Kazia Musial-Aderer

In Standard 4 students are given rigorous instruction to prepare for national exams presented only in English. English is often a student’s’ third language and is mostly used in the school setting. Standard 4 teacher Ezekial Odinga is a dedicated teacher with a desire to instruct students in more creative ways and whose hope is to break from the usual practice of drilling for these exams. Ezekial and his class were eager to break the mold and so we decided to explore avenues for developing creative writing skills.

Together, Ezekial and I discussed ways to free up the children’s writing expression. We began with an exercise where we describe everyday objects found in the environment. This is an exercise that I often do with my third graders at Packer. We discuss “living a writerly life” through close attention to the everyday, such as listening for sounds, or using a “writer’s eye”.  Ezekial and I set out on a walk to locate three items to use for inspiration. We decided on a long and twisted branch, a jagged rock and a branch from the euphorbia bush. The  students enjoyed working in groups to describe one of the objects in as much detail as possible. Along the way they were introduced to new vocabulary words in english.

I also began a series of read alouds with the sixty students. They enjoyed looking at and interacting with the pictures by asking questions and attempting to identify the different animals in the stories we were reading. The students continually impressed me with their ability to make sense of things that they had never seen, in a language that is not their second, but their third. We began to look at story patterns and I introduced the students to planning their writing with a lesson on storyboards.

When I returned the next day I found that all sixty students had carefully mapped out the events of the story with full color illustrations. Their faces lit up and one student rushed up to the front of the room with a key to the locked cabinet and retrieved a hefty stack of storyboards to share with me.  Although we continued our work for several more days, I still felt it was over way too soon. I will not forget the pride and hard work that each student and teacher shared with me during my stay.