Sally is a fifteen year old girl with a fashion sense like no other. She walks into the classroom dressed to the nines, looking as though she just stepped out of a magazine. Anyone would think that her confidence was through the roof. Her visual presence is strong, she is always with a group of friends, and she is always smiling. However, Sally has only lived in America for about eight years (she moved here from Nigeria) and as a result of this, she hates using her voice in the classroom. She hates reading out loud and participating in class. However, her ideas are brilliant. When she writes, I have the opportunity to hear her voice through the words inscribed on the paper.
The effort that she puts into her school work is incomparable to the work of the other students. We recently finished our I-Search unit...except Sally is still revising. She has handed in 3 "drafts" that each differ from the last immensely and make a huge leap in successfully conveying her research every time. She works on the paper on her own, with me, and in her lit skills class. She told me last week that she "wanted to so whatever she could to write a good paper." And that is where the loss of confidence is apparent again. It seems to me that she feels that her voice is inadequate at being heard by the others in the classroom (myself included) so it must be in her writing as well. Totally not the case!
By working with her I have been able to encourage her. I hope that she learns that she has a powerful voice. Her ideas are so strong and I hope that by working on her writing skills we can improve her confidence and writing ability. When she does speak in class and in our conferences, she has brilliant things to say. Her language barrier has affected her confidence but I want to do everything in my power to reverse her thoughts about her academic ability.
I'm searching for an answer to this problem. How do I get her to see what I see? How do I help her not only improve her writing skills, but her confidence in voicing her thoughts as well? Where do I go from here?
Can I first just express how incredibly jealous I am that you are teaching I-Search and I'm stuck with boring research!
ReplyDeleteAs far as Sally is concerned I think that giving her encouraging remarks about her ability to convey ideas effectively through writing may give her some more confidence about speaking up in class. Or maybe baby steps but having her work on speaking skills with a partner, small groups, then eventually the whole class?
You're an awesome teacher, I'm sure you'll be able to bring her out of her shell -despite the language barriers!