Why WE Care

Our Origins

So how did this all originate?  Many years ago, when we were in elementary school ourselves, Ellen and I always shared a passion for reading and writing.  Our sixth grade teacher instilled in us a love for literature — finding hidden symbols and themes as if the novel were a great treasure map with secrets revealed only to the wary reader.

Once the torch had been lit, we sprinted on our own.  We got together on weekends to write our own stories, essays, and even short novels; we created our own little personal writing workshop.  Perhaps to the foreign eye it may just have been a simple brown table with scattered pencils and eraser shavings littering the wood, but it was our nest built with sprigs and twigs of festivity and creativity.  Not only did it bring us a sense of personal accomplishment and pride, but we also brought home quite a few first place awards in the Reflections program.

Since then, we haven’t been fortunate enough to have the time to continue the workshop over the years.  But the skills we nurtured have helped us inexhaustibly, whether it be in writing arguments for debate tournaments or publishing works in the school newspaper and literary magazine.

Last summer, Ellen and I concocted another new idea.  Why couldn’t we share this opportunity with other sixth graders in our area?  It wouldn’t be difficult to start up a new workshop, as long as there were eager students and enough volunteers.  Over the summer we ran a successful trial, which encouraged us to try local elementary schools for more willing pupils.

Ellen and I spoke with the principal and the president of the PTA at Oak Hill Elementary School, and they agreed to help us advertise among the sixth grade.  But while we taught the classes, we needed people to help us as TAs.  After successfully recruiting twelve students at TJ as volunteers, we’ve successfully completed our first 10-week workshop session (all completely online) with twenty-seven students!

We were extremely impressed with how quickly the students progressed, and we hope to continue this workshop and expand into even more elementary school networks.  It’s a fantastic way for us to give back to the community through writing, which has personally helped us greatly.

-Lily Hsiang

 Tagged: literary magazine, newspaper, Oak Hill ES, reflections program, sixth graders, TJHSST, workshop, writing