By Marisa Zarate, MS Ed.

“Read me a story mommy,” pleads little Brian as he climbs upon his mother’s lap. So she does, gently wrapping her little boy in her arms and opening his favorite storybook. Understanding that reading storybooks with a caregiver is an important event in our ESL (English as Second Language) students’ lives, as with little Brian, and profoundly affects our ESL students’ early literacy development stages (Bus and Uzendoorn, 1988; 1995; Bus, Uzendoorn, and Pellegrini, 1995; Durkin, 1966; Reese, 1995; Snow, 1983; Teale, 1984).

Because these early book sharing events are crucial for ESL literacy development, the Director of the ESL Program for the Faculty on Health Sciences at the Catholic Sedes Sapientiae University, has launched this huge ESL Student Authored Book Sharing Event in collaboration with her team. The entire team believes that the “Process Writing” approach will help us to teach writing to our emerging Second Language students and develop a spirit of meaningful collaborative writing. Through the processes of organizing, writing, revising, editing and publishing, our team is truly convinced that we will support our students’ writing success and celebrate our English learners’ accomplishments through sharing and positive feedback at each step of the way. We want our emerging Second Language writers to begin to see themselves as authors, and to develop pride and ownership of their writings.

Therefore, on July 4th, we will have the honor to welcome Eric Carson, a well known professional American writer, marketer and publicist, and the director of Blueprint Global Media. He brings extensive experience after years of interaction with American editors and publishers of thousands of magazines and online vehicles. He will help us to model the reading process through an interactive read-aloud, which will involve our young writers reading their very own books and the distinct pleasure of officially publishing them for you at this exciting event.

Not only will our young writers have the opportunity to publish their work, but they will also make connections between the literature they have read in class and their own lives.

The ESL Program Team from the Faculty of Health Sciences are convinced that this event will EXTEND our students’ comprehension, reflect on their understanding, and add value to the writing and reading experience leading up to the final stage of the Writing Process. This will be an unforgettable experience for all of us that contribute to improve our students’ literacy development. We can’t wait to share this exciting new event with all of you!

ESL STUDENT AUTHORED BOOK SHARING EVENT :
Hosted by: ESL Program of the Faculty on Health Sciences at the Catholic Sedes Sapientiae University.
Time and Place: UCSS Auditorium, July 4th, 2012 @ 2 P.M.