ENG 253 Speaker 08-09

Most Hartnell College developmental writing students do not see themselves as writers and are intimidated by the writing process. In order to succeed in college, these underprepared students need to establish their voice, which will enable them to successfully address the needs of college writing assignments.

Multi-cultural Speaker English 253

Writing Development English 253 (Completed)

Novelist Reyna Grande visits community colleges with the mission of liberating underdeveloped writers. Drawing on her core of life experiences in Mexico and as an immigrant in the United States, Reyna Grande demonstrates through her communication with students, how to break-down barriers to writing. A community college graduate herself, Reyna discusses how she came to see herself as a writer connecting her approach to ESL students, pre-college students, and developmental writing students.

Reyna’s speaking engagement will address how she connected with writing through life experiences. She has prepared an intensive lesson plan to coordinate with her discussions on immigration, border crossing, the use of coyotes, and family separations through the immigration process. Participating faculty will be able to preview the lesson plan objectives, and share these activities with their writing students.

Sample lesson plan objectives include tracing one’s own immigrant experience, fostering a deeper understanding of the children left behind, and the use of coyotes for poor immigrants with no other alternatives. Grande’s themes on border crossing and immigration offer rich discussion and ideas for writing, which parallel many of the experiences of Hartnell College students. Students can apply learned writing methodologies in their approach to these assignments. Additionally, utilizing content which draws on powerful life experiences is one method to ensure retention in developmental writing courses and beyond.

Goal:

Expected Outcomes

Sample writing assignments generated from Reyna Grande’s lesson plans will be forwarded to Stan Crane to post as sample outcomes of Title V projects. Additionally, the writing assignments generated from this project will form collaborations between the English and ESL Departments, where classes will meet to share their stories and create a writing community based on a shared experience. Furthermore, the introduction to Reyna Grande’s novel will highlight effective rationale for using the novel as a supplemental text for developmental writing and ESL courses.

Responsible Faculty/Staff

Heidi Ramirez English Faculty