Title:
Program Helps Students Express Themselves With
Creative Writing
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
826 is the name of a nonprofit organization that
works to help students become better writers by
thinking creatively. 826 is also the address of the
first center where this literary arts program began
in two thousand two. Author Dave Eggars and educator
Ninive Calegari started the program in California at
826 Valencia Street in San Francisco. It now serves
thirty thousand students through writing and
tutoring centers in eight American cities. At the
front of 826 Valencia is a pirate supply store.
Think of the kind of place where Captain Jack
Sparrow might shop. Leigh Lehman is the executive
director. She says the idea of entering through a
pirate store is meant to get students not to think
of the place as a school or tutoring center. During
the day, teachers bring classes on field trips and
volunteers help with writing projects. After school,
students come for help with creative writing and
their schoolwork. The center is for public school
students between six and eighteen years old. Eight
twenty-six Valencia is located in a mostly Latino
neighborhood. Ms. Lehman says many of the children
are from poor immigrant families. Each 826 center
has a different theme -- from the pirate store in
San Francisco to a store for "spies" in Chicago. The
national chief executive, Gerald Richards, says
budget cuts in public schools mean less money for
arts education. And as that goes away, he says, so
does the ability for students to use their
imagination: "I think there is much more of a focus
on science, technology, engineering and math.
There's a lot of a focus on testing and a lot of the
teaching that's going on in schools is focusing on
the test and passing the test rather than thinking
about how do we get kids to think." Leigh Lehman
says 826 builds confidence. Students can publish and
sell their work at places like the pirate supply
store and on the Internet. In twenty-ten, the
programs across the country published nine hundred
forty-four volumes of student writing. Ms. Lehman
says students are proud when their writing gets
published. One of the students in San Francisco,
Sofia Marquez, says "I get to use my imagination --
that's why I like writing." You can watch another
video about the program in San Francisco at
voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find texts, MP3s
and activities to read, listen and learn English.
For VOA Special English, I'm Carolyn Presutti.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
