Community Narratives: 2007-12-02

Video Inspiration

Check out the video by Patricia Stilton http://www.blip.tv/file/515696 Patricia is an awesome documentarian as well as a superb citizen of the world. Her current project is to produce videos/films documenting the power of student service and sharing kids's stories about how they make a difference in our world. Sessions Elementary in San Diego was one of her first stops. I was interviewed, and yep, I'm the one with the bad hair and the eyes half-closed but I had a blast meeting Patricia. It was really fun to swap stories about working with inspirational kids from San Diego.

Sophie's Story

I am Sophia; a third grade student at Longfellow Elementary. This is my story. It started on a Sunday morning when the sky filled with smoke and outside it smelled like gas. We turned on the news and found out that there where a lot of fires in places like, Del Mar, Rancho Bernardo, and Poway. The girl we take to school, named Torrie, came over Monday morning. That day we stayed home, because it was smoky. It did not matter that we stayed home, because they closed the school for the entire week. Rachel , my friend, lives in Rancho Bernardo, so she had to evacuate her home. My little brother is friends with her little brother. We all play together. We have a lot in common. Her grandfather is my neighbor. That week we could not go outside. I was sad and thought it was horrible that there was that many fires. It will cost a lot of money. Maybe millions of dollars. I wish the fires did not happen, because a lot of people lost their homes.

San Diego Fire Narratives

Our first topic: San Diego fires, 2007 In October, 2007 just days away from the anniversary of the devastating 2003 wildfires, San Diego and counties to the north were hit with another community-altering fire storm. We are providing this site as a place to document personal fire narratives for students and their families. If you are a K-12 student and would like to share your personal story about how you were affected by the fires, please send us your content via e-mail. Please include your first name only, and if you'd like, your neighborhood, school, or grade level. Send your story to hardisonsims@gmail.com. We are middle-school teachers and we will evaluate your narrative and consider it for inclusion on the Community Narratives blog. Stories may include first-hand accounts of fire, feelings or reactions to the event, being related to a first-responder, evacuation stories, stories about volunteering during fire recovery, etc. If you have a short comment, link, request, you can just reply to this posting by adding a "comment." You may submit your story in English or Spanish and check your spelling before submitting your work. Please keep it clean, no vulgarity, as these pages are meant for general and student use. Although this site is for your own first person narratives, you may interview and help create and submit a personal narrative for another student or community member that is not able to share on their own. We are also looking for video narratives about the fires so let us know if you have something to share. SERVICE LEARNING CONNECTION: This project connects to 3rd and 7th grade CA State Narrative Writing Standards and the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) Areas of Interaction (AOI) for Social Education & Community and Service. It also connects to the IB MYP fundamentals of Intercultural Understanding & Communication.