Join Our Writing Community

The Seli River Writing Project is growing an online writing community at the SRWP Workshop. It's free! Join us to share in the fun of trying different kinds of writing for the reward of gentle critique.

Our goals are

• developing life-long habits of writing, 
• building a writing community that believes everyone can learn to write, and 
• improving our writing and communication skills in English.

You're welcome!

Dankawalie Secondary School Library

Now that the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives has funded setting up the library at the Dankawalie Secondary School (Sengbe Chiefdom, Koinadugu District), SELI has an ongoing commitment to its development. We are pleased to see digital development appearing from other sources. These photos tell the DSS library story through June, 2013. 

SELI Young Writers Takes Shape

Attendance hasn't been all we'd like in the last few meetings, but the SELI Young Writers program is really taking shape.

Since most of the students have domestic work to do at home, they come at varying times. We have found that it works to have a journaling table. When they enter, the first stop is to take their writing folders, and the second stop is to do the journal assignment. Today it was to describe and to "perhaps" about the photograph you see on the table. Who is this woman? Where does she live, and what is she up to? Why are we so sure she is not a Sierra Leonean?

The girls in the foreground are in the third draft of their first (analytic) piece of writing. At this point, they move to word processing, where it is easier to revise and build good paragraphs. The girl on the left has just cut a sentence from one paragraph and pasted it into the next, where it makes more sense. Not bad, for a novice computer user and paragraph builder!

The student at the far table has moved on to the first draft of his second assignment, a personal writing challenge. We read all our first, and sometimes our second drafts, aloud to others for discussion and feedback. And we need more students to enrich that discussion!

The SELI Young Writers

We're excited about the SELI Young Writers: our new writing class for senior secondary students. We plan to write in all sorts of styles and genres. We are doing journaling, and we write in multiple drafts, reading our work aloud for feedback. We are also stretching vocabularies as far as we can!

Everyone in the class wants personally to become a better writer, and everyone also wants to succeed in school. We plan to do both!

Library-in-a-Box

SELI has been carrying out a "Library-in-a-Box" project with Dankawalie Secondary School, one of the Koinadugu District schools in the SRWP.

Rural schools, and especially rural schools that are made extra remote by poor roads, have little access to books. So for two years now, SELI has taken some two dozen books each time we visit and exchanged them for the books from the last visit, and handed them over to the club facilitators. Most of the books are leveled readers—either classics or books written in and for West Africa. DSS students share their reading in the journal activity held at the beginning of the club meeting, or sometimes explain why they enjoyed their book in the morning assembly.

Thank you, Lorna and Sandra!

 Because Lorna Johnson and Sandra Leigh sponsored mother-tongue writers at the International Mother Language Day on February 21, 2012, SELI, through its Heritage Writers program, was able to offer five writing lessons for mother tongue speakers of an indigenous Sierra Leonean language. Participants in these classes then formed a writing group. SELI encourages writing groups to meet regularly to stimulate each other with feedback and support.

SELI offered five writing lessons in Krio from May 5th – June 9th, 2012. The instructor was Nathaniel Pearce, who has authored textbooks on Krio.

Krio is a creole language spoken natively by the Krio people in Sierra Leone. It is also the lingua franca of many people throughout the country. Some linguists say Krio stems from a widespread prototype creole; others say its history and grammar identify it as a Niger-Congo language which has borrowed and adapted a large number of words from English and other languages. Other linguists say it's both.

The Krio Five Writing Lessons class was a mixed group of working and retired people as well as students. We soon found that half the group already had mastered writing skills in Krio. Therefore, at each meeting while the beginners worked with Mr. Pearce, the writers took part in a writing workshop with the SELI director, where they were challenged to write personal experiences, do creative reflection, and write poetry in Krio and share it with their colleagues.

 The Krio Five Writing Lessons class now meets as one writing group, the Raytin Kabudu. Members read their work aloud to the group for constructive critique to help them revise. We thank Mr. Pearce for his offer to continue to work with this group on editing and other writing skills. While the Raytin Kabudu members are working on manuscripts, SELI is seeking funds to support publication because Heritage Writers aims to encourage the written literature of all Sierra Leonean languages.

Thank you, Simone!

By sponsoring a mother tongue writer at the International Mother Language Day on February 21, 2012, Simone Anderson made it possible for SELI, through its Heritage Writers program, to offer five writing lessons for mother tongue speakers of an indigenous Sierra Leonean language. Participants in these classes then formed a writing group. SELI encourages writing groups to meet regularly to stimulate each other with feedback and support.

Because Simone helped, SELI offered five writing lessons in Kuranko from April 6th – 21st, 2012.

Kuranko is a Mande language spoken by approximately 268,000 people in Sierra Leone with additional speakers in the region, particularly in Guinea. The language has a strong history of oral literature. Missionary organizations have taught literacy in the language but it is not widespread. The language itself thrives more fully in rural than urban settings, but many children are sent to cities for education. Children in urban areas understand some Kuranko but are more likely to respond in the lingua franca, Krio.

The Kuranko Five Writing Lessons class was a mixed group of working people with strong village oral language skills and secondary school students, some of whom joined under their own initiative and others whose parents saw this as an opportunity for them to get a firmer grounding in their family's language. I found it an exciting class with good, inclusive strategies. Some members have since met as the writing group, Tanyar°, where they are exposed to the writing-craft skills of free writing; of reading work aloud to the group for constructive critique; and of revision. The group was lucky to be visited by a Kuranko traditional poet and performer from New York, Kewulay Kamara, who challenged the members with the promise of an award for documenting Kuranko language traditions.

While the Tanyar° members continue to work on manuscripts with the occasional editing support of their Five Writing Lesson teacher, Saio Marah, SELI is seeking funds to support publication. Heritage Writers would like to see a stronger role played by Kuranko in Sierra Leone's written national literature.

ESL Classes at SELI

The Sentinel English Language Institute (SELI) offers beginning and intermediate-proficiency English classes in Tengbeh Town for teen and adult speakers of other languages who are residing in Freetown. Instruction engages students in all aspects of language—speaking and writing, reading and listening, and grammaring; the beginning students shown here are working on a writing task. The American instructor is an experienced, U.S.-certified ESL specialist. SELI's instructional materials are specifically designed for teaching adult ESL in an international setting.

And just think: all fees are paid to SELI, so ESL learners at SELI are, at the same time, supporting educational projects in other schools in Sierra Leone.

Writers All!

SELI is now sponsor of "Storytelling," a noon radio program on the nonprofit FM 96.0 community station, Voice of the Peninsula Mountains (this is the new station building, in Tombo). Each weekday members from the listening communities of Sattia, Tombo and Kent along the Freetown Peninsula tell traditional stories in one of five languages spoken in the area. A copy of each program is retained for SELI, and SELI is asking that they also write down these stories in five ledgers, one for each language.

SELI is also paying tutors from its Tutor Registry to provide three lessons that will teach literate adults to write in their primary languages. The first lessons are taking place this week: a certified Mende tutor is teaching someone to write in Kisi. Sure, the teacher does not speak Kisi, and sure, Mende is a Mande language, and Kisi is an Atlantic-Congo language. But it's working: the student feels equipped and energized and he has begun writing in Kisi!

Is this writing perfect? Are the writers using orthographic rules that experts would approve? Do all languages in Sierra Leone have established written orthographies? No. But we whose primary language is English tend to forget that it is only in the very recent past that our written rules have developed. What if Shakespeare had refrained from writing because there was no dictionary to consult? Even today, do writers worry about perfection in their first, second, or fifth drafts? Here's to the written voices of all these potential poets, storytellers, and novelists in Sierra Leone!

Let their publishers worry about the final product!

Leading Young Writers in Progress

Our junior secondary school teachers from five schools in Freetown (Gov't. Model JSS, Gov't. Rokel JSS, FSSG, UMSSG, and Albert Academy) have completed 3 weeks of their 4 week workshop and are looking forward to sharing their enthusiasm about writing with students in their school Young Writers clubs. You can see them here doing an exercise in revising writing; doing peer conferencing, and typing their revisions into netbook computers. Unfortunately, SELI has been able to pay for only 3-1/2 of the netbooks being used for this workshop so their use in the next Leading Young Writers workshop is not certain.

Young Voices

The Young Writers Club has started publishing a newsletter! Young Voices will have a different theme in each issue.

Fire is the theme of Volume I, Issue 1, dated March, 2009. Read it here! Of the final drafts our Young Writers have produced so far, four were about personal experiences with fires and the sorrow they cause. Our club says, fires matter! Take care to avoid them!

SELI Young Writers Club

The SELI Young Writers Club for JSS II (Form II) students now meets at the Sentinel English Language Institute in Tengbeh Town, from 11:30 am -12:30 pm, four days a week (Mon., Tues., Thurs., and Fri.), allowing students to reach their schools in time for the opening bell at 1:00 pm. As usual, this activity is being offered at no cost to the student. We hold our mini-lessons in a 415 sq ft palaver house first (shown here), and then move on to the classrooms to write! We've set up a display board for final drafts, and any member who has produced four final drafts (Whew! They produce 3-5 drafts per topic just to reach the final draft stage!) can choose her/his best to publish in the club's newsletter.

No one doubts the need for developing writing skills in our junior secondary school students. The clubs offer some children their first experience in a cooperative, collaborative instructional setting. It's unfortunate that the problem of facilities in the schools (see previous post) made it too difficult to carry out the clubs in the schools themselves. The presence of community activities such as clubs is vital if our schools are to succeed. The clubs which, decades ago, schools in Sierra Leone used to offer were not frivolous, but played a vital role in broadening and developing our children.

English Lessons for Speakers of Other Languages

If your stay in Freetown, Sierra Leone is your first experience living in an English speaking country, you may need English lessons. We offer English lessons to speakers of other languages, having had many years' experience improving the language proficiency of adults from all parts of the world.

We first administer a placement test to assess your proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing English. Our instruction reflects the fact that English is a major language of international communication. Our lessons explore many countries, regions, and cultures. We feel that English is best learned when used for meaningful communication, in context. With the help of CD support we encourage the learning of natural, conversational, internationally-acceptable language. In addition, SELI has a 1,500-item library aimed at a variety of proficiency levels and reading interests with the intention of stimulating as much reading as possible in our students.