Women's Conference

This semester there were two clubs: Women's Club advised by my sitemate and English Club for Knitters advised by me. The Women's Club was for sophomore and junior students. The English Club for Knitters was for freshmen. Because of the difference between language levels, we decided to have two different clubs so that the freshmen wouldn't get run over by the more confident older students.

Tonight we held an end of the semester women's conference that combined the two clubs. Using only English, the women got together and exchanged ideas, participating in an ice breaker, telling each other what they did this semester, interviewing each other, explaining homemade posters about women, and telling each other their high and low of the week. It was a great success. The freshmen after spending a semester knitting while using English became a lot more confident. Instead of shying away from strangers they were able to express themselves using English. The older students were like big sisters taking care of their little sisters, encouraging them to be confident. It was a win win situation.

Thank You Previous Volunteers

After being at this university for two years, I have realized how important the Tree House English Resource and Community Center is. The previous volunteers who started it and kept it going over the past years need to be commended. I strongly urge all volunteers to try to start their own English resource center legacy that could lead to great things for the future.

The Tree House is a great resource for students:

• It provides a selection of books that students are interested in at a level that they can understand. Without the resource center, many students would only have either Chinese and English cliff note types of summaries of major classics, inspirational English essays, or the actual classics that are too hard to understand. The Tree House with its variety of books motivates more students to read.
• It provides a space to practice English.
• It helps students become leaders.

The Tree House is a great resource for volunteers:

• When I first arrived at this university, I was a lost soul. The Tree House within the first month provides a community from which a volunteer could learn from.
• The Tree House instantly provides a secondary project as well as a place where volunteers can go and interact with students outside of the classroom to learn more about their needs and wants.
• It provides a constant group of workers who volunteer to organize and participate in Tree House activities. When we first introduced students to the idea of creating and managing a project, we were met with a lot of resistance, a lot of sighs of frustration and boredom. We plowed through though because they were the workers and were responsible for showing up to work. It was hard for them to see the end product, but finally big events were held and the workers could feel pride in coming up with an idea and seeing it to the end.
• The Tree House helped me get to know my site mate better. We might have stayed holed up in our own apartments if it hadn't been for the Tree House.
• The Tree House is the epicenter for everything we do here. We make AIDS/HIV posters. We talk about gender issues. We learn about Western manners. We organize dancing, game nights, and a nature festival. We hold post graduate mock interviews. We have weekly movies and annual culture parties. We hold reading competitions and create books of our own writing. We start clubs at the request of the students.

Because it is a physical place with students who fill it, the Tree House is a stable, constant, sustainable point that helps volunteers and students every semester create learning outside of the classroom. If I only had a women's club, a knitting club, or a writing club, those clubs would most likely disappear when I leave. The Tree House on the other hand is always there waiting for a new volunteer, for new students to enter and create something through their cooperative desire to learn and teach English.

I just want to thank the string of previous volunteers who left this legacy of a Tree House. It really made my Peace Corps job easier and the benefits that the students have received over the years from the Tree House are too numerous to count.

Dinner Party to Learn Western Manners

Two months ago, Monday night Tree House workers thought it would be fun to learn about Western manners and to learn how to cook a Western dish. They drew a vision map. Part of the vision was accomplished.

Over the past two months, they learned about western manners, planned a menu, picked out music, made lists of things to buy, created a role play to teach five manners, invited students to the Tree House to learn about western manners weeks before the party. Those who came to the Tree House and were able to describe the differences between a Western manner with a Chinese manner received an invitation ticket to the main event a real dinner party.

It was a three course meal:
1. Watermelon, cucumber, tomato salad
2. Ham and spaghetti
3. Cake

Over a period of 2 hours, three groups of ten students visited the Tree House at the designated time on their invitations, watched a role play and then practiced their western manners by eating a meal prepared by my site mate.

The role play consisted of 6 students: one student introduced the role play, four students played two Americans and two Chinese people exchanging ideas about manners, the sixth student had a hammer, would knock the students on the head when they did something wrong and then would reveal a painted sign with the rule for the correct Western manner.

(Which rule is being broken here?)

What were the five rules?
1. Napkin in lap
2. Pass food
3. Don't make noise when eating
4. Cut food into small pieces
5. No elbows on the table

All the students really loved the event. They thought the spaghetti was strange tasting. Some said it was sweet. Others thought the salad was strange mixing fruit with vegetables. They said it was salty. They thought it was inconvenient to have to use the right hand to cut the meat into small pieces then switch hands to use the fork in the right hand to eat with. They learned how to use a fork to spin the spaghetti into a nice little mouthful.

It was interesting to watch the students use forks and knives, to cut food, to pass food, to wonder how to eat noodles with a fork, to use serving utensils rather than their own. As someone who grew up using a fork and knife, I forgot just how different western manners are from Chinese habits.

I was really proud of the Tree House workers. I didn't have to do anything except make small talk with the students. The workers led the event and would tell the students how they could improve their Western manners.

Everyone hopes that next year there will be another dinner party.

Nature Festival

was a grand success. We danced a circle dance from Israel, a circle dance from Greece, and the cha cha. We hit three pinatas full of candy. We ate watermelon. We played games. We watched a few performances: flute player, singer who sang a song by Avril Lavigne, a hand clap "Miss Mary Mack", and "Going on a Bear Hunt."It took two months to plan, and the students who planned it were extremely proud. I think we were all amazed that an idea started in Chengdu with a Project Design and Management Workshop could lead to students drawing their own idea on flip chart paper and then moving it from theory to reality.

The method that was learned at the the workshop, gave structure to help everyone focus their ideas to create a project. Over the past two years we have tried to get students to plan culture activities, to think up ideas of how to improve the Tree House but often have failed. Following a few of the steps in the workshop book really helped us.The great thing about the Nature Festival project was that it combined Western ideas with Chinese ideas. My site mate and I were pushing the students' creativity to think outside of the typical activities that they do. Instead of just putting on a role play and doing a variety of performances, what else could we do? What else could we learn? How could we use English in a different way than English corner and free talk? It took time for the students to understand what we were trying to do which is why it took 2 months to plan the activity.

One difficulty that my site mate and I have always had in planning culture events for the students is making the party last for more than an hour. Having the students plan the whole event made it also very Chinese with LOTS of activities. We first pushed a Western idea on the students- think of something fun and different that would entice students to come and learn English in a non classroom way, to create a real English environment somehow. Then the students took the Western idea and planned a Chinese event. It was the combination of two cultures.

I think one reason that it was so successful was because we spent a lot of time planning, and didn't push for instant success. Americans usually are very efficient, can think up an idea, plan it and have it ready to go in a week or so. It took longer for our students especially since we were trying to plan something that was outside of their realm of familiarity.

Students are quite used to the idea of last minute planning since schedules in China are a big unknown, and events are often last minute with very little warning. (Just two days ago students learned about a speech competition that they have to prepare for. Write and practice a speech about Culture Smart Science Intelligent in two days.) So when we learned that the nature festival had to be changed from Saturday to Friday, the students were on top of it. Do this. Do that. Get this ready. Last minute planning is their strength, but what made this last minute planning different was that they had already spent two months thinking up different ways to hold the event. We didn't just plan a typical Chinese event, but something new. It was a combination of having two months to become comfortable with a new idea combined with the last minute planning that happens so often because of the scheduling unknowns.

We spent two months using English to plan an event. Then the event was a great success. Many students used English. More students are now aware of the Tree House and maybe are a little less afraid of speaking English and interacting with the foreign teachers. The vision we had in Chengdu to improve the visibility and attendance of the Tree House English Community Resource Center so that we could meet the needs and wants of a larger student population was accomplished. The vision the students had to hold a nature festival with dancing and games was successful. Two visions made into reality with one big bang.

Games:
1. English chairs (I learned this game in Guinea during PST.)

• Everyone sits in chairs in a circle with one person in the middle. (If there are 30 people, then you only have 29 chairs.)
• The person in the middle says a true statement. For example, I like ice cream.
• If you like you ice cream, then you have to stand up and find a new chair. The person who doesn't find a new chair, stands in the middle and says a true statement.

Because we were outside, we did not bring out 60 chairs. Instead we used newspaper as chairs and stood on the pieces of paper.

2. Blind obstacle course race (I learned this game in Africa too.)

• Create an obstacle course using people.
• One person is blindfolded, and their teammate leads them through the obstacle course using only voice directions.
• You can have several teams and have a race.

How to improve the event:

The one criticism I have is that I led the activities that had been planned by the students because we were outside and needed a STRONG voice to take charge and use English in a loud teacher way. I think next time we will try our best to have it more student led.

Impossible Task Planning Anything

Students have been drawing vision maps, researching and learning about Western manners, making lists, rehearsing a role play to teach the do's and don'ts of a dinner party, building and painting pinatas, practicing Western dances, and a whole bunch of other activities for the past month or so. Now it is time to have the big events: a mock American dinner party with a small amount of food to practice Western manners and a nature festival celebrating the outdoors with games and dance.

No one knows when the Dragon Boat Festival holiday will be. Everyone knows the festival is June 16th, but will we have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off or will we have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday off? Plus, when will we make up classes by holding them on the weekend?

Next week is a HUGE unknown.
When teaching stops is a HUGE unknown.
When finals are is a HUGE unknown.

With so many unknowns how does anyone plan anything? You just do it, so the students picked dates, next Monday and this Saturday.

One day before the event, I got a text inviting me to be a judge for the English speech competition on Saturday.

SATURDAY? That is when we are suppose to have our nature festival.

What do the students do?

They re-paint the sign and schedule the nature festival for Friday evening, replacing the movie with pinatas full of candy and watermelons being eaten as fast as possible.

I sent a text asking, "When is the Dragon Boat holiday?"
I got a reply, "Don't know yet. Will let you know as soon as I know."

Living in China keeps you on your toes. Be ready to reschedule and don't get mad if you have already cooked a HUGE pot of spaghetti for a dinner party that has been moved to next week.

Tree House Arts and Crafts

During Tuesday nights Tree House workers are planning a Nature Festival that will be held outside, games and dancing. They have been building and painting pinatas.

During every Freshmen listening class with a total of about 100 students, I announce all of the Tree House activities. During the Tuesday activity of arts and crafts, no one came except for the workers.

I asked the students, "Why doesn't anyone come? Do they not like painting and doing art? Did they not understand my announcements about Tree House activities?"

The volunteer workers replied, "Art is for serious artists, so students aren't really interested in painting."

Success

Living in a new culture that has different expectations, different time scales, different priorities, as Americans we often feel frustrated feeling that nothing has been accomplished. A typical Peace Corps mantra is "Be flexible and redefine success."

I redefined success a lot in Africa. I redefined it in China. The new definition of success had a simplicity about it, a personal one on one type of impact. I felt successful whenever I would leave my African house, would meet a new person, would carry rocks with the community to the mosque, would help a student with a math problem. I felt success when someone finally understood my Chinese only after one try, "Where is the W.C.?"

In Peace Corps success often comes in little packages.

However this past week, wow... super successful! Incredibly so!

In April, we went to Chengdu for a workshop and planned a project to motivate more students to visit the Tree House English Resource and Community Center. It is now almost June and we are slowly reaping the benefits of participating in that workshop.

Tuesday's Tree House workers want to host a nature festival where there will be dancing. They invited a foreign teacher from another school to come and teach how us to dance. Friday night over 50 students came to learn a dance from Israel and Greece as well as the cha cha and the twist.

Saturday was knitting club. The girls are getting really good at reading English knitting patterns.

Monday's Tree House workers want to host a dinner party to learn about Western manners. Tonight about 20 people came to the Tree House to get their dinner party invitations by participating in a short lesson about Western and Chinese manners. At the desk students read about Western manners, discussed them with the teachers, and then wrote a few rules on flip chart paper. In the couch area, the Tree House workers planned a skit for the dinner party and picked out the background music.

Knitting Frenzy

Today is knitting club. To show the girls what they could knit after they finish their cats or felted money purses, I am knitting 4 small projects- a ball, a heart, a pumpkin, a pocket bunny. It is a knitting frenzy. Put on the music or a podcast and go.

Do you have any suggestions of small projects that beginner knitters would have fun doing?

Blessings of Dance

Tonight the Tree House was jamming to learn traditional dances from Israel and Greece as well as the cha cha and the twist.  The energy of a room full of 60 plus dancing students was one of pure joy, laughter, and smiles.  It was wonderful.

Tree House Project Updates

Monday Night:  Dinner Party

Students have designed a project to learn about Western table manners and are currently managing it.  They have discussed Chinese versus American table manners.  They have planned a menu for the main event, an actual dinner party.  They came up with a great idea that in order to participate in the dinner party, students have to come to the Tree House on Monday night to learn about western manners before the event.  Each participating student will be given an invitation ticket to the "by invitation only dinner party".  This is a great idea on so many levels. 

 

1.  We will know how many people will attend the party so we can buy enough food. 

2.  We can organize the students into different time groups so that we don't get 20 students showing up to the Tree House where the table only fits 12. 

3.  We accomplish our main goal of trying to motivate more students to visit the Tree House.

 

Tuesday Night:  Nature Festival

Students have designed a project to have an outdoor nature festival.  They have made pinatas and will soon paint them.  They  have invited a foreign teacher to come and teach them some Western dances.  The have made a list of games like watermelon eating competition and water balloon toss.  They have decided that their initial idea of planting a tree or flowers is not feasible because it is summer and not spring.

 

One interesting aspect that occurred during the planning of this festival was how we were reading the same words on the list of things to do but understanding the words differently.

 

1.  Invite a teacher to teach us how to dance.

2.  Invite a teacher to teach us about makeup.

 

When I read these words I assumed, we would be learning how to dance in order to teach participants at the nature festival how to dance so we can have a nature festival dance.  I also assumed we would be using the makeup skills to do face painting at the festival.  The students thought we were going to learn how to dance in order to prepare a performance for the festival and would have to put on a lot of makeup in order to be in the performance.  That was an interesting culture moment.

 

Creative Writing Club

Currently we are trying to write compositions and poems to put into the book, but I have suddenly lost a lot of participants.  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog about how my writing esteem has taken a hit through writing club because I have to pick something to publish.  Well guess what.  It has happened to my students too.  They feel a lack of confidence.  They don't want to submit their writing to be published.  All the free writing we did this semester, all the little gems written did not give their writing self-esteems a boost.  I am not a critical teacher, but an encouraging one.  We did no editing during writing club. 

 

The problem is the idea of having other people read your work is just scary!

 

Buying of books with RELO grant

Our Amazon China shopping cart is full with about 1600 RMB worth of books and about 200 RMB worth of shipping; however, we have not ordered the books yet because if we ordered them today the books would arrive in August when the school is totally shut down and closed.  No one would be here to receive the books.  We are waiting a month to push the shipment date towards September.  Good thing I am doing a third year with Peace Corps at this site.

News

that would have made a BIG difference this semester!

This spring I taught a senior course titled English Short Stories which had an enrollment of 100 students. Twelves hours a week, I would show up regularly to the classroom and sometimes zero students would appear, sometimes one, at the most 5. It was a frustrating semester.

Last night I learned some news that would have made ALL the difference. I could have been less frustrated. I would have made the class less academic but more like a book club. I would have combined all the classes into 4 hours a week. Instead of teaching the same lesson plan three times a week to an empty classroom, I would have only taught it once a week to a somewhat fuller class.

What was the big news?

The information that no one thought was important enough to tell the teacher was

The English Short Stories course is an informal course with no grade or final exam.

ARGH!!! My students spent $5 on photocopies for the course, and I spent over $100 this semester making photocopies for the students because there was no book. I didn't want my course to cost too much money out of their already empty pockets. If I had known it was an informal course, I could have found a way to make it cheaper for all of us.

A Blow to my Writing Self-esteem

After tonight's creative writing club meeting, I have realized that I am a writer limited by my lack of vocabulary, lack of creativity, and lack of descriptive detailed images. I write not because I am good at it, but because I want someone to hear me. I just don't want to force anyone to listen. So I vomit my thoughts onto the paper and let you choose if you want to read it or not.

Is writing like drawing? Can it get better with practice and persistence? I have been writing a blog since 2001. I have posted a total of 1066 posts which is probably around a half million words. Unlike my drawing ability, I cannot see any improvement in my writing. How discouraging! What can I do?

Actually now that I think about it I believe the reason that I am feeling a bit blue about my writing is because of the fear of having to choose one of my written passages to put into a book. Having my writing judged feels scary and my self-esteem takes a hit.

Learning Math in Knitting Club

Today 5 of us walked to the knitting store and bought an array of colors to knit stuffed animals, cats and small felted money purses. We got ice cream on the way back and then went to the garden where 18 girls were waiting for us plus shockingly one boy. I did tell the boys that they could come even if they didn't want to knit. They could talk and eat the provided snacks. What was even more shocking was this boy could knit, both the knit stitch and the purl stitch, asking if he could knit a kitten into the purse. I was like wow.. that is hard, but if you want to go ahead.

We learned how to read a simple knitting pattern.

We had to do calculations in order to make buttonholes. I bet it was the first time in a lot of the students' lives to ever have to actually do a calculation in English for an actual real life purpose. They didn't understand the English I was using.

What is 24 divided by 2?
What is 12 minus 2?
I wonder if they have ever learned
how to do math in English.

The RELO grant wanted the project to be directed to English learning. This Saturday while knitting we learned how to do math in English.

Designing Projects

Two weekends ago, four of us, two PCVs, one student, and one teacher went to Chengdu for a Peace Corps workshop called Project Design and Management Workshop. We filled flip chart paper with ideas, visions, resources, plan of action, and budgets.

Our vision is to have a library that doubles as an English community learning center that meets the needs and wants of a large number of students and teachers. Right now we get an average of 11 visitors per night and want to increase that number. We planned a project where our Tree House volunteer workers would design their own project, creating an activity that might motivate other students to visit.

Tonight, our Monday night Tree House volunteer workers started designing their first project. Their vision is for Mondays to be Food Night. They want to host a cooking show and have a manners dinner party.

I wonder what Tuesday night will be.

Knitting in the Garden

This morning, after spending two hours on my bike in the quiet of my mind and the silence of the countryside, with dirt and dust surrounding me, I realized that I am awfully irked and tense this semester. Teaching 12 hours a week of senior classes where 0-8 students attend has been frustrating.

My motivation to teach and to do secondary projects has waned.
If no one wants to learn, why teach?

Today I waited in the garden for students to gather for the 2nd official meeting of knitting club, expecting no one to show. I hadn't posted any posters. I hadn't told anyone. I was just hoping that the 10 students who attended the first meeting would show up again, but a large part of me doubted the students. After one holiday weekend and after spending another weekend in Chengdu, two weeks had passed since the first meeting. Would anyone remember? Would anyone want to come? Would the knitting club just fizzle after one meeting?

Eighteen girls showed up.
It warmed my heart.

Only three admitted to being able to knit. The rest denied the fact that they had ever knitted before; however, I was a bit suspicious. Either they were all naturally talented, had learned how to knit through osmosis by watching their female relatives knit during their lifetimes, were super fast learners, or fibbed a bit about their knitting skills. All of them after one lesson had a small knitted swatch with very little teaching from me or from the three who admitted to knowing how to knit.

It was a brilliant learning English outside of the classroom opportunity.

They all spoke English, teasing each other with playful comments like "You're a grandmother." "So ugly." They learned new vocabulary- knitting, yarn, needles, knit, purl, cast on and cast off. They used the vocabulary they knew to express themselves, "Put the stick in the circle."

Next week I wonder how many students will come. We will start our projects. Some are even interested in knitting sweaters for people who lost everything in the recent earthquake. I suggested we start with hats.

After the third knitting meeting, I will be out of town two weekends in a row again. Will the knitting club die?

The last semester as a Peace Corps volunteer (PCV) is great because you know your community, you know what they want, you know how to get things done. Secondary projects have the potential to be very productive during the last semester. You know what you are doing; however, during the last semester as a PCV you have the potential to be out of site a lot. There is a COS (close of service) conference and you want to use your last three day holiday weekends to see different parts of China for the last time before returning to the USA. The last semester is great and also not so great.

Writing Club: Setting

"The best setting begins in the mind of the author, but ends in the mind of the reader." -Cella Fabula

I. Build adjective lists
a. Label five pieces of paper: Sight, Smell, Taste, Touch, Sound
b. Pass the pieces around the circle
c. Each student writes down an adjective
d. Hang the lists

II. Writing warm-up
What did you see or hear today? Write for 5 minutes about it.
Ideas from Writing Portfolio.

III. Writing Activity: Setting

a. From a picture, make a brainstorming map with the name of the setting in the middle. Around the setting write down at least two adjectives for each of the senses. Include emotions that the setting invokes.

b. Write a descriptive paragraph about the setting.

c. Trade paragraphs about the setting with a fellow student.

d. From the written paragraph about the setting(not the photograph), write a paragraph about how you feel or what you would be doing in the setting.

e. Share your writing from part d (not the descriptive paragraph about the setting). Then guess which photograph had inspired the writing.

My writing tonight

II. Warm-up

I heard a beep of the phone, an annoying beep filling an already stressed moment in my life. I was lesson planning, a terrible whole morning where the computer was slow and not cooperating, not downloading anything, a lesson plan worked on since 8 am and at noon only half-way finished.

beep, beep, beep....

an interruption into the stressful peace of solitude, but I knew that on the other side, an ex-bf was calling, an ex-bf full of pain. Each beep hit my heart.

beep...beep... beep... help me... help me... help me....

A cry of help, a cry for please pick up. I'm so lonely and need someone to talk to. Even though I just wanted to ignore it, I couldn't. He had been calling all week and I'd been ignoring it too busy with a full schedule.

Trying to be compassionate, I pushed the green button and said, "Hello."

III. Writing Activity: Setting

b. Write a descriptive paragraph about a setting shown in a paragraph.

The wetlands were quiet, devoid of the noise of the city, no cars, no people, no rushing to and fro. Only brown, green grasses and shrubs were singing quietly in the hot, humid air that touched the skin like a heavy coat. The screech of insects filled the silence but the calming still waters, a vast blue, stilled the heart into a peaceful calm.

Suddenly, the beauty and peace was caught off guard by the crack of a shot gun. The panic of a deer fled across the water, leaving gashing wounds upon the shallow smooth water, little puddles of violence as the animal quickly flew into the safety of the trees.

d. Using another student's written description of a setting, write about how you feel or what you would do in that setting.

I was given a brainstormed map with the words, disordered, rubbish house, noisy, smelly, wet, flood, abandoned.

I felt overwhelmed by the disorder and smell. I just wanted to fly away to somewhere safe and clean. Like how the house was abandoned, I wanted to abandon my own life. Like how the place was full of rubbish, my own life was full of trash. Nothing was left except trash and chaos. It all just made me sick like the puke green of the house. All the pain of the flood, I just wanted to vomit it all out into the rotting water, mixing my own bile with the fluorescent green of the growing algae. Maybe you can survive on water, sunshine, and the pain of my vomit. But me? I'd rather just sink. How will I survive?

e. Sharing our writing

I was amazed at how well this activity worked. When students wrote a description about a setting, often what they described, the mood that the setting invoked was interpreted by the reader in almost exactly the way the writer of the setting intended.

I never realized how a description of a setting can be really useful to invoke certain moods. I should probably write more descriptive settings.

It is funny. When I read stories and as I teach this English short story class, I can analyze the text and mark key passages that help the story along. When writing though, it never occurs to me that I should add some creative descriptive elements that short stories have like setting, characters, plots, point of view, conflict. I feel that my writing is too scientific.

Writing club has been an excellent way for me to break out of my familiar scientific writing and try something new.

First Meeting: English Club for Knitters

"Play is the work of children." -Dr. Spock

The last time I lived in China, I was 12 years old and was one of the oldest kids amongst the English speaking children in an expatriate village in the middle of nowhere in Guangzhou Province. I would ride my bike to little hole in the wall shops and buy the most terrible candy that had been sitting on the self for years, bubble gum that would break your jaws, and milk candy covered with rice paper. Then I would organize activities for all of the English speaking kids with candy as prizes. I organized an Easter egg hunt with terrible fake chocolate. I organized games, competitions and weekly picnics. Even got a bunch of them together to re-enact my rendition of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I was a 12 year old day camp director clipboard included.

I should have paid attention to my playtime as a child. It could have shown me that maybe chemistry wasn't the right path but rather being a kid youth camp counselor or being a leadership workshop director, team building seminar leader, or a training organizer was a better career for me.

Ten freshmen showed up at the designated meeting place and then we proceeded to my apartment. We spent an hour and half in the first meeting of English Club for Knitters. We played team building balloon games filling the tiny apartment with laughter, stomping and jumping around as we tried to juggle 20 balloons in the air. I wonder if the neighbors were annoyed hopefully more curious than irritated. In this dry weather my hair will not lie flat, so balloons flew upward attracted to the ceiling, their final resting place ending the fun and games.

The girls were all leaders and took initiative. Teams of two quickly and without hesitation volunteered to be treasurer, secretary, communication director, and snack committee. We made a list of English topics to discuss, other activities we want to do, and projects we want to knit. We decorated a notebook with pictures of knitted goods and filled it with the minutes of the meeting along with a ledger of money spent. While I was in the kitchen making tea, I could hear the students shouting English debating when and where we should meet and then heard them vote on it. We ended the meeting with an animated short, "The Last Knit."

My strength is not as a classroom teacher but as an organizer of people into communities that together learn, create, have fun, and grow as individuals. I have been doing it since I was 12.

Writing Club: First Meeting

Lesson: Write about what you know.

"Your stories are your stories. They're the ones you can really tell, and if you try telling ones the world would like you to tell, you'll do it badly." -Dorothy Allison

Tonight's writing club had 7 participants and we spent time making brainstorm maps to write down all the things we know about.

We created 4 maps about things we have experienced and know about.

• Who am I?
• Places
• Conflicts
• People

Then we picked something from the maps to write about. Students wrote about a wonderful guy who finds a girlfriend and then forgets his friends, a drunk father, a mother who had disappeared because she was sick, the optimistic feelings of a freshman, the hollowness of the heart of being a senior, and the ugliness of a campus made beautiful by the people who fill it.

In my Who am I? map, I wrote the concept adoption which lead to the thought alone.

The following is what I wrote at tonight's writing club.

I may be surrounded by people.
I may have a family, friends, students, and co-workers.
I may even have a lover or two.

But if you really want to know the truth,
I am alone in this world of a billion people.
What do you mean alone?
Yeah....
What do I mean?

I don't feel lonely.
I don't feel sad or sorry for myself.
I don't feel hurt, depressed, or angry.

I just feel alone.

I am 32 years old and have passed year after year meeting friend after friend, enemy after enemy, lover after lover, thousands of people have passed through my eyes, through my life, and here I stand alone, forgotten, a memory from the past, an empty in-box reflecting all those connections lost to the passing of time.

I sit here surrounded by you, and you, and you,
all of you
and in a few months time
poof
gone
boarding a plane to another land
with only a suitcase of memories.

Alone again.
Alone now.
Alone then.

I stand here
as an individual
somehow unconnected to my past
unconnected to my ancestors
unconnected to people.

In this moment,
this one,
this one right now
this one single second
even surrounded by people

I am alone.

How can that be?

I don't know how to explain it but I feel like that forgotten memory of your mother's smile when you were born.

Forgotten.

You will forget me
And once again I'll be alone
alone as I am today
alone as I have always been.

Doing what the community wants

Want to know what just made my day yesterday?  Students came to the Tree House English Resource and Community Center and asked about whether or not the idea that we came up with last semester was going to manifest itself this semester.  I was like wow!  The students are taking initiative.

Yes, we will be starting an English Club for Knitters.  We even got a RELO (Regional English Language Office, Beijing) grant to off-set some of the cost of running such a club. 

Exciting!

Fun Writing Activities for Writing Club

Last semester I organized a creative writing club. Once a week for 1.5 hours we would write and read to each other.

Here is a list of all of the activities that we did in the club. Almost all of the activities I found off the Internet. In this posting I am just compiling them and am in no way taking credit for thinking up these ideas. All of these writing exercises were quite successful and the students enjoyed them.

Short Story
Metaphor Poem
Hands
Emotion Poem
Random Words Epigraph
6-Word Memories and Poems I
6-Word Memories and Poems II

(If you can't read the blogs, just tell me and I will cut and paste the blogs and send them to you.)

A. Dreams of _______
(Idea written by Jennifer inspired from "The Dreams of Domenica Santolina Doone" from the book Bloomability by Sharon Creech.)
1. Think of the different parts of who you are.
For example, Jennifer is
American, Chinese, teacher, alone, a girl, an athlete, a world traveler, a friend, an ex-gf, lover of food, crier, lover, hater.....
2. Pick one aspect of you for example lover and write a short piece titled the Dreams of a Lover.

B. 6-Word Feelings
1. List different emotions
2. Pick one emotion
3. Write 6 word sentence about that emotion answering the questions
What colors describe it?
What type of room, place, setting?
How does the body feel?
What do you taste?

C. Five-line Poem
Line 1: involves an emotion
Line 2: involves the emotion as a color
Line 3: ________ happens when ______
Line 4: ______ sounds like _____
Line 5: Repeats original emotion

D. Free-writing
http://www.creativewritingprompts.com/
http://www.theteacherscorner.net/daily-writing-prompts/
Pick one and write for 10 minutes
At first, I wasn't worried....
I wish I were there now.
Did you see that?
The doctor said, "You have one month to live."

E. 5-10 word stories

Each person begins with 5-word prompt then adds exactly 5 words of their own.
Once upon a time there....
The mystery began when the....
In a kingdom far away....
Once, long ago, a tiny....

F. Write about a photograph

G. Dialogues
(Idea presented by Cheryl, teacher at Number 2 middle school)
Complete the dialogues
1. At a party with a boyfriend
A. Hey beautiful want to dance?
B.
2. At a party with girlfriends, a nerdy boy asks
A. Hey, umm.... do you want to dance?
B.
3. An old man in a shop ready to close the shop but there is a young mother still in the shop. Shopkeeper is angry and ready to leave the shop.
Write a dialogue between the two people.
4. The shopkeeper is angry and ready to close but there is a big man still shopping.
Write a dialogue between the two people.
5. Pick one of the following and write a very short story about the situation including a dialogue.
a. Boyfriend and girlfriend breakup
b. 2 old friends in a supermarket
c. 2 people have an accident in the street

H. Pass the story to the next student

Each student picks one writing prompt. Writes 1-2 sentences and then passes the story to the next student.
She couldn't believe they were open so...
It was cold sitting there, but...
I didn't want to stop there, but it seemed...
Plotting her evil plan, the little girl....
He couldn't believe she said it, and yet...
She didn't care if the whole school knew so...
She peered through the opening and...
It was maybe the biggest one she'd ever seen and she...