Training in Partnership

 

Representing SELI in partnership with Transformation Education (TE), I thoroughly enjoyed 4 days in mid-April during which I conducted the writing aspect of two of TE’s early-education literacy teacher trainings. 

The trainings took place in two different schools in Freetown, but the teachers came from a variety of schools that TE supports to develop skills in teaching early reading.

In addition to discussing what happens in the brain when we write and the developmental writing stages of beginning writers, the teachers spent time writing personal experiences in order to learn the writing process first hand. (In the first photo you see participants grouped according to stages in the process—sorry about the panoramic view distortion). 

I think we all could see that an ESL and routine-based process writing class, low-stakes and frequently held, is an essential part of an early literacy program in our setting. Reading and writing activate each other. Learning to write our own thoughts must and can be taught, and doing it builds the same brain paths (although in opposite directions) as does learning to read.

"The Club Plays a Great Role"

 I am getting messages from schools whose SELI Young Writers process-writing clubs were suspended when COVID-19 hit two years ago, telling me, "We really need this club back!"

When I ask why, they say "It helps the students improve greatly in their essay writing, and that plays a great role in their national exams." Hooray!

Of course, I am glad when school heads recognize the effect of what goes on in SELI Young Writers clubs. What needs to happen now is for school heads and English Language teachers to realize that the improvement they are seeing did not come about specifically because of the SELI Young Writers club, but because the club's writing instruction is centered around process writing. And it's all self-motivated writing. We do no testing at all.

I'm also pleased to hear school heads say that the club strengthens their teachers' written and oral communication skills. All good!

Now all we need is funding to make it happen! Every $10 counts!

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.

Library Helpers

 

What do you expect when we're sorting and dusting in the school library for hours on a Saturday?  That we wouldn't open all those wonderful books to see what's inside? No way!

SELI Young Writers are writing again!

Here we are in the library at Dankawalie Secondary School in the northeastern Falaba District of Sierra Leone.

After a year's COVID-19 break, this school's SELI Young Writers club resumed this week, on the first day of the third term, with a full house. In addition, the library where the club meets today is much brighter thanks to Lasiray Energy and Communications which now offers solar power to subscribers throughout Dankawalie town.

Any of these students who attends this student-centered, workshop-like club regularly for 1-2 years will develop five personal experience essays through a number of revisions and editing, and in the process take such strides in their writing, reading, listening and speaking skills in English that their performance on their BECE public examination will be greatly improved.

Many thanks to the school's administration and to the club's facilitators, Mr. B.M. Kargbo and Mr. Kalie Kamara, as well as to the donors who make these clubs possible. 

In the Time of COVID 2

 This week, I sent this notice to the principals of schools where SELI maintains Young Writers clubs under the Seli River Writing Project:

I am sorry to say that because of the current COVID19 situation, SELI will be suspending Young Writers clubs for the 2020-2021 school year. I have hesitated to take this decision because every year it is the children who are at the highest risk of failing that our clubs embrace.

 

High-risk students benefit greatly from good content conferencing on their true personal experiences, which is best done around a table in groups of 4-6 with a teacher present. Everyone participates: children learn English from reading their work aloud, asking good questions, reflecting and explaining. People at the table talk quietly so the rest of the class can draft and revise.

 

Members also benefit from peer editing, where they sit closely with another member and discuss spelling, punctuation and verb tenses in both of their pieces. In teacher editing, they read their work aloud as they sit next to a teacher. The teacher listens to how the authors read to know whether they understand where sentences end, or whether someone is speaking, and then ask authors what kind of punctuation they need.

 

This proximity that is such a plus in our club meetings becomes a minus when social distancing is the rule. There are other reasons that we need to step away from club meetings during the COVID period. Moving about the room to access shared writing supplies or to go on to the next writing stage, helps club members take ownership over both their writing and their progress, but it, too, obstructs social distancing. Even the fact that we meet before or after school means that our students may not be protected by the same level of COVID precaution that is enforced by the school during its regular school hours. The health and safety of our children is paramount.

 

We fully expect to restart the SELI Young Writers program for the 2021-2022 school year in all interested schools. I urge you, in the meantime, to develop a teachers’ community of process-writing practitioners in your school using your Young Writers club teachers as advisors, so that this valuable method of teaching writing will gain its deserved place in your regular school classrooms. 

In the Time of COVID 1

Twelve members of SELI's Young Writers clubs are about to receive "My Life" booklets like the ones pictured here from a previous year. To state that more clearly, before schools closed on March 31st, 2020, to protect students and staff from the pandemic, twelve club members had completed five final drafts, qualifying them for a printed booklet of their work. 

Some of the recipients are from these schools in the Koinadugu and Falaba Districts: Dankawalie Secondary School, Dankawalie (4); Kabala Secondary School JSS, Kabala (1); and Movement of Faith Secondary School, Yiraia (3). 

Other recipients are from these schools in the Western Rural Area: REC Primary, Bassa Town (1); Heaven Homes, Joe Town (2); and Seventh Day Adventist Primary School, Samuel Town (1). 

We are delighted that Kalie A. Kamara, one of the club facilitators from Dankawaliehas been writing as well, and will also be receiving a booklet. Let's have more facilitators writing!

What Primary School "Young Writers" Write About

Teachers usually prepare upper primary school students in Sierra Leone for the composition component of their Class Six public examination by having them write descriptive essays on topics such as "My Family" and "My Pet."

A few years ago, SELI extended its Young Writers program to rural primary schools. In these ESL process-writing clubs, students in Class 4 to 6 learn to write narrative essays by coming up with a list of their own true personal experience topics, and choosing which one they would like to write on next. They get help with revision by reading their first drafts aloud to their peers and teachers.

A little analysis shows us that the pieces of writing Class 4 to 6 students have produced in Young Writers clubs over the past several years fall into five general content categories, listed here. 

Perceived injustice (theft, abuse, deprivation of food or schooling and false accusation, either of self or elder sibling or parent). Seeking retaliation, recompense, or sympathy by appealing to relatives or neighbours, crying loudly, or running away. Boys choose this topic more often than girls.

Loss (or life-threatening injury or illness) of a family member or close friend. Nearly all of them write about death. They lack the age-appropriate writing skills to describe how it makes them feel (apart from saying, “I cried and cried.”) or what the loss means for them (ways in which this person had provided love, humor, security, tuition, protection against harm, food, shelter, and so on).

Friendship. The friends who are willing to accompany them to carry out an assigned task, and the support a best friend gives when they are in trouble.

Injury, often while carrying out tasks for adults. Includes how to travel to a health centre and pay for medical treatment. They all mention having to miss school but do not describe what that means to them. Their accidents can be categorized in this way:

vehicle (hit by an okada [motorcycle taxi] or car)

domestic (in kitchen, at stream, at market, house fire, severe flogging)

play (while playing football, running)

animal frights or bites (by a snake, dog, scorpion, monkey)

farm (fall from tree, cutlass injury, falling branches, flooding)

Venturing away from home. Whether they will find a friend there, be treated well, and succeed.

holiday period with aunt/uncle

experience at school, farm, beach

travel to another town/city

Being underestimated is a common underlying theme—rarely a writing topic in itself. Understanding the meanings implied in what adults actually say, or not being allowed to explain their observations because they are children. 

Forgiving a remorseful wrongdoer is another common underlying theme. The author will end a story about the pursuit of a thief with the author’s elders forgiving the person and giving their reason. Sometimes when the perpetrator is a schoolmate, the piece ends with the author doing the forgiving with a similar reason.

Perhaps you would agree that in terms of writing, primary schools might be under-challenging their pre-teen students!