Beginning to Write

April 9, 2018

Transcribing a recorded interview is much harder than it appears! It means finding a quiet spot to put in some headphones, listen to the questions and answers that were shared during the hour-long visit with our resident friend, filter through background noise from the recording, and type notes to use for writing our stories. Although tedious at first, the process was one that students realized is necessary in order to recall the important and valuable details of the stories that residents shared about their childhood this past week.

If there's anything that stands out to me about student learning at this point of the project, it's how important an authentic audience is. I can't count how many times I heard questions from my students about how they can make their writing as accurate and exciting and honouring as they can, so that the residents will love to read their stories when they are finished. Their resourcefulness and creativity amazes me as, without my prompting, they research houses and clothing from the early 1900's in order to make their illustrations match the reality that their residents friends have shared memories of.

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Whose Stories Should Be Told?

March 22, 2018 Who is important? Whose story should be written? How might writing someone's life story be an act of service? These are a few of the questions that we began to consider together, as we begin to prepare to write the stories of the elderly in our community this spring. Today, at the beginning of our Composition class, we spent a few minutes at the whiteboard, writing down the things that society believes about the elderly. Words like "weak", "useless", "boring", and "no longer beautiful' were painfully accurate descriptions of what they have heard and read. When we'd made our list of what society believes, students closed their eyes and listened as I read the first chapter of Genesis to them. We talked about the value and uniqueness of each human life. We also read several Proverbs that describe the elderly. Then we made a second list on the whiteboard, sharing the things we'd heard and read in s

The Books are Coming! The Books are Coming!

Friday, June 1 This is the news we've been waiting for... the books are coming! After all our hard work transcribing interviews, writing careful notes, rough drafts, peer editing, more drafts, revisions, sidebars, pictures, covers, layouts, etc., etc, we got our transcripts to the publishers last weekend. We're so excited for the arrival of this box of treasured biographies!!

Planning our Visits to Village Manor

March 15, 2018 During the March break, I was thrilled to have the chance to meet with Michelle, the activities director at Village Manor, to talk about the possibility of partnering together on a project that included residents from her workplace and the seventeen grade 7 students in my Composition/Literature class. Village Manor is a charming retirement community in the heart of Waterdown - about a 20 minute bus ride from Providence Christian School. The building is beautifully decorated, and the staff are warm and inviting. I knew immediately that it was a perfect fit for the project that my students have been preparing for. We discussed project details - how many residents would be sharing their stories, how many times the students would come to interview them, etc. As we ironed out the nitty gritty details, I had the chance to meet a few of the residents who happened to be passing by, and when they heard about the project their eyes lit up at the thought of sharing t

Crowns of Glory Project

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