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.

The Most Memorable Day

By Eriko Suzuki

My name is Eriko Suzuki. I’m Japanese and a 16th grade in university in Japan. Now I’m studying at UCLA for one year.

January 10th, 2000 --- this day was the most memorable day for me. January 10th is my birthday. Last year, 2000, I became 20 years old. My family and friends said to me, "Happy birthday!!"

At the same time, this day was another anniversary. In Japan, there is a ritual on the second Monday in January. It is called "coming-of-age day." When we become 20 years old, in that year, we are celebrated to be an adult. Even if we feel "I am still a child" mentally, we have a ceremony. There, many people wear the KIMONO. It is traditional Japanese clothing. Although we don’t usually wear it everyday, we attend the ceremony by putting it on for the coming-of-age day. Because the ceremony is held in each city and we attend it where we grew up, we see many elementary school friends. In 2000, incidentally, the second Monday was January 10th, my birthday!! I saw many friends I had not seen for a long time. This made me very happy.

I celebrated double because of my birthday and coming-of-age day. My family, relatives, and friends celebrated with me for my birthday and coming-of-age day. I became 20 years old on the Japanese traditional coming-of-age day in 2000! My happiness was twice than others.

Do you have a most memorable day?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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