Read Your Work Aloud in Sussex

Two teachers from Sussex village on the Freetown Peninsula run an after-school SELI Young Writers club whose membership draws on enrollment from several junior secondary schools in the area. 

Moses Gbondo and Ballah Kamara have been running the club for several years at the Abundant Grace International School, which this year has a larger facility—meaning more space to spread out during COVID times. Both teachers are good at monitoring simultaneous conferencing groups where students read their work aloud for peer feedback to improve their second drafts. In the background of the photo, you can see other students drafting or revising their work.

"Give at Checkout"

Thank you, thank you all! All you wonderful anonymous donors who have given to the Sentinel English Language Institute to help young students in Sierra Leone to succeed in school and to become writers in the future, by donating $1 every time you make an online purchase through PayPal! 

Every $1 contribution to our educational charity counts! It has made a big difference in what we are able to provide for the writing clubs we support. If you are comfortable doing so, send me an email at jackie@seli.co letting me know that you've helped, so I can thank you (all the "gives at checkout" are anonymous).

If you use PayPal, I encourage you to look for the chance to set the Sentinel English Language Institute as your favorite charity, so that every purchase you make helps another student in Sierra Leone learn to write when it counts!

Publishing In Action

 

Just before the break between first and second terms in December, the SELI Young Writers Club at SDA Primary School in Samuel Town on the Freetown Peninsula submitted twenty final drafts for me to look through and type.

I have returned them reminding the facilitators to allow every student with a newly typed final draft the time to "publish" their work by reading it aloud to the club. Here, Kadiatu is doing just that, with her teacher, Ms Princess Coker, in the background. 

I know Kadiatu feels very proud! All the students are writing true personal experience narratives in an additional language—English—which is the only language in which they are gaining literacy. Because the club is a process-writing workshop, they are developing reading, writing, listening and speaking skills in English all at the same time. 

I provided two typed copies of the final draft for Kadiatu. One is in her hands, stapled to the previous 3-5 drafts of the piece, and the other is in the hands of the facilitator who is following along silently while Kadiatu reads aloud in her most expressive voice, in case she needs help. This is about the 6th-8th time Kadiatu has read through her narrative. When she is finished, she will return the stapled drafts to her manila folder, and take the extra typed draft home to show her family. 

I hope they will ask her to read it aloud for them.