The most common method of instruction in many Sierra Leone schools being rote learning, SELI's Young Writers clubs continue to help develop the literacy skills of upper primary and junior secondary students.
To master the Altogether-New task of writing their own thoughts, Young Writers club members work on a minimum of five personal experiences of their own choice through ESL-supported process-writing workshops, however long that takes them. When they have gone through all the stages of the writing process on their first personal experience, they receive a club button to pin on their uniforms and a typed copy of their piece.
Those who finish final drafts of at least five experiences receive copies of them in booklet form, in which pieces appear in their chosen order, with their own dedication and an about-the-author paragraph at the end.
The tables of contents you see here are from booklets that appeared in May at SDA Primary School, Samuel Town (near Waterloo, Sierra Leone). Twenty-six experiences the authors can later convert to stories that would form the text for a children’s book—how’s that for supporting children’s book publishing in Sierra Leone?
