Bookbinding in Lucknow

I spent the months of June, July and August in the Indian city of Lucknow (500 kilometers east of Delhi) as a participant in the American Institute of Indian Studies summer language program in Urdu. Most of my days were spent in my own classes, but I was able to find time to work in a local school as well. The Acharya Narendra Deva Academy offers free/minimal cost education to kids from families who would otherwise not be able to afford it. Founded by Mrs. Meera Talwar in 1992, the AND Academy has grown from one small class of kindergartners to a fully-functioning school serving approximately 350 students in grades nursery through eight. I worked with fellow Urdu student Tiffani Jones, a master's candidate at Howard University, and with Ginger Cline, a University of Michigan undergraduate. On our first visit to the Academy, we were assigned to work with grades six, seven and eight and asked to focus on English language skills (classes are conducted in the kids' native language of Hindi and English is one of their subject areas). The students were eager, excited and seemed open to anything we might have to offer ... And thus our summer bookmaking project was born - a chance to bring together writing, reading, conversation, group work and art in the language curriculum. I'm quite sure the kids learned a lot; I'm absolutely certain that I did.

First, I wanted the kids to compose original stories, to be able to write about topics of their choice. But in the Indian system, there is almost never a chance for open-ended creative writing. I knew that my students didn't have a frame of reference for "anything you want to write about" and it was my job to help them make their way there. Still, I began at the beginning - with blank paper and pencils for everyone - and asked them to compose. Almost all chose one of two topics: "my friend" or "my country". They talked readily among themselves and freely asked one another for help. I was pleased to observe this easy collaboration although it did tend to lead to almost identical compositions as students "copied" copiously from one another. They weren't "cheating". They were doing what they were almost always expected to do in a writing assignment: copy out a sentence from a book or from a teacher. In this case at least, the sentences were coming from fellow students. Frankly, I considered that a step in the right direction.

More to come ...

-Beth