Middle Grade Books

SELI's small library collection covers picture books to what is called middle grade. 

What are middle grade books? They are novels or nonfiction books written for young people between the ages of 10 to somewhere in the teens. However, if the topic, such as historical fiction, is of general appeal and educational, people of any age enjoy reading middle grade books. 

In adding to SELI's collection we also pay attention to the cultural content of a book, because all children are best able to understand and become engaged by a book if they recognise themselves in the story. 

Here is a list of recently published middle grade books. Have a look and let me know which you think we should purchase for the SELI collection.

Developing Children's Literature

I am excited about SELI's coming year. 

The SELI Young Writers Clubs program continues to develop the literacy of upper primary and junior secondary students; for some, improving their performance on public exams and for others, revealing their new selves as authors. Their facilitators report ex-club members asking how to move forward into creative writing. 

A real need exists in Sierra Leone for children's literature—good reading books. They need to be culturally relevant. As an advocate of children's literature and ex-school librarian, I make good use of SELI's children's library (see photo here)

as an inspiration for editing.

Increasingly, people in Sierra Leone are writing for children, but a good many are unable to get their work published because they lack editing support. SELI would like to provide such individualized early-stage writing guidance on drafts that such authors are considering submitting for publication. There would be no cost to the author for this service.  It would be provided by email or WhatsApp, or when available, in person. 

SELI is not a publisher. This editing service is intended to help point the authors' way to preparing a more successful draft (and hopefully then, more successful subsequent drafts) for submission to a children's book publisher. 

So let the new year in!

 

Bring It On Home

It's not that easy for teachers to bring stories home to children from a written text. Magnificent illustrations help, and How Baboon Got a Shiny Rump certainly has those. Alternate text in a commonly-known language also helps, and the book has that, too. But a really good teacher can mold the text and the songs into just the right form to enter the children's hearts.

Here's storyteller/poet Kewulay Kamara showing us how, using a beautifully illustrated text in English of How Baboon Got a Shiny Rump, with a multi-age group of Kuranko-speaking children.

What's Better than a Book Talk?

Another way I promote all the purposes of SELI is by giving book talks in schools where the students have read my historical novel, The Heritage Keeper. Or, where I aim to interest the students in reading it! The schools must be among the few in town whose literature curriculum is not limited to the books set by the West African Examinations Council. Regrettably, since these are not SELI Young Writers schools, I do not have permission to post photos of the children at these events. 

In mid-February I attended an annual sports competition in the Hill Valley Academy at Mambo where in the past several years I have enjoyed lively discussions about reading, writing, and Sierra Leone history in that school with students who had read the book. It was good for me and lots of fun to see those same students that day in a different context.

I also was privileged to advocate for authorship of historical novels and read part of The Heritage Keeper to the secondary students of the British International School in Freetown during their Literacy Week. I loved the time I spent with them and hope they will enjoy the books and have lots of comments to make the next time I see them!

Democracy in Schools

Here's an entry from my SELI journal from twenty years ago—enjoy!

June 7, 1999  I’m teaching Second Language Methodology to ten teachers from five schools who are teaching, or have been assigned to teach, one of the indigenous languages in Sierra Leone. We start with a short dialog journal session (partners write in indigenous languages). The first session is theory, and then someone (either I or another participant or a video) teaches a lesson using one of the seven teaching methodologies we're focusing on for the 1st, 2nd or 3rd time, which we discuss.  I try to elicit an underlying concept the methodology illustrates and add it to my display board, heading for ten underlying concepts of effective second-language classrooms. We end with a writing workshop, writing our personal experiences in English.

I was nervous about today. Our topic was democracy in schools/classrooms. However, because it's important for this topic to be a discussion, drawing out the points was essential. I asked three participants to present what they thought about democracy in schools, and then asked for class reactions.  There was a great debate—more than once someone brought up that if a taxi driver drove badly in the street and you protested, he’d shout, “This is democracy!” at you. 

When it seemed everyone was agreeing that character education destroys African cultural values, and that democracy is too much freedom for overcrowded classrooms where order requires respect, I pointed out that we had already gained consensus on the concepts on the display board. And that they actually describe a democratic classroom. I reminded them that some types of learning can take place in autocratic classrooms, but not second language learning. I was delighted that someone mentioned that maybe democracy should not just be everybody-do-what-you-want, but consists of both rights and responsibilities. I presented the 7th grade class constitution in ASCD’s book, Democratic Schools[1], emphasizing that students and teachers drew it up together.  

Just last week Fourah Bay College students stormed and damaged the college principal's house in a protest over water and transport. The college closed and the principal is bringing charges against those he could identify.  One of our class participants was attacked similarly a few years ago as matron of one of the FBC hostels. She still lectures there and has been firmly against a student project underway to draw up a student rights document. She said that after our discussion today she sees the value in it but it should be a negotiated rights/responsibilities document, co-constructed by students, lecturers, and administration. Hooray!

I had a chance at the end to tie in a handout about the inequality inherent in ability grouping in schools—how it predestines one for success or failure. We take it for granted that all class six students whose mark in the public exit exam falls below a threshold, end up in the less-than-best secondary schools. And that in most secondary schools, the best students are put in JSS 1A and the worst in 1E. Can teachers do anything about that? We used another handout from Democratic Schoolsabout teachers not giving up when things are hard to fight against.

Then came a TTTV video demonstrating the problem posing method in an ESL classroom—a perfect sequel.  We evaluated the video lesson by sharing our ideas on how it was the same as, and different from, one of our class participants’ problem posing class last week. Excellent discussion. They were impressed at how the emotional impact of the "code" stimulated the students in the video to express personal opinions even though they struggled to come up with the language they needed to do it.  There was a good discussion about how and when the two teachers brought in the elements of the problem posing method.

Then in the writing workshop, we had time for two author sharings (members of the class reading aloud pieces of writing they had drafted). The first wrote about a childhood experience, how she had once told on some students who cheated in school, and although she was right, she lost all her friends.  Another told about a recent PTA meeting he attended as a parent which in his view was unusually successful because of the unifying of Sierra Leone cultures the invasion of Freetown in January had brought about.  The question was asked: did we really need a rebel invasion to teach Sierra Leoneans they need to unite?  

We ended by agreeing that both these pieces of writing were closely related to our lesson on democracy. What a class we had today!

---

[1]Apple, M. & Beane, J. (1955). Democratic Schools.  Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

The Difference a Little Teaching Makes

MITESOL, the Michigan chapter of TESOL International Association, puts out a periodic online newsletter called MITESOL Messages. 

The latest issue (August 15, 2018) carries a description of the Seli River Writing Project in an article called “Grappling with Text,” Scroll down to the section “Updates From the Field."

Let us know what you think!

Snake Encounters

I appreciated the chance yesterday to see the Lillian Lincoln Foundation documentary, “Minutes to Die: Snakebite, the World’s Ignored Health Crisis,” which was followed by a Q & A session with Dr. Robert Harrison from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. The film highlights that simply ignoring the snakebite problem is a social injustice, because throughout history it has inequitably plagued the poor. The hope now is that access to quality treatment, especially throughout the tropics, will result from WHO’s recent (and long fought for) recognition of snakebite envenoming as a neglected tropical disease.

Probably in part because in Sierra Leone when people are bitten they seek help from traditional healers rather than clinics or hospitals, the country lacks quantitative snakebite data. Anecdotal data on snake encounters, on the other hand, should be readily available. Here is some from SELI’s Young Writers clubs, which illustrates the ways children come in contact with snakes.

A Snake Hissed at Me

Hawa K., REC Primary, Kent

One evening, I finished cooking with my mother. She dished out the food and we ate it. Before long, I went to the toilet. As I pushed the door open, I saw a large snake with black colour, raising its head hissing at me. I ran quickly to tell my mother. But when my mother came with me to see the snake, it had disappeared.

Snake Bite

Hamza D.C., New Apostolic SS, Lumpa

Once my mother and I were going to the farm. On the way my mother said I should go to the bush and bring a large amount of wood.

On the way to the bush I was holding a stick in my hand. When I reached there I was removing the wood. Suddenly, a snake in the bush came and bit my foot and I shouted, “Help me! Help me!” two times before I saw an old man come down from the trees with a cutlass and I knew that old man was called Pa Turay. If someone was not there, I should have been dead. The old man looked around for some leaves that he would use to put on the bite of the snake. The date was August 23^rd 2005.

The old man asked, “Who sent you into this bush?”

I said, “My mother told me to come and collect wood to go and prepare meat for my father.”

The old man took me to my house in Muska Village. I was not feeling bright. The old man said to my mother, “Take your child and let him have some rest.” When my mother went and laid me on the bed she said, “Let me give you some money because I haven’t prepared a meal yet.”

The old man said, “I don’t need your money. Just take some medicine and place it where the snake bit him. And it is necessary for him to eat after he rises.”

Suddenly my father came and saw my foot got swollen. My father asked my mother, “What happened to my only son’s foot?”

Then my mother said, “It is I who did this. I sent him to the bush to collect wood for you to prepare meat,” and she said, “I will not do it again.”

In the morning my foot became normal again.

A Snake Bit my Sister

Adama K., Wenner Kuhhnle Primary, Lumpa

It was Sunday afternoon. My younger sister and I were walking along the bush. A big snake came out of the bush and bit my younger sister and she began to shout. I did not know what happened to her.

Immediately I took her up and carried her to Howa Uncle. I was afraid because the place where the snake bit my sister began to spread over her body. I took her to Howa Uncle because Howa Uncle knows different types of medicine. If a person has an animal bite, he will heal the person. That’s why I took her there.

Before my uncle could go to enter the bush to prepare medicine, it was too late because at that time my sister began to feel weak and after one hour thirty minutes, my sister died.

I cried and cried as if she was going to return but there was no way to do so and when my mother came back from Bo, she found her daughter had died. She cried and cried and my father talked to my mother to stop crying, she would not return again. “So you have to wipe your tears and keep praying God will provide you with another one.” My uncle said that he could prepare something. As my uncle said that word, my mother started to cry again. My father asked her if she wanted to kill herself. “You have to keep praying for the ones who have left, let God bless her for us.” And my uncle said, “As for me, I have done my best.”

A Snake Accident

Foday A.K., Dankawalie SS

The 16th August 2010 my brother sent my friend and me to go and search in our farm for all the palm kernels. The name of my brother is Yanka Lansana and the name of the farm is Papa Yefie.

As soon as we arrived we saw the first one. Because I was happy to go to the farm, I was the first person to climb the palm tree.

When I started to cut the branch and I saw a big snake called a cobra. It usually hunts birds on the tree. It was angry when it saw me and it rushed towards me. I shouted, "Ah! Ah!" My friend told me to climb down the tree. The snake, too, was afraid of me but that was unknown to me.

So I decided to hold the snake but my hand missed it because I was afraid. Then I got to the other side of the tree. I saw the tail part of it. I drew it and I fell down on the ground. By that time my brother, Kalie, was there. He rushed and killed the snake.

I was seriously wounded on my leg. I had fallen on a big stick. For two hours I could not stand up. My brother shouted. At that time two little boys were passing on the road. They heard my brother crying. They came but they could not carry me from the farm to town. It was three miles. I was bleeding.

My brother gave me first aid treatment. He asked me, "Can you go to town?"

I said, "Yes, I will manage." I didn't want him to be afraid.

We left the farm at 11.00 am. Because I couldn't walk fast, my brother walked with me step by step until 4.30 pm. We reached the hospital compound. When the nurse saw me, she shouted, "Ah, what is wrong with you?" At that time I couldn't explain anything. They called Yanka Lansana, "Your brother has come with a problem." The nurse treated me but she wasn't able to cure my wound so my brother took me to Kabala for good treatment at the Kabala Government Hospital.

After two days I was better. I will never go there again and I will never forget that day.

Snake Bite

Sheku M.B., Kabala SS

Any day I see a snake I remember my snake bite on the 25th March 2007. I was going to the farm to do some brushing where I planted my cassava. On that day I was not happy. My elder brother and I had had a quarrel over a cutlass. He said I took his cutlass. I said, "No, Brother, I can't do this to you—take your cutlass and refuse to answer." I appealed to him and he accepted. 

Then I took it and told my mother goodbye. The distance from the farm to the town was seven miles. One man was going to the farm on a motorbike. I stopped him and asked him to take me. He said I should pay Le 4,000. I paid and he took me as far as the farm.

I saw rabbits and monkeys were destroying my cassava. As the animals saw me they ran away. What caused the monkey to destroy my cassava was because the place was very bushy so I started to brush. When I approached I cut a stick that fell on a snake. I didn't know that the stick fell on it. The snake became wild and bit me. I fell down and began to cry for help. I took my cutlass and cut where the snake bit me and it bled. I tore a piece of my clothes and tied my foot.

I went to the road. Soon a woman called Jarrie came and saw blood all over my foot and she asked me, "What is wrong with you?" I told her and she called her husband, Chernor, to come. He carried me on his back. Jarrie took me to the doctor. He put something like a stone inside my foot that helped me feel better. The woman sent a message to my family to come. As soon as they heard the message, they came for me. They thanked Jarrie and also her husband. My mother paid the doctor Le 12,000 and told him he was her son, and thanked him, too. Then we returned home.

What the ESL teaching field stands for

The TESOL International Association has notified its members of the death of Dr. James E. Alatis, one of its founding members. I have been a member of this organization since the 1970s, and his writings meant a lot to me over the years.

As the notice says, "Jim Alatis, as he was known to many, will be remembered for his energy and his commitment to TESOL International Association and to the field of English language teaching. 'Our kind of teaching,' he once said, 'which accepts other peoples’ languages and cultures as equally valid to ours, is essential to cross-cultural communication, mutual educational exchange, social justice, and, ultimately, it is devoutly to be wished, world peace.' As the association works to support and encourage the work of English language teaching, he would urge us, as he told one interviewer, 'to continue to insist upon quality above all.'”

Adult Mother-Tongue Literacy Class

The Dankawalie Secondary School Library (in Dankawalie, Sengbe Chiefdom, Koinadugu District in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone) is a community library. One of its community services is offering an adult mother tongue literacy class in Kuranko.

I was glad to have the opportunity to meet with 7/10 of the class this week. Just for me, they gathered at the odd hour of 8 am on Monday morning before they headed out to their farms where they are harvesting rice and planting groundnuts. Although most of the class members have had a Koranic education (and can therefore read and write in Arabic) they have had no formal schooling so cannot read and write in the Roman script. Their days are already full with all the work they do.

Although Kuranko is not one of the mother-tongue languages The Institute of Sierra Leone Languages is currently working with, SELI arranged for two teachers from DSS to be included in TISLL's literacy-teacher training workshop in May, 2013. In June, the class began, and you can see from these short videos here that there have been results! TISLL monitors and certificates the program, and is a wonderful collaborative partner.

This SELI Heritage Writers program is expanding and needs your support. The current members keep pointing out that the materials (originally written in the '70's and revised in the '90s) are outdated and would like to revise them. New members of the community want to join the class as beginners. Some current members are ready to go on to Book Two. Although the members pay, by installment, a cost price for the books, the supplies need to be bought and brought to the village.  The two teachers have been doing this work without any stipend at all as encouragement. When class members have completed Book Two we would like to a) encourage those interested to go on to second language learning in Krio or English, and b) start them into a writing workshop where they can record their stories, which will become Kuranko readers to add to the DSS Library collection if we can pay to have them printed. The two teachers, Mr. Balla M. Kargbo and Mr. Alusine H. Kamara, would like to see the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology accept appeals for new Sierra Leonean languages to be added to the current four examination languages at junior secondary level.

If you are able to make a small contribution toward this Heritage Writers project, please click on the DONATE button to the right!

Cultural Writing Skills

One thing we do in our Leading Young Writers workshops is to differentiate speech and writing, as this teacher is doing here. It's a vital distinction for all teachers to make as they prepare to facilitate writing clubs, and it emphasizes why it is worrisome that students do so little writing (as opposed to copying) in schools in Sierra Leone.

We should make another important distinction in the Leading Young Writers workshops--a cultural one. West African cultures are listener-responsible, and Western/first-world cultures are speaker-responsible[1]. Since interactions between the two began, this difference has caused misunderstandings between them. It is common for members of both cultural groups to form judgments and prejudices about the other as a result of this difference. The point where it becomes tragic is when one with such misconceptions has the means and will to publicize them as if they were fact, or has the power to take decisions about a person in the other cultural group that will affect his/her livelihood.

The native English-speaking world's nature as a speaker-responsible society is one of the factors that drives ESL process-writing workshops in Sierra Leone. It is true that the target spoken English in schools in Sierra Leone is in most cases, that spoken by educated Sierra Leoneans. However, the target written English is standard English. The final draft in our Young Writers workshops should be clear and in most cases, unambiguous. All the members of the club have well-developed cultural insight, and sometimes they understand each other too well to be critical--their ability to intuit unexplained feelings and gaps in cause-and-effect actions can be a detriment when they are giving feedback. We have to keep encouraging them to ask for explicitness that sometimes to them seems silly--like stating the obvious. 

The same cultural skill brings a richness to their writing. A standard tenet of writers' workshops is the advice, "Show, don't tell." Good writers often don't say that they felt emotions; they show what they looked like. It is a delight to throw this "Show, don't tell" concept out to a group from a listener-responsible culture, such as our recent Leading Young Writers workshop who have all spent their lifetimes reading unspoken meanings. The day I asked the group of ten teachers what SAD looked like, immediately, in silence, without any questions, I had in front of me ten different postures evoking sadness. If I'd taken a photo, it would have been a poem--to the listener-responsibles out there!

---

[1] Similar to the distinction John Hinds made about languages in 1987 when he wrote "Reader Versus Writer Responsibility: A New Typology" in Connor & Kaplan (Eds.) Writing across languages: analysis of L₂ text. 

Reading Sierra Leone

On May 10th, eight Reading Sierra Leone books were officially launched--hooray! You see here one of the eight.

To quote from the inside back cover, "Reading Sierra Leone is a collaborative initiative of PEN Sierra Leone and CODE, a Canadian NGO supporting development through education. The goal of Reading Sierra Leone is to produce locally written and illustrated books that engage children and invite them, through reading and writing, to think, to learn and to improve their lives."

The books are aimed at lower, middle, and upper primary reading levels and are part of a program providing huge numbers of books, as well as teacher training in reading instruction, to primary schools in Sierra Leone, beginning with schools in the eastern part of the country.

You can look through, and learn how to purchase, all the Reading Sierra Leone as well as the Reading Liberia books in this catalog. 

Sales will help finance a second round of locally-produced books under Reading Sierra Leone. Let's make this happen! (P.S.: We're told Reading Liberia is in its third round!)

Seli River Writing Project

The photo on the left is from the SELI Young Writers workshop that meets at SELI twice a week. It has turned out to be a mix of junior and senior secondary students. Mr. Allieu Sheriff, a workshop facilitator from Services Junior Secondary, Wilberforce is doing content conferencing with students here. You also see a student doing self editing at Goderich Comprehensive Secondary School in Funima.

Would you like to know more about the aims we are working toward in the Seli River Writing Project? Many of them are brought out in this article in the February 2013 issue of TESOL International's SRIS Newsletter.

Tutors Needed in Sierra Leone Languages

On International Mother Language Day 2013 (February 21st), a meeting was held at SELI of tutors interested in teaching potential mother tongue authors to write in their own mother languages.  Here are the details:

The Sentinel English Language Institute (SELI) is resuming its Five Writing Lessons programme, in which five writing lessons are offered free of charge in each Sierra Leonean language. The students in this programme are educated adults who wish they could write stories or poems in their mother tongues but do not know the correct spelling.

SELI is seeking tutors for the Five Writing Lessons programme in all Sierra Leonean languages. If you feel that you are qualified to teach native speaking adults to write in your language and would like to participate in the Five Writing Lessons programme, please call SELI at 076 547540 or email jackie@seli.co . The students will already speak the language well; they just need to learn how to write it.

Five Writing Lessons supports mother tongue literature, whose importance is celebrated throughout the world every February 21st on International Mother Language Day. As a tutor in the Five Writing Lessons program, you will be doing a great service to your culture by enabling authors to write in your language. An honorarium will be paid to the successful tutors upon completion of the initial student interview and the five lessons.

Again, contact the Five Writing Lessons programme at 076 547540 or jackie@seli.co .

Make Your Voice Heard!

This student at the Ahmadiyya Muslim Agricultural Secondary School (AMASS) in Yogomaia, Kabala is reading her first draft aloud for feedback from her peers.

Her classmates listen carefully, pens poised as this boy's is to write comments or questions about the content in her piece.  Following this discussion, and armed with the questions that each student writes down for her, she will write an improved second or third draft.

SELI has encouraged the schools where there are Young Writers junior secondary clubs, to give girls the added support they need to attend. We were so glad to see girls made up 1/3 of the students in the meeting we attended at AMASS last week.  Families depend on teenage girls to take care of younger siblings and prepare food, so it is particularly difficult to include them in after school activities. Young Writers clubs improve students' English communication and thinking skills as well as their cultural awareness. We don't want to undermine the structure of the family, but we need to keep trying to get girls the benefits they deserve!

We're pleased, too, to hear that AMASS has just launched a school library, and that the Young Writers are the first approved borrowers! Long live the Young Writers and all who support them!

Non-formal Education

Let's highlight again the point made about non-formal education in the last post.

Especially when we read articles such as Steve Bradshaw's "Sierra Leone's School-Time Blues," we realize what an important need there is for non-formal education and community schools in Sierra Leone. Children need to be taught in their own context, with parents (whether educated or not) playing an assertive role in keeping conditions safe and conducive to learning.

Five Writing Lessons

Five Writing Lessons, a program of the Heritage Writers project, has begun at SELI! The opening unit is Kuranko, and the first of the five lessons took place today at SELI. Thanks to sponsorship from individuals from many parts of the world, we plan to conduct a unit of five writing lessons in as many Sierra Leone languages as possible.

Each class has up to sixteen participants. All should be primary language speakers of the language of any age who have reached or completed junior secondary school, and who are interested in authoring books in their language. The class is offered free of charge.

We are seeking funding for the next stage in the Heritage Writers project, which will support the writing efforts of these would-be mother-tongue authors, and take them onto publication. Exciting, no? Be a part of it by contributing at www.seli.co. Click on "DONATE" to make your payment through PayPal.

Heritage Writers is on the move!

Twice as many people as last year attended SELI's International Mother Language Day 2012 event on February 21st. About half were students, making very serious efforts to write in their mother tongues as these two girls are, writing in Kono and Krio.

Keep checking back for updates! Many participants were interested in the tutoring lessons for which we have been able to gain sponsorship. That program will be underway soon.

Let's Write in our Mother Languages

It is said that there are some eighteen indigenous languages spoken in Sierra Leone. Orthographies have been approved for four of these: Mende, Themne, Limba and Krio. Some junior secondary schools offer one or more of these languages as elective subjects, so there is a chance that a fortunate child might learn to read and write his/her mother tongue while in junior secondary school.

But what if that mother tongue is one of the many "unwritten" languages in Sierra Leone? What do children burning to write in their mother tongues do when educators tell them that writing programs cannot be established for languages that lack approved orthographies?

Read our article advocating for writing in mother languages: http://www.seli.co/seli-forum/seli-editorials

International Mother Language Day 2011

On Sunday, February 20th, 2011 at 4:00 pm, SELI celebrated International Mother Language Day 2011. Anyone who wants to stretch his or her writing life and support those Sierra Leonean languages that are not being taught in schools is welcome to come and write! This is the 12th year of this UNESCO day, which actually falls on the 21st of February each year. It was established to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism, particularly encouraging the development of literatures in endangered languages.

This year most of the participants wrote poems, and we all sat in one group to read our work aloud. Can you read this poem by Annie Moses that was written and read on that day? SELI's celebration is part of its larger Heritage Writers program. Participants spend the first 45 minutes writing a poem, story, or nonfiction narrative in their primary language. They then gather in language groups to read their work aloud for appreciative feedback and comments. Tutors from the Writing Tutors Registry are always present in case any participant would like to make an arrangement for lessons to improve their writing skills in their language.

The students on the cover of the book, Fostering Young Writers in Sierra Leone, which you see here, are writing on International Mother Language Day.

We're hosting the TLRC!

SELI hosted the first meeting of SL PEN's Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee, or TLRC, on Tuesday, March 29th. Keep your eyes on this space and expect big things of this committee! The next meeting will be on April 12th.