This week we wrote letters to six and seven year olds at My Melody School in Chimaltenango, Guatemala.
My Melody School has students from age two to seven, and my students wanted to get to know them. We thought of making picture books for all the students, but then we decided that we first wanted to introduce ourselves through picures and letters hoping they would do the same; my 8th graders wanted to learn more about the kids in Chimaltenango. How to write letters to kids who are just learning to read and, more importantly, just learning to read Spanish and their native Kaquichel, we did not exactly know.
The principal at the school sent me names of students who are at the point where they could read our letters and potentially write back.We first had to think through this writing project rhetorically. Who is the audience? What language features and text structure do we use? What is important about this genre? Students brainstormed what they knew about six and seven year olds in addition to what they knew about the community. We knew that the kids did not live in houses, or on streets per se, that they didn't play in parks or watch TV. We knew, sort of, what they ate from our research earlier in the year, but we didn't really know much about how they got their food or cooked. We knew that the kids would work at an early age, but we didn't know what they kids did after school or if they played sports. As far as language, we did know that the kids were just learning to read and write, and so we imagined that we would need to write with simple sentences, in large print, with simple words. We also knew that the letters had to tell the kids something about us while asking questions about their lives.
After considering our audience and language, we wrote short letters in English. But then the question came up about translating the letters, and whether or not we should send English and Spanish versions of our writing to the kids -- and we also had to figure out how we would send the letters.
Our class has a lot of bilingual students whom I knew could help with translations, and because I've seen some cliques forming in my class, I thought that this would be a great project for the class to integrate.I made five groups in the class to be sure each group had two or three bilingual students to help translate the letters. Kids worked together to translate the English letters into Spanish letters -- to talk about how to phrase questions, how to punctuate questions, how to write the date and even "dear" at the beginning of the letter. It was the first time I saw my diverse class -- about 50% bilingual, Latino, 10% bilingual, Polish, 5% Latino, 5% Asian, and 25% Caucasian -- really collaborating. All about the room Spanish phrases waft through the air "querida," "sinceramenta," "deportes," "me gusta," "mi familia," and "how do you say..wait, tell me again." Students were also very careful with their printing to be sure the Maya kids could make out the letters in each word. Students were passing around their letters to make sure their Spanish was "right" before proudly submitting the letters to me for scanning.
The My Melody principal and I have shared access to a webpage where we can upload and thus exchange letters and photos between our schools.
