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.

My Favorite Food Is Kare Kare

By Melissa Hilario       

My favorite food is a Pilipino dish called kare kare.  It is like beef stew because it has meat and vegetables with sauce.   The beef part of the kare kare is made up of ox tail.  The meat on the ox tail is very tender, not chewy like beef jerky.  The vegetables in kare kare are eggplant, string beans, and bok choy.  The sauce is thick and make up of ground peanuts. 

This dish has been my favorite since I was a kid, when I was living in the Philippines. My “lola,” which means grandma in Tagalog, would make it when we had big parties.  I helped my grandma ground up the peanuts in a wooden bowl with a wooden club.

My mom also cooks kare kare for big parties here in America. Now that I am old enough, I help my mom cut up the vegetables with knives.  Sometimes, my mom will also make kare kare when I go home for the weekend.  Going home is a special occasion because I do not go home all the time.  The school I got to is far away from my house so I stay in an apartment close to school.  My mom knows kare kare is my favorite dish and that’s why she tries to make it when I go home. 

I love this dish because it has a lot of flavor.  My mom and grandma know how to make kare kare very well.  I tasted kare kare at restaurants and they do not taste as good as my mom’s or my grandma’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2001-2002, UCLA AASC. All Rights Reserved.
Designated content are the property of
their respective owners.