Editor's Note - The MVM Method Thank you for visiting, whether this is your first time or you are a regular reader of what is now our fourth volume of stories from Lennox. Our Spring 2019 Family, Culture and Tradition stories are the continued product of collaboration with Yuri Nwosu’s sixth and eighth grade journalism students at Lennox Middle School. Our process remains student-centered and intentional in the engagement, encouragement and activation of young people’s voice and sense of place in their world by using journalism as tool for inquiry and expression. We are now two years into our collaboration between a master middle school teacher, two emerging educators and a writer and college professor. In August 2018, students met the My Voice Matters team and, together, created a collaboration agreement. Then we got to work. In the February 2019, we published their original writing on racism, immigration, women’s rights, education, gun violence, homelessness, LGBTQ rights and environmental justice – and asked to justify why they selected their topic. Having just published stories on social justice topics, we decided to turn the lens inwards and focus on our home through stories on culture, family, tradition and our own interests. Approximately 180 sixth and eighth graders participated over the course of 17 weeks. The process differed slightly this semester from our previous work. Each student was expected to not only interview a guest or expert with the class, but also to interview a family member, friend or someone outside our class. In addition to fathers, mothers, siblings, aunts, uncles and grandmothers, students interviewed artists, dancers, writers, reporters, college professors, social media directors, musicians and community leaders. This Spring, students wrote individual stories and conducted interviews largely on their own. When writing and multiple rounds of editing concluded, students then created individual presentations to discuss and share their work with their peers. Students individually experienced the process of writing, editing and sharing their stories. And like professional reporters and authors, some discovered the joy of allowing the work to grow and thus alter the original, imagined conclusion. Students noted the joy and pride in sharing stories and history from their families, their pueblos and this corner of Los Angeles they call home. We hope you feel that as you read their work. Saludos! George Sanchez-Tello My Voice Matters Program Manager |
The Lennox Student Reporters '18-19
|