- Intro; background, my culture, home language.
- Scene 1- is the first day of school in an Arabic classroom full of Arabic speakers.
- Scene 2 – is the first time group I experienced working in group with multilingual speakers.
- Scene 3- I passed the ESL Exam/ when my teacher texted my English speaking.
- Scene 4 – in high school I was able to get into the co-leader advisor class.
Scene 2 – After two months of being in the Arabic class, I was transferred to an ESL class with multilingual speakers. Referring to when I was Puerto Rican, “We were outcasts in a school where the smartest eighth graders were in the 8-1 homeroom, each subsequent drop in number indication one notch less smart.” It was the same system in my middle school where the lowest the class number the smartest you are. My new class number was 676, it was a colorful and bright room and There were words and phrases all over the classroom. My teacher used colors to determine how well we understood the materials. There were three colored dots on each desk; green meant I understood, yellow meant I was still confused, and red meant I didn’t understand and needed help. If you ask me how I knew the meaning if I didn’t know any English. well, I didn’t comprehend a word of what they were saying except for that “Okay” at the end of each sentence they say. However, I was able to filter the meaning of words from their facial expressions and body movements.
The first time I worked in a group was the worst and most embarrassing moment in my educational journey. We were divided into groups of three students and each group got a short story and questions about the reading. To read the story our teacher told us to translate words we don’t know into our languages to help us understand the story, as my teacher always said, “The dictionary is your best friend in this class”. My group members were translating some big terms while me who is translating every single word in the reading. Mandy, who spoke Chinese, Daisy, who spoke Spanish, and I, who spoke Arabic, were in my group, we all knew very little or no English. I began the conversation by saying “Hi”, and Mandy replied by saying “Hi”, I frizzed for a few seconds because I didn’t know what to say then I pointed at the first question and said, “This, you did”. Mandy shook her head and said “Yeah”, Daisy gave me a confused facial expression. I don’t know if she didn’t know the answer to that question or if she was confused by my incomprehensible sentence. Even with not being able to talk English we tried and worked hard to improve and get better each time, and we understood each other because we had the same goal which was learning English.
I think your doing really good at elaborating and adding small specific details.
Hey Afrah, I love your description of the classroom, but I think you can add more details. Such as the description of the teacher, did the classroom feel comfortable? Did you feel out of place? Was it welcoming?
Hi Afrah, I love how much detail you gave in these scenes to how to classroom looked to knowing that the people involved were making facial expressions. To be more descriptive you should add how the other girls looked, how the teacher looked, the smell of the room etc but other than that it was really good!
You have a lot of good material here. It’s a good start.
NOW — Work on
1. The 5 Ws
2. Paragraph breaks!
3. Notice how you are mostly telling – ADD descriptive details to SHOW me.
4. Create a few scenes.
Scene 2 – After two months of being in the Arabic class, [CLARIFY — were you in a special only Arabic classroom – were there enough Arabic speaking students to have a class dedicated to that language???]
My new [WHAT grade????] ESL class at [NAME SCHOOL in WHAT neighborhood?] was 676, [COMMA SPLICE—change to period] It was a colorful and bright room and There were words and phrases all over the classroom. [What words?] MORE details description on the room.
My teacher [NAME] used [a system of cards and colors] to determine how well we understood the materials. [ADD a better explanation of this system– were these cards with your names on it? Were the cards on your desk?] There were three colored dots on each desk; green meant I understood, yellow meant I was still confused, and red meant I didn’t understand and needed help. If you ask me if I knew any English, well, I didn’t comprehend a word of what they[WHO?] were saying except for that “Okay” at the end of each sentence they say. However, I was able to filter the meaning of words from their facial expressions and body movements.
SCENE WITH DIALOGUE — SHOW me a conversation between you and the teacher. Show me the exact mix up of words you heard the teacher say and how it always ends with Okay – so for example — “The girl … blue … happy….Okay?”
HOW did you answer? – SHOW me a dialogue with the broken bits of words you were able to catch and how you responded.
SHOW me the teacher’s face and body movements. DESCRIBE SHOW AND CREATE THEATRE OF THE MIND here.
Then describe HOW you felt….and move into a connection to Santiago.
I felt like Esmeralda Santiago in “When I was Puerto Rican” when she said, “We were outcasts in a school where the smartest eighth graders were in the 8-1 homeroom, each subsequent drop in number indication one notch less smart.” It was the same system in my middle school where the lowest the class number the smartest you are. [EXPLAIN MORE HOW your situation and Esmeralda’s are similar]. Was class 676 the lowest class?
The first time I worked in a group was the worst and most embarrassing moment in my educational journey. [What class? Is this the same class as above? What subject? OR still the ESL class?] We were divided into groups of three and each group got a short story and questions about the reading. My group members were Mandy [ADD short description], who spoke Chinese and Daisy [short description], who spoke Spanish. We all knew very little or no English.
My teacher [NAME!] always said, “The dictionary is your best friend in this class.” We began translating some big terms while me who is translating every single word in the reading.
[CAN YOU MAKE THIS DIALOGUE a little more interesting? SHOW me your frustration your embarrassment – after all that’s what you said you felt. SHOW me! Did you turn red in the face? Did you pull at your skirt? IDK – but you do! So SHOW ME! Make it cute and funny? How old werer you? YOU DON”T GIVE THAT DETAIL!!!]
I began the conversation by saying “Hi”
Mandy replied by saying “Hi”
I frizzed for a few seconds because I didn’t know what to say [RO Run-on] then I pointed at the first question and said, “This, you did”.
Mandy shook her head and said “Yeah”,
Daisy gave me a confused facial expression. I don’t know if she didn’t know the answer to that question or if she was confused by my incomprehensible sentence.
Even with not being able to talk English we tried and worked hard to improve and get better each time, and we understood each other because we had the same goal which was learning English.