Experience locations in Tulsa, OK, that S.E. Hinton incorporated into her classic novel "The Outsiders" to establish a collaborative writing project with a Tulsa middle school and inspire students' creation of their own realistic fiction pieces based on their communities.
This fellowship made me realize just how important The Outsiders is to so many people. Going into this experience, I knew that the book had a big impact on me and that it has always been a favorite of my students, but visiting Tulsa and hearing from and speaking with natives of the city made me see that its impact is even larger than I had imagined. Exploring the setting that inspired S.E. Hinton to write this novel has allowed me to connect with the story on an even deeper level than before.
I think what will evolve the most for me as a result of this fellowship is my ability to collaborate with educators and others outside of my own school and community. By establishing relationships with Tulsa teachers, I will be able to help facilitate the story sharing part of this project that was at the heart of my proposal. By expressing their own realities through creative writing and realistic fiction, my students will be able to share their worlds with the students in Tulsa and vice versa.
The most unexpected part of this trip was really the outpour of support I received from so many people I encountered both in person and through social media. Having my story covered in two major newspapers in two different cities on the same day also helped to widen my audience and also served to give my project a stronger sense of credibility. This support has inspired me even further. My ultimate long range goal is for The Stay Gold Project to extend to students in cities all across America.
I think this project will be effective towards reaching the goal of improving my students' writing because I think they will be more likely to be motivated and buy into the idea behind it. For one, this project will allow them the opportunity to become authors and to create works that are based on and rooted in their own experiences. By allowing them to see how S.E. Hinton was able to turn her reality in Tulsa into a great piece of literature, I feel they can be inspired to do the same.
The project at the heart of this fellowship will be the realistic fiction writing assignment that my students will be engaged in. In addition to writing their own pieces, my students will also exchange stories with students from Tulsa as a way to share their worlds with one another. My hope is to produce some type of anthology which will contain a collection of stories from kids from both cities. I also plan to have the kids "meet" their Tulsa counterparts through Skype or a similar platform.
Since the stories they will produce will be based on the neighborhood in which my students live, I feel that it will be embraced by the community. As a culminating activity for this project, I would like to arrange a celebratory event at my school where my student authors will share their stories with classmates, parents, alumni, and other members of the community. With the help of my school’s parent coordinator, I feel it could be an event that could bring in local elected officials and med
This experience made me realize that extending learning beyond my classroom is as important for me as it is for my students. The collaborative nature of my proposal and the networking that I did to put it in place is something that I think will translate into other aspects of my teaching and curriculum. With the advantages of technology, the world is literally at our fingertips and I hope and expect that this experience will lead to even more projects with collaborative components to them.
Not only does this project serve to improve my students ability to write, but it also allows their voice to be heard and show their reality to a larger audience. I think my trip to Tulsa will inspire my students to pursue things that they are passionate about in the same way that Danny O'Connor's focus and drive towards creating The Outsiders House Museum helped to inspire my project. Ultimately, I believe that to be the best teacher that you can be, you need to be a perennial learner.
As simple as it may seem, I think this fellowship showed me a truth that is at the heart of The Outsiders; that no matter where we are from or what we have experienced, there are things that can unite us all. We all see the same sunset though from different perspectives. The fact that my NYC kids, mainly immigrants and first generation Americans from Asia and South and Central America can connect to a story written by a white girl from Tulsa over 50 years ago is proof of that.
FUND FOR TEACHERS ©