and teaches a moral, message, or is more critical and probing.

I Am Filipino and Japanese

By Dean Saranilli

I am Filipino and Japanese.  I come from Hawai‘i where there are many different people like me.  My island is called Maui.  I have a mom and dad who are divorced and two older sisters and an older brother.  I think in Hawai‘i many people are close with their family.  I know I love my family very much.  Now that I'm away from Hawai‘i, I hardly get to see my family.  But we are able to write letters to each other and this makes us all happy.  My oldest sister came to visit me two weeks ago.  We have a lot of fun.  We went to Disneyland and Universal Studios.  I think my favorite ride at Disneyland is Space Mountain.  My sister’s favorite ride is the train.  My sister is pregnant and she will have a baby soon.  My family is very excited for my sister.  And my other can't wait to be a grandmother.   My sister sometimes gets sick because she’s pregnant.  I think this is usual for pregnant women.  This is also why I wish I was back in Hawai‘i because I’d be able to help baby-sit  for my sister’s new child.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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