Living Histories of Those Who Inspire

Funded Dec 10, 2011

Thank

you all for supporting my students. So far well over 100 students have used the

digital recorders to record their own stories and the stories of those that

inspire them. Their very first project designed to teach the mechanics of

how to use the equipment and how to use sound editing software to edit their

recorders was to narrate a short story that spoke to them and a central issue

in their life. Their stories were recorded and editing and uploaded to

our classroom blog. The stories were heard by fifth graders from our

feeder elementary schools. They were able to leave comments to my students.

Some of the comments were incredibly moving. One story in

particular received numerous comments from the fifth graders such as,

"Your story made me believe that I could succeed too", and "You

are so strong", and "You made me think of when I wanted to give up,

but then I did it".

This

led to our second project that involved students interviewing people who have

inspired them in some way. Students had stories of preachers,

grandparents, moms, and even a few teachers. In their reflections many

students talked about how it made them feel that they could go on to inspire

someone in their life someday.

Finally,

we are beginning an immigration project where students are going to tell the

stories of people who have immigrated to the US. Many of the immigrants

will be family members or close friends of the students and some of them will

likely be illegally in this country. We are hoping that students will be

able to use those stories to help inform their opinions about future

legislation regarding US immigration policy. These are the types of

projects that can change student lives and your contributions are helping to

make them possible. Many thanks for your generosity.”

With gratitude,

Mr. Friedle