The Power of Teaching Others and Connecting to Culture

The Power of Teaching Others and Connecting to Culture

The story of Sadako Sasaki is a powerful story that touches readers of all ages. I have read this story with nearly every class I have taught since as far back as I can remember. Students connect to this child who faced her illness with grace and bravery and her friends who supported her by folding her paper cranes after she died.

Past activities related to this short novel have included: questions, discussions, character analysis, plot diagrams, historical events focus, reader's theatre, and letters to the character/author. Almost every single time I have done this novel in class, it has created a frenzy of crane making and of learning the art of origami. I feel especially fortunate the years I happen to have Japanese students in my class because then I have the "teachers" who can meticulously fold these beautiful cranes. 

This year, my co-teacher and I once more delved into Sadako's world and we knew it would be interesting as we have a fair number of Japanese students who are new to the English language. This story, we hoped, would be one that they had some background knowledge of and might also pique their interest. In order to make it more accessible to them, we chose to read the picture book version so that they had the visuals as we read. 

As a culmination to our Read-aloud, we asked these students to show the class how to fold the cranes. Once more, this was a huge hit, with all the students gathered on the carpet, intent on following the directions of our "origami teachers".  Though they may not have spoken English much in class up to this point, they were at ease trying to explain the steps of the process to their peers who helped by supplying needed verbs and providing positive feedback as they learned to fold their cranes.  

By connecting to a story from their culture and by encouraging them to teach others, we were one step closer to a collaborative and supportive community of learners.

Here are some photos of our three Japanese beginning language learners showing their classmates how to fold the cranes. Our two Japanese boys were amongst the class helping others with their cranes.