|
The Look Book Project for Beginning Writers Julia Karet from California Julia Karet is Professor of ESL at the English as a Second Language Program at Chaffey Community College.
I teach ESL at Chaffey Community College in southern California. The editor of this e-zine (TOPICS), Sandy Peters, and I worked together in Japan for two years. It was there that we both became fascinated by the idea of using the www to enhance our teaching. We both left Japan with the basic skills needed to produce www pages and tons of ideas for inspiring students. My first attempt at using what I learned in my new environment was in an advanced writing (Fundamentals of Composition) class. The technical aspects were so frustrating (see Processing Process Paragraphs for Publication: A Teacher's Tale in this Teacher's Corner) that it still amazes me that we managed to pull it off. What's
a Look Book? I started to search for a meaningful project that would provide some real world purpose for the often tedious task of learning the grammar and sentence combining skills that form the basis of English writing at this level. I came up with the idea of producing a class "look book" in which the students would share information about themselves and their lives. The purpose of the writing project was to give students an opportunity to expand what they were learning into writing real paragraphs for real audiences. It is, after all, easy for beginning writers to get discouraged and lose sight of the fact that the skills they are learning can really be used to communicate in English.
Then the students were asked to write a story about a significant life event. The narratives they wrote practiced the simple past and past progressive tenses, transitions and adverbial clauses while providing an opportunity for creative self-expression. What I found amazing was the variety of tales they told. Some students wrote about coming to America while others shared deeply personal, and sometimes painful, life events. Still others wrote about travel adventures, good luck, and personal triumphs. Production
Logistics To date, my classes have produced two look books. In fall 1999, the students named their look book, Friends Around the World. In spring 2000, the students decided on the title, One Language, Different Cultures. The covers were designed by students, and each semester the look book was distributed at an authors' reception (see photo) on the last day of class. The students' self-satisfaction and pride are evident as they open the printed version of the books for the first time. In addition to building students' confidence in their writing ability, the project facilitates bonds of friendship across cultures and ages. (My classes are very diverse with students as young as 17 and as old as 70. They are also heterogeneous in terms of cultures, languages, educational levels, and economic status. )
TOPICS has published selections from the look books online, enabling the students to reach a much wider audience with their stories. I have simplified the print-to-online transfer process that presented so many technical problems in the beginning by pressing a CD of the text and photos for the TOPICS editors. In addition, I am lucky to have in-class help from an advanced ESL student-tutor who does all the photography, inputting and formatting. (Teachers be forewarned - these tasks are very labor intensive!)
Julia
Karet Writing
from the second Look Book project:
One
Language, Different Cultures: Writing from the second Look Book project: One Language, Different Cultures:
Return to: Teachers' Corner | Home Page TOPICS Online Magazine - ©1997-2008 - Sandy and Thomas Peters - topics.mag@gmail.com |
