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Anna Matykowski
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At New Spirit, I created
and taught a unit about community stories.
After reading models of community narratives, I asked each of my
students to choose one memory, and write a reflective community narrative. At the end of the unit, I compiled all of
the stories into one community book, Our
Stories from St. Paul. I
believe that this experiential writing assignment increased my students’
motivation and confidence in language arts class. In their initial questionnaires, the majority
of my students told me that they did not like language arts because they
struggle with English grammar and vocabulary.
The community book was so successful because most of the students felt
confident and enthusiastic about describing their own experiences. Students who usually avoided my assignments
began to write much more quickly than usual. Not
only did students benefit from writing about their own experiences, but they
also learned by listening to their classmates’ stories. At the end of the unit, each student read
his or her narrative to the class. The
students all learned about the power of family support, gang violence, and
racism from their peers’ vivid and thoughtful stories. At
the end of my student teaching, many students wrote me letters about how much
they enjoyed the community writing: “I really liked
the activity about communities because you really get to tell about your
community and where you live. It’s fun
to know about other things that happen in other people’s communities.” “I enjoyed the
community writing the most!” “I also like how
you wanted us to present our neighborhood stories in front of the class.” |
